The Name of the One Who Stands Before You

The four of them—Freya and her companions—had escaped the prison. Relying on the faint, flickering light hanging from the ceiling, they moved forward with bated breath, their footsteps muffled. Karl took the lead. He held his folding sword low, his movements fluid and practiced as he pressed his back against the wall to check the corners. Now that his lungs were filled with air free of opium dust, a spark of vitality had returned to his eyes.

"Ghh…."

Just before turning a corner, they encountered two ghouls in the darkness. Before the creatures could even react, Karl’s blade slashed through the gloom. With a single strike, the heads of both ghouls soared into the air.

"The guards aren't that strong," Karl whispered, flicking the bodily fluids from his blade. Valeria, who was supporting Ellie, gave a thumbs-up in approval. Freya remained at the rear, her pistol raised, keeping a sharp watch. In this manner, they dealt with the ghouls one by one, and soon, the group emerged toward the surface. At the end of a long corridor, they saw a door leading outside. Exit. The hopeful word echoed in their minds.

"Alright. Now—"

Just as Karl stood at the front, about to set foot on the stairs, a heavy thud echoed from above. Someone with a heavy, deliberate gait was descending. The four of them froze simultaneously. Thud. Thud. The rhythm was slow and heavy. Karl signaled to his companions with his eyes, pressing them against the stairwell wall. Once he confirmed they were hidden in the shadows, he gripped his sword in a reverse hold. The footsteps grew closer. A shadow cast itself over the bend in the stairs. Karl held his breath. The moment the owner of the shadow rounded the corner, Karl kicked off the wall and lunged.

His blade, infused with Aura, whistled toward the shadow's neck. It was a perfect trajectory, one that even Karl himself admired. But just before the steel could make contact, something shimmered in the air.

Clang!

With a sharp, jarring sound of friction, Karl’s sword was deflected. Only then did he realize what had repelled his strike. "...Bugs?" Three tiny beetles. They had formed a triangular formation in front of the giant's throat. Their shells shimmered with a dark, metallic blue under the light of the mana-stone lamp. It was these three fingernail-sized insects that had deflected a sword imbued with Aura. It took Karl a moment to process the reality of it.

"...Damn it."

"Whew. Look at this cheeky little brat."

The owner of the shadow fully revealed himself beneath the mana-stone lamp. A giant, his left forearm densely covered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in black runes, whistled from beneath his hood. "I thought you were just hothouse flowers, but you know how to pull off an ambush like this?"

CRACK!

As the head of his massive warhammer touched the floor, spiderweb-like cracks spread across the stone. Freya recognized him immediately as the giant Karl had mentioned earlier. The giant glanced indifferently at the beetles vanishing from in front of his throat, then looked up the stairs. "Igor. Look at these. We aren't going to have an easy time with them."

"We don't have much time, Boris," a gaunt man draped in a robe slowly descended from behind the giant. He was smoking an unlit cigarette. Freya realized instantly that the thin man was a Dark Mage. 'Igor and Boris, he said. Probably aliases.' They were common names in the mercenary world. If one tried to find the "Igor and Boris" duo in the mercenary guild, hundreds of registered pairs would likely pop up.

The man called Igor scanned the students from the stairs without descending further. His gaze stopped at the family crest embroidered on Freya's cape. "My Lady," Igor began. "Today's events are regrettable. This was never supposed to happen."

Freya looked up at Igor, her grip tightening on her pistol. Igor descended one step. "Let's do this. Today, you simply took a wrong turn. You were just taking a walk outside the Academy and got a little lost. That’s all it was."

"......."

"Go back to the dormitory, wash up, eat, and go to class tomorrow. Return to your peaceful daily life as if nothing happened. Then, we can all be happy."

Freya did not answer. Instead, she returned the question. "Then what happens to my seniors here?"

"Is there any reason for a noble lady like you to care about such commoners?"

"As I thought," Freya said, nodding calmly. "I'm afraid I cannot accept that proposal."

"A noble who refuses to drink the offered wine, I see."

"It is because I am a noble that I have honor to uphold."

Tsk. Boris clicked his tongue lightly and hoisted the hammer he had lowered onto his shoulder. "Igor."

"Right. Go, Boris."

The moment the words left his lips, Boris moved. The warhammer sliced through the air. The hammerhead, swung horizontally, surged forward with the momentum to wipe out the entire corridor where the students stood. Karl lunged forward. His blade, infused with Aura, narrowly deflected the hammer's trajectory. BOOM! The wall where the hammer grazed was gouged out like tofu.

"Oh, Aura? Do they teach this to mere undergraduates these days? Must be worth the tuition!"

The next strike followed immediately. Karl realized he didn't have much Aura left. He couldn't keep blocking such a monstrous hammer with a simple self-defense blade. So, Karl chose evasion over defense. "Back!" he shouted, pushing Freya and Valeria behind him. He ducked under the hammer's path. As it passed over his head, his hair ruffled in the wind. From beneath it, Karl’s sword rose. An upward diagonal slash infused with Aura, aimed at Boris's flank. Boris tried to block by planting the hammer's handle, but this, too, was part of Karl's plan. 'Thank goodness. The movements themselves are monotonous.'

Karl’s blade shifted trajectory, passing under the handle and slicing into Boris's thigh. A spray of blood hit the floor. "Oh?" Boris's eyes widened. "I didn't know you had this kind of skill when you were getting beaten up in prison." With those words, Boris swung his hammer again.

At the same time, the gaunt dark mage Igor began to chant from behind Boris to support him. But the moment his lips began to move, "Ventus." Wind erupted from Valeria's staff first. It was a basic wind spell. Of course, as a basic spell, its destructive power was negligible. But it contained enough force to knock out an adult male if it caught him squarely in the jaw. The gaunt dark mage Igor tilted his head to avoid the wind. But Valeria didn't regret the miss. Her goal wasn't to subdue Igor.

Igor attempted to chant again. "Dra—" "Ventus." Her purpose was solely to disrupt the dark mage's incantation. Even for a high-ranking mage, casting magic without an incantation would be a significant burden. Valeria was simply doing the best she could, targeting that weakness. "...Clever." Realizing her intent, Igor praised her calmly.

While Karl handled Boris and Valeria handled Igor, click. In the shadows, Freya quietly checked the chamber of her revolver. Consecrated Silver Bullets. They were the very bullets said to have assassinated a Count-level noble and brought down a 2nd-Circle dark mage. 'I have to land this.' Her target was the 1st-Circle mage, Igor. Once the giant was defeated, she could join the fray and they would have a fighting chance. Freya steadied her breathing. Confirming once more that Igor's attention was focused on Valeria, she quietly aimed at the center of his chest. And the moment Valeria's wind cut off Igor's incantation, BANG! The gunshot tore through the corridor. The silver bullet flew in a straight line and embedded itself in Igor's chest. Igor’s upper body snapped backward from the direct hit. "Igor!"

Boris, the giant with the hammer, was flustered by the fact that Igor had been hit. Karl didn't miss the opening. STAB! His sword pierced the giant's abdomen. It was over. A look of certainty flashed in Freya's glacier-blue eyes. At least, that was what she thought—until Igor, who had been reeling backward, slowly lifted his head.

"Huh?"

"Haa... as expected, it's a pain I can never get used to, no matter how many times I'm hit." Igor spat the unlit cigarette from his mouth onto the floor. His chest, where the silver bullet had struck, was perfectly clean. Looking closely, the bullet seemed to have been stopped by something in front of his chest. The gaunt mage picked up the silver bullet that had stopped at his chest. "...You use expensive bullets."

Black things poured out from inside Igor's robe. They were insects. The same fingernail-sized black beetles that had blocked Boris's throat earlier. The beetles were densely covering Igor's chest. Dozens of beetles that touched the silver hissed and burned away. And that was all. There wasn't a single scratch on Igor himself. Igor dropped the silver bullet to the floor.

"The operation itself was excellent. It was a very well-coordinated attack for students with no real combat experience." Igor clapped slowly, sluggishly. "But in the end, you're just students." Snap. His clapping stopped. "I don't know where you got such expensive bullets, my lady, but as expected of a noble—possessing an item and knowing how to use it are two different things."

Crunch. The mage stepped on the silver bullet rolling on the floor. "How many mages do you think this bullet has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠killed until now? Do you really think mages wouldn't have prepared countermeasures against it, my lady?"

The moment she heard those words, a fact flashed through Freya's mind. In the past, when Erika talked about defeating a dark mage with a silver bullet, Freya had one question. Why did she have Otto and Wangcho fire the gun instead of Julian? Why didn't she pull the trigger while the dark mage was chanting? Igor was providing the answer.

"You should have at least aimed for the moment when the mage exhausted their mana or the recoil hit immediately after casting a spell. Or, at the very least, you should have imbued the bullet with Aura."

A silver bullet has no effect unless it hits directly. Mages who knew this well would always have countermeasures prepared. In Igor's case, he had used the sacrifice of his familiars to take the hit. "You lacked understanding of the very weapon you were using, my lady."

At that moment, a strange sound came from Boris, the one with the hammer. Zzzzzzz. It was the sound coming from Boris's abdomen, which Karl had just pierced. Freya turned her head. Karl's sword, infused with Aura, had definitely pierced Boris's stomach. It was certain, seeing as the tip had poked out behind his back. But with the blade still embedded, Boris's flesh was writhing. Soon, the flesh bulged, pushing the blade out. The hole vanished, and the skin knit itself back together. Karl stepped back two paces, gripping his sword again. "I've never heard of such enhancement surgery."

Boris smirked. He tapped the tattoo on his left arm with his finger. "Enhancement surgery, kid? When did I ever say that?" Boris's body began to change. Scales sprouted over his skin. His arms thickened, his fingernails split and sharpened into claws. A tail emerged from behind his back. "Ever heard of Chimera Surgery?" His vertically slit pupils reflected the light of the mana-stone lamp. Valeria reacted immediately. She pushed Ellie toward the wall and aimed her staff at the lizard-giant. "Prutinis." The incantation was completed on her lips. But the magic did not manifest. The mana flowed, the formula was correct, and the conditions were met. She even had the symbol. Yet, the miracle did not manifest at the tip of her staff. Why? She had followed all the conditions and symbols—

While Valeria was flustered, Boris's tail swung horizontally toward Valeria and Ellie. Karl instinctively leaped in front of the two. He tried to block with his sword, but the mass of the scale-covered tail was beyond what the top student of the swordsmanship department could handle. THUD. With a dull sound, Karl’s body was launched into the air. Spinning once in mid-air, he slammed back-first into the wall at the end of the corridor. "Karl-sunbae!" Freya screamed. Valeria's hand holding the staff trembled. 'Why isn't it working? Why?' A hoarse voice pierced Valeria's pale, panicked consciousness. "Didn't I tell you? You're at a student level."

Valeria turned her head. Igor was slowly waving his finger. Like a metronome, slowly, left to right. "For a mage, knowledge is power. At your level, you wouldn't even be able to grasp which condition I changed."

Valeria's face hardened. Dispel. A technique to invalidate an opponent's magic by secretly changing the conditions and symbols the opponent doesn't know. She knew it in theory. But she had never encountered it in student-level sparring, and certainly never in a real fight. "When facing a higher-ranking mage, hiding your formula is the priority. Do they not teach this in the advanced courses anymore?" Igor pulled out a new unlit cigarette and put it in his mouth. "Wind and ice are your majors? Easy to read. You used too much magic. If everything could be solved by blocking incantations with mere basic magic, why would mages bother learning intermediate magic?"

In a battle between mages, one shot is crucial. The more magic is used, the more the conditions and symbols one favors are exposed. For mages, where the gap in knowledge is the weapon, the exposure of one's major becomes a fatal weakness as the fight drags on. Therefore, mages usually only reveal their true strength when they are certain they can land a fatal blow. Like Igor now. "You used so much magic so recklessly, you must be getting dizzy by now."

As Igor said, Valeria was staggering. It was mana sickness. Along with the barrage of partially-broken basic magic incantations, there was the recoil from the magic failing at the end. No matter how basic the magic, there was no way her mana would remain after such a spree. "I guess you've never had a proper real-world fight."

"Why are you explaining everything so kindly, you bastard? Did you suddenly wake up to a passion for education after being kicked out?" The lizard-man, who had been listening to Igor quietly, grumbled while picking his ear. Igor paused for a moment. "...Even so, I was sincere when I was on the podium."

"I'm sure you were."

"You wouldn't know. The feeling when a talented student understands my lesson. That's something you can never taste in this line of work."

"You're the one who ran off because you couldn't stand your students surpassing you, yet you have so much to say."

Grind. Igor gnashed his teeth and glared at Boris. The lizard-man smirked and raised his middle finger. "Shut up and finish it quickly. The flames from upstairs will probably come down soon. What are you going to do about the lady?"

"It won't deviate much from the original plan." The hooded mage's gaze turned toward Freya. "I'll take care of the rest. As for the lady... since persuasion seems impossible, I'll erase her memories at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hideout and send her back."

"That's a hassle."

"If the Baron chases us to the end, it'll be a headache."

"True enough."

Boris raised his warhammer vertically. His target was Karl, who had collapsed against the wall. Karl's breathing was ragged. Every time he inhaled, a tearing sound leaked from deep within his chest. Beside Karl was the girl who had been huddled there until just a moment ago. "Karl! Try to breathe! What do I do!"

"Hhh... cough..."

"His breathing... what do I do... Director Shun told me what to do in times like this..."

Ellie, who had been unable to move, consumed by the opium dust, had crawled to Karl's side at some point. Tapping her head, trying to remember something desperately. Soon, her hands began to do something over Karl's chest. And Freya stepped in front of Boris, as if to protect the two. "I won't let you." Glacier-blue mana bloomed from the tip of Freya's gun. Boris frowned, annoyed, and turned back to Igor. "Igor. Can't you Dispel this too? It's getting more and more tiresome."

Igor shook his head. "It's a Vision Magic."

"So?"

"Dispel is impossible. She's likely using conditions that only those who share the blood of that family can read. That's why it's called Vision Magic."

"Damn it. Nobles are annoying wherever you go."

Leaning his warhammer on his shoulder, Boris looked down at Freya. His vertically slit lizard pupils met Freya's glacier-blue eyes. "Let me ask you one thing, my lady." Boris's voice was devoid of hostility. "Is this a relationship worth risking your life for? I've never seen school seniors and juniors be this close."

To this, Freya answered without hesitation. "It's not that they're precious, so I protect them."

One person flashed through her mind. The one she admired so much, the only one who scattered kindness in this dark world. His selfless kindness had saved countless lives, and it had saved Freya as well. The girl who had grown up watching that miracle from the sidelines said, "They become precious because I protect them. Relationships are things that don't even begin unless someone reaches out their hand first."

She wanted to follow that back forever. That was why she couldn't back down even in this moment. If it were him, she knew he would have done the same.

"......."

Boris's eyebrows rose. A brief silence filled the corridor. Haa... The lizard's heavy sigh echoed through the hallway. "If they're still breathing, the elders will take care of it." He raised his warhammer again. As if in response, Freya placed her finger on the trigger. That was when it happened. The voice Freya had been longing to hear echoed through the corridor.

"I agree with that sentiment, Lady Freya."

"Ignus tacto."

As if cutting into the nostalgic voice, a low incantation was heard. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠WHOOSH! A crimson stream of fire descended the stairs, engulfing Igor and Boris. The entire corridor grew hot with heat. Freya's cheeks burned. But despite being exposed to such heat at such close range, none of the students suffered burns. It was to the point where one couldn't even fathom how delicate the formula and exception handling applied to these flames were.

"Igor!"

"I know."

Insects poured out from the walls and ceiling. Hundreds of beetles built a wall in front of Igor and Boris. The beetles burned, absorbing the flames. HISSSSSSS— The smell of burning insects filled the corridor. The flames subsided. But the cost was high. "Tsk... more than half consumed." Igor stared at the end of the corridor with hollow eyes. "Checking my circle and using the existing fire instead of showing off your own magic. A brilliant judgment."

"Why are you so impressed by everything, you bastard?"

"Be careful, Boris. They are experienced in battles between mages. Even if my circle is higher, I could be caught off guard."

Already, the door toward the exit was open. Beyond it, men in black combat uniforms were walking in. The emblem of the Ironclad Special Forces was embroidered on their chests. They dispersed in perfect order while wearing gas masks. The sound of military boots hitting the stone floor rang out at regular intervals. And at the head of those troops, two people walked out side-by-side. One was carrying a massive magical tool connected to a nozzle, looking almost like a gun. Commander Shen. "We received the contact from the Nihilit family, my lady." The commander of the Ironclad Special Forces saluted Freya lightly before stepping aside. And the man standing next to him took a step forward. A man in a suit and a fedora, out of place on a battlefield. The brim of his hat covered the upper part of his face, leaving only his jawline and lips visible. Valeria's eyes widened. "Director... Shun?"

The man in the fedora—Director Shun—slid the brim of his hat up. "Sorry I'm late. The fairies wouldn't open their mouths, so it took a while to coax them."

Freya felt as if Director Shun had winked at her from beneath that low-pressed hat brim.