Maze (5)
“I was aiming for the head. Shame.”
A heavy thud rang out as a thick gauntlet hit the ground.
Area Binding. Usher’s combat technique — seizing space itself and transferring it — had just been unleashed.
Calvin clutched the severed stump of his arm and glared at Usher.
“Kh… You’ve got an interesting magic there.”
“Interesting magic?”
“No. I should say you use it in an interesting way.”
Whether he was enduring the pain through sheer force of will, Calvin bit down on his lip, bloodshot eyes still tracking every movement. For an ordinary person, a wound like that would have made even standing impossible. Calvin went further — he performed a grotesque act of self-cauterization.
Crunch.
With his remaining gauntlet, he seized the raw cross-section of his own arm and crushed it shut.
Usher watched him do it. The moment Calvin’s fist shifted, he cast Blink.
“Blink.”
“You think I’ll fall for that twice?!”
The instant Usher vanished from his side, Calvin’s arm was already swinging toward the spot where he reappeared. Between one Blink and the next, there was always a brief interval. For someone like Usher, who held the magic in a specialized form, that gap ran nearly twice as long as the original spell. To most people it was a fraction of a second — but in that fraction, Usher was vulnerable to every attack.
“……Fall back.”
Seeing Calvin’s arm whip toward Usher, I pulled the trigger on the pistol I’d been leveling at him.
Bang! Bang!
The shots cracked out as Usher threw himself backward. Naturally, the rounds ricocheted off Calvin’s armor. But they were enough to buy a sliver of space. Barely slipping past the punch, Usher Blinked back to my side.
“I owe you one.”
“……Pay me back later.”
“If Ney allows it. Blink.”
With that, Usher Blinked again.
Blink combat was at its most lethal on the opening strike. Once a fast-reacting opponent started watching for it, even Usher had to commit with real tension. Calvin had raw power — but he was also moving faster than most.
“Kh……”
He couldn’t fully suppress the pain climbing up his arm. Calvin’s face twisted as he dropped his head. Usher used the opening to shift to his flank — only to pull back again as Calvin’s remaining arm scythed through the air at blistering speed. Calvin was already guarding against ambushes from his blind spots. An easy first-strike kill wasn’t happening again.
Usher drew a pistol from the holster inside his coat and leveled the muzzle at Calvin.
“Blink.”
Gun in hand, he Blinked out to open the distance and opened fire.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He targeted the joints in the armor, and the moment Calvin charged, he transferred to the opposite side. Watching Usher pour fire from every angle was something close to a divine art. But Calvin’s armor was far too dense for bullets to punch through. The only way to finish this was still Blink. He needed an opening — a clean, certain window to cast Blink while in contact with Calvin.
“You keep scampering around like a damn flea.”
“Want to catch me?”
“Yeah! Of course I damn well want to catch you!”
Irritation finally boiling over from the game of tag, Calvin broke off the chase and turned toward me. The corner of his mouth curled up — and he charged. Apparently he’d decided to deal with me first, since Usher was too hard to pin down.
Going head-to-head with Calvin, my odds of winning were slim. There was no reason to take that fight. My hand went to my belt and pulled free a small smoke grenade hanging there. At the same time, I flicked my eyes to Usher’s current position. He’d transferred close to the concrete wall we’d come through — probably intending to cover me from Calvin.
Click. I yanked the pin and tossed the grenade to the floor.
— Don’t move from there. I’m coming to you.
“……What?”
Hissss.
The instant smoke began to billow out, I sprinted for the nearest concrete wall. This was a space hemmed in on all sides by concrete — no free airflow. With nowhere to escape, the smoke blanketed our vision in moments. When neither side could see, the only way to track movement was sound. Pressing myself against the wall, I turned my telepathy on Calvin.
— I’m over here.
— I’m over here.
— I’m over here.
— I’m over here.
— Bang! Bang!
I scattered my voice in every direction to scramble his bearings, weighting the cast more heavily toward the side opposite where I actually stood. Sensing presence from all sides, he shouted in confusion.
“How many of you are there?!”
— I’m over here.
— I’m over here.
— I’m over here.
— I’m over here.
— I’m over here.
— Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Crash! BOOM!
Rough impacts thundered out — fists slamming into nearby obstacles. I used the chaos to close on Usher, still pressed to the wall. The smoke made it impossible to fully make out his face, but I could just discern his outline.
“Usher Hayes. Take me through the wall.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’ve got a plan. Transfer. Now.”
There was no time for a long conversation. Usher nodded and grabbed hold of me.
“Blink.”
In a single instant, Usher and I transferred beyond the wall, the surrounding smoke coming with us. A brief wave of nausea flipped my stomach after the jump. On the other side of the wall, Calvin was still thrashing — the sounds of things shattering and bursting rolled through the concrete.
I leaned against the wall, catching my ragged breath. Usher holstered his pistol and turned to me.
“Dark Merchant. What’s the play?”
“Move off to the side. I’m going to draw his eyes.”
“Draw his eyes?”
Drawing attention didn’t mean planting myself stupidly in front of him. Simply holding a positional advantage was enough to manufacture a dangerous opening.
“If he wants to get over here, he’ll have to smash through this wall. No other way.”
“So then……”
“I’ll make the opening. In that window — take his head.”
Usher nodded and put a measured distance between us. Once I confirmed he’d pulled back, I raised my muzzle toward the sky.
Bang!
I amplified the gunshot through telepathy and blasted it outward, then stepped several paces back from the firing point. Immediately, cracks spiderwebbed across the wall — and a metal arm punched straight through the surface.
“You little rats — so this is where you were—!”
Calvin’s murderous eyes locked onto me from the far side of the wall. It was a gaze so chilling that ghost-fire blooming in those pupils wouldn’t have looked out of place. In place of a greeting, I quietly leveled my pistol at him.
At the same moment, Usher’s hand burst from the smoke and seized Calvin’s head. Sometime during the chaos, he’d Blinked into the smoke and taken Calvin from behind.
“……Blink.”
Thud.
The hand gripping Calvin’s head vanished — and Calvin’s massive body crumpled to the floor. The head that had been staring me down with that murderous glare was now dangling from Usher’s hand. Helmet only or not, it was no light weight.
Clunk. Clatter.
Usher tossed what he was holding to the ground, dusted off his hands, and walked over. Whether it was the relief of one troublesome enemy gone, his expression looked almost light.
“Not bad. For an information broker, you’re surprisingly competent in a fight against a mage.”
“It’s nothing special. There’s still one left — don’t let your guard down.”
They were a two-man team. Until the remaining one was dealt with, this wasn’t finished. Usher looked down at Calvin’s collapsed form and asked,
“What’s the other one like?”
At his question, I pulled up the remaining target’s profile.
Builder Nicholas. A mage whose specialty was outstanding facility control. In pure combat, Calvin was the stronger of the two — but when it came to coordinated movement with a group, Nicholas was the more effective piece. The only reason they’d been able to pull off an operation this bold was that each of them covered what the other lacked.
“Stone Wall magic. He uses it to raise barriers.”
“Stone Wall. So he’s the one who built these walls.”
“Right. If you use Blink, he shouldn’t be hard to handle.”
If he raised a wall, you just Blinked past it. And yet, in the original story, Usher had still let Nicholas get away. The cause of that, of course, had been Ney Terdos.