Mission (3)
"So you're saying you'll make enemies of the entire Ghost Army?"
"If we fight, your master dies before you do."
A glance.
The commander turned his head toward empty air and raised a hand, then signaled to the subordinate standing beside me.
"…You may stand down."
"…"
The cold metal pressed against my temple vanished. At the same time, the masked thug who'd been aiming a gun at me disappeared as well.
It was the power of the Ghost Army's Invisible magic.
It didn't take long for the mutual staring contest to end.
Hoo. Forcing down a sigh that threatened to escape, I finally brought up the operation.
"Looks like we've more or less settled things."
"Seems that way."
Spinel retracted her blade with her own hand and slid it back into its case as she spoke. No one voiced any further complaints about her words.
Every last one of them was a wild animal of a human being — the kind you couldn't handle without getting bitten. Meet them too often and I'd collapse from exhaustion long before anything else got me.
"I'll go over the operation now."
"Let's hear this grand plan of yours, then."
The snide remark came from the shapeshifter, arms crossed as he leaned against the railing. I ignored it and looked at the rebar stacked nearby.
These were the materials I'd requested from Spinel. Against people, a blade was the better tool — but when the target was a structure, the calculus changed. Heavier objects simply hit harder.
"A barrier exists within a fixed radius centered on the Magic Tower."
"Yeah. I know."
"Only those approved by the Tower's master — the Great Intelligence — can pass through it."
"Which means if we want to get inside, we have to destroy the barrier first."
"So in the end, we just smash the barrier and we're good?"
I nodded. Spinel wasn't wrong. From the very start, we'd had no choice but to go in loud. What mattered was how long the operation would take to finish.
We needed to make a big, decisive mess of things — and then get out before the heavily mustered security forces arrived. We'd come in disguise to keep our identities hidden from them, but the best outcome was simply never crossing paths with security at all.
"For a fast breach, we should pour on as much firepower as possible. Shapeshifter — you should hit the barrier in the opening volley as well."
"…Fine."
"Next is dealing with Secondary Beat when they come down from the upper floors."
"Won't their core forces be guarding the Great Intelligence?"
This time it was the commander who asked. Under normal circumstances, yes — you'd station the bulk of your forces next to the most important target. But the entire Magic Tower was under assault. Given that the Great Intelligence herself possessed considerable personal combat power, the safety of everyone else inside the Tower still had to be accounted for. That was especially true if our objective was killing, not capture.
"The Ghost Army and the shapeshifter enter the first floor first."
"You want us going in first?"
"Cause as spectacular a ruckus as you can. With two special-grade combatants on the ground floor, even the Sword Demon will have no choice but to come down."
Secondary Beat was a corporation equipped with high-grade gear specifically designed to counter Archmages. Factoring that in, sending the Ghost Army and the shapeshifter down together made the most sense. They needed to buy enough time for the forces heading to the upper floors.
"The Sword Demon, huh… All right."
"There's a vault on the basement first floor. If you have room to spare, take a look."
The only ones who could actually go down there were the Ghost Army. Everyone else would be too busy fighting upstairs to spare the time. The commander seemed to catch on as well — he turned his head briefly toward empty air. Just from the direction he looked, you could more or less guess where the real body was.
If I fired a gun that way right now, I could probably kill the Ghost Army's main body without much trouble.
The thought crossed my mind as I brushed the pistol in my pocket. Sooner or later, every last one of them would become our enemy. A rare opportunity like this, and it was a shame to let it pass.
"Then what about me?"
"Once attention is drawn to the lower floors, you enter with me."
Spinel's role was to face the Great Intelligence alongside me. The Great Intelligence's office was on the twelfth floor. Reaching it without interference was impossible without Spinel's help — and the same went for getting out of the Magic Tower once the operation was done. With Spinel's Levitation, we could reach the ground in moments.
Spinel nodded and settled from midair down onto the rooftop, apparently adjusting her mana distribution before the operation began.
"Once the operation is over, we extract using the Ghost Army's magic. The goal is to finish before we get tangled up with security, if at all possible."
"You knew even that much."
"There's no such thing as a secret that stays hidden from everyone."
"Well. It's a clean plan, I'll give you that."
Of course it was. I'd tacitly handed the most profitable target — the vault — over to his side. Whatever conversation he and the shapeshifter might have later wasn't my concern. The shapeshifter, for his part, didn't seem particularly unhappy after hearing about the vault either.
Same operation, different dreams for each of them. Expecting something like a sense of mission from a group like this was laughable. Aside from Spinel, none of them seemed to care about the Cabal's cause at all.
"If no one has any objections, we start the operation now."
"Shall we, then."
Spinel's light footsteps echoed across the rooftop as she walked toward the pile of rebar stacked in the corner — the materials I'd asked her to gather here. Every bar of it was meant for cracking the Magic Tower's barrier.
⟨ Levitation ⟩
Spinel extended a hand toward the rebar and moved her mana. Levitation — her magic that made any object float — began to take effect. The haphazardly stacked bars rose into the air one by one. Their sheer weight made the motion look sluggish compared to usual.
"Take them as high as you can."
"Got it."
"The moment they bounce off the barrier, reapply the spell."
"Okay."
The heavy rebar soared skyward with Spinel's gestures. Five floors. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Climbing in stages, the bars eventually surpassed the height of the Magic Tower itself — and still they kept rising. Higher. Higher still. They had to go as far as Spinel's mana would allow.
At last, when the rebar had shrunk to tiny specks in the sky, Spinel spoke.
"I'm near my limit."
"Release the spell."
The rebar hung suspended in empty air for a brief moment, then plummeted toward the ground at tremendous speed. The force of those bars driving straight down was formidable even from a distance. And just as the falling rebar closed in on the Magic Tower's rooftop, their trajectories suddenly shifted.
BOOM! KRA-KOOM! BOOM! KRAAAAAASH!
A translucent barrier materialized around the Magic Tower and collided with the falling rebar. Ear-splitting crashes rang out again and again as the bars that struck the barrier ricocheted in every direction.
"Tougher than I expected. Levitation."
Spinel's magic seized the rebar scattered through the air once more. Massive ripples spread from the points of impact on the barrier — proof that her attack had landed a real blow. A few more volleys like this and cracks would start to form.
Apparently planning to repeat the assault, Spinel lifted the rebar skyward again.
"Hey. Information broker."
"What is it?"
Right after Spinel's attack, the shapeshifter — who'd been watching the whole thing — called out to me. He was rolling his shoulders and neck, loosening up. Watching the fight must have gotten his blood going.
"I'm itching for a fight. Mind if I jump in now?"
"If you're confident you won't get hit by the rebar."
"I've heard some ridiculous things in my time. If you don't care, I'm going."
"You'd do well to be careful."
Honestly, I'd prefer he got brained by a falling bar and died — but a Sixth Circle Archmage isn't that much of an idiot. The odds of that happening here were zero.
As if my concern were a waste of breath, the shapeshifter leapt from the rooftop toward the ground below.
Polymorph
Spell Overlord. The exclusive domain of Archmages — a technique that pushed a spell's output to its absolute limit. Magic cast through Spell Overlord consumed mana at a ruinous rate, but in exchange it elevated the spell a full tier beyond its normal form.
And as if to prove that power, the shapeshifter who had dropped from the rooftop rose back into the sky in an entirely different shape.
Grrrrrrr.
A massive pair of wings beat once, lifting a colossal body into the air. The form that cast its shadow across the sky was, despite being the first time I'd seen it in person, unmistakably familiar.
Blue scales covering every inch of its body. Sharp golden pupils slit vertically down the middle. Membrane wings of blue light beating against the empty air.
A blue dragon — a creature that had existed only in legend — had taken form in the living world.