I Hate Long Things Anyway
I hate long things. That's all there is to it. I screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAGH!"
My throat was already raw, but I kept the scream going anyway. The least I could do was avoid looking suspicious. I cleared my throat and tried once more.
"KYAAAAAAAH! ...Aaaah.... AAAAGH!Cough, cough............... Hack!Gasp. Haa."
The instant my breath caught, I choked on it. I'd swallowed a lungful of empty air, and my chest burned. They do say you shouldn't attempt things you aren't used to. Maybe that was enough screaming.
The ground below had gone pitch-black. Even in the middle of an active fall, I didn't spare a thought for where this cliff might end. I couldn't. The Snowfield had always been like this, and long experience had taught me that thinking about it only gave you a headache—an exercise with no productivity in it whatsoever.
"...Haa."
I snatched the wrist of Cecilia, who was tumbling down alongside me. Had she fainted? She was unconscious. A heart attack would have been a problem, so I checked that first.
"...I made her that pendant and told her to use it. She didn't even take it out. Don't tell me she doesn't like the design?"
Cecilia hadn't called for me, not even as she went over the cliff. Freyja ought to have shown her how the pendant worked at least once. Why...? Why on earth not?
I ran through a few theories and landed on a single possibility: maybe the pendant's appearance itself was the fundamental problem. Forgetting I was even in freefall, I broke into a cold, creeping sweat.
The design. I'd never once considered it. An enchanted magic tool only had to work; I'd never troubled myself over what it looked like. But what if a girl in the prime of her school years found the thing so shameful she couldn't bring herself to take it out in front of the other students—even with her life on the line?
If Cecilia branded me a miserable excuse for a teacher, the sort who handed over something hopelessly old-fashioned and called it a gift... I might be too crushed to stand at a lectern for the rest of my life.
No! We weren't even that far apart in age! I was not from some generation with completely alien taste! That design was perfectly respectable! A little classic, maybe, but the sort of thing a girl could easily find pretty! Undine had wanted one desperately too!
I shook the thought loose and raised the bat on mechanical reflex. Arguing with myself now was a debate with no point. The airflow changed. I felt the end drawing near.
And—now.
I set my hips, poured everything I had into the swing, and drove it into the something flashing and writhing right in front of my eyes.
WHAAAM!
A dull impact, and a vibration that ran from my wrist through my whole body. A roar like iron plate bursting open struck my ears, followed by the wet, heavy tear of flesh. And in the middle of all that, I threw my back out.
"Ha... tch! Hhk! Shit...! Agh! My back...!"
Pale as a sheet, I got my feet under me and hopped in place, forcing my head clear. The supreme blow I'd landed with the bat hadn't amounted to much, it seemed—because behind me, a presence that was anything but ordinary was writhing.
Its bulk was so overwhelming it felt rude to compare it to the scrappy lesser monsters I'd seen from above. A single yellowed, razor-sharp fang was as big as my entire body.
"Hssssss......"
"I hate snakes......"
A bat in my left hand. An unconscious Cecilia on my right arm. And before my eyes, a monster in the shape of a snake, glaring at me with slit pupils.
Calling it a snake was being generous. It was more like someone had chopped up a worm, a snake, and a centipede, stirred them thoroughly together, and scaled the result up to a stupid size. When the thing opened its mouth, white shapes—teeth or nodules, I couldn't tell—caught my eye, bristling in a spiral. I had no idea which part of that long creature was supposed to count as a nape, but from roughly that vicinity an arm shot out with a slick shwup.
Slimy, elongated things—embarrassingly, I still hadn't overcome them at my age. Too many legs only made it worse. I simply hated them. An arm sprouting from a neck wasn't something I could regard with any particular charity either.
Oh, come on. Please. Let's keep this within reason.
Right. Run. Even now.
KRA-GWAAAAANG!
The monster began to thrash and crawl after me with violent force. A thick, sticky fluid—mucus or saliva, impossible to say—splattered in every direction. I focused on nothing but running. For Cecilia, slung over my shoulder, it must have been quite the commotion. Her body twitched, and a short groan escaped her.
"Nn...... nnh......?"
"Hey! Sleep well? Waking up right after you faint has to be confusing, but let's get one thing straight first."
"......Where is this......"
"Position's a little uncomfortable, huh? For the record, I recommend not looking behind you."
Even with my words rattling out like a machine gun, Cecilia wore a blank expression—...no. To be precise, I'd slung her over my shoulder upside down, so all I could see were her shoes, her legs, her waist, and the lower half that included her backside. I couldn't see her face. Even so, her reaction was so dull that I could picture, with perfect clarity, the vacant look and vacant tone of her vacantly spacing out.
There was one thing I could be sure of, though. If the first thing you saw upon waking was a rather horrific monster crawling toward you with its mouth wide open, even a veteran hero's enlightenment stat would slam into reverse in an instant.
Sure enough, a short hiccup that never quite managed to become a scream burst from Cecilia's mouth.
"Hih......... hic......!"
I had fallen from the cliff.
Or so it must have been.
The last thing I saw was the sky receding, and Professor Neferna reaching for me—and falling with me. I stretched out my hand with everything I had, but just as it all grew distant, my vision suddenly went dark.
Or so it must have been.
When my mind returned, however faintly, I could dimly recognize that I was alive. My body was hanging from someone, jolting hard up and down.
It must have been so.
I lifted my head, and a mouth came into view. Sticky, wrinkled flesh, and nodules bristling rough against it. It was clearly something alive, but I couldn't readily guess what kind of creature it was.
My time in the Hero Party hadn't been entirely wasted, it seemed. An alarm rang in my head. I took in my surroundings. The one carrying me as he ran was Professor Neferna, and the malformed monster before my eyes was—
"Professor...! A monster! A monster!"
Forgetting even how ridiculous and shameful I must have looked, slung over his shoulder, I pounded the professor's lower back—whap! whap!—and shouted. Cries of agh, agh came bouncing back from behind me.
"Th-there's a monster!"
"I know."
The monster was extremely aggressive, savage. It looked less like a predator stalking prey and more like rage striking back after being attacked first. Was that only my imagination?
"Turn a crisis into an opportunity. Then turn the opportunity back into a crisis."
"Pardon?"
"All right, Cecilia! Time for practicals!"
Professor Neferna shouted it in a bright, cheerful voice.
"P-practicals?"
"A delightful practical session, making use of the intermission. ...Let's see. I ought to take a look at your Signature Phantasm. Cast it once. I'll watch."
The utterly unbothered tone left me dumbstruck.
Out of nowhere...?
A Signature Phantasm was the magic a mage trusted most. A signature unique to each individual. A single spell, as precious as one's pride. Setting aside the very notion of driving off a monster with magic, there was no way a signature like mine would be of any help in a situation like this.
"R-right now, you mean?"
"If we've come all the way out to the Snowfield, we ought to do practicals. Up till now you couldn't even hunt monsters properly because of the Sixth Holy Sword. Chances for the school to bring anyone out this far aren't exactly common. If anything, this is a good opportunity. Even if you were in a Hero Party, I can't teach you without grasping the fundamentals, can I?"
"............"
"A monster's size isn't an absolute measure, but there's nothing to lose by being careful around the stupidly huge ones. They're usually individuals that have lived a long time. If you've wandered the Snowfield, you know. Something that size... it's already finished maturing. A graze is a critical hit. It won't end at crushed bones. So—how do you usually handle a situation like this?"
"I've never seen a monster like that.... Even with the others, the Hero's Holy Sword always..."
"Then now that there's no Hero, you don't mind going straight into that monster's mouth?"
"N-no. Please, don't abandon me...."
I reflexively clutched the professor's clothes tight. Rebecca's sneer still wouldn't leave my head. I had no idea how I had even survived the cliff, but the moment I imagined being abandoned like this, the grief welled up.
"Cast your magic. Your Signature Phantasm. If you happen to have something with a magic circle inscribed on it, let's try without that. Full casting, full chant. Aside from that, do it however you like. Show me once."
At that unwavering voice, I felt my thoughts slowly cooling. The professor did not look inclined to bend.
Casting magic itself was not difficult. Proving how wretched my talent was would be much the same. He had told me not to use an inscribed circle. Then I would have to construct the circle from the start. Even in the confusion, my hands moved without pause.
First, together with my mana, I built the essential circle. Following the auxiliary circle, I stacked the array, calculating and activating the structural formula. At the same time, I forced out the chant tangled in my head.
My own Signature Phantasm.
"O flame that has swallowed ash,"
"at a small spirit's gesture,"
"burn all away, and leave not even dust!"
"Whoa. Spirit magic?"
A ball of flame burst from my hand and shot forward at tremendous speed. What would happen next was plain as day. It would have no effect at all.
Of that, I was certain.