The Variable (3)
KWAAAHNG!
The first punch to land rang out with a thunderous crack, yet Kaya didn't so much as blink.
"...Ghh!"
It was Kilian's fist that trembled, quivering beneath her jaw. The mana she had unfolded had barred his way, refusing him a single inch further.
"Dream big, don't you? You actually thought you could hit me, even once?"
Before she could even hear an answer, the second round, tearing through the forest, came crashing down on her.
SWWAAAACK!
She dodged it with ease, gauging her opponent's position—and her eyes wavered.
'...Nothing?'
The mana of the sniper, Oscar Crucian, could not be felt anywhere in the forest. It was as if he'd been spirited away by a ghost.
'Impossible. You're telling me I can't find mana hidden by a mere Level 3 mage?'
Something had happened that defied all common sense. The ranks of Beginner, Intermediate, and High Mage existed in this world precisely because their limits were so clearly drawn.
'A Beginner mage is someone who has only just mastered the fundamental spells and is beginning to apply them.'
Intermediate mages went a step further, beginning to understand and wield the essence of mana itself. And High Mages of Level 7 and above went without saying—they were creators of their own universes, gods of worlds they had built from nothing.
'And yet a Beginner mage has already grasped the essence of mana?'
And it wasn't some shallow imitation, a watermelon rind licked at the surface. He was displaying a crushing depth of understanding that gave him the upper hand—against a Level 7 mage like herself, no less.
For the first time in a long while, Kaya felt her heart pound.
'...And that guy right now is supposedly a Level 3 mage.'
If he pushed further—became an Intermediate, then a High Mage—what realm would his control and understanding of mana even enter? Now she was beginning to understand why her junior had called him the greatest genius the White Tower had ever produced.
'This is fun.'
Sorry to her little brother, but as an opponent, that one was incomparably more entertaining.
Flash!
The Scan tattoo etched into her left arm glowed, and her mana swept across the Hoover family's estate.
'...It doesn't even show up on Scan magic?'
Had it been any other time, Kaya would have trusted that result and concluded her opponent was outside the estate grounds. But not now. A mere Level 3 mage's mana reserves couldn't possibly snipe from that kind of distance in the first place—and besides, he was a genius of mana control.
In other words, her opponent was concealing his mana by some means, but he was still inside the estate.
The very moment Kaya reached that conclusion, a murderous presence bloomed at her back.
"I'm not letting you get away this time."
This time it was Kilian who burst out, silver claws sheathing both hands. Every time she evaded an attack, two or three innocent trees would come crashing down with a KWOOM, shaking the earth.
'Oh no.'
And right on cue, in the middle of that, the third Wind Sniping came flying in. Kaya batted it away with the back of her hand without a thought—and her eyes went round as saucers.
'...What?'
The back of her hand stung. The mana she'd wrapped over it was melting away in real time. Which meant the wind bullet her opponent had fired had been imbued with Erosion magic—a spell specialized in weakening energy, collapsing structure, and burrowing inward. The best possible tool for punching through a barrier.
But that was a spell a mage needed to be at least Level 5 to wield skillfully in actual combat.
'This is starting to get absurd.'
A hollow laugh escaped Kaya, and her eyes curved into lovely crescents. She was dying of curiosity—what face was that impudent genius making right at this moment?
'Fine, then.'
If you want to know, go look.
Having made her decision, she activated her Acceleration tattoo for the first time since the battle began.
"You take your time catching up. Or don't bother at all."
"...!"
The next instant, a fist far beyond the reach of Kilian's perception slammed home—KWADEUK!—into his solar plexus. She moved so fast that the afterimage left standing in her place made her look, for a moment, like two women at once.
KWAAAAAHNG!
"Khhagh!"
The instant Kilian, slammed into a tree, coughed blood from his mouth, the fourth bullet he'd been bracing for came screaming in.
"...So that's the general area, then."
If she couldn't find him through mana, she would simply find him physically. Having confirmed the direction the bullet had come from, Kaya kicked off the ground.
"Kilian..."
The moment Oscar finished his fourth shot and saw the boy cough up blood, he rose from his position. Then he hurriedly shifted his spot and changed his mana code—no, to be precise, he had been changing his mana code without a single pause this entire time.
'I have to make sure she can't detect me.'
The mana code he had just switched to was identical to the trees in this forest. In short, unless she laid eyes on him directly, there was no way to pin down his location. He had been mimicking the mana of the trees, the fruit, the creeping vines—everything in this wood—since the beginning.
'The Imperial Palace, those sluggards. Where in the world is the support they promised?'
He was clicking his tongue at their still-late handling of the situation when—
KWAAAHNG!
With a deafening roar, a woman dropped before him and slowly rose to her feet.
Staring at that surreal sight, Oscar let out a small groan.
'...She just crossed a distance of over a kilometer with a single leap?'
Her body must be naturally light, because she was pulling off the very feat her father had only managed upon reaching Level 8.
As the cloud of dust dispersed, a pair of crimson eyes raked over him from head to toe. He had gone utterly still, frozen like a statue.
"Oh, I see. You copied the mana code of the trees and pasted it onto yourself, didn't you? No wonder I couldn't find you."
One small mercy: there was no hostility to be felt from her. For some reason, if anything, there was a faint flicker of goodwill and curiosity.
'...Like a child wondering what's inside a box.'
In a certain sense, that was far more frightening. Children break unfamiliar toys without a second thought.
"We've met before, haven't we?"
At that, he gave a slow nod. The walking bomb he'd seen at the café, the one loitering through the city—so it had been her all along.
"...I did see you, standing across the street."
"I knew it! So our eyes really did meet that day!"
She seemed pleased, smiling brightly. Watching that childlike innocence, Oscar spoke carefully.
"What is your purpose in coming here?"
"To destroy the documents Jake Hoover is holding."
Damn it.
He'd asked in case there was some misunderstanding between them—and of course there wasn't.
"Could you not withdraw, if only for my junior's sake?"
"Nope. We had our own reasons for interfering in this mayoral election."
Negotiation's a lost cause, then.
Oscar asked with a glum expression, "How exactly did you end up as Mark Sweet's underling?"
"Huh? His underling? Are you insane?"
Kaya doubled over, cackling.
"I'm a Tattooist. Someone like that pill-popper is leagues beneath my station."
"..."
When he made a face that said he had no idea what she was talking about, she blinked at him.
"You've seriously never heard of me? The Tattooist of the Purple Brigade?"
"The Purple Brigade? Then does that place have that... Designer, by any chance?"
"Oh, for god's sake."
A curse burst out of her without warning. She was clearly having a very hard time accepting that her renown fell short of the Designer's.
"You've heard of that lunatic's name but not mine? Does that make any sense? That stings, you know. A lot."
Well, I genuinely haven't heard of you, so what do you want me to do about it.
Just then, the brush behind them rustled, and Kilian burst out.
"Oscar! Are you unharmed!"
"Yeah, for now."
He drew up beside Oscar, his gaze locked on Kaya. His lips moved in a small flutter.
'I crossed hands with her for a moment. She's a monster beyond reason. Even combining our strength, I see no path to victory.'
Message magic. The words were encrypted in mana, so Kaya would be unable to hear them.
'If you happen not to know this spell, you may answer with a nod or a shake of your head.'
'I know it just fine.'
What does this fool take a Grand Mage for.
'Good. Then what's the plan?'
'Plan? We fight. I promised, didn't I?'
He had promised Jake Hoover. Promised the boy who'd been crying. That Mark Sweet would pay a just price for his crimes, without fail.
Oscar studied their opponent and asked, 'Kilian, if I signal, can you buy me even the smallest opening? Three seconds would be plenty.'
'...Three seconds. That will not be easy.'
Kilian considered briefly, then answered honestly. The only reason he'd survived this long was that she'd been openly letting him off easy. But if he threw himself at her in earnest, she would likewise start taking him seriously.
'I will manage it.'
'You really think you can?'
'It is not a question of can or cannot. It must be done.'
Kilian's eyes felt steadier than they ever had. They were the spitting image of his father's.
'I will do it. Without fail.'
'...I'm counting on you.'
Kilian nodded and stepped forward to face her.
"Finished with your war council? I was starting to get bored."
"Thank you for waiting. It seems a warrior's spirit still lives in you after all."
"It's basic manners. Besides, I'm curious what else you intend to show me."
Her gaze slid briefly toward Oscar. He ignored it and swiftly prepared his spell.
'Even if Isolation Garden carves out a domain of perfect vacuum, it won't mean a thing to a Level 7 mage.'
The gap in their base weight classes was simply too vast. And right now, he was nothing more than a Level 3.
'Nor can I hold that space open for hours at a stretch like I did in my prime.'
He was certain because he'd already used it once, cutting off the Morale Boost earlier. Two seconds at most. That was all the time he could sustain this spell. Any longer, and his mana circuits would burn out under the strain.
'A measly two seconds. Far too short to do anything to someone...'
But if the opponent was a warrior of the forest, the story changed. Tattoo magic was a discipline developed by the Fifth Tower Master of the White Tower and taught to the forest warriors. Naturally, its copyright belonged to the White Tower, and whoever became Tower Master could read its every detail. In other words, Oscar was a man who knew all the secrets of tattoo magic—secrets even the forest warriors themselves did not know.
"Kilian!"
The instant Oscar's shout rang out, a monstrous surge of mana erupted from the boy's body. Every one of the dozens of tattoos carved into his flesh activated in a single heartbeat.
"Full tattoo activation...? You'd go that far?"
Even Kaya clicked her tongue, dumbfounded. That technique consumed every tattoo on one's skin, down to their last charges. She knew better than anyone that it was nearly impossible to control—and even if one succeeded, it wracked the body with a crushing burden.
"KRRAAAAGH!"
Kilian convulsed, shaking where he stood. The distant agony it carried far outran every pain he had ever known.
But what he gained in exchange was power so immense it could trample even a Level 5 mage in a single instant.
'I can feel it.'
He could feel the great power and the pulse it beat within his own body. And facing that untamable force, he did not flinch. Even if it was nothing but a fleeting dream. Even if it was a mirage in the desert, a hollow phantom. Even if it was merely a fragile hope he would never hold in his hands.
'Right now, it belongs to me entirely.'
And he had the conviction that one day, this power would truly be his. That certainty pushed back the mottled fear and pain.
Five layers of Acceleration stacked atop one another. Five layers of Reinforcement stacked atop one another. Beyond the spells that heightened his physical abilities, more than a dozen spells orbited his body like satellites.
"This is... everything I can show you, here and now..."
"..."
In his younger brother's stance, Kaya Lockwood glimpsed a resolve to lay down his life. And so, for the first time, she took a proper stance and drew her mana up to its height.
"Come at me, warrior of the forest."
The moment that cry left her lips, the distance between Kilian and her collapsed—FWOOM! No, "collapsed" wasn't quite right. It would be more accurate to say the space between them was deleted outright.
KWAAAAAHNG!
His fist struck her crossed forearms, which had formed an X before her.
"...!"
Her body slid back a hair's breadth. And it didn't end there.
"Tch!"
Dozens of the White Tower's offensive spells came pouring down on her all at once. Clicking her tongue, Kaya took them all head-on—not dodging a single one of the spells scattering down like rain from the sky.
"...Ghh!"
Is even this... not enough?
Having felt the gap between them carved into his bones, Kilian—frozen in the very stance of a punch that had carried no mana, no strength of any kind—crumpled where he stood and lost consciousness.
"...Well, now."
That feels filthier than I expected.
Kaya's face twisted as though she'd bitten into a bitter candy.
'Now.'
It was at that moment that Oscar, who had watched every beat of it from start to finish, moved. Now—while she had, for the briefest instant, forgotten his very existence fending off Kilian's spells.
Oscar sprinted behind her, every sound and footfall smothered to nothing.
'So, with Kilian down and out...'
Only then did Kaya's eyes leave Kilian—and go wide. The child genius, that boy, was gone from her field of vision.
'Where—?'
The instant she frantically swept her eyes in every direction, a spell completed behind her.
Isolation Garden.
The oxygen filling the space vanished. The mana vanished. In a place stripped of everything, Kaya—her very breath already cut off—turned around.
"...!"
It was magic of a caliber so elevated that no one would believe a Level 3 mage had cast it. She would admit it. Kaya Lockwood, for one suspended moment, had her gaze stolen by the artistry and subtlety woven into that spellform. It was beautiful, like a masterfully woven cloth.
'Beautiful. Brilliant, even. But...'
That was all it was. Because a spell like this could not bring down someone who had reached the realm of Level 7. Their fundamental weight classes were leagues apart. Above all, a hardened forest warrior could hold her breath for a good ten minutes without breaking a sweat.
'So this is the extent of a genius who hasn't grown up yet, hm?'
Not that it didn't set her heart racing. Given time, how would this sprout bloom? How far would the talent that had just pushed its first leaves unfurl into full flower? Merely imagining it made her pulse quicken.
'But.'
Not yet.
The moment Kaya, a shade disappointed, drew her mana up—
A jolting shock, as if she'd been struck by lightning, tore through her entire body.
'What... is this?'
It felt as though the reins of her own body had been wrenched from her hands. And that was barely an exaggeration.
'I can't... activate my tattoo magic?'
She turned to stare at Oscar, eyes blown wide as if they'd been split open. The magic of tattooists worked on a fundamentally different principle from ordinary mages, who handled everything internally. Since their mana had to be sent into the tattoos etched on their skin, it had to be released outside the body at least once.
'He's reading the exact timing and flow of every release, and severing it... moment by moment?'
A chill like ice water poured over the crown of her head slithered down her spine. Could this really be shrugged off with a word like "genius" or "talent"? Was it safe to judge it so carelessly?
She didn't think so.
'...This one's getting dangerous.'
The instant that thought brushed across her mind, Oscar—having already closed the distance—had his second spell complete inside his body. A decisive strike that ignored every layer of the opponent's defenses and shook them apart from within.
Oscar-Style Martial Arts, Secret Art, Chapter One—
Sound of the Wave.
SHWAAAAAAAAA!
The roar of a raging tide swallowed the winter forest whole.