Ryo gave Abel a sidelong glance and thought he saw a glint in the swordsman’s eye.
“Abel, that’s utter nonsense. A technique called Breakdown Rush exists in this world, you see.”
“Wow, that sure brings back memories. Haven’t you given me this lecture before? Something about it being the ideal tactic or whatever.”
“‘The ideal tactic or whatever...’” Ryo muttered. “How dare you?”
The pain of not being understood stabbed through Ryo. The world was cold, and life was harsh—but he wouldn’t be defeated!
“Fine! I’ll enlighten you and make you eat those words, Abel! Watch closely!” Ryo drew Murasame from its sheath and created the ice blade. “Avatar.”
Two new Ryos appeared, one to his left and one to his right. Clones.
Abel gasped. “What the hell?!”
But Ryo wasn’t done.
“Icicle Lance Shower. Water Jet Thruster.”
All three Ryos fired a barrage of ice spears at the wyvern pinned to the ground. Simultaneously, a geyser of water erupted from their backs, propelling them forward at the same speed as the ice spears. All at once, the icy projectiles and the three Ryos—now slashing with their swords—struck the immobilized wyvern. The whole thing only took seconds, but once the attack ended, the only thing that remained was a mangled wyvern corpse, its body bristling with icy spears and its head and both legs severed.
“Two avatars plus the original, casting Icicle Lance Shower and Water Jet in tandem—that’s the water magician’s version of a Breakdown Rush,” Ryo explained, wearing a rather smug expression.
But Abel remained frozen.
“Um, hello?” Ryo asked. He had expected a reaction like What the hell was that?! rather than utter silence.
“Huh? Oh, sorry, I think I was dreaming...”
“What do you mean by that?”
I don’t care how extraordinary Ryo is with magic; clones can’t charge instantly like that. Yeah... Yeah, I must have been hallucinating.
Secretly, Abel decided he’d pretend that he hadn’t seen anything. Still, he couldn’t ignore the reality of the wyvern’s remains in front of him, so he focused on that instead.
“Man, a wyvern’s wind barrier might as well not exist against your ice spears, huh?”
Abel’s callousness only wounded Ryo’s pride, though.
“Why are you ignoring my Breakdown Rush, Abel?”
“Man, a wyvern’s wind barrier might as well not exist against your ice spears, huh?” Abel repeated, sticking firmly to his pact.
With great reluctance, Ryo went along with it. Despite appearances, he was a good guy. The wyvern had deployed its defensive membrane, but his ice spears had pierced right through it.
“I think it’s because of uniform acceleration. My Icicle Lances are constantly moving, unlike the magic other magicians use.”
“Uniform what?”
“It’s sort of like the difference between a bullet and a missile, but that probably won’t make sense to you either. How should I put it... Okay, so the membrane—it works by forcing a constant gust of wind to blow outward from the wyvern’s body, right?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Well, most attack spells are like arrows: all the force gets applied the moment they’re cast. After that, they’re just coasting on that initial force, carried by inertia, right?”
“Right...”
“Well, the wyvern’s membrane isn’t a wall. It’s constant resistance—like running into a headwind—and eventually, it bleeds all the momentum out of any incoming projectile. But my magic is self-propelling. It’s sort of like charging forward with a spear—you keep advancing, even with the wind blowing against you. That’s probably the difference.”
“I see. I think I’m starting to get it.”
Ryo was suddenly glad that he’d been paying attention the day his science teacher taught uniform acceleration. Of course, he was only guessing that this was how incantation-based magic worked. He made a mental note to present his hypothesis to Shinso the next time he saw him. After all, the vampire was directly responsible for popularizing incantation magic in the Central Provinces.
Lord Shinso is truly incredible.
Ryo had been so precise with his ice spears that he hadn’t even nicked the wyvern’s magic stone. In fact, the spears tore through the surrounding flesh perfectly, making it easy to extract the stone. After putting it in his bag, Ryo declared, “The hunt is over!”
“Good job.”
“Darn it,” Ryo muttered.
“Now what?” Abel asked.
“You didn’t get to do anything, Abel...”
“Uh...”
In all their previous wyvern hunts, Abel had delivered the finishing blow, but this time, Ryo’s Breakdown Rush had done all the work. And that meant—
“An A-rank swordsman leeching off the accomplishments of a C-rank magician...” Ryo murmured under his breath.
“Hey, don’t put this on me! I told you from the beginning that you didn’t need me!” Abel insisted.
“Fine, fine, fine. As proof of the kill, we’ll take the head. You can carry it, Abel.”
“You have got to be kidding me...”
It must have easily weighed over a hundred kilograms.
“I have to carry this thing?”
Just as his despair was about to consume him, Abel noticed something.
“Hey, Ryo. You smell something sweet?”
“Huh? If you’re trying to distract me to get out of carrying the head, you’ll have to do better than that.”
“I’m not, you jerk.”
“I don’t smell anything. What about you, Captain Bure?”
Ryo turned to the young man, and only then did he realize that the captain was still frozen in place.
“Is he sleepwalking or something?”
“Never seen that before.”
Certainly, their conversation hadn’t had anything at all to do with it... Fortunately, Bure regained consciousness the next moment.
“Wh-What happened?” he asked, apparently having retained no memories while frozen.
“Easy. We took down the wyvern,” Abel replied, deliberately omitting everything that’d happened in between.
“You... You did! It’s been hacked to pieces... The village is safe now. Thank you!”
Captain Bure bowed deeply.
“Not a problem at all. By the way, do you smell something sweet?”
“Something sweet? Hmm... I can’t really smell anything past the stench of the wyvern’s blood.”
Abel smiled wryly. “Ah, yeah. True enough.”
Still, he was puzzled.
“Abel, you still have a job to do, and nothing will change that,” Ryo said sternly.
Of course, Abel’s task of carrying the wyvern’s head was entirely pointless with Captain Bure having borne witness to the creature’s defeat...
A little later, Abel trudged down the road, dragging the head along behind him. Ryo wasn’t a complete monster, so he’d laid an Ice Bahn that made things much easier.
Ryo had also created an Ice Cart to transport other parts of the body.
When he’d seen it, Abel shook his head. “There really is no point in making me carry the head, is there?”