[154] The Second Encounter (3)
"Can you hold out? His schema won't be at the cadet level."
"Even so, we have to try. We've got no other choice."
Rian planted Ozent's emblematic greatsword in the dirt and advanced slowly. Tess moved to the side as if to slip out of Falcoa's sight.
It was the textbook formation for two people passing together, but Falcoa didn't care.
If the fiend of the battlefield let himself be brushed aside by a pair of rookies, how loudly would the lives he'd taken laugh at him?
Rian gritted his teeth, thrust the greatsword out, and said, "Come on. I'll take it."
But before the words were finished, Falcoa was already almost on top of him. The acceleration was beyond imagining.
"Krahahaha!"
Rian braced against the vertically plunging blade and felt his nose sting. It wasn't a clash of steel so much as the impact of a hammer.
"What, giving up already?"
Falcoa slammed the flat of his greatsword down in a frenzy. Every time the blow landed, Rian's knees buckled. He finally couldn't hold it and dropped to one knee.
"Ugh!"
The muscles in the arm holding the short sword spasmed. In that instant Falcoa's boot struck Rian's solar plexus.
Rian's body rolled across the ground like a ball and skidded away.
"Rian!"
Tess cried out in distress. It already looked over. But, against all expectations, Rian sprang back to his feet.
Beyond that abnormal strength, endurance was one of Rian's strong suits.
"Whew. Okay, I get it. So that's how it is?"
Falcoa's brow twitched. Rian didn't stop—he leveled the greatsword straight at him and taunted.
"Good. Now it starts. Come at me as much as you want."
"Kekekeke, I'll kill you."
Falcoa's grin split up to his ears.
Just like back when he'd been called the fiend of the battlefield.
* * *
Shirone opened the building's door and stepped inside. The living room was surprisingly tidy for a mercenary hideout, and potted plants lined the sunlit window.
"Where's Jis's sister?"
He moved from room to room. When he opened the third door, his hand froze on the knob.
A pleasant scent drifted from the room. A red carpet covered the floor, and the bed and desk were neatly arranged.
He looked at the woman sitting on the bed. When Tess had described her, he'd had a vague image—but seeing her in person hit him far harder than he'd expected.
"Oh my, you're here, Shirone. How have you been?"
"Marsha… nuna."
Marsha was plainly the leader of the crew that had kidnapped Yuna. But her smile was so warm and familiar that Shirone couldn't reconcile it with that thought.
"Did you get home all right that night? Have you made up with your friend?"
Shirone swallowed the answer lodged in his throat. Marsha must have known he was coming. Still, she didn't hand Yuna over.
"You already know, don't you? You must've heard everything."
"Oh my, why the scary face, Shirone? Are you angry at nuna? I'm sorry for deceiving you back then."
Marsha cozied forward, coquettish, and Shirone stepped back the same distance.
"Phew, you really are mad. How do you expect to forgive nuna? Shall I kneel and beg here? I can do that if you want."
"Give me Jis's sister back. That's all I want."
"Aha! So that's it? Oh my, why didn't you say so sooner. I thought you came to fight me. But really, kind Shirone wouldn't do something like that. What a relief."
Shirone felt confused. Who was this person? Her behavior made no sense, as if she were playing out another scene in a different world.
"Where's Yuna?"
"She's upstairs on the second floor. You can take her if you want."
Shirone turned away. He didn't want to think about Marsha anymore—he only wanted to leave as soon as possible.
"Oh right. But shouldn't you at least take something to cover her up?"
His steps stopped. When he looked back, Marsha was smiling with a mischievous glint.
"It's a bit awkward to see a stranger naked, right? So I'm warning you. Don't be too shocked. She might be a little out of it—my men were pretty rough."
The colder Shirone's gaze grew, the faster Marsha talked.
"I saw it too—the screams were something else. Honestly, I wouldn't have stood for it either. Looking back, it was a bit much. But Shirone, do you know? I ordered the whole thing. I thought you'd understand. Because you're a good boy, right?"
Shirone kept his mouth shut. That confession felt like pure bliss to Marsha.
"So? How do you feel, Shirone?"
"Feel? What do you want me to say?"
He no longer felt an ounce of respect for Marsha. For her, this was pure gratification.
"Hohoho! You really are angry, huh? Why are you mad at me? You said yourself someday my kleptomania would get better. But hasn't your thinking changed now? Wouldn't it have been better if you'd scolded me sharply back then? Maybe I wouldn't have kidnapped Yuna. Honestly, you were so unbearably annoying."
Shirone turned fully toward her. Yuna was no longer the issue—Marsha had crossed a line that could not be tolerated.
"Huh? Answer me. How do you feel? Like you're going to go mad? The sister you adored is suddenly like this and you feel miserable? Now you think there's nothing left in the world to trust?"
"Do you have to have other people's feelings spoken aloud to be reassured?"
Marsha's laugh died at Shirone's question.
"If that's really what you wanted, fine—do it. But why do you care about my feelings? Afraid I'll be disappointed?"
"Don't talk nonsense! I'm mocking you!"
"Is that so? Then shall I tell you what I think of you right now?"
Marsha's face hardened as if she'd been stripped of her usual options and was waiting only for Shirone's reply.
"I don't hate you. In my memory you're still a good person."
Her expression shifted in real time—surprise to disappointment, then finally to anger.
"Don't spout that crap. If that were true, could you forgive me? Could you smile at me like before after I trampled Jis's sister?"
"No. You did something that should never be done. If you really did that, I will never forgive you."
"Haha! Do you really think I'm lying? What can I say—I'm telling the truth. Go upstairs and check."
"Even if it's true, I don't hate you. But…"
Shirone bit his lip as he looked at her.
"It just makes me sad. Someone who should know that kind of pain better than anyone doing something like that—it's heartbreaking."
Sparks seemed to fly from Marsha's eyes. Her features twisted viciously and she ground her teeth.
If she had actually trampled Yuna, Shirone might have felt less wronged. He couldn't stand it—the way Shirone spoke as if he knew everything about her irritated him.
"You! You're such a pain!"
Shirone stepped back quickly. Marsha's zone pressed in with a synesthetic sting sharp enough to make him flinch.
A star-shaped zone.
Among omnidirectional types, it was a sense unique to offensive kinds.
Anticipating Marsha's attack, Shirone switched to a defensive stance. But Yuna was on the second floor.
The city was a tricky environment for mages. It wasn't simply a matter of shrinking the radius of a Spirit Zone.
To use a swordsman analogy: it was like discarding your primary greatsword and being forced to fight with a short blade.
What kind of school of magic did she belong to...?
As Shirone watched Marsha, he primed photonization magic on himself so he could instantly evade any attack.
But Marsha's magic went beyond his expectations. She flared her eyes and let out a sharp scream; a tremendous roar drove into his eardrums.
"Ugh!"
Shirone staggered from the shock. A piercing pain ran through as if a needle had been pushed into one ear and out the other.
'Acoustic cannon. She's a sound mage. This is dangerous.'
Sound mages study tones. They can vibrate the air to produce various sound waves without using their voice; a representative attack is the sonic cannon Marsha had fired.
A sonic cannon's sound pressure tops 150 decibels. At close range it can tear eardrums and leave you deaf.
Because it's a directional spell that amplifies waveforms, it doesn't spread like a laser over a wide area, but being invisible makes it hard to counter.
'This is bad for us.'
Just as Shirone and Amy's effectiveness can vary wildly by situation and environment, for Marsha—who manipulates sound—fighting in an enclosed space was like battling on her home turf.
Shirone wracked his brains for a way out. He finally chose ultra-high-speed teleportation within the cramped room.
Mixing Patrol and Rainbow Drop while moving through the room, he produced a complex strobe pattern that disoriented Marsha.
As soon as he tried to take her from the rear, he fired a Photon Cannon. But Marsha avoided the burst from the blind spot with a simple twist of her body.
"How—?"
There's no way to spot an attack from a blind spot without eyes behind you.
No— even with eyes, dodging a Photon Cannon at that distance would be impossible.
"Heh heh, such a surprised face, huh? That can't be all your tricks, right?"
"Could it be… sonar?"
"Wow, you really are Magic Academy material. Studied hard, didn't you?"
Sonar is the ability to read sound. It's strongest underwater, but mages can project their zones into the environment at will.
A master of sonar's detection can surpass even high-end sensors in density.
So it was natural Marsha could react the instant Shirone fired the Photon Cannon.
"Amplification magic is annoying. It's too lame."
Shirone tilted his head. It seemed trivial, but the remark was strange—mages don't usually belittle the spells other people learn.
"But I like this."
If she had sonar, she didn't need to amplify sound at all. When Marsha spread her arms, the air ahead vibrated and sonic cannons struck from both sides.
Shirone hastily tried to teleport. But sound was faster than his reflexes.
The high-decibel waves flipped his head and broke his magic. For a mage who needs concentration, sound-based spells were truly dangerous.
Marsha used Side-Looking magic to sweep the whole building.
Like a dolphin emitting sound waves and reading the echoes, it was a spell that could accurately measure presence, direction, and distance regardless of cover—a powerful detection magic.
Shirone was driven into a corner. The sonic cannon couldn't be defended against. And Side-Looking's instant detection let Marsha dodge even the Photon Cannon with ease.
'This is really strange. Sound magic is such a specialized field. How could a mercenary like Marsha use sound magic?'
Sound mages spend their lives researching and collecting sounds.
Even if they stumbled upon a lucky discovery, without academic foundations, mastering the discipline itself is nearly impossible.
"You've got quite the expression on your face. That 'How could someone like you?' look is plain as day."