VS Agnes Elizabeth Blaze (1)
“Duel, begin!”
-Whoosh!
The magical duel between Agnes and Lilith began with the Blaze heiress taking the first strike.
Agnes had already built up plenty of grievances against Lilith from the incident a week ago, so hurling fireballs the instant the match started was the most natural opening imaginable.
Her week-long obsession since the incident in front of the student council building — to land at least one fireball on Lilith no matter what — would not bend, even if her opponent happened to be her one and only friend in the world.
“Fly true! O blazing flames!”
Agnes's Swift Fireball tore across the circular Magic Department arena, streaking straight toward Lilith's body.
A spell of terrifying speed, crossing thirty meters in less than a second. And perhaps because of who was casting it, its power was nothing to sneeze at either.
After all, this was the very spell that had knocked Isolbe, then the second-ranked student, out of last year's evaluation duel in a single hit.
In a battle of magic against magic, one normally had to choose between speed and power — but Agnes possessed both, so it was hardly surprising that she held the top seat of the Magic Department so firmly.
And the only second-year in the entire department with the means to stand against her was exactly one person.
-Fwoosh!
Lilith had predicted the Swift Fireball from the moment Agnes began her incantation, and kicked off the ground in a sideways leap.
Given the spell's sheer power, an average Magic Department student's jump should have left them caught in the blast radius — but Lilith's physical abilities were, from the start, on an entirely different level from her classmates.
-Bang!
Tumbling once in midair and covering nearly five meters, Lilith's body hit the ground.
The way her figure rippled and swayed on landing rekindled Agnes's fighting spirit all over again.
'Hmph, so her physical abilities are good, huh?'
That Lilith's overall physical prowess outstripped the other Magic Department students was a fact Agnes already knew.
Otherwise, why would a Magic Department student sit through three full semesters of Swordsmanship Department classes? No matter how much her lover was in the Swordsmanship Department, that was a course you couldn't keep taking without genuine talent.
Then there was the way Lilith had faced Luke with dagger arts in last year's evaluation duel. Agnes had impulsively designated her as a duel opponent out of sheer rage, but that didn't mean she was careless enough to assume victory was guaranteed.
While Agnes had left herself briefly exposed by opening with the Swift Fireball, this time it was Lilith who counterattacked.
“Pierce through, O arrows of mana!”
The same Triple Casting as always, and the same mana arrows she had always favored — a speed-focused attack, choosing mana arrows over the power-heavy Energy Bolt.
Unfortunately for her, Lilith had failed to realize that Energy Bolts would actually have been more effective against Agnes.
'Three mana arrows. Just as I predicted.'
True to her nature of never forgetting what she'd learned once, Agnes remembered most of what she'd seen in last year's duel between Lilith and Luke.
She only pretended to be indifferent to her classmates while, in truth, watching their matches more closely than anyone.
Her unquenchable scholarly passion for magic, and her obsession with never losing the top rank needed to enter the Elizabeth main house, meant Agnes meticulously studied the matches of other high-ranking Magic Department students as well — and that naturally included Lilith, who had ranked fifth in the year last year.
“Protect me!”
-Fwoosh!
With Agnes's incantation, three Arcane Shields wrapped around her — and two of Lilith's mana arrows slammed into them.
If they had been Energy Bolts, they could have shattered the shields and dealt some real damage. Or if Agnes had prepared for that instead, she would have needed to spend even more time on incantations — so in terms of buying time, mana arrows were arguably the better choice.
That one of the three arrows had veered off course mid-flight thanks to Lilith's persistently poor accuracy was a bonus.
“Infernosillia, time to use what we practiced.”
'Yeah!'
“When blazing fire stirs that soul awake, today the young spirit shall burn in a new form!”
Agnes and Infernosillia, after a single exchange of call and answer, chanted the joint incantation in perfect unison.
And the instant the chant ended, a massive flame spirit materialized at one side of the arena — the form known as the Fire Giant, draped over Infernosillia like a mantle.
'Alright, here it comes!!!'
A joint spell usable by a mage with an affinity for fire magic in tandem with a fire spirit.
Lilith felt a flicker of unease at this original technique of Agnes's, one almost never seen in the original story.
'I've seen Orion use the Giant of the Forest plenty of times, but….'
She had never expected Agnes to enter a Magic Department duel wielding the Fire Giant.
Then again, the only reason Agnes could use it at all was because Lilith herself had helped her contract with a fire spirit — so in the end, it was her own karma coming due.
'Take thiiis!! You big-chested bitch who made Agnes cry!!!'
Empowered by the joint spell, Infernosillia's rank temporarily elevated, swung a colossal fist of flame at Lilith. Though her rank had risen for the moment, her contents were still a low-ranking spirit — hence the voice far too shrill for her size and the utterly reckless attitude.
Naturally, Lilith couldn't just stand there and take it, so she leapt straight up to evade the giant's flaming fist.
Infernosillia's attacks came raining down in relentless succession, but compared to the Swift Fireball, they weren't all that difficult to dodge.
The low-ranking spirit still seemed unaccustomed to her enormous new body — and in the first place, a low-rank spirit borrowing a high-rank form for a moment could do nothing but swing that enlarged body around.
As long as her core remained a low-ranking spirit, she couldn't truly replicate what made high-rank spirits so terrifying.
Still, the frightening thing about the Fire Giant was that it gave even a low-ranking fire spirit the means to deliver dangerous, powerful blows with every single strike — so it was only natural that Lilith, who until moments ago had only faced one mage's spells, now found herself scrambling far more desperately.
-Boom! KRA-KOOM!
'They're coming from both sides, but if I focus, I can still dodge—'
“Flame Field!”
'…Oh no!'
Dodging attacks flying in from two directions in completely different ways, Lilith's concentration inevitably fractured — and Agnes was waiting for exactly that one gap.
The fire magic, cast in anticipation of where Lilith's next step would land, roared up from below. Airborne as she was, there was no longer enough distance to escape on the recoil of a shockwave spell — but mercifully, Lilith, like Agnes, was not fighting alone.
“Sei! Tailwind!”
'Yeah.'
With that short reply, an updraft caught Lilith's body just as it was about to fall into the flames. It was only an intermediate spirit's wind magic, but more than enough to catch and lift a single girl's body.
“Sally! Sally, please take care of that big friend over there! Feel free to use my mana as much as you like — just make sure you handle her!”
'Got it! Leave her to me, Lilith!'
The moment Lilith's cry for help — her admission that she couldn't possibly handle Agnes and the fire spirit alone — burst out, the salamander shot toward the Fire Giant as if she'd been waiting for those very words.
Her right hand wove a ring of roaring flame, growing it larger and larger.
-Whoosh, whoooosh.
'Wh-what…?'
A massive ring, swelling in the blink of an eye from a high-rank spirit's hand until it rivaled the Fire Giant itself.
The moment Infernosillia laid eyes on that enormous ring, she flinched — and Sally hurled the flaming chakram in her grip at the giant with all her might.
'A body that big? You've barely lived a year — you're ten thousand years too early for it!'
'GYAAAAAH!!'
The flaming disc from Sally's hand sheared half the Fire Giant's body clean away, and the colossus came crumbling down. And before the suddenly halved Infernosillia, Sally charged in with an ecstatic grin.
'…Still, high-rank spirits really are dependable.'
With the rough plan of simply letting fire spirits fight fire spirits settled in her mind, Lilith focused on her battle with Agnes.
Barely evading the barrage of Agnes's spells, Lilith struck back with another Triple Casting aimed at her opponent's openings.
This time it was a Triple Casting of Energy Bolts rather than mana arrows — but once again, her attack was swallowed whole by the defensive magic Agnes rapidly deployed.
'Two hits again. I've noticed it for a while now — Lilith's accuracy isn't that great either.'
In last year's final duels, and in today's final duels alike, Lilith's Triple Castings never landed all three spells.
One or two always strayed, and only one or two found their proper target. Agnes had observed this countless times in the same major classes, so there was no doubt about it.
At first she'd wondered if it was simply clumsy Triple Casting — but for all that clumsiness, Lilith rarely made the mistakes typical of an unrefined Triple Casting.
Compressing three spells into a single incantation usually meant errors surfaced in the last spell deployed, yet Lilith's magic deviated completely from that pattern.
'This time the second spell missed. Just before, it was the first. Could it be that her Triple Casting isn't clumsy — she's deliberately flicking spells away one by one?'
Agnes simply couldn't imagine it being mere bad luck, spell after spell going astray. And no wonder — she was a natural-born owner of fortune who had never once missed a spell she poured her full concentration into.
Yet it was precisely that ambiguous accuracy that stirred Agnes's suspicion, slowly gnawing at her nerves amid the fierce battle.
“…….”
What Agnes failed to notice was that Lilith — who had seemed to be merely dodging and stalling for time — was steadily closing the distance between them.