Buying Time with Resurrection Magic
Finally, I reached the third floor of the Star Cluster Society's headquarters. I pressed myself flat against the door leading inside. No signs of life from within. I created a golden thread using the next Security Weapon. Sliding the thread through the gap in the door, I moved it lightly up and down. There were no magical effects on the door. If there had been, the Security Weapon would have triggered something the moment it entered the gap.
I eased the handle down just enough to peek inside. As expected, no one was there. I gripped the dagger Aranseol had given me tightly. This might be my only way out. Opening the door wide enough to slip through, I stepped inside.
The third-floor corridor was a balcony style. Beyond it, I could see a row of private rooms. Clang! Clang! The sound of weapons clashing echoed from below the balcony corridor. I rushed to the railing and looked down. There were the disciples, locked in combat with the Black Dawn. Flames were rising. It seemed someone among the fighters was wielding fire-related powers. Like Babiyen, for instance.
The Black Dawn had seven members in total. Two with ranged abilities, five with close-quarters capabilities. Three of them looked particularly dangerous. The unsettling man who had killed the guard earlier was among them. Their numbers weren't overwhelming, but each one was highly skilled. The disciples were being pushed back.
The hall was in complete disarray. From the shattered glass on the floor, it was clear they had broken through the glass ceiling to infiltrate. However, the broken ceiling was now obscured by the original one. Escaping through the ceiling didn't seem feasible.
My gaze returned to the disciples. They were already at a disadvantage in strength, and now they'd been ambushed. Several were badly injured and catching their breath in the corners. If the Black Dawn had targeted the strongest first, it made sense that the disciples were losing. The situation wasn't looking good at all.
The disciples were holding their own for now, but the fight would end quickly. This wasn't the direction I wanted. If they fell here, Aranseol and Sohan wouldn't have time to escape. The moment the escape was detected, all forces would be redirected there. If everyone here was defeated, those two would be in grave danger. The odds of a successful escape would plummet. I had to prevent that at all costs.
Clang!
“Ghh…!”
One disciple was struck down and rolled across the floor. The Black Dawn's advantage grew even clearer. I could sense them moving with urgency. A thought flashed through my mind. Right—these people were terrorists. This was the middle of the city. Time wasn't on their side. They knew something was wrong inside the Star Cluster Society, and they had no idea who might show up. They would want to end this as fast as possible.
I lowered my stance and sprinted down the third-floor corridor. With the battle raging below, no one was paying attention to my side. I reached the stairs safely and descended the spiral staircase to the first floor. The clash of weapons grew louder. The desperate faces of the disciples came into sharper focus.
I ignored the main fight and headed toward the injured. They were slumped against the walls, swallowing groans. Most of them couldn't even stay conscious. Their eyes were completely black, even the corneas. They didn't react when I looked at them. It seemed like some kind of ability that bound the mind. The Black Dawn had planned to subdue everyone with this and then abduct them. Vile bastards.
Of course, I couldn't dispel this kind of ability at my level. But there was one forbidden method that would work. The Black Dawn still hadn't noticed my presence. I dragged the largest, strongest-looking man toward a pillar. Damn, he's huge. With that size, he'd better have some real skill.
Grunting with effort, I pulled him behind the pillar where we were partially hidden. The hall was lit by rising flames, brighter than outside. The light from holy magic would be easy to conceal.
“From now on, I need your consent for treatment. Do you agree?”
I asked the man, trying to ease the tension.
“Ugh… ugh…”
He gave his consent.
“Then I'll begin anesthesia. This might sting a little.”
The most basic form of holy magic was accelerating the body's natural recovery. At higher levels, it could even restore severed limbs by recalling the body's memory, but that was beyond me. Still, even the basics had one extremely useful application.
The heart was an incredibly delicate organ. What would happen if I forcibly increased its recovery rate? The heart, pushed to produce blood at an insane pace, would fail under the stress and stop. Cardiac arrest. It sounded like a terrifying assassination ability, but it wasn't that simple. Holy magic required prolonged contact to reach the heart, and no one would just stand still while someone tampered with their heart. Since everyone in this world used mana, they could defend against holy magic too. So this method only worked on someone who was already unconscious. And right now, that was exactly the case.
The holy magic flowing into the man's body stimulated his heart. He twitched in pain for a moment, then his heart stopped. He was dead.
My first murder in this life. But I felt nothing. I'd died countless times myself. Death was far too light a thing to me. It would be strange if I felt anything over killing just one person now. And honestly, what did it matter if I killed one uncivilized otherworlder?
Maybe the stress was getting to me. I shook my head to clear the occasional dizzy feeling.
The man was safely anesthetized. Now it was time to show what I could really do.
Light seeped from my palm and sank into his body. His stopped heart began beating again. Resurrection magic.
“Cough! Hack!”
The man coughed violently and opened his eyes. The black curse-like substance that had filled them was gone. As expected of resurrection magic—it restored everything to its optimal state, curses and all.
“Wh-where…?”
His voice was disoriented. Being revived so recently, his memories were probably jumbled.
“Are you with us?”
“Y-you…”
“I'm Harua, disciple of Lady Lapiel. Do you remember being attacked by the Black Dawn?”
“The Black Dawn…”
At the mention of their name, his mind snapped back into focus.
“What's the situation?”
As expected of a disciple of someone renowned, he prioritized assessing the situation over panicking like a civilian. Good. From the look in his eyes, he was skilled.
“They're still fighting.”
“Did you heal me?”
“Something like that.”
Everyone here knew Lapiel's name, and they knew she belonged to the Grace Magic Tower. It was obvious I was a holy mage.
“Thanks. I'll join the fight right away.”
“Alone?”
He'd already been defeated by the Black Dawn once. Even if he joined the fray now, it wouldn't dramatically turn the tide. He seemed to realize this and hesitated.
“You have something in mind?”
He understood my intent. I was glad I'd revived the sharpest one first.
“There are others lying injured over there. Can you bring them here without being noticed?”
One person wouldn't change the outcome dramatically. But several would. What the Black Dawn feared most was time. If that time grew short, they'd have no options left.
“Easy enough.”
The man accepted my suggestion immediately. In the next instant, he vanished right in front of me. This guy… an assassin with that build? It was surprising that someone his size could disappear so completely. Now I understood how he'd been able to assess the situation so rationally right after being revived. If he was in the assassination field, he'd have trained his mind as well.
Lucky. Well, if I'd been truly lucky, I wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. Still, a glimmer of hope had appeared.
The man quickly brought back the injured. Just like with him, I anesthetized them, then revived them. Repeating the process, the number of injured steadily decreased. My fingertips began to tremble. It seemed the price for overusing my mana. Thankfully, as Ririran had said, my heart didn't hurt.
“How about it? This should be enough fighting strength, don't you think?”
I hid my hands and turned to the first man I'd revived. Since we'd moved the injured secretly, the Black Dawn hadn't noticed yet. But they would soon. Which meant now was the perfect time to strike.
“Our chances aren't high.”
The man's face was grim. The Black Dawn's strength was greater than expected.
“But we can buy some time, at least.”
Still, he wasn't the type to just take a beating. Seeing the fighting spirit in his eyes, I nodded.
“Thanks. This is all thanks to you.”
He gave his thanks on behalf of the others and joined the battlefield.
“These bastards!”
“We'll pay you back for what you did!”
The disciples had clearly been at a disadvantage. The number of them rolling on the floor after being struck down kept increasing.
“What the—?”
“These guys were definitely…”
But when the ones they'd defeated suddenly rejoined the fight in large numbers, the Black Dawn showed clear confusion. They'd deployed fewer people to avoid detection during infiltration, and that had become their weakness. Their attempt at a quick resolution had backfired.
In the moment the Black Dawn's confusion spread, my eyes searched for one person. A corner. There, hiding, was a woman clutching a staff she'd picked up somewhere, hesitating. Red hair and a face that looked like it had no manners. But unlike before, her eyes were filled with anxiety and confusion warring with each other.
Found her. Babiyen.
I moved quickly through the dark shadows. There was a chance she was connected to the Crimson Flame Lord who might have caused this mess. But if that were true, she wouldn't have spoken to me in the first place. It wouldn't have done her any good to draw attention. Of course, I was the one who'd drawn attention, but still—my gut feeling. Look at that idiot face! She was clearly a clueless fool who had no idea what was going on. If she'd planned all this, I'd slit her throat with the dagger. I couldn't afford to be kidnapped.
That's how I reached Babiyen.
“Babiyen.”
“Eek!”
The moment she heard her name, she swung the staff. This crazy woman. I quickly pulled my foot back, and the staff missed. Whether she was a traitor or not, she was definitely insane. And she was clearly too stupid to be following the Crimson Flame Lord's orders.
“You tried to kill me. Look properly.”
“Huh? Y-you are…?”
She finally recognized me and showed her confusion.
“I need your power to stop them.”
I pointed at the Black Dawn. The first man I'd revived hadn't been confident about winning against them. Even though the enemy was only subduing rather than killing, he couldn't guarantee victory. The gap was obvious. This fight would end in the Black Dawn's win. And now, thanks to me, the injured had returned. With time running out, they wouldn't hold back anymore. If they got desperate enough, they might even start killing. So before that happened, I needed to create more variables. Variables that would tie up their actions.
I wasn't trying to buy a huge amount of time. Just a little confusion. The unsettling feeling that their backup might be involved. That was all I wanted. And Babiyen was perfect for that. Even if she had no value to them, it didn't matter. What I wanted was time. Chaos, purely to buy that time!
“I have a plan to stop those guys.”
Babiyen had experienced firsthand how good I was at causing chaos. So she gripped her staff tightly and bit her lip.
“……What is it?”
The bee had found honey.