The Seven Deadly Sins (1)
BOOM!
Flames erupted — with a roar so theatrical it seemed determined to prove the fire was no accident.
The blaze spread in an instant. Mountain fires were always fast, and this spot made it worse still: Delin's Forest, a place saturated with an overwhelming density of mana.
Leffen Chaser, the Combat Magic professor who happened to be holding a class at a nearby annex, came rushing over. A few students were already blasting jets of water at the inferno, but it was far from enough to contain it.
"P-Professor!"
"Stand back."
Leffen raised his silver-adorned staff and traced a formula. A lattice of complex computational arrays materialized in the blink of an eye, and dozens of water torrents came surging down at once.
The students — who could barely sustain even a single stream each — stared at Leffen with undisguised admiration.
"When did the fire start?"
"F-Five minutes ago. There was a sudden explosion, and then the flames…"
Leffen furrowed his brow. The fire refused to die easily. He could pour in more mana, but Delin's Forest had no reason to combust without cause. Deciding to conserve his power against a possible hidden enemy, he held himself back.
"What's going on?!"
Phoenicia came running from a distance with a crowd of students behind her. Without a word of instruction, the students all drew their wands in unison and chanted their runes.
Phoenicia doused the flames in the same manner as Leffen. With dozens of mages focusing their efforts, the fire was finally extinguished.
"Phoenicia. Handle the aftermath."
"Yes. Are you heading to the site?"
Leffen nodded. Phoenicia nodded back and turned to check on the students' safety.
Having watched for a moment, Leffen strode into the forest.
Delin's trees, once brimming with life, stood scorched pitch-black, and embers that had not yet fully died still glimmered faintly here and there. The fallen branches on the ground crumbled to dust the instant his boots came down on them. Leffen stopped and crouched.
"They're not merely singed."
Not a trace of life force remained. Come to think of it, Delin's mana — which should by now have pressed against him with tremendous force — was nowhere to be felt.
Leffen rose and scanned his surroundings. Only when he was certain no one else was near did he speak.
"What are you plotting, Pride?"
"Kukukuk."
A low chuckle answered him.
Ash scattered and swirled into a whirlpool, taking on the shape of a man before coalescing fully.
"It's been a while, Leffen. You never show your face at the regular meetings, so I had no choice but to come to you myself."
He spoke in a serpentine whisper, tongue flicking between his words. His skin was deathly pale, his eyes hollow and vacant. Dressed in a white shirt and black cape with a fedora perched on his head, he carried himself with an unmistakably aristocratic air.
"You were told to avoid the Academy."
"Is there any reason to? There is nowhere in this world the Donatus Faction cannot walk."
"I've told you time and time again. The time is not yet ripe. This forest of Delin especially—"
Pride — Pedro — screwed his face into a deep scowl.
"…You said a being who must never be touched dwells here."
"Yes, I heard. News that a brat rivaling our Seven Deadly Sins of Donatus has appeared."
Pedro's face curled into open mockery.
"I've come to prove that it isn't so."
"…That pride of yours will be the death of the Donatus Faction."
Pedro nodded as if conceding the point, then began to pace in apparent thought. Suddenly he drew out a skull-topped staff, until now hidden beneath his cape, and swung it.
"Ugh…!"
Crushed by agonizing pressure, Leffen collapsed to his knees.
"Insolent whelp. Since when was a mere Punisher of Donatus permitted to speak so boldly to one of the Seven Deadly Sins?"
Pedro gazed down at the kneeling Leffen, pinned beneath the crushing gravity, then released the spell as though dispensing charity.
"Haah… hah…"
It had lasted only moments, but Leffen's hair was soaked through with cold sweat as he barely managed to right himself.
"Even if that brat were a Great Magician, he is no match for the Seven Deadly Sins. Least of all for me, Pedro of Pride. You slight the Sins with your doubt — and that too is disrespect. How do you intend to answer for this crime?"
"…I am not speaking of the brat."
Leffen's voice trembled. He lifted his head and glared with burning intensity.
"Touching Windsor is dangerous. We must not hand them an excuse to interfere."
"Hm? Strange. Is it not the year 1246? The notoriety of Windsor went out of fashion two hundred years ago."
Pedro spoke as if the matter were beneath him.
"Must we fear a Windsor gone soft and weak, rotting in peace?"
"Perhaps they have weakened. But they are unquestionably still the most powerful house in the Empire. Why insist on taking on a risk that could so easily be avoided?"
Pedro stroked his chin, looking intrigued.
"So that is how you see it. And yet you remain an insolent creature. Punisher, it is fine to display your loyalty to the Bishop — but know your limits. Do you imagine my coming here was my own decision?"
Leffen's eyes narrowed and quivered.
"You don't mean… it was the Bishop's will to attack the Academy?"
"Ah — that reminds me, Leffen. As a Punisher, you wouldn't have the Book of Prophecy, would you? It is written thus within its pages."
Pedro's eyes flooded with madness. He leaned in and whispered something to Leffen. Listening, the man's hands began to shake finely.
That was the moment.
SHRAAAA—!
The air split with a shriek. A flash of blue lanced between the ashen trees and struck Pedro dead-on.
KWAAANG—!
A colossal roar shook the earth. Pedro's body went hurtling into the distance.
In his place stood a blonde knight in silver plate armor.
She held her two-handed sword raised to the sky, then lowered her stance and brought the blade to rest at her hip. Blue flames flickered in her eyes, and white vapor — the hallmark of acceleration — rose in wisps across her whole body.
"You… you're—"
Amelia did not so much as glance at Leffen.
"Stand aside. I will take it from here."
Leffen could not hide his bewilderment.
Don't tell me — she heard what he whispered?
But she kept her gaze fixed calmly on the direction Pedro had been blasted away in. Since she wasn't guarding against this side at all, odds were she hadn't heard.
Swallowing his confusion, Leffen lowered his voice.
"I'll help."
"You have no talent for fighting while protecting someone."
"No professor abandons an Academy student and runs."
"Then do as you please. But I will not answer for what happens to you."
How dare…!
At the furious voice echoing from far off, Amelia set the flat of her blade vertical and poured a massive volume of mana into her sword. Blazing blue mana coiled around it and surged skyward. Amelia raised the sword high overhead.
"Haaap!"
With a battle cry, she swung the blade in a horizontal arc. The slash shot out along an impossible trajectory — what began as a single line split apart into branching streams.
If this lands, the Academy itself will…!
Leffen's instincts were screaming that the strike was dangerous. The mana of mighty Windsor would stretch on without end, cutting down everything in its path.
"Luid!!"
Amelia roared at the top of her lungs.
As if it had been waiting, a magic circle unfurled across the empty air. The slash tore straight through the circle without caring — but its angle bent, and the attack veered toward a single point.
KUWUUNG—!
The thunderous report arrived a few seconds late. Leffen's eyes went wide. Someone had bent the trajectory of a sword aura wielded by a knight of that caliber?
A sword aura was one colossal mass of energy. It would sooner shatter than bend. What had just happened was magically impossible.
Even seeing it with his own two eyes, Leffen could not bring himself to believe it.
"Sis, you're crazy fast."
Leffen turned around.
Luid was panting heavily, one hand braced against a charred tree, his face a portrait of near death. Unfortunately, burnt wood has poor durability — too weak to support even a small boy's weight. The tree crumbled, Luid lost his balance, and he toppled to the ground, a smear of soot across his face.
"L-Luid. Are you all right?"
"…Yeah."
Luid Christopher. Don't tell me… this was the extent of it?
Leffen swallowed hard. He had known full well the reputation of the prodigy child mage, but witnessing the boy's magic at full sincerity firsthand left him speechless.
See one, and you know the ten. Leffen was a superb mage in his own right, and precisely because of that, a single fragment of spellwork was enough for him to grasp just how immeasurably far the boy's skill reached.
"It's still alive, sis."
"Tenacious bastard. Luid, I'm counting on you. But you remember, right?"
Amelia pressed her sword close against the left side of her chest as she spoke.
"Don't interfere. No matter what. What you have to do, Luid, is—"
"Block whatever leaks through and keep the damage at zero. I've heard it five times already, Amelia. I'm not an idiot like you."
Luid grumbled. Amelia flushed with embarrassment for a moment before steeling herself again.
"Will you tell me where he is?"
Luid's eyes took on the same blue glow as Amelia's.
Before long, his small lips parted.
"13.45 degrees, 910 yards. The tree to the right of Delin's Lake."
The instant the words left his mouth, Amelia kicked off the ground and was gone.
"W-Wait, come on—"
Luid stared after her, dumbfounded.
She was casting movement magic on top of redirecting her own slashes? Impossible. He couldn't have done both.
I'm already dying of exhaustion. How am I supposed to follow?
A man who slept every waking hour was never going to have good stamina. Just getting here had pushed him to his limit. Mastermind or not, Luid wanted nothing more than to collapse right there and sleep. He resented Amelia for sprinting off and leaving him behind, and resolved to tattle to the eldest sister about it later.
I do have to go, though… if I leave that guy alone, there'll be nothing but trouble… Ideally I'd erase him right now…
Should he just close his eyes and cast movement magic?
But what if, while he was at it, one of Amelia's brutish slashes went flying toward Justin — who was even now locked in struggle with Skeleton Soldier No. 1008?
Massive accident!
In the end, running was the only option — and he wanted to do it less than anything in the world.
Just then, his eyes met those of Mastermind No. 2, Leffen Chaser.
A mastermind, yes — but in that moment he looked like a savior…!
Luid scampered over and tugged at the hem of Leffen's coat.
"Carry me to my sister."