Until His Return (2)
"Huh. They're moving pretty fast, aren't they?"
The tiger-eared woman rolled her neck and looked down at the Elgrid guards racing toward them.
They used to be easy to bribe—rotten garbage that had already sunk as far as they could go. But once Haini Rosales, the royal inspector, had seized on their ties to a former pirate officer, the whole force had been cleaned out in one sweep.
Thanks to that, Dogfight had completely cut off its drug trade on the Elgrid side.
"Lady Horan, what should we do?"
At another Dogfight member's question, Horan stretched and jerked her chin toward the approaching guards.
"You handle them. I want that one who looks like a maid."
"Understood."
"Charlie, Hare—you're with me. I hear the headmaster and the other professors can throw around a decent amount of magic."
"Yep!"
"Understood."
Charlie, a slight man with a frivolous air, and Hare fell in behind Horan.
But Horan left them behind. In just a few bounding leaps she landed right in front of the Aeos Academy dormitory, grinning as she pointed a finger at the maid.
"Come down. Or should I come to you?"
"……"
Smoothing her scorched clothes, Bertia launched herself from the collapsed wall and landed squarely in front of Horan.
"Hmm. Shame you're already hurt."
Feigning concern for an enemy's condition was a common form of provocation—but Horan didn't look like the type to use that kind of trick.
She genuinely seemed disappointed by Bertia's injuries.
Bertia, once the leader of the royal shadow corps.
Wounded on a mission and forced into retirement, her combat ability no longer matched what it once was—yet her razor-sharp instincts were still very much alive.
She's strong.
Even at her peak, Bertia couldn't have guaranteed a win against this woman.
The tiger-eared woman standing before her carried that much raw presence.
"Let's get started, then."
Horan smiled and clenched her fists.
White bandages wound tight around her hands, and as her robe sleeves slipped down, the scar-riddled wrists beneath stood out in stark relief.
The type who grew stronger by carving away her own flesh.
Bertia tensed and raised her dagger.
She had to buy even a little time here—so the princess could escape or hide.
Bertia was ready to throw her life away. Unfortunately, the exact opposite of what she hoped for unfolded instead.
"Just where do you get off deciding to throw your life away on your own?"
Golden hair streaming behind her, Elise landed with elegant grace, gripping her golden treasured sword—its blade twisted and undulating like a tree branch—and joined the fight.
"L-Lady Elise!"
Bertia was flustered, but Elise was already locking eyes with Horan.
"There's no need to sacrifice yourself. Kill the enemy and everything ends, doesn't it?"
"But Lady Elise—!"
Before Bertia could finish shouting, two more girls landed at Elise's side.
Hayun, the eastern swordswoman, and Sen, formerly of the Execution Squad.
"This actually works out better. Instead of us chasing them down, we've got a chance to wipe them all out at once."
"Dogfight. Finally showed up."
Both drew their weapons and leveled them at Horan. Horan, for her part, looked them over with genuine interest.
"Hmm. A swordswoman who uses dual blades… and that artificial white hair—Execution Squad?"
"Former Execution Squad."
Sen stated it firmly, making it clear she had completely left that life behind. She almost wished Daniel could have seen it—he would have given her a standing ovation.
"That's not exactly an organization you can just walk out of whenever you feel like it."
Even as she said it, Horan's expression was pure satisfaction—like a glutton seated at a table piled high with food.
"Anyone else? If there are more of you, come on out already. I believe the good stuff is best shared."
"How arrogant."
Elise smiled sweetly and activated the enchantments woven into the rings on her fingers. A cascade of reinforcement magic—spells even Daniel had acknowledged—poured over her.
"That's… quite something."
This time even Horan couldn't hide her surprise.
She hadn't expected magic of that caliber to be bound into mere rings.
With Elise's presence exploding outward, Horan's first priority shifted from Bertia to the princess.
But in that same instant—
"Horan. This is a mission."
A light, frivolous voice.
Unlike Horan, who had reached Aeos Academy through sheer physical ability, Charlie arrived a beat later. A green light was spilling from inside his sleeve.
His oversized robe hid his hands, but that ominous glow drew every eye.
"Huh?"
Every support spell wrapping Elise's body vanished at once.
And it didn't stop there.
The ambient mana in the area began to drain away, until even the simplest spells became impossible.
"Tch. I would have preferred a real fight over a mission, but it can't be helped. Can't have the leader disappointed because I got greedy."
Looking at the weakened Elise with open regret, Horan bounced lightly in place—then shot forward.
"All right! Let's start!"
BOOM!
"Ghk—!"
Naturally, it was Bertia who threw herself between Elise and Horan.
Already battered from her earlier injuries and from blocking a fireball, she was sent tumbling across the ground by a single blow.
"Bertia!"
"Don't take your eyes off me!"
Horan's sweeping hand lashed out again—this time straight at Elise behind her.
Elise hastily raised her sword, but in her current state she couldn't meet Horan's crushing strike head-on.
The impact hit like a flying boulder. Elise was hurled backward into the academy wall. The wall crumbled, burying her beneath the rubble.
Two down in an instant.
Hayun drew and struck in a single fluid iaijutsu motion, while Sen launched a surprise attack learned from the Execution Squad—but—
"Fast, sure. But way too light."
Horan snatched both girls' blades out of the air with her bare hands and grinned.
Yet the girls' turn wasn't over.
A girl with reddish-brown bobbed hair dropped from the sky, her fist slamming dead-center into Horan's head.
It was a Maydown back-alley style—stay hidden, let the enemy think the visible fighters were all there was, then strike from ambush.
"I already told you. Too light."
Horan took the hit and only smiled wider, swinging her arm in answer.
There was no high-level martial theory in it, no secret technique of a master.
Just a swing.
A simple, full-powered blow—but its force was anything but simple.
All three girls went flying, unable to hold their ground.
It didn't feel like fighting a human.
A beast.
A pure predator that crushed, tore, and hunted its prey on nothing but instinct and raw power.
Then figures came running from the academy side. Hare, standing beside Charlie, pointed at the old woman leading the charge.
"That woman is the headmaster."
"Oh?"
"A mage, right? Not much use if she can't cast."
Charlie waved the green-glowing right hand hidden in his sleeve this way and that.
Thanks to that, the professors skilled in magic stood mute and helpless. Only those who taught swordsmanship or practical combat charged forward alongside the guards.
"These ones look a little more fun, at least."
They might not have had many chances to show their strength lately, but every one of them held a professorship at the prestigious Aeos Academy.
Naturally, they outclassed the schoolgirls in both skill and experience, and they pressed Horan hard and fast.
"Yes! This is a fight!"
Even as she was forced back, surrounded by professors, Horan laughed brightly and swung her arms.
For a split second, the professors felt a chill.
They were the ones pushing her—yet it felt exactly like a tiger coiling its body, preparing to leap.
"Don't give her an opening!"
"If we yield even a step, she'll break out that way!"
Sensing it, the professors moved even more fiercely, determined not to leave the slightest gap.
If the encirclement cracked even a little, this woman would become a raging tiger and tear everything apart—that much was obvious.
But then—
"Aaaaaaagh!"
A woman's scream tore through the skies over Elgrid.
The cry was so piercing, so bone-chilling, that the professors froze for an instant. It wasn't magic or any special ability.
Just fear.
Fear of the scream's owner opened a fleeting gap—
"Broke through!"
The enraged tiger overpowered three professors in a blink and ripped the encirclement wide open.
Separate from Horan's rampage, a girl with a massive tail, wings, and horns—silhouetted against the round moon in the night sky—was soaring over Elgrid, unleashing indiscriminate destruction.
Dyna McLane had begun her rampage across the city's skies.
"Ugh. It's over."
And then, as if he had been there all along, a plain-looking man stood beside Hare and Charlie. He stretched with a weary expression, as though he had just woken up.
A simple gesture—yet his mere presence crushed the atmosphere.
"That one's going to thrash around for a while before she calms down. You can take it easy and play until then."
Only the headmaster among everyone present could sense the magical depth of the man.
He used short-range warp that casually, and there's no mana turbulence, no sign of fatigue.
On top of that, in a situation where no one else could use magic at all, he was casting as calmly as if he existed in another world entirely.
Dangerous.
The headmaster felt a surge of crisis and began frantically searching for some way to call for reinforcements—
"You're not getting away."
A girl's chilling voice rang out.
From the blown-open dormitory, a black-haired girl looked down on them all—Rin.
Black energy poured menacingly from her chest, beginning to soak the earth. Horan instinctively put distance between them.
"That one looks pretty dangerous."
"Rin……"
It wasn't magic—no one could handle mana right now.
Everyone tensed at the sight of that unidentified black energy. Hare, in particular, looked shaken at how drastically her old friend had changed.
Only Dogfight's leader stared at Rin with both eyes wide open.
And then, a single word.
"Found you."
In an instant, mana began to churn.
In a situation where no one else could touch mana, Dogfight's leader alone had become its master—and he was about to unleash his full power.
"Earliest Apocalypse. I've searched so long for you."
The leader began to rise into the air.
In that moment, no one could move without his permission.
"I'll tear you to shreds. I'll make sure you can never wield that cursed power again."
His presence and pressure were strong enough to threaten not just Aeos, but all of Elgrid—
Then a blue flash slammed down into the center of the city like a striking bolt.
There, a male student, an elf, and an eccentric mage who had used warp magic appeared, shattering the atmosphere.