Knight Class vs. Magic Class (4)
It was a sight to freeze anyone solid with terror.
A magic circle of absurd size. Circuits of absurd scale. And an intensity that defied all reason.
Anyone could see Irina had no chance of winning. If she simply bought a little time and then surrendered, no one would fault her for it — the professors would even praise her courage and mark her generously.
But Irina did not back down.
She looked small and delicate, yet she was the top of the knight class. And her temperament was not the sort to flinch and retreat out of sheer dread.
When Iren had torn through adamantium, Irina had possessed no information at all and had been so blindsided that terror had seized her. Frey was different. She already knew he was an exceptional mage. She had steeled herself for this.
Though I never expected it to be this extreme.
Irina leveled her Aura Blade at the magic circle.
"Here I come!"
"By all means."
Even without Irina touching it, the magic circle activated on its own. It was not that it wasn't a trap — it was a magical snare designed to trigger automatically the moment a target entered a set range.
Irina waited, taut with tension, for the magic to manifest. With a circle that vast, dodging was hopeless no matter which way she ran. All she could do was meet it head-on.
At last, the magic's true form revealed itself.
Flash! A pair of crimson eyes blazed to life. From the kilometer-wide magic circle, an enormous body began to emerge.
Crimson eyes. A magnificent mane streaming in the air. Razor-sharp claws…
[Gyaooo!]
"Gyao?"
Irina stared, her soul half out of her body, unable to trust her own eyes. Everyone else was the same.
What had stepped out of the magic circle was simply a colossal lion doll, five hundred meters tall, standing on two legs and roaring with thunderous force.
[Gyaooooooo!]
Only Iren's eyes sparkled with pure delight.
"What is that?! It's so cool and cute!"
"Frey Katraaaaaaam!"
Taking it as a personal insult, Irina flared up and launched herself into the air. Her Aura Blade flashed.
"Irina-Style First Sword! Heaven-Earth Cleaver!"
Slash! The arm of the lion doll sweeping toward her was severed with almost insulting ease. Watching a two-hundred-meter arm shear clean off was quite the spectacle.
Irina did not stop there.
"Second Sword! Heaven-Earth Wild Dance!"
The single downward cut that had cleaved the lion's arm now repeated dozens of times in rapid succession.
[Gya—gyaooo!]
The lion doll wailed mournfully as it came apart. Irina shouted as she fell through the air.
"Even if the magic unravels, get ready for your limbs to be diced by my blade! The moment I land, you're finished!"
"My, my. Are you certain you want to say that?"
"What?"
"Irina. What you just cut was a cotton doll."
"So what?!"
"A doll five hundred meters tall — a volume so enormous that calculating it is frankly tedious — packed solid with cotton. How much do you suppose all that cotton weighs?"
"……!!"
Irina went pale and looked up. The cotton mass of the lion doll she had carved apart was plummeting straight down onto her.
Tens of tons of cotton at minimum! Getting buried under that would kill her!
"Aaaagh!"
Irina swung her Aura Blade wildly in every direction. Under the force of her strikes, the falling cotton masses veered aside and crashed down around her instead.
And then the fallen cotton gathered itself back together on the ground.
[Gyao!]
In an instant the doll reclaimed its lion form, eyes blazing.
[Gyaoo!]
And it threw a punch straight at Irina!
Boom! With a resounding impact, Irina shot skyward.
"Ugh — ha! I blacked out for a tenth of a second!"
Hovering aloft, she shook her head and looked down. The lion doll waited below with a grave, solemn gaze, ready for her descent.
"So this isn't a joke! Fine! I'll do this properly!"
Still falling, Irina set her stance in midair — then "jumped" toward the ground. Professor Durham let out a cheer.
"That's Air Walk! I never thought I'd see a first-year pull that off!"
"Is that technique difficult for knights?"
"Of course it is! It's the art of treading on the fine mana particles scattered through the air and running across them! For a mage, it would be like snatching a single mana particle and hurling it hard enough to punch a hole through steel plate!"
"Hooh."
Whoosh!
Irina's form streaked forward like a bolt of light, piercing straight through the lion doll's extended fist. She punched clean through the construct and landed on the ground, her Aura Blade stretching to more than three times its previous length.
"If tearing it to shreds isn't enough, that means it has a separate core! But—!"
Whoosh!
Dodging the lion doll's foot as it tried to stomp her flat, Irina shouted,
"Finding a core in a body that size is impossible! So I'll just erase the whole thing!"
Whoooooosh!
An extraordinary light erupted from Irina's Aura Blade. The lower-ranked students couldn't even look at it properly for the sheer intensity of the radiance.
True: Heaven-Reversing Aura Force
Ziiing!
The light that had seemed bright enough to illuminate the entire Academy grounds vanished in a single instant. Every scrap of it had gathered at the tip of Irina's Aura Blade — and she drove that blade straight into the lion doll.
The construct sensed the danger and tried to flee, but in that confined space there was nowhere to run. Thunk! The Aura Blade, carrying its light of annihilation, pierced the lion doll through.
[Gya—ooooooo!!!!!]
The lion doll screamed. It thrashed its head from side to side, as if desperately refusing to disappear. Then its entire convulsing body crumbled into powder and scattered on the wind.
"Hah… hah…"
Irina gasped for breath and looked up. The lion doll had turned to dust and vanished in moments. All that remained was the core that had been hidden inside its body.
"To take that hit and still have the core intact… Quickly!"
Irina sprang upward and swung her Aura Blade at the core. Her heart swelled with triumph.
Am I going to win? Against Frey?
She had believed it utterly impossible. And yet somehow, right now, she stood on the verge of victory.
The ridiculous lion doll had possessed a scale befitting the size of its magic circle, but it had been far too simple. Against someone of Irina's caliber, the matchup was poor.
He must have overestimated his own output and made a misjudgment. So even you aren't perfect, Frey.
Either way, destroying that core would end it. The instant her blade tip made contact—
……?
A strange chill swept through her.
Something was wrong. Her razor-sharp instincts sounded the alarm. She must not bring the sword down. Something terrible would happen.
But those beastlike instincts had awakened far too late. The Aura Blade she had already swung cleaved the core without mercy.
Slash!
And in that same instant—
"Irina. You slipped up at the very end."
Frey smiled.
The core, split cleanly in half, began to divide. Two. Four. Eight…………… sixteen thousand three hundred eighty-four.
In a fraction of a second the cores multiplied, and every last one took shape. Small, ferocious lion dolls.
Looking at the countless lion dolls that had appeared in the blink of an eye, Irina let out a hollow laugh.
"This is just… ridiculous."
KRA-BOOM!
Buried beneath tens of thousands of lion dolls, Irina blacked out.
Winner: Frey Katram
Magic Circles Used: 1
Time Elapsed: 4 minutes 53 seconds
Pop! An arm jutted out. I grabbed it and pulled.
Irina came free of the lion-doll pile like a stuffed toy being yanked from a heap.
"Are you all right?"
"Not all right…"
Must have been the shock. She'd dropped her formal speech during the match too. It didn't particularly matter, so I decided not to point it out.
"It was a fine match, Irina."
"You really do show the most unimaginable magic. No — you do, sir."
Irina cleared her throat and corrected her speech. Apparently casual language slipped out when she got worked up. She continued.
"All I can think is that I need to train even harder. How do you even cast magic like that?"
"Shall I teach you?"
"No need. Knights have their own methods of training."
Snap! Irina pointed a finger straight at me.
"Next time, I won't lose like this!"
"Very well. I'll be looking forward to it."
"Looking forward to it? Then my legs have gone completely weak, so could you maybe carry me on your ba—"
"I'll take Frey."
Iren appeared out of nowhere and pulled me away. Irina puffed out her cheeks and shouted,
"Amed! Carry me!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Amed came sprinting over at top speed, hoisted Irina onto his back, gave a slight bow of his head, and dashed back toward the knight class camp.
I was dragged off helplessly by Iren. She wore a distinctly sulky expression. Was it because she'd lost the bet?
"Iren?"
She only stopped once we'd reached a place with no one else around. Whirling to face me, she puffed her cheeks out with all her might — looking for all the world like an adorable little squirrel.
"That was so mean!"
"Pardon?"
"How could you use a spell that just rips those cute little lion dolls to shreds?!"
"Ah — so that's what you're upset about? But they were nothing more than crude dolls created by magic."
"They're still pitiful!"
"I never dreamed I'd hear those words come out of your mouth, Iren."
"Anyway, don't use magic like that again. Got it?"
"Haa… understood. There aren't many occasions to use it in the first place."
It wasn't material creation, nor illusion magic. What I had used was summoning magic.
I had summoned the cotton I'd been stockpiling as a future gift for my lady and woven the spell around it. This particular casting had depleted a fair amount of the supply.
Still, I'd recovered plenty of money while crushing the assassin guilds, so it hardly mattered.
"So? What are you going to ask?"
"You're surprisingly willing to go through with it."
"When have I ever dodged a bet? Giving a fair reward is only natural. So what are you going to ask?"
"Iren. You'll really answer anything, right?"
"Yeah. I promised, didn't I?"
"Truly anything?"
"I already said yes. Why are you dragging this out so much? Don't tell me…"
Iren let out a sigh.
"Aaah, fine. I get it."
"Pardon?"
"My three sizes are one-oh-five…"
"I already know those, so you needn't tell me."
"……? How do you know that?"
"More importantly, what I'm curious about is—"
"What?"
"Where are you living right now?"
"……."
I knew at once. The question had been a success.
Because Iren's face went ashen in an instant, and cold sweat began beading on her brow.