Chapter 161

CHAPTER 6 The Flute’s True Desire Five decades ago, the Kingdom of Ridill went to war with the Empire and lost. The direct cause of their defeat was an ancient magical item employed by the Empire called Bern’s Mirror. Bern’s Mirror could deploy a very large class-one reflective barrier. The Imperial forces had lured Ridill’s mage unit into a trap, let them all attack at once, and reflected their combined strike with the mirror, laying waste to Ridill’s troops. And now Emanuel had created Pauloshmer’s Mirror of Execution. While its scope wasn’t as great as Bern’s Mirror, it could still deploy a class-one reflective barrier. Behind her veil, Monica bit her lip. I can’t believe there’s a magical item that can make a class-one reflective barrier… Reflective barriers were split up broadly into five classes based on the precision of their reflection, general toughness, and duration, as follows: Class Five: Repels trace amounts of mana. Class Four: Repels beginner-level magecraft. Class Three: Repels intermediate-level magecraft. Class Two: Repels high-level magecraft. Class One: Repels almost every kind of magecraft in existence. Humans could only use up to class two. That applied to Louis, as well. The issue is how broad the scope of each class is… Take beginner-level magecraft, for example. The power of spells in that category varied greatly. Someone with a high mana capacity, like Glenn, could imbue his beginner-level spells with the power of intermediate-level or high-level ones. Reflective barrier classes were nothing more than a handy estimate. I wonder how durable Pauloshmer’s Mirror of Execution is… Bradford’s sixfold strengthening magecraft ranked first or second in power among all spells currently in existence. If that couldn’t punch through the mirror, they would be left with no recourse. So I have to make sure…that his sixfold-strengthened spell doesn’t lose any power. If the spirits or magical armored soldiers interfered with his spell before it hit Pauloshmer’s Mirror of Execution, it would increase the chance of it being reflected. “Four-layered wave lightning, strike!” In response to Emanuel’s order, the four magical armored soldiers loosed powerful bolts of lightning. The attack’s strength rivaled that of a Spirit King summoning. At the same time, the surviving spirits all launched their attacks. “Whoa, there.” Raul grabbed seeds out of his pocket and threw them to the ground. In the blink of an eye, they sprouted and grew, forming a powerful thorned wall to protect Monica and the others. “My thorns have plenty more left in them. Best if we get rid of some of those suits of armor, though.” Raul’s wall of thorns was as powerful as an average defensive barrier, but it had its weaknesses, too. Defensive barriers were invisible, but the rose vines, when packed together, blocked the field of view, preventing their group from seeing the enemy. In other words, it was difficult to attack with the vines on the field. Louis kicked the ground with his boot tip, then hefted his ax. “Block the next one, then we go on the offensive. You two, back me up.” The spirits under Emanuel’s control struck all at once. There was a loud boom as the thorny wall swayed. Once it had withstood the volley, Raul manipulated the vines to open a path. The moment they could see, Monica and Raul began their own assault. Monica used unchanted magecraft to fire bullets of wind at the spirits. Raul had his rose vines coil around the soldiers, preventing them from moving. And once they were immobilized, Louis came in with his ax and hacked off their heads and limbs. Controlling roses was the only thing Raul could do, but he could use them for both offense and defense. Having him here gave Monica more room to act. And that was why she noticed something. Emanuel, looking slightly panicked, had lifted up a ring with an eerie glow. Is that a magic item?! Monica assumed it was for launching an attack at them. But she was wrong. At the ring’s instruction, something happened to the cabin behind Emanuel. The stones comprising its walls began to glow, and then they fired five compressed blasts of flame. The bundles of compressed mana traveled in a spiral pattern that Monica recognized. Those are Spiralflames! Meant for assassination! This magic item was occasionally referred to as a mage killer; it was famous for being able to pierce defensive barriers. Normally, Spiralflames had a short firing range with a limited area of effect. But these ones were stretching much farther, perhaps boosted by captive spirits, and there were five of them. Louis had the toughest barriers in the group, but he wouldn’t finish chanting in time. Monica used unchanted magecraft to layer two defensive barriers as Raul gathered his rose vines to form a wall. But the swirling Spiralflames pierced through both her barriers, as well as Raul’s roses. It’s going to hit us! Monica felt a chill run down her spine. She froze in fear. Right before the swirling flame bullets shot through her and the others, something burst out of the brush nearby: ten magical armored soldiers. Louis, who was closest, hadn’t noticed them yet. Monica immediately cried out. “Mister Louis! More soldiers!” At Monica’s voice, Louis noticed them. But by then, the new soldiers were already running toward them, armor clanking and clattering as they went. Ten soldiers stood in their way—and formed a wall to protect them from the Spiralflames. The sounds of metal twisting apart combined with booms as the magical armored soldiers were blown up into little pieces before their eyes. Monica put up a defensive barrier right away to protect them from the fragments. “What is the meaning of this?!” shouted Emanuel. He picked up the flute from around his neck and began ranting and raving. “Those soldiers disobeyed my orders!” “Ah, oh, my master. I apologize. I’m so sorry…” In response to Emanuel’s angry shouting came a high-pitched male voice. Monica guessed this was the personality inside the Flute of the False King. “According to the spirits sealed within the armor, something has gone wrong with them.” “You mean to say these magical items of my own creation are imperfect?!” “No, my master, that isn’t the case at all. Your work is absolutely perfect. Someone else has interfered with them.” Just then, Monica noticed something. Purple sigils had appeared on the surface of the blown-apart suits of armor. Wait, are those…? There was a rustling as some foliage moved, and another magical armored soldier emerged. Purple sigils were on the surface of this one, too. And on its back, clinging like glue and riding piggyback, was a skinny man with purple hair—the Abyss Shaman Ray Albright. “What have you done to my soldiers?!” screamed Emanuel. Carried by the magical armored soldier, Ray muttered, “I, uh, I can’t curse spirits…but I wondered if I could create cursed dolls out of these soldiers. And when I tried…it, well, it worked… Hee-hee. Oops.” Emanuel made a face like his knees were about to give out. It must have been unbearable to hear that Ray had hijacked the soldiers he’d poured so much of his expertise into. And his explanation was simply “Well, it worked.” At this point, he could deploy as many more soldiers as he liked, and it would make no difference. Ray would take them all over with his cursecraft—a skill exclusive to House Albright. Unlike magecraft, Emanuel could analyze curses for years and never be able to handle them. Monica trotted over to Ray and lowered her voice. “Lord Abyss Mage! Um! How are, um, the two others?” “They’re far from here… I sent several cursed soldiers with them as an escort, so I think they’ll be all right…” As Monica sighed in relief, Raul’s eyes glittered. “That’s amazing, Ray!” he exclaimed. “You’re so cool!” At Raul’s straightforward words of praise, Ray twisted and squirmed on the soldier’s back. “Heh. Heh-heh. That’s good. Yes… Yes, praise me more…” “Yeah! You’re just like a big villain behind an army of evil knights!” “…I knew it. I hate you.” While Ray and Raul conversed, Louis looked on in blank amazement. After gazing in turn at Ray, Raul, and then Monica, he turned back to Emanuel and said, “You seriously want to join the ranks of these monsters?” “Silence!” the Gem Mage roared, his face bright red with rage. Louis snickered, not bothering with politeness. Then he jerked his thumb behind him. “Oh, and it looks like the super high-powered monster is done chanting now.” Bradford, hidden behind Raul’s thorns and now finished with his long chant, held his right arm up in front of him. “King of Flame, of promised victory, brandish thy crimson sword and display a fragment of thy might.” Red light poured from Bradford’s fingertips, taking the shape of a gate. It closely resembled the wind Spirit King summoning Monica used, but the gate was of a different color. “In the name of Bradford Firestone, the Artillery Mage, I command this gate to open! Come forth clad in celebratory flame—Flemme Brem, King of the Fire Spirits!” Flames glowing crimson materialized from the opened gate. A Spirit King summoning used a gate to borrow a portion of a Spirit King’s power. How one used that borrowed power depended on the caster. Monica, for example, had once used it to perform a highly precise, wide-area ranged attack on a horde of pterodragons. Bradford, on the other hand, compressed that flame, then layered and strengthened it over and over again to create his one-of-a-kind magecraft: a sixfold strengthening spell. “Kaboooooom!” His ball of fire sped straight toward Emanuel. There it is! His sixfold strengthening! If I reflect this, I’ll prove that I’m irreplaceable! There was little doubt that Bradford’s six-layered strengthening spell was the second most powerful, if not the most powerful, attack magecraft in the kingdom. Being able not only to guard against it but also to reflect it as well was a feat not even the Barrier Mage was capable of. But as the ball of hellfire roared toward him, fear began to well up in his heart. What if he couldn’t reflect it? The voices in his mind got the better of him, and Emanuel removed all his rings and bracelets imbued with defensive barriers and hurled them before him. The magical items deployed one barrier after another, but Bradford’s fireball crashed through all of them with ease. But the more I weaken it…the better my chances of reflecting it! When the last barrier shattered, Emanuel roared. “Activate Pauloshmer’s Mirror of Execution!” The gems buried beneath his feet glowed, surrounding him with a class-one reflective barrier. The sixfold-strengthened fireball slammed into it. The raging inferno swelled to a massive size, and the barrier creaked under the pressure. It hasn’t failed yet…! By using every defensive barrier at his disposal, he’d lowered the sixfold strengthening spell to the power of a fivefold one. And that, he could just barely reflect with the barrier. But just as Emanuel felt sure of his victory, Bradford spoke up. “…Yeah, figured you’d use some barriers.” Emanuel’s blood ran cold. The hairs on his back stood up in horror. He’d made a fatal mistake. “I know you too well. I knew that at the very end, you’d chicken out and hedge your bets.” The reflective barrier around the Gem Mage creaked, then it reflected the fireball. But before the blast could incinerate the others, Louis held a hand up in front of him. “Defensive barrier, deploy.” While it had been weakened somewhat, the fireball still had power equivalent to a fivefold strengthening spell. And yet, Louis’s defensive barrier blocked it perfectly. He managed to protect both the other Sages and the trees around them. Not only was the barrier durable, but it was also large and made to adapt to complex shapes. This was what Louis had been saving all his mana for. But why hadn’t he used flight magecraft instead? The Barrier Mage’s combination of defensive barriers and aerial mobility was said to be his true strength. Louis grinned proudly and pointed a finger into the air. “The stars are about to fall.” Emanuel instantly looked up. It was well-concealed with an illusion spell, but if he looked closely, he could make out a twinkling star in the overcast winter weather. Louis hadn’t used flight magecraft because he’d wanted to prevent Emanuel from noticing the sky. Wait. No! This magecraft… He would never forget it. It was a type of grand magecraft used by Louis’s fellow apprentice, the Sage whose seat Emanuel had filled—Carla Maxwell, the Starspear Witch. Two women stood atop a small hill a short distance from Emanuel’s cabin. One wore a fur coat over a dress. This was Mary Harvey, the Starseer Witch, who had covered the sky in an illusion. The other was dressed in traveling clothes and had her brick-red hair tied roughly back. That was Carla Maxwell, the Starspear Witch. Carla watched as a massive magic circle appeared in the skies above Kelielinden Forest. Soon, five more magic circles appeared all around the first one. Each circle was a highly complex spell, and Carla was maintaining all six by herself as she chanted. Her face showed no trace of excitement. As she performed the superhuman feat of maintaining six spells at once, her profile was no different from when she gazed up at the sky during her travels. At last, Carla made it to the final clause of her long chant. A seventh magic circle, this one larger than all the rest, appeared directly below the center circle, and a spear of white light emerged from the middle of it. It was massive, as thick as a log, and packed with an incredible amount of mana—a light spell made from a combination of seven other spells. Carla was one of the only people in the modern era who could use magecraft of the light element. “Pierce him, Starspear.” The spear, every bit as powerful as Bradford’s sixfold strengthening magecraft, plunged down toward the Gem Mage, scattering sparks of mana like stardust in its wake. If it struck the man directly, he would be obliterated without a trace. No defensive barrier could hold out against such might. But Carla had heard something from Mary once, about a certain girl genius who had perfectly blocked Starweaving Mira’s attack. “The rest is up to you, Monica.” The spear of light lanced down from the sky, straight at the reflective barrier protecting Emanuel. When he looked up, his face twisted in despair. “My mirror! Please, my mirror…!” If he’d had any magical items left to erect a barrier, he might have been able to weaken the Starspear. But he’d spent every last one on Bradford’s sixfold strengthening magecraft. Cracks began to form in his reflective barrier, and the Starspear’s white radiance seeped through. Eventually, with a sound like glass shattering, the class-one reflective barrier burst into shards. Just before the spear of compressed light could pierce Emanuel, Louis cried out. “Now, my fellow Sage!” “Got it!” Monica and Louis had decided their roles in advance, so they would be ready for this final strike. Any spell powerful enough to destroy Pauloshmer’s Mirror of Execution would kill Emanuel, too. The moment his reflective barrier broke, they would need to use a barrier of their own to protect him.