Chapter 16: Attack (7)

Malia was a smart woman.

I was in the opposite direction from where the monsters were fleeing, which meant I was farther away than Constel’s students and teachers.

Realistically, there was no way for me to stop those monsters. She had to know that much.

In other words, she had no other options—so few that she had told me despite knowing that perfectly well.

["Frondier, I know it’s thanks to you that the monsters are running away. But it’s still—"]

"It’s not over yet."

I thought fast. There was no time. The students and teachers were pursuing and killing the monsters for now, but from what Malia said, there seemed to be a considerable number of them.

Soon they would scatter and escape. If even a few entered the village, the tragedy that would follow was obvious.

At most, I had a few seconds before that happened. I had to find a solution before then.

My thoughts accelerated. I ran through every ability I had acquired so far.

Among everything I had, there had to be something, something.

... Something.

I bit my lip.

Instead of methods or means, the word impossible kept flashing through my mind.

Even Constel’s students couldn’t stop them. How could I, from so much farther away?

No, I could do it. I didn’t know how, but I had to find a way. Find it. Do something, anything. I always had before. I was used to things happening outside my expectations.

Somehow...

["I’m sorry."]

I heard Malia’s voice.

Why was she apologizing?

["I saw you defeat the chimera with my own eyes. And this is the first news I have to give you."]

Malia had nothing to apologize for. She had only done her job.

Through Sensory Sharing, she had been watching the situation both here and at Constel.

She must have encouraged the students and kept their hopes alive, pacing their physical and mental efforts according to my progress against the chimera here.

She had more than fulfilled her role.

I had to do this.

I had to, somehow.

"You really are all alone, aren’t you?"

The voice came out of nowhere.

I flinched and turned toward it in surprise. It was Philly.

She spoke with composure and calm.

"From the moment we met until now, you’ve seemed to know everything."

"... Ms. Philly."

"You’re always fighting alone. Frondier, the Human Sloth."

Philly called me by that name.

She wasn’t trying to mock me. She had seen through the weakness of the person who bore that nickname.

‘... Ah.’

I raised my head.

I always thought, planned, and acted alone. But this time, I couldn’t manage alone.

With Malia as she was now, however...

"Mom, can you still see the monsters running away?"

["Hm? Yes. I’m on the roof of Constel’s main building."]

She couldn’t pursue them, but they were still in sight.

In that case.

"... Can your Sensory Sharing work the other way around?"

["The other way around? You want me to show you what I’m seeing?"]

"Yes."

["There’s no reason it couldn’t, but what could you do just by seeing—"]

The moment I heard that, I ran toward Elysia’s tower.

Behind me, I heard Philly exclaim in confusion.

I entered the tower, climbed the stairs, and stepped onto the roof.

"Show me now. What you’re seeing, Mom."

["... All right."]

Malia asked no more questions. Time was short, and she must have trusted me, too.

Soon, a new landscape entered my vision. It was a rather strange sensation.

My left and right eyes were seeing different views. Malia seemed to have applied Sensory Sharing to my left eye.

Just as she had said, I could see the fleeing monsters. I could also see the students pursuing them.

Was that Aster in the lead, as expected? I could make out his figure on horseback.

"Good. I’ll hang up now."

["You have a way, right?"]

"If things work the way I’m thinking."

["... All right."]

I put my phone away.

There wasn’t much time. Soon the monsters would leave Malia’s field of view, too.

I shattered Black Lotus.

Fabrication

Grade - Divine

Chryselakatos, Iocheira.

I wove Artemis’s bow and arrow and drew the string all the way back.

My target was the enormous horde of monsters visible through Malia’s eyes.

I was at an absurdly, shamelessly long distance for a bowshot.

But a god’s weapon made the shameless possible.

- Unerring Shot: Always hits the enemy the user aims at.

Trusting in that shamelessness, I released the string—doing what, to anyone watching, would probably have looked like the idiotic act of aiming at empty air.

* * *

When the monsters’ movements changed and they began to flee, Aster was the quickest to act. He dashed off somewhere, then emerged riding a white horse and pursued the fleeing monsters.

It was a Cassian, one of the exceptional horses Aster had handled in the riding club.

Of course, the Cassian belonged to Constel, making Aster’s actions a clear violation of school rules. But no one cared about that crap right now.

The people around him simply wondered why he was chasing the monsters.

Then a voice struck like lightning.

"They’re heading for the village!!"

It was none other than Aster’s voice. It rang out so loudly that its vibrations lightly pounded the ground. It was a manifestation of Aura.

At his shout, the students snapped to their senses. Those holding weapons followed him, while the mages began chanting again.

"Haaah!!"

Closing the distance in an instant, Aster mercilessly slashed at the monsters’ backs. Magical lightning bolts and fireballs rained down ahead of him.

True to its exceptional breeding, the Cassian dodged on its own without needing minute directions, continuing forward even as it evaded the attacks. It didn’t so much as whinny.

Aster swung his sword in a frenzy. The fatigue accumulated defending against the attack and his depleted stamina were pushed aside.

His arms moved before his muscles could scream. To the monsters, he was nothing less than a specter, driving them to flee even faster. Not a single one attempted to fight back.

But even if Aster’s stamina were infinite, even if he slaughtered the monsters like a madman, there were simply too many.

For now, they were clustered together, within reach of his sword, and the magic projectiles and fireballs fired from afar were effective.

Soon, however, they would scatter. Once that happened, wiping them all out would become impossible. No matter how remarkable Aster was, he couldn’t split into two or three people.

"Hah, hah...!"

Until now, every swing of Aster’s sword had sent a monster’s severed upper body or head flying. This time, it cut through empty air.

He looked ahead. The gaps between the monsters were widening. The moment he took in that sight, the exhaustion he had forgotten came flooding back.

If some of those scattered monsters attacked the village—or worse, if they scattered only to converge on it again...

Monsters were fundamentally hostile to humans. That was why they were called monsters. There was no chance they would ignore the scent of blood from a village.

‘I have to ride straight for the village. At full speed.’

Aster steeled himself. It was a truly agonizing resolve, so painful that he wanted to chew up his own heart.

... He was preparing himself to face the deaths of ordinary civilians.

The despair Aster felt gradually spread to the warriors following him and the mages in the rear.

The mages, able to assess the situation from a distance, had actually realized it sooner.

The tragedy had not yet occurred, but it was certainly coming...

On the roof, Elodie lowered her hand. Runia, who had been chanting a spell beside her, turned to her in alarm.

"Hey, don’t give up yet! We have to kill as many as we can!"

Elodie didn’t answer. But her expression was peculiar. She didn’t look despairing, nor did she look as though she had given up.

She was simply gazing at the sky with the expression of someone who had seen something utterly bizarre.

"What on earth are you looking—"

Runia naturally followed her gaze. Then she, too, fell silent. Her expression became much like Elodie’s.

One by one, more eyes caught sight of it.

Following Elodie and Runia, Aten and the other mages turned their eyes skyward.

The teachers checking the students’ condition and safety also found their gazes drawn to it. The archers who had advanced a little farther stopped drawing their bows.

With startling incongruity, silence suddenly fell over Constel.

At first, it looked like a comet.

A long, unbroken streak of light embroidered the sky, cleaving it from end to end. But on closer inspection, it traced a very shallow arc.

Then, when it reached the space above the monsters’ heads, it burst like a firework.

The scattered clusters of light became rain—no, spears piercing the earth.

They poured down upon the monsters.

"...!"

Only then did Aster notice. He swiftly pulled the reins, bringing the Cassian to a halt.

The monsters around him were pierced with a chilling sound and toppled one after another.

Heads, napes, chests—not one strike had landed anywhere but a vital spot.

It looked like an indiscriminate downpour, but every shaft targeted a monster precisely.

The clearest proof was this:

‘... They aren’t touching me.’

Not one so much as grazed Aster.

Even though he had been farther ahead than anyone, cutting down monsters from within their ranks.

Aster surveyed the fallen monsters. The streaks of light were arrows.

The monsters that hadn’t been hit continued fleeing. None of the arrows had missed; there simply hadn’t been enough of them.

Then another firework burst.

The number of monsters fell by exactly the number of arrows raining down.

And again, and again, and yet again.

Without targeting a single human, the streaks of light pierced every last monster, allowing none to escape.

Countless arrows descended in a net of fire, every one striking a vital spot without fail.

The reality conveyed by that one sentence was absurdly chilling.

All sound vanished at once.

The ragged breathing, the monsters’ screams, the metallic clang of weapons and the earth-shaking thunder of running feet—all of it seemed like a dream now.

SKREE, SKREEE—

GRRRGH.

Every monster had fallen without exception, though a few were still alive.

Even after a hit to a vital spot, a lucky creature might survive for a few seconds.

Of course, escape was impossible. Aster and the other students would only need to finish them off.

But as if to say even that was unnecessary, another volley came.

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!

The impacts reverberated through the earth. Just as many streaks of light as before rained down in front of Aster.

This time, it was truly a complete "cleanup."

It felt as though reality were being thrust before the students’ eyes once again, refusing to let them dismiss it as a dream.

"Hah... Hah..."

Aster breathed slowly, though his breaths were still ragged.

He sheathed his sword and gradually accepted the exhaustion washing over him.

It felt as though he could allow himself that now.

Without thinking, Aster looked back. Every student who had followed him wore much the same expression as he did.

And it wasn’t just them.

The mages at Constel, the teachers, too.

It had been an extraordinarily clean, decisive victory, yet no one made a sound.

There were no cheers, no triumphant cries.

"What the hell was that...?"

Someone spoke, seemingly voicing exactly what they felt.

Everyone shared that sentiment deeply.

Malia sank to the ground with a thump.

She knew who had brought about this sight.

No—she suspected.

The uncertainty was because she herself could scarcely believe it.

‘Frondier did all this...?’

Frondier was her son.

And she had the ability to share senses.

She had thought that, at least as far as everything seen and heard was concerned, nothing escaped her knowledge.

Now she felt acutely that she knew nothing about Frondier, who should have been closer to her than anyone.

* * *

"God... damn it..."

I gritted my teeth and held on.

My legs gave out and I doubled over. Still, I didn’t fall. My hands trembled against my knees.

I shouldn’t have fired that last arrow!

Mana depletion left my head spinning.

Since the arrows took time to arrive from here, it was hard to tell how many monsters remained.

So I had overdone it a little.

I forced myself upright and staggered down the tower stairs.

Even if sheer stubbornness was all that kept me upright, I wasn’t passing out this time.

Passing out after every fight and ending up in the hospital—there was nothing more pathetic or more of a goddamn burden on everyone else.

When I reached the ground floor, the door creaked open.

Philly stood at the entrance, looking at me in disbelief.

"Have you already forgotten what I just told you? Why come down instead of resting?"

"This is, well, a matter of a man’s pride."

Philly sighed pointedly at my answer. She strode over, lifted my arm, and draped it over her shoulders.

"You should feel honored. Being helped along by the empress is a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

"... It really is something no one else would ever experience."

"Let’s say you’ve done enough to deserve it."

Philly praised me with those sentimental words.

As the tension left me, I couldn’t help smiling a little.

We had set out that morning, but the sun was already high overhead. The sky was far too clear for such a battle to have taken place beneath it.

"... Ms. Philly."

"What is it? There’s no need to thank me. Putting rank aside, you’ve done far more—"

"You’re even smaller up close like this."

"Shall I teach you what sort of crime insulting the empress really is?"

Philly was smiling as she spoke.

It was her usual smile.

It was very, very frightening.