Imperfect Timing
KRAAAAAASH—!
The laboratory shook again as the entire room shuddered under the impact.
“Hah… hah….”
I rolled across the floor, barely dodging the spatial slash Bertolt had thrown. The spot where I had been standing was sliced clean through, as neat as a knife through tofu.
I’m actually going to lose my mind.
Cold sweat poured down my back at the thought that if I’d been even a fraction slower, my body would have been split in half the same way. My mana core was blaring warning alarms like a broken siren.
This was the limit. My mana was already bone-dry, and the power I was burning through now was nothing more than my own life force being carved away and set alight.
My opponent, of course, was another story.
“You’re persistent for a little rat!”
Bertolt howled and swept his staff through the air.
8th Circle Ice Magic
Absolute Zero Snow Mountain
KRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Waves of cold so severe they looked freezing just to look at came crashing in from every direction. I reflexively started to throw up a barrier—then froze.
Behind me.
I could see the children locked inside the iron cages.
Damn it…!
My barrier still wasn’t polished enough; I could only stretch it about two meters. That was barely enough to cover my own body and whoever was right beside me. Which meant those kids would take the full blast of the cold and turn into ice sculptures.
“…Haah.”
Call me an idiot drunk on heroics who didn’t know his place if you want. But I did not want innocent victims appearing right in front of my eyes.
So I gritted my teeth and shoved the barrier’s range out toward the children.
At the same time, my own body was left completely exposed to the freezing wave.
Crack. Snap!
“GAAAAAH!”
The pain of skin splitting open as it froze. Frost crawled over my right arm and leg, and all sensation vanished. But the children were safe. That was what mattered.
“Oh? You’ll protect that trash before your own life?”
Bertolt watched me with a greasy little smile. He looked thoroughly pleased that he’d finally found a way to kill me.
You son of a bitch.
“Then try blocking this as well!”
He began spraying magic into the empty air. He wasn’t aiming at me. Every spell traced a cunning arc past my vital points and toward the children behind me.
“You filthy—!”
I threw myself as hard as I could. I slapped fireballs aside, took wind blades on my body, and caught a gravity shell on my shoulder.
THUD! CRUNCH!
“Cough!”
Dark, clotted blood spilled from my mouth. My whole body was turning into a rag. Eighth Circle versus Sixth. I hadn’t expected much, but the absolute gap was still not something technique or improvisation could bridge. And the bastard didn’t even seem tired—his mana wasn’t drying up. If anything, it was growing more vicious by the second.
“This is the end.”
Bertolt stopped the barrage and began gathering his power into a single point. At the same time, a dark violet aura rose around him—not mana, but something dragged up from the depths of his heart, from the brand of faith. A foul, sticky divine force.
"O great Sacred Horn, with a fragment of yourself, tear this insect apart."
Wooooom—!
Black starlight condensed along the entire length of his arm. The moment I saw that light, my instincts understood. That was a strike of authority—something that could not be blocked or dodged.
Fuck… crazy bastard, finishing with an ultimate. Did this guy play games back in Korea or what…
Punishment of the Sacred Horn: Void Pierce
“Oh, come on!! What the hell is that insane multi-personality psycho woman doing right n—!!”
Somewhere far off I thought I heard a woman’s urgent shout—low, husky, and somehow familiar. But it was too late.
Flash.
The world inverted into black and white, and Bertolt’s blackened arm drove straight through my abdomen.
SHUNK—!
“…Huh?”
There was no pain. Only a hollow emptiness, as if the center of my body had been scooped clean out. I slowly lowered my head and looked down at my stomach.
“Ah….”
There was a hole. Where my organs, muscle, and bone should have been, everything had been erased—so completely that I could see the scenery behind me straight through the gap.
Hissss….
Black smoke rose from the edges of the wound. Not even blood flowed. The divine force was burning away my very existence.
“Wow, holy shit… that’s horrifying.”
Strength left my legs. The world spun. My knees buckled completely, and I collapsed onto the cold laboratory floor.
Through my blurring vision I saw Bertolt’s face, drunk on triumph. And behind him—not two women bursting in late as the ceiling caved in, but a massive golden arrow pinning Bertolt from the crown of his head down through his entire body.
That’s… a golden arrow?
Don’t tell me Serene Roelina, that crazy empress, got here before the two women I was actually counting on?
No—if she was going to come, she could have been a little faster. This is some serious bad luck.
“Fuck….”
I chewed the curse and tried to force my eyes open, but my heavy lids kept sliding shut against my will.
Cold.
In the end, my consciousness sank into the deep abyss.
Thirty minutes earlier, in Esterium’s southern plaza.
“Excuse me—have you seen anyone like this?”
“Silver-gray hair that keeps changing color, or maybe a tiny platinum-haired girl?”
Imperial special-assignment knights of the Roelina Empire were stopping citizens and running inquiries. In their hands were composite sketches of four transcendents—Arsiena Silvairia, Nemesia Ragneil, Kyra, and Serapagnia.
Of course, the citizens’ reactions were ice-cold.
“Hmm? Haven’t seen anyone that unusual.”
“I’m busy. Move along.”
Even if they belonged to the Roelina Empire—the strongest power on the continent—they couldn’t freely throw their weight around in Esterium, an autonomous city of another nation. If the locals refused to cooperate, there was nothing they could do.
Empress Serene knew that perfectly well, so she simply stood with her arms folded and watched. But for all the calm of her outward appearance, her eyes were flickering with impatience.
It has to be somewhere around here. Conditions that make it easy to hide mana, and a place where outsiders don’t draw much attention.
Her intuition was right, but the leads were far too thin.
Then—
“Um… mister knight?”
A small child holding a mana cotton candy tugged at a knight’s cloak.
“I saw them!”
“Hm? Saw what, little one?”
“The big sister whose hair kept changing colors, and the platinum-haired little girl! And… a really handsome big brother was with them too!”
“!!!”
Serene’s head snapped around. In an instant she was in front of the child, dropping to one knee.
“Child. Do you know where those people went?”
“Eek…!”
The boy flinched under the empress’s presence. Serene forced the most natural smile she could manage and softened her voice.
“Don’t be afraid. I will not harm you. I simply… wish to find my lost family.”
“O-oh. Th-then… they went toward the white tower! In a black carriage….”
“The white tower… the Magic Tower, then.”
Serene’s eyes flashed. Just as she had expected—KJH had been hiding himself in Esterium.
Lady White Dragon, how low can you be? Finding him first and not even sending word… is this how you repay an alliance the moment it’s sealed?
She clenched her teeth against the betrayal, then pulled a heavy pouch of gold coins from her robes and pressed it into the child’s hands.
“Thank you. You have given me information of great value. Buy yourself something delicious.”
“Wow! Thank you!”
The boy vanished in a bounce of pure joy. Serene rose to her feet at once. The kindly big-sister mask fell away from her face.
“All forces, advance on the Magic Tower.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
“Kyra Bell Arenas… that lunatic may have co-opted the tower and could resist. Prepare for full-scale combat with the tower’s mages if necessary.”
“Understood!”
The imperial knights moved as one. Serene took the lead and started toward the tower.
And then….
“…?”
Just as they were nearly there, her razor-sharp senses caught something. From deep beneath the white Magic Tower ahead, an alien energy was seeping out—utterly unlike mana. Filthy, sticky, and nauseating beyond measure.
“This is… divine force?”
Serene’s expression hardened. An Outer God, all of a sudden—and the power was being burned so carelessly that even some of the knights could faintly sense it? Worse, buried inside that repulsive energy was a very faint but familiar wavelength.
The mana wavelength of KJH—the one that had clung so faintly to the letter she had hunted for so long.
And that wavelength… was fading.
“N… no.”
Her reason snapped.
“You dare try to die without my permission?”
She reached into the empty air.
SHAAAA—!
Golden particles gathered and took form as the empire’s national treasure, a transcendent armament—the Heavenly Bow.
“I don’t know what kind of insect you are, but….”
She drew the string.
GRRRRN—!
A colossal golden arrow took shape in the sky.
“You will pay dearly for laying a hand on what belongs to me, now that the restraints on my power have been lifted.”
Thrum.
The arrow was loosed. The massive shaft of pure gold tore through the Magic Tower’s defensive barrier like paper and drove in a straight line toward the fifth basement level.
Serene conjured a second arrow beneath her feet and rode it down.
“Hold on a little longer. I will save you soon.”
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE—!!!
The ceiling caved in as a golden flash detonated through the room.
“GAAAAAH—!!!”
Bertolt’s scream ripped through the air. He was flattened against the floor, crushed under the weight of the giant golden arrow that had fallen across his back. Neither the Eighth Circle defensive magic he threw up in desperation nor the protection of divine force meant anything. Before the absolute physical force of the Heavenly Bow, everything was equally reduced to scrap.
“Wh-what is this… ghk….”
Bertolt coughed blood and tried somehow to lift his head, but the arrow’s weight pinned him so thoroughly he couldn’t twitch a finger.
And through that chaos—
Click. Click.
A woman walked in through the dust cloud. The uniform of the Roelina Empire. A face so expressionless it raised the hair on the back of the neck. And arrogant eyes that looked as if they already owned the world.
Serene Roelina.
She did not spare the crushed Bertolt so much as a glance. She went straight to the fallen Erevan.
“….”
She looked down at him as he lay dying with a hole through his abdomen. Her pupils shook violently.
“This mana… it truly is KJH….”
She knelt, carefully lifted Erevan’s head onto her lap, and brushed the hair from his forehead with cold fingers.
“Foolish man. You go to all that trouble to run from me, and this is the gutter you choose to end up in.”
Her voice was trembling.
“If I had been… even a little later, I truly might have lost you forever.”
A clear tear slipped from her eye and landed on his cheek.
“I will not allow it. I have no intention of losing the first person who ever whispered love to me.”
She took a crimson elixir from her robes and tipped it carefully into the dying Erevan’s mouth—the empire’s secret treasure, the legendary potion said to bring even the dead back to life.
Even after using it, her expression remained dark. His wound was not simple physical damage, but damage to the soul inflicted by divine force. Treating the external injury alone could not fully save him. Still, healing the outer trauma was enough to stop him from dying on the spot.
“Who said you could die. I never gave you permission.”
She gripped his collar as if by the scruff of the neck and whispered against his ear.
“Endure it. Live… and spend the rest of your life apologizing to me.”
An empress’s command, tangled with obsession, love-hate, and raw desperation. That voice reached me as I drifted completely unconscious through the spaces of the abyss.
…Fuck. She even brought an Elixir. That’s terrifying.
Apparently it still wasn’t my time to die.