Awakening in the Sky
The moment I opened my eyes, I found myself in a precarious situation.
Whoooosh.
Beneath my feet stretched the vast northern plains. And all around us hung a thick, black fog-like mist. From below, it must have looked like storm clouds had rolled in.
That's right. We'd warped straight into the sky.
"What the hell."
"How are we even standing up here?"
Sian sounded just as baffled as I felt, his voice laced with confusion.
Come to think of it, there was a faint magic circle lingering under our feet. It seemed to be what was keeping us afloat in midair.
"But it's fading already?"
"……."
"……."
"……."
The black mist clinging to us like a shroud—surely that was clouds. Black storm clouds. Far below, tiny specks swarmed like ants. If this was above Airi Village, those dots had to be the knights battling the monsters.
The thought of plummeting from here made my head spin. Even I felt my legs go weak, strength draining from my lower body. I didn't have a fear of heights, but this was a dizzyingly sheer drop all the same.
"Ren! Sian! Do something!"
"Y-Yes."
"Sylestin!"
Ren, flustered, cast a levitation spell to keep us airborne, while Sian—his face unusually pale—called out the name of the spirit he'd summoned before. That ancient thousand-year-old magic circle must have glitched somehow. Or maybe the high priest had sabotaged it. Warping to the sky instead of the ground? What kind of nonsense was this?
At any rate, even after the original circle vanished, Ren's flotation magic and Sylestin's winds kept us safely suspended.
Now we just needed to descend to the ground... I glanced at the tangled mass of monsters and knights below, then asked,
"Ren, Sian. Can't you two attack from up here with your power?"
"Huh?"
"Eh?"
I'd asked out of a vague reluctance to head straight down, but they reacted like I'd said something bizarre. Ren gave an apologetic smile, while Sian scowled deeply before answering.
"At this height, my accuracy drops. I could hit our own troops."
"For me, it's the opposite—my power weakens. The winds down there probably won't reach."
They cited completely opposing reasons why it wouldn't work. I tilted my head and pressed,
"Then why not combine your powers?"
"……."
"……."
They looked stunned, like the idea had never crossed their minds. Knights were all about joint maneuvers and teamwork, but mages apparently weren't.
Small wonder, with the Magic Tower's master being such a staunch individualist like Benjamin. Still, his gentler disciple smiled warmly at my suggestion.
"Let's give it a try."
"Uh, sure, why not."
Sian nodded reluctantly and issued commands to Sylestin.
A joint strike from a future Magic Tower master and a high-level spirit summoner. I watched them with bated breath, eyes gleaming with anticipation.
"You've got this!"
"……?"
"……?"
Moments later, Ren and Sian's grand magic rained down on the ground.
Boom! Crash!
The spells targeted only the monsters with pinpoint precision—a perfect blend of Ren's overwhelming power and Sian's exquisite spirit arts. Their combo attack was a resounding success. From up here, I could see the monster numbers had plummeted dramatically.
"Great! Now, let's—huh?"
I was about to say we should descend and mop up the rest when an ominous aura prickled my senses.
"This time, they're coming in a real horde."
In the distance, advanced monsters were charging toward us, radiating a terrifying, savage menace like the titans from some comic.
That gate just kept spawning them endlessly, it seemed. I gritted my teeth. The knights' numbers were thin for some reason. We could handle the remaining stragglers, but those incoming advanced beasts? No way.
We had to intercept them ourselves.
"Kuuu! Ku~!"
"Ku ku?"
I stared in surprise at the approaching Kukku. Wings spread wide, it circled me joyfully, acting all cute and affectionate.
"How'd you get here?"
"Kukku!"
"Missed me, huh?"
"Ku!"
"Good griffin."
I hadn't even called it, yet here it was. Then again, with monsters attacking humans down there, maybe its instincts had kicked in. But Kukku showed zero interest in the battle below. The other griffins trailing it felt the same.
"Perfect. We ride these guys and block the advanced monsters."
As I grinned in satisfaction, a pale-faced Sian asked,
"This is safe, right?"
"Hmm."
I recalled riding Kukku in a previous battle. Honestly, it had been so chaotic I barely remembered the ride itself. I just flashed him a bright smile.
"Just don't fall off."
"Ugh."
Still better than flying on magic. Even for prodigies like Ren and Sian, sustained dual-casting was exhausting.
"Alright, let's go!"
I shouted energetically from atop Kukku.
* * *
Thump-thump. Clutching her body tightly against the pounding of her heart, Yurina trembled. An intensely foreboding feeling had gripped her for a while now. Something unknowable loomed, ready to swallow her whole.
She was in the heart of a life-or-death battlefield, so unease was natural—but this felt entirely different.
Yurina scanned her surroundings with anxious eyes. The praying priests and she were protected at the rear by the holy knights. This spot was safe. All she had to do was pray to the heavens for victory.
Yet her body wouldn't stop shaking.
This isn't the end.
A greater calamity was coming. She sensed it instinctively and snapped her head up.
"Sir Illein!"
"Lady Yurina?"
Illein, who had been slashing through the surging monsters, turned in surprise.
"Why have you come here?"
"It's urgent! Sir Illein, come with me to that side!"
"……."
Yurina pointed to where Abigail's group had appeared in the sky moments ago. They'd unleashed precise grand magic along exact trajectories before mounting flying monsters and heading elsewhere. Illein frowned and shook his head.
"No."
"Sir Illein!"
"How can you head into danger like that?"
Illein hadn't liked Yurina leaving the command post in the first place. Battle was the knights' domain. She had no need to venture into this perilous field. He'd allowed it only for his usual reason: better to keep her close, even if she stirred up trouble.
But as the fight dragged on, Illein regretted his decision. The northern knights' absence had put them at a disadvantage. It wasn't too late. He should drag her back to base by force.
A dangerous glint flickered in Illein's eyes.
"Sir Illein!"
"…Yes."
At Yurina's cry, Illein barely snapped out of it. What had he just been thinking? As he faltered awkwardly, Yurina spoke calmly before him.
"I am the Saintess. I will fulfill my role in protecting the people."
"……."
"Just like the great founding Saintess Ariel!"
Only then did Illein realize his mistake. He'd been trapped by his obsession to protect the Saintess, trying to cage Yurina. Yet the woman before him was no longer a child in need of shelter—she'd grown.
"Do as the Saintess wishes, Sir Illein."
"Your Highness."
Michael spoke from amid the imperial knights, who were forming a defensive line to let the priests recover their strength. He'd been worried about Abigail flying off that way too. But he couldn't ignore the monsters right in front of him. If the Saintess had some intuition, better to send her.
"Don't worry about things here. Go."
"Thank you, Your Highness."
Yurina bowed, glanced at Michael's reluctant face for a moment, then turned away.
"Let's go, Sir Illein."
"Yes."
Illein couldn't object anymore. The two gradually moved away from the main battlefield.
* * *
"Hah, hah."
After felling several advanced monsters, I looked up. Strangely, the area had gone quiet. The frenzied beasts weren't approaching us—they just lurked at a distance.
"Why aren't they attacking?"
"No idea."
Ren, who'd been firing spells nonstop, narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Sylestin's barrier enveloped us, but that didn't seem to be the only reason.
"And isn't it getting darker?"
"…Yes."
"……."
It was still midday, yet unnaturally dim. The warp from the northern temple had summoned storm clouds, but we'd been quite far from them. And they hadn't been thick enough to blot out the sun like this.
As suspicion thickened the air, a sense of déjà vu hit me.
Where was it? Where have I seen this before?
Black mist everywhere. Sun-obscuring clouds. An eerily silent surroundings, other monsters cowering somewhere in fear, too terrified to approach.
"No way……."
Ever since possessing this body six years ago, I'd obsessively memorized the novel's plot. But after saving the duke and intervening aggressively, the story had diverged so much I'd half-forgotten it. After building the base, even more so—and the monster outbreaks had unfolded differently from the original too.
The protagonist crown prince had struggled against escalating difficulties, with the mastermind pulling the strings behind them. But because of me, he had thrown advanced monsters at us right from the start.
So what if the battle was nearing its finale? What if the mastermind was finally playing his ultimate trump card?
I stared straight ahead, tension etching my face. An overwhelming aura approached.
"It's that guy……."
"Pardon?"
"That guy—Balruk."
The demon of black flames. The author had invented names for all the monsters, but not for this strongest one—clearly an homage. It had been depicted terrifyingly in the novel. Even a bulked-up crown prince had barely won, and now it was here this early?
What a broken balance. I grumbled inwardly while glaring at the spot where scorching flames gathered ahead.
"It's coming!"
"Grroooar……."
Unlike the other oversized, easy-to-handle advanced monsters, this one was on another level. The moment Balruk's eyes locked onto me with deadly precision, I shouted to everyone around.
"Scatter!"
At that instant, a massive earthquake hit, and the ground split open.