The Butterfly Effect of Idle Words (4)
A grand bass note, reminiscent of a ship's horn—gooooooo—whirled through the heart of the city. The barrier formula etched into the underbelly of Hikarius City detected the foreign entity and immediately enveloped the area in mana. A measure to ensure easy recovery even if the city were destroyed. Under normal circumstances, this would be the end of preparations: evacuate civilians and await the magical girls' arrival.
But this time was different. What the Ivory Tower had unleashed wasn't some cute little villain, but the harmful remains—a nightmare from a bygone era. Harmful relics and corpses, both meanings applied.
Kururururuk.
The ancient mana, freed from the magic stone, began distorting the surroundings in eerie ways. The air warped first, and along the kaleidoscopic ripples, tentacle-like protrusions crawled out from the magic stone. It sucked in nearby objects indiscriminately, beginning to shape itself.
Sargasso called these things "erosive bodies" born from ancient mana.
"...It looks kinda like that shadow wizard guy?"
Salamandine wrinkled her nose and jabbed Sargasso's side with her elbow.
Sargasso cleared his throat with a hngh and replied solemnly, like a doctor delivering a diagnosis.
"Strictly speaking, it's the Ochan who resemble erosive bodies. The result of steadily devouring such things."
"Eww. Looks disgusting just from a glance."
"Of course it's disgusting. Remember that."
"...You've eaten that thing, old man?!"
"It happened during the arduous pilgrimage alongside the great Ebon. We needed mana."
Salamandine felt Sargasso's eyes sparkle unusually bright. Even an old warhorse like him seemed to regain his vigor reminiscing about the good old days.
'Or maybe it's just because his body's made of water and refracts light so well.'
Illusions via mist and light refraction were indeed Sargasso's specialty. Salamandine nodded smugly to herself, proud of her keen deduction. Sentimentality was never her thing.
'There she goes again.'
Sargasso shook his head at Salamandine, who was grinning to herself, and waited for the approaching Ochan. If it truly was of the Ochan Clan, they couldn't ignore an erosive body reappearing in this era. Now, the question was: from where, and in what manner, would it strike?
"Old man. What if it doesn't show?"
"Then it's just some similar-looking abomination. Give Dunamis an earful about not making a fuss over nothing, then prepare to hunt it down."
Salamandine clasped her hands behind her neck and scanned the surroundings. No sign of that flesh-patched monster, but instead...
"Magical girls incoming?"
"Hmph. An inevitable outcome. The guardian fairies never understood the greatness of this power and always rejected it. Fools who don't know that what poisons can also heal."
Salamandine turned toward the approaching mana with a curious look. The momentum was already fierce. Normally, they'd bicker with lines like "Kyahaha! Take this!" "Guh, bringing out a powered-up villain like this!" before slipping into serious mode only after being pushed back a bit. But they were diving straight in this time.
"Why are they so fired up? Suits me fine, though."
"The fairies' agitation, no doubt. Those pests obsessively reject anything from the old era."
"If they purify it when they get here, doesn't that botch our Ochan fishing?"
"Precisely. That's why two of us came, unlike usual."
Normally, only one Heavenly King ventured out at a time. The Ivory Tower—their organization's name and headquarters—was a hyper-dimensional barrier powered by the individual Heavenly Kings as cores. Without a core present, the balance would falter. They could leave a portion of their power behind to act as a minimal counterweight, but to fully manifest the barrier's functions, at least two—ideally three or more—needed to remain inside.
Two or more Heavenly Kings deploying simultaneously was rare, outside major events like the previous Ebon revival ritual or the recent shadow wizard attack.
"I'll buy time. You watch for the shadow wizard's approach."
Sargasso's body spread wide. His form, which had briefly resembled a blue cloth, expanded from a blue fence to a blue wall, then to a surging blue tsunami.
A massive wave crashed toward the magical girls.
"Sargasso! You've finally dragged out that cursed relic from the old era, mohu!"
"You lot are old and decrepit. Time to yield your seats for Lord Ebon's new era!"
Salamandine watched the magical girls' clash with Sargasso with a bored expression. Sargasso's water attribute made him the tankiest Heavenly King: no matter how much you smashed him, he reformed instantly and shifted shapes freely.
With her sniping flames from behind his impenetrable defense, even battle-hardened magical girls would struggle to close in.
With a haughty hngh, Salamandine turned back to the erosive body. The warping and erosion had stopped. The tentacles, having expanded by fusing materials like sidewalk blocks and streetlamps into a chimeric mass, began slowly mutating.
'Secures the necessary mass, processes the materials, and constructs the form best suited for combat?'
Sargasso's pre-deployment briefing. If the shadow wizard didn't show by the time the erosive body finished forming, it wasn't an Ochan—just erase it and prepare to withdraw.
"Tch. Dunamis, you flake."
No approaching mana signature. Even accounting for combat drain, the shadow wizard should have villain-tier mana at minimum. You couldn't miss that level.
The only oddity was the elevated mana density—but with Heavenly Kings and magical girls fighting, residual mana spreading was natural—
"Huh?"
No, it wasn't.
Sargasso was blocking the magical girls as a living wall. Normally, mana density would rise around the combat zone's perimeter. But here, from the erosive body's central plaza all the way to Sargasso's outer blockade, density was uniformly spiking.
Salamandine shouted on instinct.
"Damn it! Sargasso! It's here! No—dodge!"
"What—?"
Guuuuuguguung!
The ground trembled. Sprouts emerged. Crimson vein clusters, evoking cordyceps fungi, thrust up across the plaza. They bloomed skyward in an instant.
Salamandine hurled flames in panic. But Sargasso's watery flesh parted around them, letting the veins sprouting at his feet evade the fire's edge.
"Grkhh!"
A forest of veins, thousands of bundles strong, slurped up Sargasso's flesh. He retracted his spread form just in time, only to be engulfed and vanish.
'Mana's still there! He's alive!'
"Damn it, old man! Hold onto your sanity!"
Salamandine's flames incinerated the vein clusters binding Sargasso. Gaps opened in the red tide. Through them slunk black-and-white intruders.
'Even saved the magical girls... Nah, they gotta settle things with me, so protecting them here makes sense.'
The flames stalled them briefly, but the red horde pressed on. Vein bundles swelled relentlessly, dense as a bamboo grove, towering high. They grew right up to Salamandine's feet on the streetlamp perch.
She'd been so focused on shielding Sargasso and the girls from the veins that...
She screamed.
"Damn it!"
She'd neglected the erosive body! The instant she turned, her eyes caught something ball-like. A ball of yarn for knitting. The kind cats loved batting around. But this was a red yarn ball magnified hundreds of times...?
"Salamandine! Burn the erosive body! The Ochan's trying to devour its mana!"
The furball was the erosive body. Countless veins wrapped it, melting and absorbing it.
"Got it, old man!"
Flames erupted along her arms and legs.
'Ah, busted.'
Raban regretted Plan A's failure. He'd broken his familiars down to vein units for stealthy mass transport. Each carried negligible mana, perfect for slipping past wizards who scanned for 'single entities.'
'That fire twerp's sharper than she looks?'
He'd pegged her for a hack-and-slash pyro, but she had wild instincts—spotted the gathering the moment it happened. No choice: rampage the familiars to blind them, switch to Plan B's swarm overwhelm via tainted thoughts.
Losing most familiars? Worth the harvest now.
Just as his veins latched onto the erosive body to slowly chew and digest it...
"Are you listening, shadow wizard?"
Magi White stepped forward.
"That curse you placed on me... it's been tempting and confusing me endlessly."
'Curse?'
What the hell was she on about? Raban started calculating the catalysts and mana needed for cursing something with that much power, then gave up. Definitely not doable now, at least.
"Your words made me doubt my friends endlessly, even tempted me to ruin those who could become friends someday. But..."
Magi White recalled a certain spell formula whispered in her mind. A cold ploy: Strike down the fallen Sargasso—avenge with his unguarded mana core.
Just as Schne reached for Sargasso's mana core, Salamandine's flames blocked her path. Not an attack to fell the trapped magical girl, but flames scattered to protect them too.
In that moment, Schne remembered her dream: to one day talk with even the Heavenly Kings, become friends. The head-voice, as if scorched by Salamandine's blaze, fell silent.
She spread her arms wide and declared boldly.
"Amid your cunning words and temptations, I found a way to defeat you!"
Geometric magic circles bloomed from the centers of Magi White's palms. From their midst emanated immense gravitational pull, dominating her surroundings. A pull not for objects, but for foul energies.
The vein forest withered and crumbled along her outstretched hands.
"I won't fall for your temptations. This is my answer...!"
Raban was baffled.
Mind erosion magic? 'I never did that...?'
He didn't even have the mana for it!