The Boy's Front Yard
From behind her came Rachel's bright, unrestrained laughter.
Hervena turned to Yulia, who had come over to join her, and asked in a puzzled voice.
"And that insufferable orange-haired woman?"
"If you mean Lady Rachel, the green-haired second-year has hold of her."
"Linne? What do you mean...?"
Hervena turned, unable to believe it, and there was Rachel with Linne gathered in her arms, watching them.
"Good heavens."
"Hervena, could you explain how things stand so far?"
"For now, Blow—that man—seems to have his mind somewhere else entirely. I cast fire, water, and wind magic on that sphere, and none of it did a thing."
"Just what is that White Sphere supposed to be...?"
At her words Yulia sighed, at a loss, and Jane, who had been silent until then, spoke.
"I think it's a spirit."
Every gaze snapped to her at once.
"I believe it's that enormous sphere the young master said he saw during the summoning rite."
"Truly?"
"Yes, I'm certain. He mentioned it once before..."
Jane was calling up the description of the sphere written in Blow's notes.
"I've never seen a spirit that huge. Never even heard of one."
Yulia steadied herself at once and gave swift orders.
"For now, let's make it our goal to hit the sphere with high-tier magic of the remaining attributes. If it is a spirit, it shouldn't harm Young Master Blow directly."
"Right."
"Hervena, Rebecca and I will defend against whatever magic his main body casts, so you and Skadi take the sphere—"
She never finished. Blow's flame magic came flying.
Skadi stepped out in front and threw up a barrier in a rush.
"When you wake up, you're dead, Blow Deblique!"
"One moment."
While Skadi's voice still burned, Rebecca—as if she had been waiting for just this—dashed forward and leapt at the sphere.
⟨ Glacier Break ⟩
Thud—
Rebecca's kick, flashing gold, struck the sphere dead-on. Ice shattered across the point of impact and collapsed in a glittering ruin.
The sphere, however, did not so much as crack. It simply went on floating above Blow's head.
"...Ice-attribute magic seems useless as well. I'll rejoin the department head."
"Yes. If Lady Rebecca says so, we can be certain. Then, as planned..."
⟨ Echo of Thrinia ⟩
Buffed by Jane, they split in two.
Hervena was already driving in on flight magic, and she shouted to Skadi as she came.
"Skadi, deploy lightning magic!"
"Got it!"
Beneath the sphere, Hervena's violet magic circle began to summon itself.
⟨ Rising Gnome ⟩
She bent her knees and swept her arms upward. The earth seethed, and a massive needle of rock burst from the ground.
Blow, seeing it, moved to cast at them—but Rebecca reached him first and laid a spell upon his legs.
⟨ White Freezing ⟩
Ice climbed out of the earth and wrapped his legs. The instant Rebecca saw it, she moved on reflex to kick the frozen limb apart.
Yulia's urgent voice rang out.
"Rebecca! You mustn't shatter the young master's body!"
"Ah..."
"Keep handling him—but carefully!"
"Yes."
In the meantime Yulia dispersed her magic circle and studied the sphere. Countless spells had struck it, and not a trace remained. Grown grim, she let out a long, deep sigh.
"What in the world is that sphere made of?"
While Rebecca continued to take Blow's main body alone, Yulia sank briefly into thought, then spoke.
"...Let's deploy spatial magic."
Only then did Hervena remember the Spatial Transfer Yulia had cast earlier, and she nodded.
Blow merely watched them, eyes half-lidded, gaze blank and unblinking.
While a fierce exchange raged across the dueling ground, Blow's mind floated in a sea-dark void where earth and sky could not be told apart.
In his clouded, half-open eyes, a scene from long ago was unfolding—the first time he had ever seen magic.
The flames of Becarion, known by the epithet White Flame, burned with a strangely white light. A pale beauty that had captivated him as a child. The moment he faced it, Blow fell in love with magic as if it were fate.
For a month he strove to feel mana, and not once did he feel anything even close. The other boys and girls who had watched the white flame fared no better. Most of them wore themselves out, offered one excuse or another, and ran off across the fields—but Blow kept at it for two months more.
And at last he succeeded in kindling a tiny flame.
If he showed this to White Flame, the man would smile at him. He would say Blow had a talent for magic, and ask if he might become his disciple. Clutching that swelling dream, Blow ran the whole way to White Flame's house.
What he witnessed, however, was purple-haired Hervena producing a flame far larger, and far more beautiful, than his own. At the sight, a rare smile spread across White Flame's lips.
"Girl. What's your name?"
"Hervena Westriver."
"Hervena. You have a talent for magic."
Eavesdropping on their conversation, Blow tried raising his own flame. Beside what she had kindled, his was nothing but shabby. The strength went out of him, and for the first time the shadow of jealousy fell across his heart.
And so the boy, Blow, clenched both fists tight and sprinted for the mansion.
Hearing Yulia, Skadi asked back with a puzzled look.
"Spatial magic?"
"Yes. Earlier I managed to move Young Master Blow and that sphere, so I thought spatial magic might actually take."
Hervena, who had already begun to deploy her magic, shouted to Jane behind her.
"Jane! Focus your buffs on me!!"
"Okay!"
"Skadi, Senior Yulia—try to keep that damned sphere from moving. And whatever you do, don't get caught in my magic!"
"Got it!"
The moment the words left her, Skadi and Yulia moved in to pin the sphere. At the same time a magic circle no bigger than a fist began to form along a diagonal off the sphere's right side. Violet mana started to trace itself over the right arm of Hervena, who had gone into a rampage.
Seeing the state of her, Jane cried out.
"Hervena!"
"Kh..."
Enduring the pain surging through her, she squeezed her eyes shut, and a single tear of blood fell.
Darkness split the empty air.
Crack—
Shadow bloomed as if it had been born in empty space.
"Ugh!"
Blow, who had not so much as stirred, twitched. The sphere, unmistakably, began to tremble.
"It landed!"
Skadi's voice rang out, fierce with triumph.
Blow, shaking as if seized by a spasm, unfolded magic circles in every direction. The colors were far more vivid than before, and Skadi scratched her cheek.
"...It really did land."
"Too late to cancel it!"
"Everyone—please defend the stands!!"
They turned their backs to the spectator seats and deployed defensive magic. Blow's circles flashed in sequence. Seeing the magic that emerged, Yulia murmured in disbelief.
"This is... Greig's, from earlier?"
The instant Blow clenched the hand he had held open—
Boom!
The orbs flying toward the stands began to burst, one after another. The sound of detonating air rang on and on.
"D-did we block them all?"
"The right side... we missed it..."
At Yulia's question Jane answered, on the verge of tears. Everyone who heard turned toward the stands with fear-stricken faces—when an unexpected voice came flying at them.
"Hey!"
Rachel, black blade raised, was shouting at them with her brow drawn tight.
"Are you even doing your jobs, you bastards?! If it weren't for our cute Linne, that would've been dangerous!"
"And what is that supposed to..."
While Hervena stared that way in sheer disbelief, Jane, having pressed a hand to her chest in relief, quietly added,
"She says she'll cover the rear herself."
"It works like that?"
"...Seems so. Fortunately."
Yulia, who had been looking toward Rachel, drew a long breath and shifted her gaze to Hervena.
"Let's deploy spatial magic again. Jane, your buff, please."
⟨ Echo of Thrinia ⟩
As Jane's buff wrapped around her, Yulia closed her eyes, opened them, and spoke in a clear voice.
"Hervena and I will cast the spatial magic. Skadi, Rebecca—please handle the sphere, and any variables we can't predict."
"Yes."
"Hervena... let's cast as if this ends it. The highest-tier magic we have. I'm sorry, but I'm at my limit too."
"Likewise."
The moment she heard the answer, Yulia brought her hands together, and Hervena closed her eyes and reached toward the sky.
Rebecca charged first. Her goal was to fix in place the sphere floating above Blow.
⟨ Frostbite ⟩
A golden magic circle formed below, and ice in the shape of a tree surged upward, its branches wrapping the spheres in an instant.
A circle summoned itself once more in Blow's hand, and flames poured down toward them.
⟨ Wave II ⟩
The water magic Skadi sent barely overcame the flames, winning by the bare advantage of element.
An indigo circle wound around the sphere like a cord, then twisted and began to spin. Yulia's rampaging mana started to draw itself across her skin, and a vivid magic circle surfaced in her eyes. Blood ran from between her lips. Even so, her clasped hands did not come apart.
⟨ Möbius ⟩
Crrrack—
Fissures opened in the shape of that twisted band.
The sphere was vibrating at a tremendous speed, nothing like before, but Rebecca layered on more magic and fixed it in place.
A reaper's blade, born of severed space.
Amid an ominous, rippling black light, a massive scythe—the sort a reaper might wield—came to rest in Hervena's hand. At the sight of her, as if she were being devoured by mana, Jane and Skadi cried out.
"Hervena!!"
As if she had not heard them, Hervena walked forward, one step at a time.
A moment passed that felt like eternity.
She came right up to the sphere and slashed it on a diagonal with the great scythe. Where the blade passed, space itself seemed cut, and a black light shone as if it would swallow everything.
When Blow Deblique opened his eyes out of the past, what spread before him was darkness once again.
He sat still and looked back on the moment that had been shown to him. That past, which he would rather have been nothing but a nightmare.
"...A shabby wretch."
He muttered it in self-mockery, and he thought.
Jealousy—how petty an emotion was that?
Hatred—how shallow an emotion was that?
Having let those feelings scatter, he looked around. A darkness that seemed to have neither end nor boundary. It kept pressing in, as if it meant to drown him where he stood. How much time had passed, why he had entered a space like this—there was nothing he could know.
In the darkness dragging him down like a swamp, he rose. And the first thing he did was simply throw his head back.
Just as Blow Deblique had, after living through Han Ji-hoo's life.
Anyone who has fallen without end, and been submerged in a darkness with nothing in it, knows. That you have to look up, no matter what. What good is keeping your head down? Nothing but pitch-black darkness is reaching out its hands. So you lift your head, and you go on. Only then—when you are given even a faint brightness, no more than the gray of dawn—can you climb out of this mire of a dark, can't you?
But look. A brilliant light is shining on him.
It is not some past settling to the bottom. It is something bright enough to dazzle, called by the name of the present. When that glitter, that dazzle, begins to invade the darkness—
that starlike shimmer
shatters the dark as easily as an eggshell.
At last
a different light returned to his eyes.
What was given to him then was a truly clear, cloudless blue...
a sky truly worth looking up at.
"Young Master!"
Hervena, her whole body a map of wounds, was coming toward him, her hands trembling for reasons he couldn't name.
"Hervena."
"Young Master..."
She reached him and held on. As if the worry had finally broken, Hervena began to sob against his chest.
And Blow Deblique finally said the thing he ought, perhaps, to have said first of all after meeting her—the words he had kept buried.
"......"
"Jealousy. Pride. I did it over something that petty."
"Young Master."
Tears brimmed as Hervena looked up at him, and the hand clutching his sleeve tightened hard.
Blow Deblique looked down at her without a word.
"Am I too late?"
As if that were the fear, Hervena began to sob again. Blow gave her a small smile and shook his head.
"No."
"Then..."
"If you don't mind that I can't give you anything right now."
"As if you ever could."
The girl who had thought the boy was only a savior saved the boy.
In the late afternoon, the sun poured down over that shattered place.
And so, in the boy's front yard, where it had always been night, day came at last.