Poxxon (3)
Amid the stench that clawed at his nostrils, Moira Maine glared at his opponent.
"…Oscar Crucian. Oscar Crucian."
Something beyond mere hatred simmered in the eyes of the man who muttered that name — resentment, humiliation, the venomous spite of a man who had fallen into the abyss.
The only reason he hadn't lunged yet was the figure standing before him. An overwhelming confidence that, were it his will, he could carve the man into dozens of pieces at any moment.
"Do you have any idea how far your existence dragged my life into the gutter?"
"It'd be a lie to say I don't."
Oscar replied with indifference. After the supplement business had cost the Blue Tower so dearly, he had done his homework on this man.
"Stripped of every position in the potion division, and now you're working as the tower's janitor, I hear?"
"…You know your facts well."
Moira Maine growled low in his throat.
"I've fallen all the way down to this cesspit of a sewer. Because of you."
"How is that my fault? You schemed to ruin us and got caught with your hand in the jar. High risk, high reward — ever heard of it?"
"Silence!"
The air shuddered, and even the placid current of the water froze in an instant. As if the world itself were holding its breath before his fury, the only sound to be heard was the steady drip of water falling from the ceiling.
"If it weren't for you, I never would have lost the Cadena Flu remedy, never would have been dragged into that godforsaken price war."
"Sure. Let's go with that."
This was a man who looked for the cause of his own failures in everyone but himself. Nothing productive would come of dragging the conversation out any longer.
"…Insolent whelp. Remember this: the only reason you're still breathing is my mercy."
"Yeah, yeah."
Oscar could understand where that sky-piercing confidence came from. It was no exaggeration to say that this sewer was the man's domain.
'Sewage up to the thighs.'
Filthy as it was, it was still water — and in a place like this, what Moira could do was virtually limitless. Even a simple Blue Tower spell would have its power doubled here.
-Fighting a Blue Tower mage near water is suicide.
That saying hadn't survived for nothing. Water was the one place where Blue Tower magic could manifest at two, three hundred percent of its usual strength.
"Let me ask you one thing. Who's behind this?"
"A predictable question. What organization do you think I belong to?"
Oscar smirked at the shameless deflection and shook his head.
"You're saying the Blue Tower orchestrated this? Ridiculous. There's no way."
"And what makes you so certain?"
"Because it's not the Blue Tower Master's style."
Oscar knew the temperament of every tower master down to the finest detail. Twenty years — no, twenty-one years — might have passed, but human nature doesn't change that easily.
'If I were facing the Red Tower or the Yellow Tower right now, I might have bought it.'
The Red Tower Master was the type to seize whatever he wanted by any means necessary and worry about the consequences after. The Yellow Tower Master was similar in his own way — preferring to handle everything fast and efficient.
But that was precisely why it couldn't have been the Blue Tower.
'The Blue Tower Master. He's a man who knows how to wait.'
Whether it took five years or ten to see a single scheme through to the end, the man never cared. All he wanted was a flawless result achieved through a certain method, without a whisper of noise — that was his preference.
People called him the 'Gentleman in Azure' for exactly that reason.
"More to the point, if the Blue Tower had really plotted all this, there's no way they'd have made use of a nobody like you."
Moira had already fallen so far that he handled every dirty job the magic towers could throw at him. No organization would entrust something this valuable to a man they'd already discarded for lacking ability.
"…You damn wretch."
Both of Moira's eyes gleamed with murderous intent. Every single word out of Oscar's mouth was sound logic, and that was precisely what ground on his nerves.
"Let's see. So among those who aren't the Blue Tower, who hates me and would be willing to shake hands with the likes of you…"
Plenty of factions despised him, admittedly. But the ones willing to join hands with that man were few and obvious.
'There'd have to be at least a foundation of mutual trust between them.'
Only then would the paranoid Moira Maine have agreed to the arrangement.
The moment that thought crystallized, the man who traveled at his side came to mind.
"There's no one but Neil Brion of New Tech. That's who it is, isn't it?"
"…"
"No answer? Not a bad choice. Trying to honor some code of loyalty, are you?"
"Shut your mouth."
The instant the words left him, mana erupted from Moira's body as if it had burst its banks, his eyes still glittering with killing intent.
At the same time, the water level of the sewer dropped in one sudden heave — and all of it came surging toward Moira, gathering around him. A dozen-odd spheres of water, each the size of a human head, rippled into being about his body.
"That mouth of yours has always been your problem. Today, it's the reason you die in this cesspit."
Sshaaaaa!
The moment the words ended, the water spheres came hurtling forward.
Some said: what's so frightening about magic made of water? What's the difference between that and standing beneath a waterfall?
'But if that were all the power it had, no one would have called it an offensive spell in the first place, would they?'
Blue Tower water magic, compressed by mana, could crumple even ordinary steel. The senior Blue Tower mages Oscar had known in his past life could slice diamonds apart with high-pressure jets of water.
'A Level 5 mage obviously wouldn't manage that much…'
But one thing was certain: taking that attack bare-skinned was a terrible idea.
KWA-BOOM! KWAAABOOM!
The spheres that struck Oscar belched thunder, and jets of water erupted upward as if a bomb had gone off beneath the surface.
Watching it, Moira's expression softened ever so slightly.
"Hmph. A disaster in speech, it seems, but not in skill."
After all, no matter how much people chattered lately about the rising star and his 'Young Noble of the White Tower' nickname, his essence was still a Level 3 mage. Which meant there was no way he could withstand a spell thrown with full intent by a Level 5 intermediate mage.
Moira walked slowly across the water and looked down at the corpse floating limply in the sewage.
"This place is a fitting grave for garbage like you."
The moment he gave a small snort and ground his heel toward Oscar's face —
the corpse scattered like smoke, and Moira's pupils dilated.
'An illusion spell?'
Since when?
No — didn't that mean he'd lost track of the man entirely?
'Impossible. More than that, his residual mana was clearly coming from the corpse…?'
The instant that thought formed, Moira's gaze snapped back to where the body had been.
Water up to a man's thighs. In that stretch of water, perfectly suited to hiding a person if one only lay down, a single thread of wind burst free.
"Kuh!"
Fit!
Moira wrenched his head aside at the last possible moment. A deep gash carved itself into his cheek — but he'd have been grateful for even that.
Had he reacted a heartbeat later, there would have been a hole bored through his skull.
"Pwahaha! You dodged it?"
"You rat bastard!"
The water sank once more, and a sphere five times larger than before came surging toward him. Oscar crumpled his body into a crouch and wreathed himself in a Wind Shield in the space of a breath.
KWAAAAAM!
Caught in the torrent, his body was swept clean across the sewer to the far side.
"Damn it!"
Moira spat a curse at the sight. Never had he imagined the man would attempt an escape by such means — in effect, he'd flung the enemy to freedom with his own hands.
"You will never escape this place!"
Shaaaaa!
Stepping onto the water, Moira skimmed across its surface as if gliding. But Oscar, who had already opened the distance, was on his feet and sprinting flat-out in the opposite direction.
With water up to one's thighs, running properly should have been impossible — but he solved the problem with wind. Every time he moved, the water was shoved sideways before it could offer him any resistance at all.
'The location… should be somewhere around here.'
Oscar was searching for a specific place. He hadn't walked into this sewer without a plan.
'A mage is influenced by their environment more than any other profession.'
Red Tower magic turned deadlier in a scorching desert; the Yellow Tower grew stronger on rainy days. The Blue Tower and the White Tower alike had places where their power could be maximized.
'Just a little further from here…!'
Sshaaa!
Dodging the water spheres and spears streaking at his back, Oscar fled — and before long, he entered a vast cavern.
"Hah… hah… You rat bastard."
Moira, finally catching up, was panting hard, his stamina running short. He swept a quick glance around, and a fishy smile crept across his face.
"Kuh. So this is the best place you could come up with?"
The vast cavern was the central junction of the ant-nest labyrinth of sewers — a place where no fewer than eight passages converged, built for the single purpose of discharging water and waste.
"Your intention was good, but you made one mistake."
Had this been after the usual discharge cycle, the water level here would have sunk until it barely brushed his ankles. But that time had not yet come, and the water had not drained.
"You underestimated me far too much. Did you really think I wouldn't anticipate what you had in mind?"
Having chosen this place as today's battlefield, Moira had of course already tampered with the discharge system — so that no inconvenience would arise mid-battle from the water draining away and weakening his spells.
"Your fatal flaw is your arrogance. Drunk on your own cleverness, you failed to grasp your opponent's capabilities. A mage is one who prepares. And that preparation includes the battlefield itself."
"…What breathtaking hubris. But I'll concede this one. I honestly didn't expect you to have gotten your hands on this, too."
Oscar admitted his mistake as he gazed at the sewage pooled across the cavern floor before him.
"That said, I have no intention of dying conveniently for you."
He drew a potion from inside his coat to recover the stamina he'd burned fleeing here.
But Moira Maine had no intention of permitting it.
"Foolish. Have you forgotten already?"
The moment his opponent uncapped the vial, Moira pulled a poison pouch from inside his coat and shook it out. Powder scattered into the air, forming a hazy, gray-white cloud of toxic mist.
"You'd best abandon any thought of drinking potions in here."
"…"
Oscar studied him steadily and asked:
"Do you know what this space was built for?"
"Of course. A place for discharging contaminated water and waste."
"Right. More precisely, it's called the Purification Zone."
Every passage within the sewer ultimately led to this place. In other words, this was where all the filth in the system was purified and expelled to the outside.
"And the same goes for the air."
Pollution in the atmosphere was no exception.
"…What?"
The moment Moira frowned, not yet grasping the meaning of those words — the dozens of fans mounted along the walls and ceiling began to roar to life.
And with them, a wind of tremendous force swept through the chamber, scouring the toxic mist away without a trace.
Gulp, gulp.
"Ahh."
Oscar drained a potion bottle in one refreshing go and wiped his mouth.
"Let's find out, shall we? Whose battlefield this place really is."