Arc 31: Rumors (4)

“Ugh!”

The rear wheels lifted first, and the car flipped. Intense pressure bore down on my chest, the back of my head, and my lower back.

In the instant the car hung in midair, my eyes found the ground below.

“Meno, sor, po...!”

The magic circle activated, and I turned my eyes toward the back seat. I met Atzier’s gaze. He already had Philly wrapped in his arms.

Our eyes conveyed the same message.

‘You’re on your own.’

BANG!

Atzier kicked the rear door off the car. It flew away with a tremendous clatter. With remarkable agility, he carried Philly out of the tumbling vehicle. It was a considerable drop to the ground, but worrying about Atzier was a luxury.

Only the driver and I remained inside. His eyes were unfocused. There was no emotion in them whatsoever—not bewilderment at having hit the accelerator and flipped the car himself, nor fear at his imminent death.

Something was wrong.

Weaving in Midair, Simultaneous Replication

Imperial Palace Armory

Spears, Nos. 1 through 3.

Shields, Nos. 1 through 4.

I wove a spear outside the car and drove it into the back seat.

With a crunch, the impact knocked the plummeting car onto a diagonal course. Following that trajectory, I drove another spear into it, then another.

The car changed direction in midair and slammed into the upper trunk of a towering tree.

CLANG!

I placed a shield beneath the car as it fell away from the tree. I repeated this three more times, each shield bringing the car to a stop in midair, again, and again, and again.

CRASH!

It landed on the ground.

The car was smashed to hell, but the driver and I were unharmed.

“... Hah...”

Seeing that the driver was all right, I felt relieved.

But—

There was no time for that. The driver lunged at me. I seized both hands as he tried to strangle me.

“Urgh, hey! Mister! Snap out of it! Hey!”

I was so flustered that polite and rude speech came tumbling out indiscriminately.

The man trying to kill me wore an utterly blank expression. It was more terrifying than I could have imagined.

And why the hell was this driver so strong...?

Weaving in Midair

Workshop, Blunt Weapon No. 1

Wooden Mallet

THWACK!

I created the least threatening weapon I owned in midair and struck his head. His strength weakened a little.

Taking advantage of that opening, I grabbed his shoulder with my right hand and pulled. His back came into view.

With a firm grip and the leverage now in my favor, I twisted his arm behind his back and seized his hair. Then—

HOOONK!

I slammed his head into the steering wheel with all my might. Apparently the horn still worked, because it blared loudly.

“I said snap out of it!”

His expression didn’t change even when his face hit the wheel. Could he not even feel pain? His vacant eyes rolled toward me. Goose bumps rose all over my body.

I trembled with exertion.

I was using every ounce of strength to restrain him. Even with his arm firmly pinned, he tried to heave himself up hard enough to snap it. Using pain to control his movements was useless.

“Frondier! Are you all right?!”

Philly’s voice reached me from a distance. Only then did my brain begin working again.

‘... The phone call.’

That had to be what had changed him. The instant he answered his phone, his eyes had gone unfocused, and he had accelerated into the crash.

What had he heard? What could anyone have said to make him like this?

‘... No, maybe...’

Perhaps the actual content of the words didn’t matter.

Something rattled against the driver’s door. I looked out the window and saw Atzier.

“Frondier, the door is locked.”

“Does it look like I’m in a position to open it?!”

“A fair point.”

I sensed something strange coming from Atzier outside the window. Aura. The moment I recognized it—

CRUNCH!

The door opened. No, I thought it had opened, but he had torn it off. Holding it in one hand, Atzier tossed it aside.

Then he threw the driver I had been restraining out of the car.

The man slid across the ground and rolled over and over. Atzier pinned him from above and deftly tied him up.

Watching those practiced movements, I asked,

“Do you always carry rope?”

“You’ll need to carry it too once you become a professional. There will be far more occasions when you mustn’t kill someone than when you must. Handcuffs work too, but rope is more versatile.”

Atzier finished tying the driver up and dusted off his hands. After struggling a few more times, the driver went limp, as though he had suddenly fallen asleep.

“Are you both all right?”

Philly hurried over shortly afterward. She examined the driver’s face. I could see relief in her eyes.

He had been her driver since I first met her. She must have trusted him quite a bit.

“Check this.”

Atzier searched the man’s pockets, found a wallet, and tossed it to me.

“Find his identification. Someone may have switched places with him along the way. These days, ‘masks’ are almost impossible to distinguish with the naked eye.”

I checked the wallet as instructed. Philly offered various objections, including, “No, I can tell the difference. This is definitely my driver—” but neither of us bothered answering.

... And then.

I found it.

THUD.

The wallet fell. It slipped from my hand. I’d thought people only dropped things from shock in TV dramas, yet here I was doing that same ridiculous thing.

Yes, there was nothing funny about it.

‘... What is this?’

What I had found wasn’t an ID.

It was a business card.

[Serf Daniel]

- Indus Member No. 9

Nothing could have been simpler than those few words.

Yet that unforgettable name made me tremble.

Serf Daniel.

The enemy I had faced in the cabin. Serf Daniel.

With a bow I had made, and an arrow I had made.

... Serf Daniel, who had unquestionably been struck by an arrow that could never, ever miss.

‘That bastard...’

Unable to believe it, I looked at the business card again and again, though nothing on it could possibly change.

* * *

To be honest, Elodie had missed Constel during the vacation.

Life at the Magic Tower had been exhausting, miserable, exhausting, and miserable.

Her main job at the tower was assisting with research, and research there meant stepping into the truly unknown realms of magic.

But the person actually doing the stepping wasn’t a researcher. It was Elodie. That was an assistant’s job.

Even if something went horribly wrong, it mustn’t happen to the researchers. That was their reasoning.

Of course, after she watched their research on the sly, mastered every bit of it, and demonstrated it right before their eyes for all to see, the looks on the tower mages’ faces had been rather entertaining.

Anyway, Elodie had missed Constel. The Magic Tower was a place for incredibly high-level mages. There wasn’t a single mage her age.

So when vacation ended and she returned to Constel, she had secretly been excited.

For about three days.

“Elodie, I heard the rumor. Is it true?”

“... Hah.”

She had been sitting quietly in the classroom when someone approached with sparkling eyes.

The start of Constel’s second semester had been a succession of days overrun with rumors. Elodie and Aster, in particular, had been subjected to an incredible amount of attention.

The rumor, naturally, was that she had successfully combined three elements. It was true, of course, and something to be proud of, not embarrassed about. Naturally, she had initially answered every question enthusiastically, brimming with pride.

But after repeating herself for three solid days, with today shaping up to be no different, she couldn’t help getting sick of it.

“Yes, it’s true. It’s true. Over a hundred people have already come and asked me before you. Give it a rest.”

“Eee! It really is true? Oh my goodness, wow!”

But her classmate’s reaction was strange. Rather than admiration for Elodie’s progress, those eyes held equal parts excitement and amusement.

What was this? Was someone else combining three elements really that thrilling?

“Then why did you stop?”

“...? Stop? There’s just no need to do it here.”

“Oh, silly me. Of course. How could you when Frondier isn’t here?”

... Frondier?

Only then did Elodie realize the conversation had taken a strange turn.

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“What rumor did you hear?”

“Well, obviously—”

It had to be about combining three elements, right?

That was what she’d been asked about when she answered that it was true, right?

Her classmate replied.

“That you and Frondier used to be childhood friends.”

“... Huh?”

“And apparently you used to follow him around all the time, calling him ‘Fron~.’”

Time stopped for Elodie. What had she just heard?

She stared blankly into space with her blue eyes. Then her pupils began to quake, and her face flushed scarlet.

“Ahh, wh-what are you talking abouuut?!”

* * *

Elodie wasn’t the only one in this situation.

The rumors had changed in peculiar ways. So subtly that no one could say when, where, or how they had changed.

In Aster Evans’s case—

“Frondier, Saibel, and I are in a love triangle...?”

“Yep, yep!”

One of Aster’s eyes twitched. It was a bizarre feeling, one he had never experienced since enrolling at Constel.

“Why is that story going around?”

“You went to a dungeon together before, right? Saibel and Frondier got separated from everyone else, and you got jealous and tore through the dungeon at lightning speed. That’s the story!”

Aster rubbed his face. His head throbbed.

They had indeed gone to a dungeon together. Frondier and Saibel had gotten separated along the way. And he had tried to clear the dungeon as quickly as possible.

All of it was true, but apparently the connections between those facts could be twisted this far.

‘Which bastard did this?’

Someone had taken facts and filled the gaps with lies. There was clearly intent behind it.

For the first time in a while, Aster was irritated.

... Meanwhile.

“It’s because Lady Aten is too kind!”

“No! I’m telling you, Lady Aten is being blackmailed!”

In Constel’s garden, some peculiar groups had gathered and were arguing with one another.

Aten stood quietly in their midst.

“Ah, excuse me...?”

“Lady Aten! I heard the rumor! I should have recognized that piece of trash for what he was from the start! I’ll go kill him right now!”

“What do you mean, kill him?! Lady Aten! Your boundless mercy and compassion have truly moved us. We will follow you, Lady Aten Terst, for the rest of our lives.”

Indeed, when things reached this point, even Aten was bound to break into at least a drop of cold sweat.

She had heard enough to get the gist.

The two factions were loudly proclaiming their respective theories about why she spent time with Frondier.

One side believed he had something on her and was blackmailing her. The other believed she stayed with him out of pity.

‘You’re both wrong. And you’re both offensive.’

How could two sides disagree with each other and still not say a single correct thing between them?

“Lady Aten brought eight people together to eat with Frondier the other day! That alone tells you how merciful she is!”

“Don’t you know that the first of those eight to approach her was ‘Selena,’ supposedly Frondier’s bodyguard? Frondier must have been putting pressure on Lady Aten!”

Hah.

Aten sighed and raised her right hand.

Ice Magic

Single Horn

“Gasp!”

A wall of ice cut between the two groups.

“Enough. All of you, cool your heads.”

“L-Lady Aten...”

“And both rumors are false, so stop listening to nonsense.”

With that, Aten turned and left.

She had come because she’d heard people were arguing about her, but it had been a waste of time.