[242] 6. Clash of Magic (2)
"What are you so worried about? I went out of my way to get you in, and you're just whining."
"What am I supposed to do! If I lose, how furious will Shirone be! Why did he even pick me? You know I—"
"Better to lose than to run. At least that's something."
Neid's steps stopped abruptly.
Iruki turned and said, "It's enough if one of us gets a win. Can't you read the room? We're the ones who'll get Shirone to Dante's doorstep. That's an important job. You can't leave that to someone who isn't on our team."
"Iruki…"
Neid's face filled with feeling.
"And honestly… I don't even think you'll lose. There are a few variables, but there's still a chance, which is why I chose you. Don't feel pressured—just do your best."
Iruki was right. Whether they won or lost, if Shirone had decided to fight, bringing him to face the enemy was something they couldn't hand off to someone else.
They didn't want the memory later on of having run away; if they wanted to stand proud as Shirone's friends, it was time to take the risk.
"All right! Let's do this! Bring it on!"
@
The weekend for the first match arrived.
Neid and Sabina's duel wasn't the biggest headline, but the students had already filled Training Ground No. 2000.
This match would be the first sign of whether Shirone and Dante's duel would actually take place, so its significance was far from small. The teams' styles were clear, so there were plenty of things to watch.
When Amy arrived at Training Ground No. 2000, there wasn't an empty seat in sight.
"Amy! Over here!"
Seriel waved from the first row of the temporary stands. Amy, who thought herself reasonably punctual, was impressed by Seriel's eagerness to arrive early. Mark and Maria sat beside her.
"Hello, senior!"
Mark's voice boomed while Maria bowed demurely. Amy acknowledged them with little expression and sat down next to Seriel.
"How long have you been here? You must be awfully bored to show up this early."
"Hehe! Actually, I gave Mark special orders. I haven't been here long either. But you can't just watch an event like this from afar—especially when it's an important match for Shirone."
"Important, huh. You always stir up trouble without us noticing."
Amy said it casually, but she wasn't as unaffected inside. Airhin Dante was a name even she, marked as a prodigy, had heard until it stuck in her ears.
A boy who had risen to be the kingdom's top-ranked mage, surpassing the nation's best aspirants. The barriers Shirone had broken through so far were on a completely different level.
Shirone had improved dramatically since Heaven, but experts agreed the informational magic Dante wielded was so delicate that even professionals found it hard to emulate.
"Begin! Begin, seniors!"
At Mark's call, Amy took in the arena.
Neid and Sabina were already in the field, and Shirone watched from the side with Iruki.
The referees rotated among the No. 2000 instructors; today it was Teacher Sad.
Sad called Neid and Sabina to the center and explained the rules: if serious physical collisions occurred, the referee could stop the match at his discretion.
Neid and Sabina didn't even glance away; they held each other's gaze as if deaf to everything else.
Ten minutes earlier Neid had been whining, but now he had steeled himself and wore a calm expression.
Closer pointed at Neid and said, "That kid might be a dark horse. When he dodged my punch on the first day, I got the impression he's used to fighting."
"No, it's more than that…"
Dante shook his head as if to deny Closer's words but couldn't put the rest of the thought into words.
There was a strong sense that something didn't fit if you simply called him experienced. If one had to pick a similar type, maybe Kanis, but even that wasn't quite right.
"Well, we'll see in this match. Sabina will win no matter who she faces."
Having finished his explanation, Sad ordered Neid and Sabina to return to their designated positions.
They set the starting points by mutual consent—thirty meters each, sixty meters in total.
The Spirit Zone couldn't reach across, but it was a distance where preemptive strikes through spell arrays were possible.
"Now, we begin the duel between Neid and Sabina."
Sad raised his arm to signal the start, and the chattering students fell silent at once.
Students who had experienced large-scale combat in No. 2000 said this was the tensest moment. How you used the Spirit Zone early—advance or fall back, attack or defend—determined the duel's flow.
The four basic square patterns and countless unorthodox variations produced many variables. This was the cornerstone moment of the match.
"Begin!"
Neid and Sabina thought the same thing.
Advance, attack, preemptive strike.
Their spell-array duel was neck and neck. The two Spirit Zones overlapped as Electric Bolts and Wind Cutters crossed.
In speed, aside from photons, few elements could outpace electricity. But electric force, being sensitive to charge, had the drawback of lower accuracy.
In the end, the Wind Cutter sliced across Neid's arm first. As his Spirit Zone wavered, Sabina cast Haste on herself.
Few students could track Sabina's zigzagging rush with their eyes. Watching a human-sized figure move like a cat was like seeing a trick in a magic show.
Having taken Neid's rear, Sabina swung her sword and a blade of wind cut across his throat.
"Hit confirmed? Is it over?"
Just as Sabina thought that, a faint shock ran through her arm. It was Neid's specialty—image-copy magic. By the time she turned her head, dozens of Neids had materialized around the area.
"Hah! Pretty decent little tricks!"
If she inspected each one individually, she'd waste time and risk falling into a trap. Sabina immediately tightened her focus and deployed the advanced technique Cutting Flower. She brought both hands above her head and spun, sending Wind Cutters spraying outward.
One of Neid's illusions flung itself forward desperately. The real Neid slipped out beyond Cutting Flower's radius and watched Sabina with a stunned expression.
He fired long-range Wind Cutters at over forty shots per second. It was certainly beyond normal advanced-class level.
Air magic split into the Press family, which compresses air, and the Blow family, which whips air around. Sabina seemed to specialize in the Blow family rather than Press.
'As expected, the basic mode won't do.'
Neid concentrated and a blue cloud began to rise around him. Electric bolts popped up from the cloud and darted in straight lines.
"Plasma?"
Sabina halted in alarm. No matter who she was, you didn't take risks in front of plasma.
"Wow, so that's plasma. That kid wasn't just lucky last time."
"Are you stupid? You can't learn that by luck."
True plasma appears at ultra-high temperatures, but in magic that reproduces the phenomenon it's in the domain of electricity, so the temperature itself doesn't rise. Even so, for electric mages it's one of the most powerful weapons.
Plasma is like electricity spreading out like a cloud, filling a space. In short, where fish reign in water, an electric mage rules in an electric cloud.
The accuracy problem of bolt magic doesn't exist in the plasma domain—instead, you can alter a bolt's trajectory at will. The environment itself is electric, reducing the mental energy needed for spells; more importantly, it functions as a passive skill.
A blessing for electric mages.
But understanding the plasma field that only forms in extreme conditions isn't something even pros can do easily.
Sabina tensed for the first time since the fight began. Combat doctrine advised avoiding approach if an electric mage had laid down plasma and the skill gap wasn't huge.
"Then…"
Sabina changed tactics. To attack Neid without entering the plasma area, she had to sweep him away by generating tornadoes from outside.
She cast, and several ten-meter-high vortices began to dance around.
Neid used image-copy to confuse sight and tried to close the distance somehow.
One good Electric Shock would do it. If he stunned her for even a second, no one could withstand the ultra-high-speed electrical bombardment launched inside the plasma zone.
But Sabina, with Haste's nimble movements, left no opening and moved freely across Training Ground No. 2000.
As the plasma area expanded, the number of vortices increased. Sabina, determined to press the attack, began merging her thirty tornadoes one by one. The number instantly halved, but their size more than quadrupled.
If the tornadoes fully merged, there would be nowhere to hide on the field. Neid decided if he had to act, now was the time, and he checked the ground composition using the plasma's electricity.
About thirty-two percent was metal.
Of course it was only the environment realized by No. 2000's data, but any conductor could be controlled by plasma.
'I feel a bit bad about using another profession's trick… but there's no time to quibble.'
If he lost, the burden of making Shirone's duel happen would fall entirely on Iruki.
Neid generated a magnetic field through the plasma. Metal particles mixed in the rock shot up from the ground. A magnetic-storm whirlwind formed on the spot—a metal tornado.
Sabina was taken aback. Its size wasn't even a tenth of her tornadoes, but if nearly three tons of mass spun at the same speed, its destructive power was comparable.
"No. No one can break my trump card!"
Sabina gritted her teeth and merged the remaining fifteen tornadoes. Rotational fusion is an advanced technique, but in just two minutes she succeeded in fusing them into a single massive vortex.
A storm worthy of the name typhoon arose. Neid's metal tornado dashed toward the eye of that storm.
Everyone knew this was the final attack.
Students watched, barely breathing, as the two vortices collided at the center of the field.
It was a contest of mass versus size. The steel tornado danced inside the giant vortex, shredding the airflow.
Anti-magic from Sabina's bracelet activated and its gauge dropped rapidly.
Neid wasn't in perfect condition either. He was disrupting Sabina's tornado, but the difference in mass was too great.
"Ugh!"
Wind pressure stronger than the magnetic force slowly de-densified the metal and calmed its speed. At the point where their rotational velocities canceled each other out, the two forces meshed exactly.
Sabina's tornado broke into turbulent air and scattered. A deafening roar burst out as the gale spread beyond Training Ground No. 2000. Friends watching from the side were blown back by the wind.
The students waited for the dust cloud to clear. Some dust rose, some settled, and the two figures were revealed.
Sabina was bent over, panting, and Neid had collapsed to his knees.
Sad checked both their gauges through his master bracelet.
Both had their mental energy drained to the bottom; neither was in a state to be declared superior.
But the students' admiration wasn't for Sabina—it was for Neid. No one had expected someone only mid-ranked in the advanced class to push a nationwide powerhouse like Sabina this far.
'I don't know… Sabina might even lose…'
Sabina walked forward, panting. Her pride was wounded at having been matched blow for blow by an unexpected, nameless student.