Just Come At Me All At Once
Flap—!
A huge cloth.
A cape billowed between the two of them.
Simon's and Jule's pupils blew wide, and they halted their attacks at once. The figure that swept in to bar their way was a girl with mint-colored hair.
Overall rank 4. Representative of the Curse Department, and Phantasos's younger sister.
Merida Hugh Ikel's light green eyes fixed quietly on Simon.
"Merida?"
A bewildered voice burst from Simon's lips.
"How did you—!"
"I heard."
She spoke in a low, taut voice.
"That you negotiated with Balak, and that from third year on, you're the one taking the Student Council President's seat."
Her eyes flashed.
Sensing some kind of misunderstanding, Simon hurried to correct her.
"No, to be precise, it wasn't Balak's decision, it was Kizen headquarters that—"
"So it's not the presidency your brother passed down to you after all. It's the one Balak handed over."
GRAAAAGH—!
A staggering tide of Jet-Black began pouring off her body.
From the mere act of releasing it, Simon felt as though he were being sucked down into the deep sea.
"So I have no reason to yield the presidency to you any longer. I acknowledged you—but the one who follows after Phantasos is going to be me."
She raised her hand.
"And that's why I—"
CRASH!
A massive sword strike suddenly slammed into her from behind. Merida deflected it with raw Jet-Black alone, rolling only her eyes to glance back.
"Terribly sorry, but I was here first."
Swish.
Jule gripped his sheath, his expression displeased.
"It is I who have business with Simon first."
"......."
Merida regarded him in silence for a moment, then her lips parted.
"You're in the way."
FWOOSHFWOOSHFWOOSHFWOOSHFWOOSH!
Simon's eyes, watching from the sidelines, went round.
Before Jule could so much as shift into a stance, dozens of Sleep curses hammered into his body like wedges.
It was a casting speed and curse output no human could react to.
"I'll say it once more."
Jule's body collapsed into the smoke, and Merida turned her head back toward Simon.
"I—"
CRASH!
Once again, the Cursed Sword's strike burst out of the smoke and smashed across Merida's back.
This time, too, the Jet-Black gushing from her body blunted the blow, but it was powerful enough to make her foot slip a step.
Merida's face twisted as she looked back.
WHOO—!
Astonishingly, Jule was still standing—on one knee, one hand braced on his Cursed Sword.
He was unharmed. His Life Gauge, which mirrored the state of his body, had barely been dented at all.
"My apologies, but it has been a long time since I surrendered 'sleep' to this blade."
Jule said in a level voice.
"There are times I enter a dormant state to mend the body, but tranquil slumber? Such a thing does not exist for me. By nature, you cannot best me."
"Nature?"
Merida's reply was ice-cold.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
FWOOSH!
FWOOSHFWOOSH!
Sleep curses erupting from every direction began raining down on Jule like the lances of a pikemen formation. His whole body convulsed and skidded back again and again, spraying off harsh sparks.
"Merida! Stop this!"
Simon tried to intervene, but Merida sent a curse flying at him too, even while keeping Jule occupied. Simon had to drop low in haste just to evade it.
"KHAGH!"
Blood surged from Jule's mouth.
Curses carried a limited number of 'stacks'—past a certain threshold, whether you cast ten times or a hundred, the effect was identical.
But Merida was hurling them with the merciless abandon of raw attack magic.
No human body could endure wave after wave of foreign Jet-Black slamming into it. Jule's frame was being torn to pieces.
"You astonish me. I cast sleep aside, and yet I feel 'drowsiness' creeping in."
Even battered by the curses, Jule curled his lips into a crooked smile.
He took the Cursed Sword in both hands and held it before his chest. Through the bandage binding his shut eyes, a single bead of blood-red tears trickled free.
"My thanks. You've shown me I still have something left to discard."
The instant that drop of blood was swallowed into the Cursed Sword's hilt, a malevolent aura rippled through the air.
Jule's hands tightened around the blade until the tendons stood out.
<Jule Original — Torment Demon>
The curses raining down on Jule were shredded apart like finely chopped ingredients.
Having cleaved every last curse out of the air, Jule kicked off the ground and came lunging in.
"Stop interfering between me and Simon. Again and again."
Merida snapped, irritated.
"You are the one in the way!"
Jule shouted back, sweeping his Cursed Sword.
GRRRUMBLE!
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!
Simon, who had ended up retreating to the sidelines, watched the two of them with an expression of utter disbelief.
Why are you two trying to kill each other?
He had no idea what was going on—but come to think of it, this was a golden chance to slip away.
There was nothing to gain from brawling between Top 10s. While the Curse Department representative and the Magic Combat representative tore into each other, Simon began edging quietly backward.
Then.
'?'
A great toy building stood squarely in front of him.
'What the—since when?'
The landscape of volcano and scorched rock had vanished without him noticing, and all around him the world was turning into the streets of a toy city.
"Keep interfering—"
Merida climbed atop the blanket spread out in the air above her.
"—and I'll beat you down until you fall asleep."
<Merida Original — Selfless Reverie>
Toy houses kept rising out of the desolate terrain all around. Simon's eyes swept the surroundings sharply.
'So Merida can fully wield Senior Phantasos's Selfless Reverie now. But this is—!'
Phantasos's Selfless Reverie transformed the surroundings into an open sea, with sea creatures drifting through it.
Merida's version was a little different. She was turning the entire area into a toy world.
Toy houses and trees sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain, the barren ground reshaped itself into patterns of interlocking building blocks, and overhead, a dangling baby's mobile—the kind you'd find in a nursery—spun slowly in circles.
Across the whole front, figures shaped like a child's scrawled doodles, grotesque and terrible, wandered the toy city. Every inch of the space was becoming a child's plaything.
'And what's with this smoke?'
A violet fog blanketed the entire city.
It carried the curse effect of Sleep. Simon felt drowsiness seeping into him drop by drop—but as a fellow user of the Phantasos-style Sleep, he had built up a resistance to it.
THUD—! THUD—! THUD—! THUD—!
Just then, something like the sound of footsteps echoed from an alley at the edge of the city. Simon turned his head to see strange shapes converging out of the alley's depths.
Toy rocking horses, eyeless stuffed animals, toy soldiers—every kind of toy imaginable was clumping together into a colossal tidal wave of junk and surging toward them.
Simon and Jule wheeled around and bolted.
TATATAT!
One by one, the eyeless toys began appearing on the rooftops of the nearby houses as well. It seemed to be dark magic that chose no targets—both Jule and Simon were met with open hostility.
One of the toy soldiers leapt high into the air and brought its blade down at Simon.
'Royal Guard!'
SHING!
A Royal Guard waiting nearby darted up and cleaved the toy in two. But as the toy split apart, something like cotton stuffing burst out from within and exploded.
Not only did it detonate—the blast carried a Sleep effect.
Merely breathing inside the city brought Sleep down on you, and so did striking any of its toys or terrain.
It was dark magic so overwhelming it bordered on absurd.
"Everyone, return!"
Simon released his summons from their Royal Guard state and pulled them back into subspace.
They would have been useful against Jule—but inside Merida's Selfless Reverie, deploying the Royal Guard would do nothing but widen the blast radius.
"Simon!"
From the alley across the way, Jule came running, carving down Merida's soldiers with sword strikes as he shouted.
"I would take it ill if you fell before our duel with my Cursed Sword is settled!"
'Even NOW, he's got something to say.'
KWAAAAAANG—!
This time a shell dropped onto the ground and detonated. Simon and Jule both flinched and froze mid-stride.
'Who?'
Sensing a Jet-Black utterly new to him, Simon looked up.
Beyond Merida's Selfless Reverie with its sea-mist haze—higher still, in the sky above it all.
Two transparent ships were floating in the heavens.
"GYAHAHAHA! Found you, Simon Polentia!"
Overall rank 7, representative of the Spirit Department.
The newcomer this time was the Ghost Ship's Elisa.
"You absolute fools! Fighting that loudly? You might as well broadcast your location to every other competitor!"
BOOM!
BOOM!
The cannons built into her Ghost Ships fired in unison, dropping spirit-loaded shells down on them.
Indiscriminate bombardment across the whole city.
The dreamlike city of toys and delights born from Merida's Selfless Reverie was collapsing. Where the shells tore the city apart, no fire spread—instead cotton stuffing burst out and drifted in dizzying swirls through the air.
[Stop interfering.]
From somewhere in the city, Merida's irritated voice echoed out like a rolling reverberation.
"It is I who claimed the right to duel Simon first!"
Jule seized his Cursed Sword's hilt, and a single line of sword-light shot up toward the high heavens.
But Elisa was far above. She simply steered her ship aside and dodged the rising strike with ease.
"Attacking from the ground is pointless! In that case, I'll scoop up ranks 1, 4, and 10 all at once, the fisherman's way—!"
Elisa cut herself off mid-sentence, abruptly.
She, of all people, was supposed to hold the highest sky of anyone.
And yet, there was a shadow over her.
"!"
Elisa whipped her head up in alarm.
FWOOOOOOSH!
Something burst through the thick volcanic smoke overhead wreathed in flame, setting one of the Ghost Ships ablaze as it swept past.
"KYAAAAAH! What the—?!"
An attack from directly above, out of nowhere. She had no way to respond.
In an instant, one Ghost Ship was an inferno. True, the ships flew wrapped in Elisa's Spirit—but their hulls were, at the end of the day, real wood.
Fire was their greatest weakness.
[Trash.]
Flap!
High above, a dragon spread wings riddled with holes and narrowed its eyes.
[So you defied my warning after all. Then consider this WAR!]
From the maw of the corpse dragon, a Dragon Fear rolled out—an aura of pure terror. Caught in that vast fear-curse, Elisa's movements seized up.
FWOOOOOOSH!
Then Hector, in full Dragon Form, loosed another breath, setting fire to the second Ghost Ship and blowing it apart completely. With a sharp 'EEEP!' Elisa scrambled over to the remaining vessel.
"You DARE burn my ship? You're dead!"
Elisa launched her counterattack. She swung her gun batteries around and began unleashing a torrent of shells on Hector, who shielded himself with his wings.
[You piece of trash!]
Seconds later, Hector spread both wings wide and exhaled a breath of flame from his jaws.
<Dragon Breath>
Elisa answered in kind, invoking spirit magic. The entire prow of her ship flashed, and a 'main cannon' wrought of pure Spirit took shape.
<Spirit Cannon>
[Be erased!]
"Says who!"
The dragon's breath and the Ghost Ship's main cannon collided in midair, hurling out a roar of ferocious explosions.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA—!
It was, in the truest sense of the word, a free-for-all. The sky was chaos above, the ground chaos below.
Simon sprinted down the street, vaulting over toy houses blasted apart by the bombardment.
[I wasn't finished talking, Simon. Hold still.]
Snicker-snacker—!
SCREEEE!
Eyeless dolls, a giant rocking horse, and toy soldiers came pressing in from one side of the alley.
Simon rested a hand at his waist and drew out a crackling violet lightning from within.
<Chaos Sphere>
KRRRRUMBLE!
Chaos lightning shot out and swept the toy soldiers from the narrow alley in a single stroke. Simon was just drawing a breath of relief when he went pale and snapped his head back.
SHING!
A diagonal slash scored itself across the very house he'd been leaning against, and the whole structure sheared sideways, exposing its cross-section as it slid to the ground.
'Jule!'
Jule's mind seemed clouded by his Cursed Sword again—he was flinging sword strikes in every direction. The toy world was being sliced apart like cubed tofu.
'Danger!'
Simon spun on his heel to flee—and then a burning Ghost Ship crashed down right beside him.
A scorching gale washed over him; Simon shielded his face and stumbled backward. Apparently, Elisa had lost the battle in the skies.
"Sorry, but!"
And yet Elisa was still aboard the downed ship. Her face caked head to toe in soot, she thrust out her arm.
"I've got my own desperate reasons for needing to take you down!"
KEEIK!
KRAK!
The cannons of the still-unburnt Ghost Ship swung their muzzles toward Simon and fired their spirit shells. Simon pulled the Overlord out of the ground and split every shell in half.
[You vermin! Stop interfering and GET LOST!]
FWOOOSH!
Spewing molten flame from his jaws, Hector in Dragon Form crushed the upper spire of a toy clock tower as he slammed down onto the earth.
[The one who succeeds Phantasos will be me.]
Merida's true body, which had been sleeping high above wrapped in her blanket like a barrier wall, revealed herself in turn, yielding not an inch.
Five Top 10s, all tangled together in one snarling knot.
"Ahaha."
In that moment, Simon let out a small laugh. At the sound, the other Top 10s—who had been warily eyeing one another—rolled their eyes toward him.
Hoo.
Leaning his back against a building's wall, Simon shrugged.
"If this is how it's going to be—"
"—then just come at me. All of you, at once."