Chapter 155
Chapter 155
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 155
Chapter Title: Second Encounter (4)
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As Marsha fired another sound cannon, Shirone pressed his hands hard against his ears. In this moment, no magic was more effective than simply covering his ears.
“Aaargh!”
But Shirone's assumption was spectacularly wrong.
The sound cannon, on a completely different level than before, pierced through the backs of his hands. If he hadn't covered his ears, his eardrums would have burst.
“Hoo, you underestimate your big sis too much. I may not have gone to an academy, but I know a thing or two about sequences.”
According to the Magic Society's classifications, Marsha was a non-academy mage, but she was also a veteran who had taken down countless mages. It was no exaggeration to say she had learned the theories crucial for real combat through experience.
“Banshee's Scream.”
As Marsha vibrated her Spirit Zone, a bizarre, drawn-out sound filled the room.
Frightened by the sudden phenomenon, Shirone shot to his feet. He couldn't see. The world was pitch black, as if his retinas had been smeared with ink.
‘What? What kind of magic is this?’
Sound mages travel the world, collecting all sorts of sounds. Among them, the banshee is a winged, humanoid monster living in high mountain regions, characterized by the upper body of a woman.
It emits a unique high-frequency wave to blind its prey before devouring it, and Marsha had used sound magic to perfectly imitate that frequency.
Shirone grew anxious. He couldn't locate his opponent with his Spirit Zone.
The small space was chaotic with the reverberation of sound waves, and Marsha herself was only perceptible as the epicenter of the sound.
While Shirone's senses were paralyzed, Marsha had already closed in beside him. She thrust her palm toward his ear. A direct hit from a sound cannon at this range would shut down his brain functions.
‘Goodbye, Shirone.’
At that moment, Shirone's zone vibrated violently. Detecting the danger with her sonar-like sensitivity, Marsha immediately retreated. Simultaneously, an overload of energy erupted, shoving aside the equipment in the room.
With his eyes squeezed shut, Shirone wrapped his surroundings in a laser.
While rapidly whipping the laser around didn't cause significant impact, Marsha, who had witnessed its power in the first trial, ducked under a desk.
Hiding behind cover, Marsha couldn't see what was in front of her. But using her sonar-like detection, she could clearly sense what Shirone was doing.
‘Huh?’
Marsha's heart sank. Shirone was concentrating a Photon Cannon right in front of him, aimed precisely in her direction.
How on earth? The Banshee's Scream echoing in the small room wouldn't just disappear.
Marsha remembered how the laser had whipped around the room.
‘No way. Did he cut the sound?’
The vibration of sound waves isn't something that can be disrupted by ordinary magic. But a laser, a high-efficiency energy amplification spell, could very well slice through them.
Marsha didn't know the principles of a laser, but Shirone knew the principles of sound. This was the difference in their ability to respond. It was why magic academies taught numerous subjects beyond one's major.
“Damn...!”
Shirone's eyes flew open, clear and focused, as he fired the Photon Cannon where Marsha was. At the same time, Marsha shot out like a flying squirrel and rolled to the side.
*KABOOOOM!*
A heavy sphere of light pierced through the building's wall and shot outward.
***
The battle in the forest was like a war.
Freeman's men must have been mistaken about the price of mana bullets. They fired their guns without a hint of reservation, completely destroying the surrounding landscape.
But it was they who were being cornered. Their number, once twenty, had dwindled to seven. And still, they couldn't even pinpoint Amy's location.
“Damn it! Where the hell is she?”
“There! She just passed over there!”
From deep within the forest, a burning stone came flying. It struck the back of a gunner's head before he could turn, and he lost consciousness even with his Schema active.
“Damn it! She's deliberately using projectile-type magic.”
“She's like a ghost. Moving that fast, yet her accuracy is incredible.”
What's important for a gunner is mobility and accuracy. Amy overwhelmed them in both.
Her ability to use Fly magic with such stability, and for her targeting to be near-perfectly accurate, was because she was the owner of the Red Eyes.
“Hoo, six left now. No, wait, seven including Freeman.”
Amy once again levitated the surrounding stones. The stones heated up, glowing red, then burst into flames like lava.
Just as the Photon family had Photonization Theory, the Flame family had Ignition Theory. Called 'Ignite,' it was the fundamental magic of the Flame family.
The properties of flames that could be created with Ignite were broadly divided into five categories.
Heat, which generates warmth; Flare, which creates fire; Burn, which sets things alight; Blaze, which incinerates a wide area; and Buster, which causes explosions.
Heating stones with Burn-type flames was a spell called Fire Coal, which burned rocks like lava and sent them flying.
For a flame mage, the Burn family was important. It could compensate for the inherent weakness of flames—their lack of mass. That's why it was perfect for dealing with gunners who used Schema.
“Shall we go again?”
Soaring into the sky, Amy mercilessly dropped the Fire Coals.
Compared to Meteor, a literal meteor strike, it was child's play, but for those on the receiving end, it was terrifying.
“Above us! Fire everything!”
The gunners raised their guns to the sky and fired a barrage of mana bullets. But Amy, who adjusted for errors using her Self-Image Memory, was toying with her enemies in terms of evasion and accuracy.
Fly magic was easy for anyone to learn, but maintaining balance in the air, where the atmosphere constantly changed, was no simple task.
And yet, Amy hovered in the sky as if she were stationary. Her eyes, backing up her Self-Image at incredible speed, were rapidly flashing with red light.
With every exchange of projectiles, the number of enemies dwindled one by one.
When only two of Freeman's men were left, Amy unleashed all her remaining Fire Coals.
This time, she didn't even need to aim precisely. The burning stones slammed into the heads and backs of the enemies as they turned to flee, making sickening thuds.
Only then did Amy deactivate her Fly magic and land in the clearing.
Twenty gunners, annihilated in an instant. Now, only Freeman remained.
“Your men were just taken out, but your expression hasn't changed a bit. Aren't you a little too cold? Or are you just a coward?”
“If hating to fight makes me a coward, then I suppose I might be.”
Amy frowned at Freeman's words. If this was psychological warfare, it was quite a high-level technique.
But Freeman didn't seem to care what she thought.
-Here comes Freeman. Here comes Freeman the coward.
-Make Freeman cry and Marsha will come. The pathetic loser who needs a girl to help him.
Recalling an old memory, Freeman said something unexpected.
“Let's stop.”
“What? What did you just say?”
Amy was dumbfounded. She was on the verge of victory, and he suddenly wanted to stop. Besides, saying such a thing was disrespectful to his men who had fought and died.
“I'm worried about the commander. I think I need to go. I don't want to see her fall.”
“Hmph, nobody likes to lose. You should've lived a better life from the start.”
“That's not what I mean. She must never be defeated. Not even if it means dying.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Freeman didn't answer Amy's question. He just continued his own story, as if muttering to himself.
“The commander is strong. Your friends might die.”
“Hmph, Shirone is stronger. He'll never lose to a woman like that.”
“How pure. It's nice that you believe in your man, but you'll come to regret it.”
Annoyed at being mistaken for some lovesick girl, Amy raised her fist and shouted.
“Don't be ridiculous. And I'm stronger than Shirone, you bastard. I'm not letting you go anywhere, so you're going down right here.”
“Is that so.”
Realizing negotiations had failed, Freeman gripped a gun in each hand and activated his Schema.
His form, which had been facing Amy, blurred like an afterimage and then vanished.
Amy couldn't even react. But when she felt a presence behind her through her zone, she hastily twisted her body.
Freeman's kick grazed the tip of her chin. Amy gritted her teeth in frustration.
‘Damn... I messed up!’
She'd expected a ranged attack since he was a gunner, but he had closed the distance for hand-to-hand combat. His mindset was clearly different from his subordinates, who had relied solely on mana bullets.
“Hmph! I'll get serious too!”
As Amy corrected her staggered posture, Freeman leaped into the air and fired a volley of mana bullets. The fireballs, propelled by explosive force, fell toward Amy like a dotted line.
But Amy also fired a volley of Flame Strikes, neutralizing them all.
Matching points and lines on an infinitely vast coordinate plane was extremely difficult. The two were neck and neck in terms of precision.
Clashing again on the ground, the two engaged in a firefight at point-blank range. But as expected, the gunner had the advantage at close quarters.
“In that case...!”
Amy deployed a defensive spell, Fire Mist. A hot wind blew, and reddish smoke enveloped the area like a cloud of gas.
As Freeman moved out of its range, Amy fired a volley of Flame Strikes to finish him off. A dozen spears of flame surged forward, burning the air.
*Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh-BOOM!*
But that wasn't the end of it. She repeatedly teleported, circling Freeman and endlessly firing spells.
The moment dozens of Flame Strikes converged on a single point, Freeman's eyes widened as he opened his Schema.
Compound Eye, one of the eye techniques.
The scene Freeman was watching fractured into pieces, as if seen through the eyes of an insect.
As the individually analyzed information arrived, Freeman's waist bent and swayed like a willow branch.
The successive Flame Strikes, following one after another, passed by him in chronological order without so much as grazing his clothes.
Amy sensed that this was no ordinary technique. It was nothing compared to her Red Eyes, but it was clearly an eye technique specialized for a gunner.
She changed her strategy and hid in the forest. As long as her opponent was a top-class gunner, she stood no chance in close combat.
However, Amy had another specialty: sniping. Moving to a point 300 meters away, she observed Freeman. She could see him calmly opening his cylinder and replacing the mana bullets.
‘Hmph, let's see how long you can afford to be so relaxed.’
Amy transformed her target-type Spirit Zone into sniper mode. Her zone stretched out in the shape of a cone, aiming for Freeman's face.
Due to the nature of Flame Strike, its power amplified with distance. This was because it created an Air Tunnel, a characteristic of wind magic.
By using air pressure, an object's speed could be accelerated the further it flew. A Flame Strike fired from 300 meters would have at least four times the power of one fired at close range.
As Amy cast the spell, the spear of flame was sucked into the Air Tunnel and surged toward Freeman.
By the time it crossed the 200-meter mark, Amy thought it was over. At its current acceleration, its speed over the remaining 100 meters would be more than four times what it was for the first 200.
In short, Freeman would never be able to react.
As expected, Freeman didn't move. But Amy was horrified. The Flame Strike had slammed into a spot far away from Freeman.
‘Did I make a mistake?’
In that moment, Amy realized. A strange sensation had infiltrated her mind.
“Anti-Magic...”
Freeman's guns were clearly enchanted with Anti-Magic.
She could feel it was only about three percent, but at a distance of 300 meters, the margin of error would inevitably become enormous.
Anti-Magic was dangerous for her. Because it was a magic that directly affected her zone, something even her Red Eyes couldn't counter.