76. The Rock Saw
76. The Rock Saw
The story picked up right after the evacuation began in earnest at the stadium.
Lucia and Riber quickly exited the stadium building and arrived at the main hall.
The first floor of the main hall was packed with people who had evacuated from the stadium.
Lucia was still moving with Riber, but they weren't close, so no conversation passed between them beyond businesslike talk.
When the Swordsmanship Research Club members arrived, she figured Atlas had come too and looked for him, but she couldn't spot him.
That was when she caught a glimpse of Riber slipping outside out of the corner of her eye.
'Where... is she going?'
She didn't know why, but Lucia followed after Riber.
Having left the main hall building and entered the garden, Riber seemed to wander among the maze-like tangled trees as if possessed, yet she walked with a clear destination in mind.
Lucia nearly lost her several times, but using skills honed from sneaking glances at Atlas, she succeeded in tailing Riber without being detected.
'Why in the world would she come to a place like this...'
Riber's steps halted.
Holding her breath, Lucia stole a glance at where Riber had stopped. The moment she did, she saw an unbelievable sight and nearly screamed.
'The Sword... Saint?? Why is he here??'
The Master of the Clover Kingdom, the Sword Saint, greeted Riber with a bright smile.
'Did... did Simoer... betray us...?'
The worst possible scenario flashed through Lucia's mind.
That Riber Simoer was a spy for the Clover Kingdom, that she had secretly passed the most critical information to the Sword Saint during this terrorist attack, and that the two of them would flee to the Clover Kingdom alone... it was a story straight out of the novels she often read.
But Lucia quickly dismissed that scenario.
She didn't know Simoer well yet, but she trusted Atlas, and Atlas trusted Simoer.
She held her breath and watched the two, but the atmosphere was utterly ominous.
"You didn't run away this time. As expected, people need to learn..."
"What... what on earth is this... There was no mention of something like this... Those... are they all demons? Did you, a Master, join hands with demons??"
"I'm not really in a position to explain every little thing to you, am I?"
Riber was genuinely angry, but the Sword Saint just stroked his chin beard and smiled.
"Well, don't worry about trivial things like that. Shall we go, then?"
"What do you mean?"
"The plan has changed. Come on... we don't have time, so let's go quickly."
Sword Saint Adolf seized Riber's wrist.
"N... no...!!"
"Hm~ Seeing you resist uselessly makes me want to break your legs."
Riber resisted, but she couldn't fight against the Sword Saint's brute strength. She was just being dragged along bit by bit.
The Sword Saint's manner of speaking completely disregarded Riber's will.
It was the polar opposite of the kind Sword Saint she had seen before.
His face was smiling just the same, but now that face was terrifying beyond words.
As she was being dragged along, Riber shouted at the Sword Saint.
"You promised you'd wait until graduation!!"
"Situations can always change. You're an adult now, are you really going to whine like a little brat?"
At that, the Sword Saint suddenly changed his expression and yelled.
"And... a promise? Are you in any position to talk about that??
I waited ten years for you to become an adult, and the moment you did, you ran off to the academy.
The promise between me and Simoer was that we'd hold the ceremony once you became an adult."
"Ugh..!"
"Did you seriously think you were in a position to negotiate with me just because I indulged you?"
The Sword Saint let go of Riber's wrist and instead grabbed her by the hair, yanking her along.
Her hair, which sparkled like threads of gold, was ruined by the rough handling.
"You're the one who broke the rules first, so why should I have to wait three more years? You're already my property, and until now I merely set you free out of my own mercy... Isn't wishing for even that a bit too luxurious?"
The Sword Saint's tone grew coarser.
The coarser his tone became, the more strength he put into his arm, and at the same time, Riber's face twisted in pain.
Her mind was too overwhelmed to figure out what to do.
Seeing how he was about to leave at any moment, she knew the instant she left to call for someone, she would never find those two again.
Even if she rushed in right now to help Riber, her opponent was a Master.
Nothing would come of it except one more corpse.
At that moment, someone's face flickered through Lucia's mind.
If it were Atlas, surely...
"...Stop it."
When she came to her senses, Lucia had dashed out and grabbed the Sword Saint's wrist.
'Ah... aaaaah what have I done...!!!'
To pick a fight not with an Expert, but with a Master... she had to be out of her mind.
Even as she watched, her heart told her she really shouldn't do this, but her body reacted first.
Because if she just left things as they were, it felt like Simoer would suffer something far worse.
She couldn't understand why she had committed such a crazy act.
"...Simoer said she doesn't want to."
"Russell... -ssi?"
Yet, contrary to her confused thoughts, the words came out of her mouth clearly.
"Ha... seriously... this is amusing...."
Seeing Lucia clutching his forearm, the Sword Saint laughed as if dumbfounded.
They were about the same height, so Lucia met the Sword Saint's eyes head-on. The force he exuded was so intense that she wanted to drop her gaze to the floor immediately.
But her body was frozen stiff, and she couldn't even lower her head.
"Hey, student... you know who I am and you're still committing such a rude act, right?"
"...Simoer is a citizen of the Empire."
Again, because she was so terrified that her thoughts seized up, her words came out on pure reflex without passing through her brain.
"No matter how much of a Master you are, you cannot forcibly take a citizen of the Empire."
"Ha..."
The Sword Saint released Riber's hair and shook off Lucia's arm.
It was just a light flick, but Lucia's hand, which had been gripping his wrist tightly, was flung away.
Lucia was shocked to see her own hand knocked away so helplessly.
'I was fairly confident in my strength...'
She hadn't thought she could win a contest of strength against a Master.
But even so, she had been shaken off so utterly helplessly.
In that moment, she instantly grasped just how huge the gap between them was.
"...I'm really seeing all sorts of ridiculous things today."
The Sword Saint gritted his teeth, wiped his forearm with a handkerchief, and at last drew his sword.
"Can't tell when to butt in and when not to... are all kids these days like this?"
"No..!! Russell-ssi, run away!!!"
The Sword Saint drew his sword with one hand and raised it toward the sky.
It was an awkward stance to call a simple high guard, so she didn't understand it, but she soon realized why he had taken that posture.
-Kuuuuuuuuung!!!
"Maybe you'll come to your senses after dying once."
"I'll go..!! I'll just follow without a word, so please..!! Don't hurt anyone!!"
Riber dropped to her knees and pleaded with the Sword Saint, but his expression was resolute.
A massive amount of aura erupted from the sword pointed at the sky.
Like a waterfall pouring in reverse, a fierce torrent of aura surged skyward with no sign of stopping.
Reacting to the aura bursting from the blade, the jewels embedded in the hilt shone wildly.
Lucia had never once in her life seen a flow of aura that powerful.
Her own father Russell's Aura Blade was solid, but it wasn't this overwhelming.
Ah, so that's why he raised his sword upward.
It was because only by raising it upward could he plant both feet firmly on the ground and withstand that absurdly massive Aura Blade.
She thought that if it had been pointed in any other direction, the ground might not have held and he could have been blown back.
'Am I... going to die...?'
It was an overwhelmingly wide-range attack.
Faced with this crushing power, Lucia berated herself for having pointlessly intervened.
Now that she had come this far, running away was meaningless.
As she infused her sword with aura, a vivid blue aura blazed from her blade.
Her Aura Blade, close to the upper ranks of Expert, looked like a toothpick with a dying ember compared to the Aura Blade the Sword Saint had created.
But Lucia was not intimidated by that fact.
She simply gripped her sword firmly and stood to fight.
Russell's sword was the Rock Sword, the sword that does not yield to injustice and faces even the mightiest enemy without fear.
The sword that, even knowing it will shatter, chooses not to evade but to stand firm and break.
Lucia's body, along with her sword, was engulfed by the torrent of aura unleashed by the Sword Saint.
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"...That's.. all I remember...."
Even through her pain, Lucia did her best to recount what had just happened.
"...If I... had been stronger...."
"It's not your fault."
Despite bearing no fault herself, Lucia blamed herself.
Everything wrong was on the Sword Saint.
No... I was in no position to say anything to Lucia.
Because I, too, felt a heavy responsibility for this mess of a situation.
"....."
It was the worst.
The academy was in ruins, Lucia was injured, and Riber had been kidnapped.
If she received treatment at the hospital right away, Lucia would recover, but I was worried about Riber, who had been abducted by the Sword Saint.
'Where did he move...?'
I couldn't read the Sword Saint's intentions at all.
I couldn't imagine that a self-aggrandizing bastard like him had genuinely opened his eyes to the dogma of the Demon Church and sided with the demons.
It was clearly more logical to assume they acted together because they had a common denominator of mutual benefit.
But for what, exactly?
Could the Demon Church even offer him anything?
....No, I shouldn't jump to that conclusion either.
If he were in his right mind, he wouldn't have done something this insane in the first place.
"No... what in the...!!"
The moment I sensed a presence, my helmet automatically closed over my face.
Morgan, who had followed behind, was aghast at the ruined state of the garden.
Seeing Morgan sparked a clue in my mind.
'Right... if he disappeared... he must have used teleportation magic.'
Spatial movement magic like teleport leaves traces behind.
A skilled mage could even pinpoint the coordinates based on the traces left at the scene.
And Morgan was a Grand Mage second to none in the Empire.