The Invasion of Sepia (1)

I couldn't believe a single teleport had brought this many of them.

That was the thought that crossed my mind as I stared up at Sepia's sky—now a thoroughly alien sight, swarming with floating Bloody Dragons.

I'd already seen her teleport a pack of them all at once back in Hiades Valley, but even so, this was almost impossible to accept.

As far as I knew, teleportation only worked if bodies were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in physical contact. Did demon magic operate by some completely different rule?

If every demon turned out to be an incomprehensible lunatic like Tilia, that would be a genuine tragedy. Still, demon magic seemed to sit a full tier above what other races could manage, and that alone was enough to catch my interest.

If I could just find one demon who was willing to talk, I could have spent hours flowering into conversation about magic.

For now, though, I needed a higher vantage point to see how the situation was unfolding.

I cast a protective barrier first, to keep Hugo and Hwia safe. A white dome settled over the house, then faded into transparency.

"D-don't go outside. It's dangerous."

I made sure they both heard me. As long as they stayed inside, they would be safe from just about anything.

"Redrago, I... I'll be back."

There was no time to wait for an answer. I launched myself into the sky on flight magic.

All the combat sense I'd sharpened working commissions with Lena had left me brimming with confidence.

"Ti—Tiable!"

Hwia's voice calling after me grew fainter and fainter. There was nothing I could do about it.

The view of Sepia from above ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was beyond absurd. There was no way I could believe this was the work of a single invader.

The Bloody Dragons in the sky were barely a drop in the bucket.

Horn soldiers—as many as I'd seen in the valley, no, more—were already inside the city.

I was still staring blankly at that hopeless scene when a sharp, piercing voice rang out across the whole of Sepia.

"I, Tilia, will now destroy Sepia!"

Her thralls were slaughtering the people of Sepia by the hundreds.

It was hideous.

I never imagined she would strike with a force this size through a mass teleport.

I could see adventurers holding the line near the guild. Lena was there—was one of those continuing explosions hers?

Tilia's thralls would keep regenerating unless I hit them with those black spheres I'd used before. If this dragged into a war of attrition, we wouldn't accomplish a thing.

Sepia could fall.

But could I even use those black spheres against an army this vast? A sphere barely larger than my fist against a force like that would take me all day. And there was no guarantee I could hit only enemies. With this many people packed together, I could easily end up killing Sepia's own citizens.

The spell I'd used in the valley last time was suited for crowds, but it had that runaway feeling I didn't trust. Using it here was out of the question.

If I were fighting alone, I could just cast something overwhelmingly powerful. But fighting while protecting someone else is a different kind of hard.

Still, one possibility remained open to me.

If I killed the original body, wouldn't the thralls under her control return to normal—or simply vanish? That was the theory, at least.

Even as I hung in the sky thinking it through, people were dying. The Sepia I knew was becoming something else by the second.

I had no choice but to try.

Kill Tilia. I already knew how.

I kept drifting up there long enough that she must have spotted me—because she came rocketing toward me at an insane speed.

"We were gonna talk, weren't we~?"

Talking is something you do with words, not a brawl.

One of Tilia's arms had transformed from the shoulder down into a translucent violet blade, and she was driving straight at me as if she meant to run me through.

I snapped two layers of protective magic into place. Both finished casting cleanly before her blade could reach me.

Apparently she really did want to talk—she aimed for my shoulder, not my heart.

Of course, I didn't feel a thing.

Where her blade met my body, a massive shockwave burst outward.

With force like that, a hit anywhere would have killed me on the spot. Did she actually want a conversation, or not?

"W-what? Again?!"

"What is this?!"

Tilia panicked and started swinging ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her arm in a wild, indiscriminate frenzy.

I stepped in close while she was still trying to cut me apart, set my right hand against her chest, and muttered,

"Teleport."

The scenery around us flipped in an instant to Hiades Valley. Tilia and I were flying alone between its walls.

"What? Te—teleport?"

"You're not using demon magic, and you're not using human magic either!"

"What kind of magic are you—"

Tilia spat the words in that same sharp, high voice.

She always ignored everything I said and only ever talked about herself. It was about time she got a taste of her own medicine.

I'd seen plenty of demon attack magic.

I was curious to see what their defense magic looked like, too.

The offensive spell I'd struggled so hard to master—the one I hadn't been able to use properly even after pouring every drop of mana I had into it in my previous body.

I'd understood the structure perfectly. I just never had the mana to cast it. Or rather, I could cast it, but it never reached its full power.

Now, though—here in Hiades Valley, with no one else around but the two of us—

I could finally use it.

Tiable was gone.

She had shot into the sky, clashed with Tilia, and then vanished somewhere.

Tiable was strong. Extremely strong. But she was still a child. Could she really handle a life-or-death duel one-on-one?

Her opponent was a demon, after all. Hornless or not, a demon was a demon. Redrago himself couldn't swear he would win a fight against Tilia.

With Tiable gone alongside her, all he could do was trust her. Trust the strength she had shown in the last war against Horn.

What he had to do, then, was save Sepia from the threat in front of him.

Redrago tightened his right hand around the massive greatsword on his back.

A Bloody Dragon came lunging at him with its jaws wide open. He swept the sword in a single arc—

—and the dragon in front of him fell apart into two limp slabs of meat.

Didn't feel like I cut anything.

Something felt wrong, but Redrago kept cutting down every enemy that appeared before him.

When his blade locked against a Horn soldier's, the wrongness he'd felt crystallized into certainty.

I'm not pushing them back. This strength is unbelievable for ordinary soldiers.

As he kept locking strength against strength with the soldier, a strange sound came from behind him.

A wet, sticky, nauseating sound.

The Bloody Dragon that had clearly been split in two was already pushing new flesh out from the cut surfaces, knitting itself back into one piece.

This is not going to be an easy fight.

Even so, Redrago kept swinging his sword for Sepia's sake—

carrying the quiet hope that, once again, Tiable would pull something off.

It worked.

The spell finished casting.

I felt an enormous volume of mana drain out of me all at once.

Tilia must have felt it too. She flinched away from me on pure instinct.

"Ha! I d-don't know what kind of spell that is, but to pour this much mana into a cast—"

Then something she couldn't believe must have registered, because she went silent in an instant. Her blood-red eyes began to tremble.

She scrambled to cast a spell in the demon tongue.

Behind me, something dark and blue-black tore open in what had been clear blue sky, like a hole punched through the heavens—

and from the other side of it, a colossal stone—something so vast that "colossal" didn't even begin to cover it—pushed through into this world.

The massive falling stone—the Meteor—caught fire as it descended, accelerating toward the ground.

A roar that rattled the ears. Heat you could feel from a distance. The air itself shuddered, speaking for the spell's power.

Tilia must have burned through every spell she could cast. She just stared up at the falling Meteor in resignation.

"I never thought I'd be the one hit by a Meteor I'd only heard of in stories—"

The gap between the Meteor starting its fall and Tilia finishing her incantation had been vanishingly short.

Any ordinary mage would have had the Meteor hit the ground before they even recognized what it was.

The Meteor struck.

Dust and earth filled what had been Hiades Valley—no. It wasn't a valley anymore.

There was no valley left. Only the crater the Meteor had carved into the world.

Everything that had existed around us was gone.

And in the very center of that crater stood Tilia.

Demon magic really was a full tier above every other race. To take a spell that only existed in legends and still be standing...

I'd cast it precisely because I didn't think it would kill her.

Her violet hair had taken on the same blood-red shade as her eyes—but Tilia was alive.

"Khhek— what the hell are you...?!"

She spat a thin trail of blood, her voice barely working, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still managed to snarl it at me.

Even in that state, her temper was intact.

"Muttering some nonsense nobody understands and then— Me-Meteor...?!"

"So annoying..."

With that, Tilia lost consciousness—but her body never stopped regenerating.

She looked ready to fully recover any second.

I'd meant to subdue her, extract information through conversation, and then finish her—but the recovery was faster than expected. I thrust out my right hand to cut her life short.

"Na—ha—"

The moment I tried to use that spell to erase her completely—

a low, mid-range voice I'd never heard before spoke up.

"Wait, Tiable. Could you hold off for just a moment?"

I turned around. Standing there was a demon—one of whose horns was broken.