[47] Limitless (6)
When told there was no solution, Seriel pulled a sour face. She'd watched their somewhat tender(?) romance from the start and had gotten so wrapped up in it that she treated Shirone like the male lead of a novel.
"Anyway, he can still win, right? Shirone has to win."
"Hmm."
Amy propped her chin on her hand and clicked her straw against her teeth. Merkodain Iruki. Their first meeting had been unlucky, but talent was talent.
"If you look only at the targeting, it won't be easy. Servant Syndrome is really powerful. If he layers logs on top of that, he'd be a nightmare to face. And Iruki was sincere about it, right? If he'd genuinely challenged me back then..."
"I-if he had challenged you?"
Amy, lost in thought, stuck out her lips and said, "I might have lost."
Seriel was stunned. Amy had never once lost first place in the advanced class—she'd set an unshakable record in Class Five—and yet she said she might have been beaten.
You could forgive some indulgence in reminiscence, since Amy was now in the graduating class, a different league, but even considering that, it was an astonishing claim.
"Oh no, what are we going to do? Our Shirone."
Seriel's face crumpled into a worried frown.
* * *
The Speed Gun test was a day away.
Shirone sat on the dorm floor and meditated. He was counting numbers, but it wasn't a normal sequence. If he'd been learning techniques until now, today he wanted an answer to what a sequence really was.
A journey of numbers with a starting point but no destination.
Ten hours passed without a twitch. As time slipped by, in a realm most humans never reached even once, Shirone grasped the essence of the sequence. It hit him like seeing thunder crash right in front of him.
When he opened his eyes, dawn was already stealing over the window. He hadn't eaten or slept for twenty-four hours, yet he felt no fatigue. A solemn light, too reverent to call an emotion, shone in his pupils.
Shirone looked up at the ceiling in sorrow.
What he felt was a great enlightenment, but it was also a reality so cold it made him shiver.
'Is this truly… the truth?'
No one answered. Still, Shirone felt as if he'd heard a reply.
* * *
Thirty minutes remained until the test, and the training hall was already packed with participants and spectators. Staff moved busily about. They reinforced safety measures and set up display boards around the Image Zone to show the scores.
Every student from Class Seven and Class Six was present—part of the hierarchy showing up to make an impression on their seniors.
Class Four students only climbed up if they were interested in Shirone and Iruki's match. Among them, the most prominent was Seriel, one of Class Four's top ranks.
"Ah! Senior! Hello!"
Mark rushed over like someone who'd hooked a big catch and saluted. Seriel waved back, smiling, and glanced around.
"All the underclassmen are observing. Well, I did the same when I was their age."
"Don't say that. I'm here solely to celebrate Shirone senior's victory!"
"Oh! That's reassuring! Good—let's really put our hearts into cheering, then."
Seriel and Mark took the best seats for viewing the Image Zone. Wherever she walked, a path seemed to open—first-class seating was practically reserved.
Most of the chatter was about the Shirone vs. Iruki match. Shirone, with an inherently strong Spirit Zone, versus Iruki, skilled at strengthening his zone through sequences. It was a showdown to decide who was Class Five's top talent.
The test would have both of them perform simultaneously. The academy deliberately chose a head-to-head format to draw out the students' potential to the fullest.
For the same reason, based on practice scores, the higher scorers were scheduled later. Naturally, Shirone and Iruki were placed in the final slot—Group 20.
When Etella activated the magic barrier, the scoreboard lit up. They were given about ten minutes to relax, and then the test began in order from Group One.
Though this was a practical evaluation where individual scores mattered, Speed Gun's duel format made it an entertaining spectacle.
Participants couldn't help but be mindful of that. So even if someone broke a personal record, if they lost to their group partner they descended from the Image Zone with a sour expression.
It took about an hour to get through Group Ten. The top score so far was 533; Naid had finished his practical evaluation at 491, a little above the class average.
As time passed, the students' eyes brightened. They all knew what the main match of the day would be.
Finally Group 19 finished and Etella called Shirone and Iruki. The raucous cheering fell into a sudden hush.
Shirone and Iruki climbed the steps side by side without looking at each other. A fighting spirit radiated from their backs.
"Wow! Shirone senior looks intense. I heard you're completely behind Iruki, though."
"Hah. Shirone's strong in actual matches! Remember the teleportation test?"
Mark forced an awkward smile and scratched his head when Seriel shot him a glare. He'd been the one to underestimate Shirone and get blindsided.
Etella called them over and explained the rules.
"You'll have one minute. The moment the red light comes on the scoreboard, it starts. Thanks to the magic barrier you won't invade each other's zones, so treat it as an individual event. Especially you two—underclassmen are watching, so don't embarrass yourselves."
Preserving even the minimum mental strength needed to answer, Shirone and Iruki only nodded. When Etella spread her arms, the two split and entered their respective zones.
The underclassmen strained not to miss a single moment of the duel. You could hear them swallowing. These were students with records in the 700s at minimum—high-speed targeting would start immediately.
Shirone calmly stared ahead. His heart was racing, but there was no nervousness. It was the state when human concentration peaked. When the pre-light on the scoreboard came on, he counted inwardly.
'3, 2, 1.'
Start!
The red light flashed and Shirone's eyes went wide as he kicked off his sequence. He reached top speed in an instant and numbers rocketed by.
Paf paf paf paf paf!
Ten photon discharges per second.
Flashes swept across a full 360 degrees. All the targets that popped up in the first step detonated. Iruki's detached-style Spirit Zone also moved like a blade through space, eliminating targets.
"Whoa! Both are insanely fast! Everything popped as soon as it started!"
Mark couldn't hide his excitement and shouted. The second step, the third step—targets were wiped out the moment they appeared. When they were tied through the sixth step, Seriel clenched her fist.
"Good. If it stays like this, it could go either way."
Shirone and Iruki matched pace through the tenth step. But the next step sent up twenty targets at once. Neither could clear that many in a single breath, so the true contest began here.
So far the score was 239 to 237, Shirone narrowly ahead. At this rate, breaking 700 points overall looked attainable.
'Good! I'm not falling behind even against Iruki at full power. Keep pushing.'
A targeting mistake would open a step gap and tip the match quickly. But Shirone's flash-style and Iruki's detached-style hadn't missed a target.
377 to 377.
At the thirty-second mark Iruki tied the score. Feeling threatened, Shirone accelerated his sequence. With his Spirit Zone strengthened, the speed of Shirone's flash combos increased.
Shirone pulled ahead by four points, and Iruki grew tense. Unlike during practice when he'd been relaxed, he was now straining every fiber to target.
'Still falling behind? My calculation speed?'
Three days earlier, Iruki's victory had seemed inevitable. Raising his sequence level that much in such a short time should have been impossible.
'I can do it! My strategy is working!'
Shirone abandoned the limits on his modular grouping to catch up to Iruki's speed. If he'd been grouping numbers in hundreds before, now he processed whatever came—232, 187, 99, 276—taking whatever hit him. It was a riskier approach that sacrificed stability for speed, but his defensive mental endurance kept his concentration from wavering.
469 to 432.
When Shirone first pulled away by a substantial margin, the students went wild. Even Etella couldn't take her eyes off the match, caught by the unpredictability.
Iruki finally saw through Shirone's tactic.
'He released the modular limits? He doesn't care about exam scores. He's risking everything to win.'
Iruki's lips curled. How long had he waited for this moment—a rival who could draw everything out of him? Meeting the rival of his life, he welcomed the duel.
'Shirone, my gamble operates on a different level than yours.'
Iruki raised the difficulty of his sequence. The change happened instantly; the students blinked in puzzlement. Amid the steady rhythm of detonations, another rhythm began to thread through.
"Huh? What's that?"
542 to 558.
Iruki hadn't just caught up to Shirone—he'd overtaken him. That required more than doubling speed in an instant.
"Seriel-senpai! What's happening? Did Shirone make a mistake…?"
"No. Shirone's score is rising too. It's that Iruki's targeting suddenly sped up."
"How is that possible? He just gained a hundred points in no time."
Seriel, who'd been watching Iruki's performance intently, finally realized and bit her lip.
"…He made another Spirit Zone."
Everyone turned to Iruki. Two afterimages were clearly spinning off at different angles.
A double Spirit Zone is an innate trait unique to Servant Syndrome that allows mental division. It's a trait, not a technique—impossible to learn.
But what truly surprised Seriel was that even after creating another Spirit Zone, Iruki's speed increased.
Each zone should require executing a different sequence. Could a human brain do two calculations at once?
Iruki was proving it could. And he was doing it while under a log that made mental arithmetic impossible.
'Like Amy said—an astonishing talent. No, not just talent. A mutation beyond humanity.'
The power of Servant Syndrome showed plainly on the scoreboard.
692 to 845.
A gap of over a hundred points, and Iruki was several steps ahead. Once a step gap opens, not only is a comeback unlikely, the difference only grows with time.
'Faster. Faster.'
Shirone fought desperately. The groups of numbers bound by modularization now averaged over three hundred. Because they weren't neat matrices, the calculations grew more complex and irregular.
732 to 911.
Shirone set a personal best. But Iruki was surpassing personal records to the point of threatening Amy's record. If the test ended like this, it would be entirely possible.
Shirone had only one option left.
There's a realm you reach not by running faster, but only by leaping beyond.
Could he do it? Was it truly possible?
No one answered. Still, Shirone felt as if he'd heard the reply.
'Transcend the numbers!'