Not too long after the incident at west gate, news of the ancient demon Zeke spread quickly through the Royal Capital. Protocol dictated that whenever there was an incident in the city, the nearest knights would rush to the scene, with one notable exception: when the enemy was a demon.
Fully aware of the severity of the situation, the Royal Capital of Midgard dispatched their strongest forces—the Magecraft Company Chronos. Upon receiving their orders, two of the strongest individuals in the Numbers raced through the night.
“Sheesh... When was the last time something so big happened all of the Numbers had to assemble?” asked a tall guy, known as Bardo of the Wind.
Bardo had mastered the eastern land of Ametsuchi’s Ninja Arts, and was the fifth strongest member in Chronos. As one of the more prominent fighters among the Numbers, he was one of the few modern mages who had experience fighting Abel.
“It’s a demon! A real demon! How exciting is this?!”
The other guy was a young man known as Kuina the Noble, and was currently wearing sunglasses. By modern standards, Kuina might’ve been one of the strongest mages. He’d entered Chronos at a young age and was considered a prodigy after shooting all the way up the ranks to claim the Roman numeral III.
“Why are you so happy about this, Kuina?” Bardo asked.
“Whaddya mean? If I defeat a demon, I might get promoted again!” Kuina said, with a lofty attitude. “I’m aimin’ for the number one spot! As a guy, I gotta aim for the top!”
Bardo fell silent, thinking about how Kuina’s honesty came from his innate talent. As a mage born with an unprecedented talent for magecraft, he didn’t know the meaning of defeat. Even if his opponent was a demon, there wasn’t a single thought in his mind that he could lose.
“Sheesh, is this your youth talking? All this optimism’s too bright for an old fart like me.”
“Your lack of ambition is why I was able to swoop in and pass you in the ranks,” Kuina replied.
“Shaddup. Leave me alone.”
In Chronos, the number one was given a special meaning. With the Roman numeral V, Bardo was ranked lower than Kuina in regards to combat.
“Let’s kill the demon real quick before everyone else shows up! It’s best to hog the glory!”
Bardo said nothing in response to Kuina’s seemingly bottomless positivity, expression remaining stiff. What’s our captain doing? Doesn’t she know it’s an emergency? Bardo thought, the disappearance of their captain a few days ago still weighing on his mind.
The member who possessed the Roman numeral I was in a league of her own, and it was something that a veteran member like Bardo keenly understood. Even after ten years, their captain, Rio, had stayed the same beautiful woman Bardo had met her as. If there was a mage more talented in Chronos than Kuina, it was maybe only her.
But with the top spot currently unoccupied, the situation at large—a powerful demon let loose in the city—only served to further feed into his sense of danger.
“Come on, pick up the pace!” Kuina exclaimed.“It looks like that creep Emerson’s squad is close. I’m not gonna share the glory with that gloomy glasses-wearing freak!”
Kuina viewed Emerson as a rival instead of a comrade despite belonging to the same organization. If Kuina was a prodigy of the body, Emerson was a prodigy of the mind. The reason that Chronos had such powerful international influence was due to the contributions of these two young members.
“Oh! Over there!” Kuina said, pointing to the rubble the demon had left in his wake.
Bardo sensed a mana more ominous than any he had ever sensed before—their target, then, wasn’t too far away.
“Yah! I’m first to the party!” Kuina said excitedly, before increasing his speed and disappearing from Bardo’s line of sight.
Though he himself was known for his speed, Bardo felt that Kuina’s was an entire level above his own.
It’s a bad habit of mine to be so pessimistic. This guy is another monster with unlimited potential. Even if their opponent was a demon, chances were low that a genius like Kuina wouldn’t be able to catch up to it in skill.
At the very least, that’s what Bardo had thought.
“Oh? So you’re the demon everyone’s talking about? Nice to meet you, the name’s Kuina. Despite what I might look like, I’m one of the good guys,” Kuina proclaimed flamboyantly.
Zeke shot Kuina a cold glare. “Weak...”
“Hm?”
“You’re also terribly conceited,” Zeke continued. “If the best mages of this age are at your level, then it’s as I thought—mages really have become much more fragile.”
Kuina began thinking that this wasn’t the time to be chatting with the enemy. After all, his rival, Emerson, was coming with his squad. With this in mind, he decided to ignore Zeke’s words.
“You sure won’t stop yapping to yourself! How about I make you disappear in lieu of a greeting?”
Kuina’s weapon of choice was a gun, and he was skilled at using the various elemental bullets the gun could be loaded with to fight. He was a Verdant-Eyed mage who was proficient with Wind Magecraft, but he could use Fire and Water Magecraft at about the same level. That was what really earned him his title as a modern mage prodigy.
“True Shot: Burning Bullet!”
The bullets he’d loaded into his gun were special; they caused a powerful explosion upon contact.
In the next moment there was a loud boom as his bullet hit its target. The impact was so strong that it blew away nearby buildings.
“You idiot! Why’d you make it that powerful?! You know how much paperwork we’re gonna drown in?!” Bardo shouted.
“Ha ha!” Kuina cackled. “Well, our opponent is a demon. I’m sure they’ll cut us some slack. We’ll get an exemption!”
Regardless of how sturdy their opponent was, the power of the blast should have ensured that not even a trace of them remained. Confident that their opponent had been defeated, Kuina and Bardo shared a brief moment of reprieve.
“Phew... I’m relieved. I guess there are some moderately decent mages after all,” Zeke said.
Because of how lax they’d become, they were even more shocked when they realized their opponent hadn’t taken any damage. It was the first time both of them had witnessed anything like this. They couldn’t stop trembling after seeing an opponent of this caliber—whose strength seemed bottomless.
Kuina, realizing that the enemy was still alive, fired another round. “True Shot: Icicle Bullet!”
It was an attack meant to help him buy time by freezing the opponent in place.
“Too slow.”
Zeke’s next move surprised Kuina even more. He moved at a speed faster than his bulky body suggested it could and weaved past the bullet, immediately closing the distance between him and Kuina.
“What an interesting toy,” Zeke mused.
Before Kuina knew it, he’d been disarmed. Zeke began inspecting the weapon and analyzing its structure.
“Urk! Celestial Legs!” Kuina said, enveloping his legs in wind mana and flying into the air using Chronos-made Regalia boots.
By fueling the Regalia with wind mana, Kuina could move at high speeds. One of Kuina’s strong points was his ability to use powerful magecraft in combination with his high mobility granted by his Wind Magecraft.
“Don’t get cocky, brat.”
“Wha—”
Though Kuina had thought he could put distance between them, before he knew it, Zeke had already wrapped around him.
Huh? How did he get behind me?!
Kuina, now suddenly in a tight spot, was filled with despair.
“There were hundreds of mages like you two hundred years ago, and I killed every last one of them.”
Zeke was telling the truth. Though Kuina was a rare prodigy by the standards of modern times, two hundred years ago, he would’ve been just a run-of-the-mill mage.
“Hmph.” Zeke grunted before he attacked, smacking down Kuina with his hard-as-steel tail.
“Ack!”
Though Kuina had been able to use his Body Fortification Magecraft at the last second, Zeke’s attack had been so powerful that it had nullified it entirely. He’d been knocked unconscious before he even knew it.
“Kuina!”
At the very last second, Bardo just barely managed to catch Kuina, saving him from slamming into the ground.
“Hmph. Saved by a comrade? Fine...” Zeke said, looking down from high above.
Before leaving Kuina and Bardo to make for the academy—where Abel and the others were—Zeke muttered, “Mages of your caliber aren’t worth the stain on my claws. I’ve but one objective: the black cat.”
“Dammit... Could this get any worse? I can’t believe how shitty this situation is,” Bardo said, forced to retreat with an unconscious Kuina in tow. “Dammit! Who the hell can win against that monster?!”
Bardo couldn’t imagine a world where he could fight Zeke and win. As a veteran member, his intuition told him that even with all the members of Chronos attacking at the same time, it wouldn’t be enough to win. Even with all the mages in the country working together, Bardo believed there would be no chance of victory—that’s how much stronger Zeke was than everyone else.
Man, I must be losing my edge if I’m remembering that kid’s face at a time like this. If there was one person in this world who could fight Zeke on even footing, it’d be the Amber-Eyed boy that he’d met once. That boy was the type of person to never reveal the full extent of his ability, making it impossible to judge just how strong he really was.
Maybe, just maybe, Bardo thought, if it was that boy—if it was Abel—maybe even that monster would meet his match.