Albion Shall Fall (1)
I had resolved to mobilize every possible means at my disposal for today's decisive battle. Why shouldn't I? What was stopping me? If I wanted to bring down the protagonist destined to seize control of Albion's underworld, I had to be prepared to go this far. The cursed dagger, Paramita—which I had absolutely no intention of handing over to the Americans—was one of those tools.
Whoosh! A flashing, sharp edge sliced through the air, emerging from the shadows. But the throwing weapon hurtling toward Benjamin Ashford wasn't just the Himalayan blade. My shadows had greedily devoured the shattered marble fragments scattered across the floor and spat them out alongside it.
This was nothing other than a reconstruction of the tactic I had used against the communist mage in Marseille. Even without any special processing, the marble pieces—already shattered by telekinesis—were sharp shrapnel in their own right.
“Cheap tricks!” Benjamin Ashford barked, activating his magic. The spell manifested as a brutally dense telekinetic force, a physical pressure so immense it literally bent light. It was so intense that it had reached the point of hardening the very air itself.
I swallowed a grimace. I had already confirmed that this man's specialty was an unrivaled brand of telekinesis. But to think it was this absurd. The sharp fragments flying toward the mage ground to a sudden halt in midair. No, it would be more accurate to say they slammed into an invisible wall and stuck there.
Yes, he had to be at least this good. Only then would breaking him feel satisfying. I had been dealing with such pathetic weaklings lately that I was starved for stimulation, so this was actually a welcome change. The sharp edge suspended in the air was no exception, even if it was the Paramita. As soon as Benjamin Ashford released his telekinetic grip, the marble shards and the single hidden dagger plunged to the floor. If there was any consolation, it was that the forest I used to hide the tree had been incredibly dense.
Neither of us knew much about the other. What I knew of Benjamin Ashford was limited to Delis's intelligence reports and the fragmentary display of power I had witnessed in our brief clash just now. Similarly, everything he knew about me—aside from my innate Charm—was outdated information from a past life.
Even if the Soviet of Materialists had warned their collaborator, the Vice-Minister of Magic, about my existence, there was a vast gulf between the Yerina Bronska they knew and the person I was now. And if they were to ask, "Do you fully understand her Charm?" the answer would still be no. In other words...
We'll both have to rely heavily on improvisation!
Tap! Telekinesis wasn't his exclusive privilege. I repurposed my own telekinetic force into a launching mechanism, firing myself forward like a human projectile. Since my slender body carried very little mass, I could cover greater distances with far less energy than an average mage—a distinct advantage.
I flew five or six meters in a single breath, aiming straight for where the Paramita had fallen. To preempt the interference that was sure to come, I simultaneously pulled the trigger of my pistol, firing two or three shots toward Delis, who was standing slightly apart from both Benjamin and me.
“This woman seems rather important to you. Can you save her?”
“Fight me fair and square, Yerina Bronska!”
“...Why should I?”
Sometimes you run into people who view fair play as a virtue and firmly believe everyone should abide by it. But what on earth is the point of that? The dead don't speak, so they can't complain. In the end, the survivor is the one who is right. If he has a problem with that, he can take it up with the devil in hell.
The bullets fired at Delis were, of course, easily avoidable using the power of her improved Rosetta Stone. But our sweet young lord, entirely ignorant of this fact, insisted on wasting his energy by deploying his telekinesis right along the bullets' trajectory.
With a sharp, scraping screech, the bullets froze in midair just like before. Thanks to his distraction, I was able to retrieve the Paramita and slip it back into my coat without any interference.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't need to make the next move. Our protagonist, determined to save his beloved Juliet, came hurtling straight toward me. Knowing exactly who actually held Delis's heart, I found the display utterly absurd.
He seemed at least wary of my magic bullets, as his path was a jagged zigzag rather than a straight line. Despite being significantly heavier than me, Benjamin's mobility consistently outmatched mine. Watching a massive frame—easily twice my weight—leap over ten meters in a single stride was more than just impressive; it was almost awe-inspiring.
It must be the sheer difference in telekinetic output...
I shook off the creeping weakness in my mind. The magical world wasn't a place where battles were decided by brute force alone. I maintained a careful distance, watching for an opening. Just as I was wary of his magic, he was naturally wary of mine.
“The Russians told me! If I bring you down, it will bring me immense fortune!”
“Do those fools in Moscow even have the capacity for that? They can barely manage their own affairs, let alone deliver on promises to their Trojan Horse!”
Another piece of information assembled and disassembled itself in my mind. Like puzzle pieces clicking into place, his comment about being promised "immense fortune" revealed that his relationship with the Soviet of Materialists wasn't a simple hierarchy. Furthermore, his persistent use of "Russians" instead of "Soviets" suggested a deliberate denial of the USSR's authority.
It seems they were both just planning to backstab each other.
Truly, this was a world where you couldn't trust a single bastard.
“—I will kill you!”
“If you can!”
Our paths, defying inertia as we darted across the ballroom without a single smooth curve, occasionally intersected. Every time they did, Benjamin pursued me with murderous intent, his movements threatening to implode my very body.
I can't let him hit me.
I had absolutely no desire to put on a gory display of my internal organs spraying fountains of blood. We traded incomplete blows in fractions of a second. Whenever a magical trace flickered on his side, I fired my own magic to block his telekinesis while simultaneously launching counterattacks.
The principle of the magic bullet, designed primarily to shatter defensive spells, could be applied anywhere magic was densely concentrated. Though far from efficient, there was no better counter against a telekinetic force strong enough to harden the air into a wall. Once it penetrated, it would drill through the solidified telekinetic layer and blow it to pieces. It was an application perfectly suited to the concept of a shaped charge.
During this rapid exchange of blows, which shifted back and forth multiple times in a single breath, my subordinates couldn't find a single opening to intervene. Even the members of the Equinox, who had mastered a simplified version of the magic bullet under Pavel's tutelage, couldn't target the Vice-Minister of Magic in a battlefield changing so rapidly that marble dust choked the air.
It would be incredibly awkward if I ended up getting shot by one of my own men. I had no desire to make that a reality, and in any case, there was no room for subordinates to interfere in a battle of this caliber. Taking advantage of a brief lull to catch my breath, I barked into my communicator.
“Don't do anything rash! Stand by! I'll call you when there's an opening!”
Ignoring their acknowledgments, I focused entirely on the opponent before me. I was slightly concerned about Delis, who had slipped out of my line of sight, but I was in no position to worry about others right now.
I had measured his telekinesis; now it was time to move on to the next step. It was time to find out the source of his incomprehensible physical regeneration. Fortunately, through our repeated clashes, opportunities were slowly accumulating in my favor.
Since my magic bullets served as both defense and offense, they were also successfully punching holes through the defensive barriers Benjamin Ashford had erected around himself. No matter how powerful a mage was, having their defensive magic riddled with holes was bound to rattle them. Yet, every time I tried to seize the opening to counterattack, this madman lunged at me repeatedly, completely undeterred.
“Tch!” I quickly retracted the shadow I was about to unleash and used my telekinesis to veer off at an angle. At that exact moment, a translucent wall brushed past me by a hair's breadth. I had barely escaped the trap before the hardened air could ensnare me. It was a trap whose outline was barely visible to the naked eye, requiring a mage's vision to detect the shimmering magical traces.
“Ugh...!” Damn it, my timing was slightly off. A piece of my collar and a strip of skin tore away, leaving a thin, long trail of blood splattered across the ballroom floor. In truth, this wasn't the first time I had bled. After enduring countless collisions, my body was already battered to the point where not a single part of me felt intact.
The frills of my maid uniform had long since been shredded, and it was hard to find a spot on my once-pristine white stockings that wasn't run or torn. The sight of a slender girl panting and bleeding in a tattered maid outfit was enough to trigger anyone's sadistic urges, but unfortunately, the timing couldn't be worse.
Despite the chilly late-winter breeze, sweat poured off me, and no matter how many times I gasped for air, my lungs still starved for oxygen. This body was truly a hassle.
Benjamin Ashford noticed my distress with uncanny precision.
“Your breathing is faltering!” Perhaps because his daily routine consisted of rubbing shoulders with women, he was incredibly quick to latch onto the slightest sign of weakness. It only made me more irritated. Having come from the future, I was confident in the depth of my magical path, and I had expected to maintain some degree of dominance, even if it wasn't easy. But I was being reminded once again that a powerhouse is a powerhouse, regardless of the era.
However, catching a glimpse of Benjamin Ashford as we brushed past each other, I could see that he was far from perfect condition either. The blood matted in his hair had long since dried into crusty scabs, partially obstructing his vision, and his regenerated left eye was clearly weaker than his healthy right one. Naturally, he didn't have the luxury of carefully peeling away the scabs. It wasn't as if I was going to let him rest, after all.
And so, at our closest point of contact, I saw it. In a situation where he could have easily inflicted far more damage on me—forcing me to expend even more telekinetic force to push myself away—his response had been flawed. The walls of hardened air he conjured were beginning to warp, bit by bit.
...Is his depth perception warped?
If so, it made perfect sense. It explained why he was playing so aggressively now.
He figures as long as I fall before he does, it doesn't matter how battered he gets.
A magical duel isn't won by the person who scores a perfect hundred, but simply by the one with the higher score. Whether he ended up in tatters or not, his only goal was to kill the person in front of him. In any case, on a battlefield where two mages of entirely different calibers clashed, there was absolutely no room for subordinates to intervene. A reckless intrusion would only result in them getting caught in the crossfire and dying a dog's death.
This was a truth I would never have discovered if not for our recent collision. He was just as exhausted as I was. Once my thoughts reached this conclusion, his reckless maneuvers began to look different. I finally understood that he was sacrificing his present state to secure a swift victory. Now that I knew the truth, I began to close the distance once more, determined to seize the next opportunity that would inevitably present itself.
Every time I used my telekinesis to fling myself in one direction or another, sharp pain flared through my lungs, heart, and muscles. Blood continued to seep steadily from the wounds I hadn't even had time to bind, gradually staining the white fabric of my uniform a deep crimson.
If this turns into a battle of endurance, I'm at a disadvantage.
That was why I had never intended to rely on brute physical endurance like he did. Hadn't I already said it? I had no intention of fighting fair. Over the past six months of operating in the shadows, I had prepared several hidden daggers. And those trump cards had to be played now, or never.
And so, when the distance between us shrank closer than ever before—
“Hyaaaah!”
I seized the opening and swung the Paramita. At the exact moment the power of the national artifact, Spiegel, activated, a spray of blood that did not belong to me painted the air.