[310] The Wheel of Causality (2)
'What is going on? Archangel Ikael and Guffin. Is there some connection between them? Or is it just a coincidence?'
It was certain it had something to do with Reset. Once she was out of the castle she would investigate it.
If Reset was real, there was a good chance traces of it remained in someone else's depths. She would kidnap whoever she could and dissect them.
She slowed as the inner gate came into view. Guards with torches paced the battlements.
Arius cautiously attempted Flicker. With a faint pfft he vanished and reappeared thirty centimeters ahead. The time distortion disappeared.
'Has he shaken me off?'
Armin had spent a fair amount of time in the food storeroom, so finding his exact position would be difficult. The only option was to expand the Spirit Zone and distort the entire radius.
Besides, given how short his time line had been, it was entirely possible he had already escaped.
"But still, it leaves a bad taste."
Arius watched the guards' movements carefully.
Noticing that a gap opened in the patrol net for about two minutes, he waited for the right moment, pushed off, and ran. If he could breach the wall with Flicker, everything would be over.
'Kiss my ass. Damn Kazra.'
"Where are you rushing off to in such a hurry?"
Arius's run stopped on the spot.
The voice came from behind. To be undetectable to that extent, the speaker had to be quite skilled.
'Damn it!'
Arius turned around with deliberate slowness. Any clumsy move and his head would roll.
Kazra's head of guards, Ritni Walker, let his longsword hang at his side and grinned like a beast.
'This is the worst possible situation.'
Of all people, it had to be him.
Kazra's magic was weak, but his swordsmanship was not lacking. Moreover, Walker was a swordsman who adhered most strictly to the orthodoxy of the Grand Compendium of Swordcraft.
The best tactic for a swordsman facing a mage is "cut him down before he can cast." Walker executed that textbook strategy better than anyone in Kazra. He'd even written the court swordsmanship primer.
Walker planted his longsword point-first in the ground and looked up at the night sky.
Even though Arius shifted his gaze, he couldn't move. It felt as if Walker's nerves had flown over and looped around him like a noose.
"This isn't the time for people to be wandering. Taverns are closed on nights like this."
"Ha! An urgent appointment came up. By the way, Captain—are you on patrol?"
"Heh, what's with that tone, acting all high and mighty?"
Walker's pupils gleamed with the light of a nocturnal predator.
"You're a grave robber, aren't you? Arius of the Mado Seven."
"I don't know what you mean. How many people are named Arius?"
Walker wasn't of Teraze's faction or Orkamp's. He was someone who worked solely for the prosperity of the kingdom.
He had been tracking Arius for a long time.
Being part of the Mado Seven didn't matter. With Kazra's weak magic, that title was inevitable. But if Arius disrupted the kingdom, he couldn't be left be.
"Do you know what's scarier than a tyrant king? His sycophants. I'll give you a choice: surrender peacefully, or be split in two by my blade."
"No wonder things were going too smoothly."
Arius revealed his true colors and slowly lowered his hand.
If he acted without trying to run, Walker would not move either. That was wisdom earned from long experience.
The reason a mage with teleportation can't escape a swordsman is the human time it takes to trigger the spell.
Once the magic goes off, a swordsman cannot catch the mage. But for phenomena occurring in the human realm, a swordsman's sensory mastery often far exceeded a mage's.
How a swordsman detects the exact instant omniscience is being prepared remained a mystery to mages. According to swordsmen, they could feel the change in temperament; from a mage's perspective, you could only accept it.
Arius kept his eyes on Walker's every motion. To Walker, it might have been no different from a civilian staring intently, but Arius was not a simple informant—he still gleaned something useful. Walker's aura felt like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
Arius let out an exasperated sigh.
"Ugh. This is annoying."
Bang! The longsword plunged into the spot where Arius had been standing. Walker finished a vertical downward cut as if following through a half-beat behind whatever had come after his blade.
"Goddammit…!"
Arius was gone. Half a beat too late.
No—he couldn't even be certain of that. The timing had been precise.
Perception speed, sensory speed, nerve speed, action speed—everything had surpassed his opponent. Without a doubt, Arius hadn't even seen his own movement. It was likely as different as the time a human feels and the time a mosquito feels.
'But how did he get away?'
It wasn't a movement-type spell. Nor was it Flicker. The only conclusion was that he had simply disappeared.
Invisibility? Even so, invisibility shouldn't speed up casting.
Still, it was a possibility Walker couldn't ignore, so he scanned the area.
"Captain! What is it?"
Guards heard the sound of the breach and ran over.
"From now on we search for Arius. Strengthen the inner defenses and assemble all reserve troops."
"Arius? Isn't he His Majesty's technical advisor?"
"This is sedition. If we waste time it'll get worse—move quickly."
The guards dispersed in disciplined formation.
Walker observed his men's paths, then stepped into the nearby woods. If an invisibility spell had been cast, traces would remain somewhere.
When everyone else had gone, a Flicker spell was cast. Like a ghost he materialized—a man. It was Armin.
"Apoptosis. A sensible choice."
Apoptosis was said to be one of the most difficult scale magics of micro-space. That was because it was a spell that dove into one's own mind.
When the body entered the mind, the boundary between thought and reality collapsed and one became a conceptual entity. There were no emotions, not even thought. The chance of Arius returning on his own was extremely slim.
'Better than dying, though.'
It was definitely preferable to death.
Mages always had at least one desperate technique.
Walker's response had been flawless. But Apoptosis was feedback from the Spirit Zone, so its casting time was practically nil compared to other magics.
Armin had released the time distortion to prepare for the possibility that Arius might be captured by Walker. If Arius died, that would be fine; but if he were captured and spilled things, the situation would become complicated.
'For now there's nothing to worry about.'
She wouldn't have attempted Apoptosis without a way back. She must have made an agreement with someone or prepared some device.
One year, ten years—maybe even a hundred could pass without his return. But the certainty was that he would come back someday.
'An accomplice is the most likely. I'll start investigating from there.'
The prime suspects were the Mado Seven.
Recalling the members, Armin frowned. Compared to them, Arius was almost sane—those others were unhinged.
'Time to get going.'
She looked over the castle.
She wanted to stay by Shirone's side a little longer, but there was no time to dawdle. She had to get back to Keira as fast as possible.
She cast Flicker and, with a faint pfft, vanished. Walker's shout echoed faintly across the clearing.
* * *
Jenoger ran through the underground emergency escape.
Every ten steps a trap triggered. Floors that opened up, volleys of arrows, spiked logs swinging like pendulums.
Jenoger kept his speed and evaded the traps. When the floor opened he leapt over it; the spiked log caught in the web he spat from his mouth and stopped at mid-swing.
"Hah! Hah!"
He leaned against a corner in the subterranean maze and took a short breather. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he stared up at the ceiling.
He couldn't save Zion. So he ran. Teraze wouldn't spare an assassin who failed their mission.
He could accept his own death, but not the extinction of the Spatur clan that relied on Teraze's support.
'I have to run. And I have to find someone to rely on.'
They were a clan that had carried out assassinations for a thousand years. They might not suit Teraze's tastes, but there were forces that would need them.
Jenoger recovered only the bare minimum of energy and dashed through the maze again. He had to get out of the castle before dawn.
The floor yawned open like a sliding door. Sensing the fall with spider reflexes, he leapt, attached his web to the ceiling, and flew in a parabola. A dagger flew straight toward his face at the same time.
"Ugh!"
Twisting his waist mid-swing, he avoided the dagger.
Though meant to be thrown by hand, the dagger shot like an arrow and embedded itself in the wall.
Landing on the floor, Jenoger assumed a guarded stance. His chest swelled and four extra arms burst out; six eyes opened at his temples.
"Who's there? Show yourself."
From a shadowed corner a compact woman turned.
She had a straight-cut black bob and a face that winced slightly with lidded eyes. Uncharacteristically for an assassin, she wore a narrow, straight dress as if it were wrapping paper around a person rather than clothing.
Her hands, held modestly together, clutched the hilt and scabbard of the dagger, the blade half withdrawn.
"A hitman, huh? Who paid you?"
"There is nothing to tell those leaving this world."
Her voice was refreshingly clear, clearing the mind just to listen.
But Jenoger's ears were not fooled. It was a voice altered by intense training.
"Heh—well, that's how life is."
The moment Jenoger finished speaking, daggers flew.
Jenoger leapt to the ceiling and scattered webs in every direction. Having made the environment his own, he lashed out with filaments as thick as fingers like whips.
The woman's image multiplied, and like a rail she slipped behind him in an instant.
'Unusual footwork.'
A narrow straight skirt was hardly fit for combat. Even with legs spread to the maximum, her stride would be barely half that of a normal person. The odd sandals, tucked between toes, were annoying.
Yet her walking speed was unimaginably fast. Her acceleration segments were so densely packed that her movements left afterimages, a strange motion like chasing a fleeting imprint.
At first she seemed to move slowly, but short bursts stacked explosively until she was already right in front of him. It was very tricky. It wasn't ordinary acceleration he could time.
'Completely different rhythm.'
This was how she made her living.
Classify her as a circus performer—a hitman who uses athleticism to deceive opponents, a collective known for trickery and showmanship.
A fleeting curiosity about who she might be crossed his mind, but it vanished. An active assassin having a known name meant they'd already seen everything.
Jenoger blocked her approach with web curtains. Once he adapted to the rhythm, her paths became predictable.
From that point the tide turned.
Jenoger ran along the walls like a spider and closed in on the woman.
Daggers flew in off-tempo rhythm, but he no longer wavered. He twisted his neck on the last strike and caught the blade in his mouth.
"Heh heh heh! For a circus act, not bad."
Jenoger closed the distance, lifted the upper arms with a reverse-joint motion. With a hand that rode over her shoulder he grabbed her face and shoved her headfirst into the wall.
With a thud, a crack spidered across her face. Fragments of ceramic-like skin fell to the floor.
Jenoger moved his left three hands quickly. One hand squeezed her throat while another probed into her skirt. There was no organ.
The middle hand grabbed her breast and tore. As the silk fabric ripped, he felt a hollow, cushiony texture like fat.
Her exposed chest was flat, and below it protruded gaunt ribs.