Chapter 394
Chapter 394
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 394
Chapter Title: Capture the High Ground (3)
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From the third round, Team Screamer abandoned their spear-to-spear tactics and employed an advanced strategy. Pony, the winger, had moved to the center lane, running alongside Suabi.
‘They've shifted. As expected, they're not going to make this easy.’
Three people in the center lane meant they had essentially abandoned the left lane.
Sure enough, Luman had retreated all the way to the hill, covering all three lanes.
As they entered the range of Death's Rhapsody, Suabi's concentration wavered. At that moment, Pony cast her spell.
Refresh.
A refreshing sensation washed over Suabi's mind, completely nullifying the effects of Death's Rhapsody.
It offered no physical defense, but it was a spell of the highest rarity, capable of blocking most crowd control effects.
It was no exaggeration to say that Refresh alone made it worthwhile to include a hydro-type mage in a party.
“Hahaha! What do you think? Can you still stop us now?”
Equipped with his combat package, Screamer once again transformed into a weapon, rampaging across the battlefield.
Maya maintained her spell until the very end. She couldn't take down Suabi, but just by tying up Pony's presence with a single Refresh, she was doing more than her role as a guard required.
‘Suabi is the key, as expected. It was the same last year… That kid is truly amazing.’
The duration of the twenty buffs in the combat package varied; the vision enhancement buff lasted 1.13 seconds, while the muscular endurance augmentation buff lasted 1.78 seconds.
Initially, she cast them in order, but after about twenty cycles, the buffs with shorter durations would have completed one or two extra cycles and would need to be inserted in the middle.
Furthermore, she had to calculate the time spent on the rotation itself, so it wasn't an empty claim that this was the most concentration-intensive school of magic.
‘Tick-tock-tick-tack. Tock. Tack-tick-tick. Tack-tick-tick.’
Thus, utility mages employed a unique technique called Cross Force, different from standard force.
In essence, it involved setting up a cross-shaped intersection, placing a battery at the center, and then colliding reserved batteries into it from four directions.
The reason they could cycle through twenty types of buffs with perfect timing was thanks to a unique rhythm: 'tick-tock-tack-tick'.
A strike from the vertical direction was 'tick,' from the horizontal was 'tock,' and a rebound from the same direction was 'tack.' This method allowed them to feel discrepancies of mere fractions of a second through rhythm.
‘Tick-tick tack-tick-tock tick-ka-tick-tock tick-tick tack-tick-tock.’
Boom. Boom-ba-boom. Boom-boom. Ba-ba-ba-boom.
Iruki carefully watched the effects exploding above Screamer's head in a peculiar rhythm.
‘0.11 seconds. 0.23 seconds. 0.38 seconds. 0.49 seconds...’
It was a cycle as precise as a machine. The speed at which she swapped batteries was also worthy of applause.
‘I'll cut it here.’
But this, too, was merely a phenomenon occurring within the calculations of Iruki's Servant.
Cancellation.
As Screamer's strength enhancement buff was canceled, Suabi, who had been maintaining the tick-tock-tack-tick rhythm, furrowed her brow.
When the vision enhancement and flexibility augmentation buffs also disappeared, the rhythm of her Cross Force began to unravel.
‘Even for a Servant, being this fast is cheating.’
Cancellation was a difficult spell because it required perfectly reversing the magic's vector.
However, that was a separate issue from reading the batteries that flashed by four times per second.
In short, even while analyzing the vectors of the batteries and their full potential without a shred of error, Iruki's thoughts were faster than Suabi's.
“What's going on, Suabi!”
Screamer shouted, looking back. She had never made a mistake with her force before, so the current situation was unacceptable.
“Where are you looking during a match?”
Screamer hastily turned his head back. Nade's hands thrust forward, unleashing a Lightning Shock.
“Gah! You bastard!”
Screamer's body was stunned.
“What? Squealing like a pig?”
Nade raised his fist on Shirone's behalf.
“You're the one who should be squealing like a pig!”
Struck squarely on the jaw, Screamer's head snapped to the side as if it would break.
Meanwhile, in Team Screamer's camp, Luman was desperately trying to hold off Shirone and Amy.
He was stalling for time with various crowd control skills like Blind, Slow Trap, and Air Press, but this forward-link combination was incredibly annoying.
“Damn it! Those blasted Red Eyes!”
Amy's Red Eyes were the natural enemy of crowd control.
No matter what crowd control effect was used, her self-image memory would reset her mind, making her impossible to control.
‘No choice. I'll take out Shirone.’
Shirone's durability was formidable, but at least he was more susceptible to crowd control than the Red Eyes.
‘He's uglier than me, yet he's so popular.’
Luman acted on personal feelings. He believed he was the best.
To him, who believed he'd be handsome if he just lost weight, Shirone was a political rival who definitely deserved to be eliminated.
“He's probably even kissed Amy!”
“What is that idiot talking about!”
Luman's Mountain Range erupted, and a massive wall, ten meters high, separated the two.
‘Amy is out of the way. Now, Air Press!’
As immense atmospheric pressure bore down on him, Shirone's movements halted. Seizing the opportunity, Luman kicked off the ground and flew toward him.
Amy, who had bypassed the wall, widened her eyes.
Luman's back was arched like a bow, his stomach jutting out and his navel exposed. He clenched his molars tightly, his face contorted with all his might.
“Shirone! Dodge!”
It was clearly Luman's specialty, Spirit Hammer.
A non-elemental, anti-magic crowd control skill that stunned the target by colliding Spirit Zones.
It was often compared to a headbutt, and Spirit Hammer was possible because the target absorbed the impact energy as well.
‘Shirone or whatever, I'll smash you to pieces!’
Luman intended to strike with all his might.
As proven in the survival test, it was no exaggeration to call Shirone's durability the strongest among the graduating class. However, with Spirit Hammer, the harder the strike, the greater the shock to the recipient.
He would stake the pride of a crowd control mage, carry the self-esteem of the most handsome man in the graduating class, and destroy Shirone in a single blow.
“Here I coooome!”
Seeing Luman's menacing posture, Shirone instinctively adopted a defensive mental state. Just as his Spirit Zone shifted to a defensive form, Luman bounced his belly fat and swung his forehead.
CLAAAAANG!
“Guuuh!”
Shirone grimaced and staggered back.
He hadn't actually been hit in the head, but a shockwave washed over him, as if someone had struck his skull with a hammer.
“Shirone! Are you okay?”
Amy rushed over. Even from a distance, it was clear the Spirit Hammer had landed squarely.
‘But why is there no follow-up attack?’
When Amy turned her head, Luman was standing there, panting. Then, suddenly, blood burst from his nose, and his hefty body flailed before he fell on his rear.
Luman sat propped up by his arms, his eyes completely glazed over.
While anti-magic was inherently a seesaw game, Spirit Hammer was a spell that always favored the attacker.
And yet, the shock he'd received from casting Spirit Hammer was enough to knock his senses loose.
Was this what it felt like to headbutt a diamond?
‘Damn it…! How can he be this hard?’
He had been stunned by his own attack and didn't even have the strength to stand. It seemed his mental fortitude would only begin to recover around the end of the third round.
“Now's our chance! Let's go!”
Shirone ran past Luman and up the hill.
Amy glanced at their allies, saw Screamer's jaw getting rocked by Nade's punches, and followed Shirone.
Aider fought hard, firing his Air Gun, but was forced to retreat out of range by Shirone's rampage.
In that time, Amy pulled out the flag.
-End of Round 3. Round 4 will begin in 5 minutes.
Everyone's movements ceased, and the tension dissipated.
But Screamer's eyes still held a murderous glint.
He had mellowed out a lot since entering the magic academy, but the shame of being punched by another mage was unbearable.
“Are you crazy? How dare you hit me?”
Nade scoffed and said.
“Why? Are you someone special? If you do something to deserve a punch, you get punched. Why get angry over something like that?”
Screamer suddenly closed the distance and shoved his face forward.
“Oh yeah? Then how about we settle this outside? If you're a mage, stick to using magic nicely. Don't even think about throwing punches in front of me.”
Nade fell silent.
A fight that merely decided a winner and a loser couldn't excite him. But if it were a fight where one person had to die, would he still be able to provoke so easily?
“Hmph! Coward!”
As Screamer turned away, Nade's expression brightened as if nothing had happened, and he looked back at his friends.
“Alright! We've turned the tables! Let's keep this momentum going!”
Shirone asked.
“What happened? What did Screamer say?”
“Huh? I don't know, I forgot. Anyway, Maya! How was I?”
Maya realized why Nade had hit Screamer. As the one who had dragged her into the confrontation, he had landed a blow on her behalf.
“Yeah! That was so satisfying! Thanks, Nade.”
It seemed she had been bothered by the distance she had kept recently.
In truth, she had been cold because of Shirone, but the very fact that they had thought that way made her feel both sorry and grateful.
“I'm glad we have you, Maya. Even though you're a guard, you're casting debuffs, and it's throwing the enemy off.”
“Hehe! I'll do my best in the next round too!”
As Maya's face flushed red, Nade and Iruki glanced at each other. She was a complete 180 from just a few days ago.
‘Shirone praised me...’
Maya no longer wanted to hide her feelings.
She'd had chances to stop. But she had willingly jumped into hell. If so, wasn't she at least allowed to enjoy such a small joy?
Meanwhile, Screamer scowled at Luman, who was sitting like a defeated soldier.
He said this was the result of using Spirit Hammer on Shirone. As much as the guy lived in his own world, it was an absurd decision.
“What were you thinking, doing that? You know about Shirone's durability, don't you?”
“So, should I have done it to the Red Eyes? That's like pouring water into a bottomless jar. At least Shirone can be broken, right? Ugh, but that guy's head is seriously made of rock. My skull is killing me.”
Screamer sighed.
“Anyway, how is it? Think you'll recover?”
Pony said.
“I've cast Refresh on him. But I think he'll need to take it easy until the next round.”
Luman turned to Pony and said.
“Instead of that, give me a head massage. It's still throbbing.”
A vein popped on Pony's temple.
How dare he order her, a royal, to give him a massage.
Besides Fermi's group, Luman was the man she disliked most in the graduating class.
‘I can't ruin our teamwork. I don't want to hear that we lost because of me.’
Suppressing her murderous intent, Pony stood behind Luman and massaged his head.
Every time her slender fingers pressed into his scalp, a thick groan escaped Luman's lips.
“Aah, that feels good. By the way, Screamer. You're still going to introduce me to a pretty girl after this match, right?”
Pony's fingers pressed harder. She couldn't comprehend Luman's mindset of using a life-altering evaluation for his personal gain.
But in the end, that was the world of magic.
Luman knew his own personality. As long as you had skill, you would be acknowledged no matter how eccentric you were. That was the nature of mages.
“To be precise, that's if we win. So recover as fast as you can. How embarrassing would it be if we lost like this?”
“Hmph! I'll just recharge this round. Then it's a straight shot to five points, and we're done.”
For now, Luman's strategy was the most realistic. Besides, Team Shirone would surely play it safe this round, if only for Maya's sake.
The guard position didn't have much to do besides defense, but Maya had been casting spells nonstop for three rounds straight to hinder Suabi.
‘Her fundamentals are weak, so she's probably exhausted.’
Having made his decision, Screamer said.
“Alright, let's stall for time. But that doesn't mean we're giving up the round. If an opportunity arises, we'll strike and run immediately.”