Chapter 34 - A Night of Counting Stars (8)

A line of fire flashed. Onest immediately jerked his head aside, dodging the bullet.

It had been aimed squarely between his eyes. Damn it. Biting his lip, he staggered backward.

“Damn you, are you serious? You dare shoot a captain aboard a Kallion warship? Don’t do anything you can’t answer for, soldier!”

“Am I the one who has to answer for it?”

Ivan advanced, turning his axe in his hand. He did not rush to close the distance.

He slowly assessed his opponent. A mage. One trained in swordsmanship.

Elves almost never carried swords. That was especially true of their officers.

Every field-grade officer in the elven military was a high-ranking noble, and elven nobles considered work that made them sweat beneath them.

Some among them, however, did wield swords. That was where things grew rather more complicated.

Learning swordsmanship despite the scorn of their peers, coupled with the long lives of their race, implied tremendous potential.

Most elves abhorred close-quarters combat, yet paradoxically, the finest swordsman in the world was an elf. She was known to have once been the hero’s teacher.

In short...

The fact that this was an elven officer who wielded both magic and a sword was holding Ivan back. Even if he had already crippled one of the man’s legs in his opening ambush.

“Elizaveta has sent quite the hound. What is your name, soldier?”

“Think stalling will improve your odds?”

Onest frowned at Ivan’s words. Quick on the uptake, at least.

He clicked his tongue.

He could not recklessly begin weaving a spell. For men classified as “superhuman,” the distance between him and Ivan was less than a single stride.

Each was within the other’s striking range.

After a brief standoff, the elf sighed and let his shoulders slump.

“I surrender. I’ll call off my soldiers.”

“Throw away your sword.”

“Why not ask me to sign a surrender document while you’re at it? I have no guarantee you won’t cut my head off on the spot.”

He had a point. But Ivan narrowed his eyes.

An elf, surrendering this quickly? Without even putting up a proper fight? A noble field-grade officer, no less?

Impossible.

Ivan raised his axe without a word. The man could surrender after being incapacitated.

At the sight, Onest clicked his tongue.

“Damn it. Fine. Take it.”

Then he hurled his sword straight at Ivan with all his might.

CLANG!

As Ivan knocked the flying blade aside, Onest was already leaping backward, reaching inside his coat.

Ivan lunged after him, keeping low. He could see no weapon outlined beneath the tightly fitted uniform.

That left only a pistol, a dagger, or an explosive magical weapon.

The last was the most likely—and the most troublesome.

“Lord Veolgrin!!”

“...?”

Why was that man’s name coming up all of a sudden...?

Ivan shook off his momentary bewilderment. Now was no time to ponder such things.

Shouting the name of a technique—or of some powerful figure—was an exceedingly foolish tactic to begin with.

Ivan kicked off the floor and swung his axe. There was no time for a delicate strike with its blunt side. He aligned the blade and brought it straight down at Onest’s forearm.

He could hardly afford to be careless when faced with a mage’s suspicious magical device.

CLICK.

As expected, what Onest drew from his coat was a magical device shaped like a small metal sphere. Densely covered in purple incantations, it looked extremely ominous.

Just before Ivan’s axe could cleave his forearm, Onest pressed his thumb firmly against the top of the device.

An instant later, a pulse erupted.

BOOOOOM!!

Flung away by the violent shock wave, Ivan thought:

Mission failed. He had blown himself up.

Elizaveta’s orders had been to secure the scene of contact between the warship’s captain and Alexander.

Who could have anticipated the captain suddenly pressing a self-destruct switch, let alone prepared for it?

His ears ringing from the shock wave, Ivan landed in a corner of the corridor.

“Ghk.”

The impact squeezed the air from his lungs, forcing out a groan. His expression, however, remained composed.

He immediately checked his limbs, tested that his fingers and toes still moved normally, then gathered himself.

It was an “equipment check” drilled into him through years of training. A trained agent’s body was another piece of equipment, after all.

‘I’m far too intact for someone caught in an antipersonnel blast at close range.’

Ivan rose, his body still reeling from the aftershocks. The impact of the explosion had left his vision wavering slightly. As the ringing gradually subsided, he could hear the sirens echoing down the corridor again.

A good sign. It meant his hearing was functioning normally, too.

“Now, this is unexpected.”

The voice that followed made Ivan go rigid. It was all too familiar. And it had no business being here.

Hearing it for the first time in four years, he briefly suspected an impersonation. But no. He had not misheard.

Through his blurred vision, he could make out those distinctive dark-green flames.

Ghostly fire burning up from the depths of both eyes.

Even the configuration of mana was all too familiar.

“Is that really... Veolgrin...?”

“Yes. Why are you here? You’re alive?”

The uniform ruined by the explosion, the build and height beneath it, even the face. All belonged to Onest, but...

Ivan understood instinctively. This man’s “soul” had changed.

“Possession...?”

“An amusing choice of words. This is called the [Art of Soul Transference].”

The mage of the Hero’s Party. Veolgrin, the Fortress Destroyer.

With familiar mana, a familiar voice, and all-too-familiar arrogance, one of the greatest living mages spoke.

“Where is Alexander, and why are you here instead?”

“...”

Veolgrin’s appearance here was unexpected. It was something he could never have anticipated in the first place.

But before anything else, Ivan recalled the nature of his mission.

‘Confirm the connection between Crown Prince Alexander and the elven captain. Then collect evidence.’

‘The elven captain... No, this aerial battleship is suspected to be suffering a mechanical failure.’

‘Elizaveta arranged things so Crown Prince Alexander would be the aerial battleship captain’s only option.’

‘And now, what Veolgrin just said.’

Where is Alexander, and why are you here instead? Ivan frowned at the heavy implications of that dry question.

Veolgrin had given the captain a magical device containing the [Art of Soul Transference] from the outset.

Why? To meet Alexander face-to-face.

Then... why?

Because he had joined forces with Alexander.

“Did you plan this from the beginning?”

“Of course. Kallion’s aerial battleships represent the culmination of the archipelago’s technology. They wouldn’t suddenly suffer a mechanical failure, would they? After a mere fortnight or so of sailing?”

Moreover, this warship had set sail to escort Veolgrin’s daughter, Elpihera, safely to her destination.

She was the daughter of Veolgrin, one of the most powerful elves and the mage of the Hero’s Party. Even among the many high-ranking nobles of the Kallion archipelago, her standing was unrivaled.

A ship dispatched to protect someone so important could not have broken down after a mere fortnight.

Unless “someone” had deliberately sabotaged it.

A chill raised gooseflesh on his skin.

“That’s right. It was meant to provoke Princess Elizaveta from the start. Once that little girl was angry, Alexander was certain to make contact.”

“Why? Why did you do this?”

“Well, now.”

Veolgrin chuckled. He twitched a fingertip, weaving mana, then abruptly asked:

“Where does your loyalty lie, soldier?”

“With His Majesty, the great former king.”

“As ever. Good to see. Though you might at least have sent word that you were alive. Surely our friendship warranted that much.”

Barely listening to Veolgrin, Ivan adjusted his grip on the axe.

Fortunately, his body was functioning normally. Granted, the shock wave that had thrown him back had not been an attack spell in the first place.

Could he defeat Veolgrin head-on?

He knew the answer the instant the thought arose. Impossible.

But could Veolgrin truly wield his full strength?

Probably not. The amount of mana Ivan could sense was merely the captain’s.

“Oh, you intend to fight? Well... you always were like that, ‘Little’ Ivan.”

“Do I have another choice?”

“Of course. Though I doubt you would take it. Come. It has been a while. Let me see what you can do.”

The captain’s mana reserves were greater than a human’s, of course, but the gap was not so vast as to inspire despair.

In other words, it was a difference he could reasonably attempt to overcome.

Yet... even with only that much mana, if Veolgrin himself was controlling the body, did Ivan have any chance of winning?

‘None.’

Ivan knew his limits precisely. That was a trained agent’s most important virtue.

He had to regard himself as another tool for completing a mission, which meant knowing his own catalog specifications exactly.

Thus, he knew he had no chance. Veolgrin could carve him to pieces with ease using half that much mana.

But, but...

His chances of winning did not matter.

“Then teach me.”

With a deeply settled gaze, Ivan adjusted his grip on the axe.

His chances of winning did not matter.

Could he do it, or couldn’t he? He had never considered such things important.

Did it need to be done? If it did, then whatever it took. Whatever the circumstances, he would do his utmost.

A trained agent ought to fear giving up, not failure.

* * *

Decide in the shortest possible moment. Then act as swiftly as possible.

The instant Ivan decided to attack, he launched himself forward. Head-on, straight at Veolgrin.

The sensation of dividing time measured in seconds and peeling it apart.

The feel of air resistance against his body slowly unraveling the very flow of time.

These were the senses of the “superhuman,” entered the moment he forced mana into every strand of his nerves to activate them.

A fleeting interval in which an instant was laid out like a diagram. This was the battlefield of superhumans.

Within that time, where even a breath was segmented, Ivan’s axe flowed as though swimming through the air. Smoothly, sharply, yet powerfully.

WHOOOOSH!!

Straight toward the dark-green mana, aimed at the very instant it coalesced.

An axe shrouded in mana had the power to dispel magic in its own right. As a spell was woven, it could sever the strands and prevent its completion.

Thus, a mage’s natural enemy was a warrior at close range. As it had always been.

BOOOOM!!

The impact came immediately, but the sound followed a beat later. The closer one came to the speed of sound, the greater the discrepancy between sound and response.

He had torn through a layer of magic.

I’ve reached you, Veolgrin.

Ivan’s eyes said as much as he readied his next move.

Now that he had stripped away the spell just before its completion, his axe would clearly be faster, allowing for the time needed to chant another.

So he had reached it. The place where those giants had walked ahead of him all those years ago.

“Excellent.”

The voice rang out gently, tinged with amusement.

THRUM!!

A faint resistance barred his way. Ivan reacted at once, twisting at the waist. Five sharp spikes of ice pierced through the space he left.

Speed beyond Line of Fire Detection. The magic was complete the instant he became aware of the spell.

By the time Ivan regained his stance and raised his axe, still only a fraction of an instant had passed.

Yet at the end of that brief clash...

“Ha.”

At a glance, more than forty spells, each woven with a different structure, were etching themselves into the air.

Veolgrin smiled gently and flicked his hand.

“Show me more. Show me how much you’ve grown.”

Ivan gritted his teeth hard and hurled himself forward.