Chapter 130

Now that she wasn’t devoting all her efforts to dodging, her feet lingered in place, and Neuro pounced upon it immediately. He took the opportunity to renew his assault, and the high-pressure jets bore down on Aoi. She quickly took evasive action, but her reaction was delayed, earning her a light gash on her left thigh. “Ngh!” Her speed dropped precipitously. The blue razors came for her again, and her dodges became more desperate. Tsukasa and the others on the right flank saw what was happening because of the consolidated battle line. “Mr. Tsukasa, Ms. Aoi won’t last like this!” “Do you have some sort of plan?!” Neuro’s arrival left the soldiers panicked and desperate for a solution. “I didn’t expect Neuro to take to the front lines at this point. I never even considered it. It’s caught me completely off guard,” Tsukasa answered candidly. “No!” The soldiers stared at Tsukasa in shock. They’d all fought by his side since the battle against Mayoi. They’d borne witness to him reading every engagement like a book and used that information to turn the tides. How had he been caught off guard? Terror built in the pits of their stomachs. However, they’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. The thing was… “This is the kind of unanticipated development that seems almost too good to be true.” “Huh?” “Evidently, he’s considerably more immature than I took him for.” Tsukasa glanced down at the silver watch wrapped around his arm. He took a deep breath, steeled his resolve, and ran down the hill toward Aoi. Once he was near enough, he raised his rifle, swapped out the empty magazine, and opened fire at the airborne Neuro. “Oh?” Neuro hovered higher than the top of the hill, so unsurprisingly, he saw Tsukasa coming. By the time the prodigy politician started shooting, Neuro had already finished erecting a wind spirit bulwark. Before Tsukasa’s bullets reached the grandmaster, they veered in the wrong direction and flew into the distance. However, Tsukasa had never expected his shots to serve as anything more than a distraction. While his bullets drew Neuro’s attention, he shouted orders to everyone atop the hill, Aoi included. “Fall back to the forest like we planned! Hurry!” The Yamato army was staging a full retreat. It had held Neuro’s forces at the eight-tenths mark with the fortitude of a boulder, but now its defensive line unraveled all at once. Soldiers abandoned their position and fled into the woods. Neuro cocked an eyebrow at this development… “Tsukaaaasa! Whatever are you plottingggggg? Even I can tell that you’re up to something, you know!” …and turned his water pressure jets on Tsukasa. However, they never reached him. After catching her breath, Aoi promptly raced over to Tsukasa, grabbed him, and kept running. She dodged the deadly blades chasing her with a precision that might convince onlookers she had eyes in the back of her head and disappeared between the trees. By that point, most of the Yamato forces from the eight-tenths mark had successfully escaped. The path to the forest was piled high with Yamato corpses. Midway through the retreat, the cavalry caught up with some Yamato soldiers, but none of them slowed. The Yamato army’s sheer determination as it fled made it obvious this was a maneuver with some sort of objective in mind. However… “Heh-heh-heh, it doesn’t matter. Spin up all the little schemes you want. That’s what prey does. It racks its brain to escape predators… If you think running into the forest means you’ve given me the slip, then you’re selling Neuro ul Levias a little too short.” …in Neuro’s opinion, Tsukasa’s tactic didn’t matter. Ultimately, the grandmaster’s enemies were just apes, and fretting over their every action was meaningless. No matter what they had up their sleeves, he needed only to crush it. Crush it with an unbeatable display of force. “““AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!””” A cruel smile spread across Neuro’s face as he raised his hand. And with that, the tragedy began. Below him, the mage cavalry units that were part of the vanguard in the midst of the third charge exploded from within. When the shocked light cavalry members looked to see what was happening, they saw black crystals emerging from the mages’ flesh. The crystals cracked, shattered, and flew into the air, glowing with a sinister red light as they congregated atop Neuro’s raised palm. Once he’d assembled the crystals from nearly a hundred mages, flames gushed forth from Neuro’s hand. They billowed and raged as Neuro molded them into the shape of a spear. The Yamato soldiers gasped when they saw the fire. “Th-that… That light…!” “A-AHHHH! I’d recognize those flames anywhere!” “That’s Gustav’s Rage Soleil!” “Ha-ha-ha! Looks like some of you apes actually have some idea what you’re talking about! You know what this spell is, don’t you?! The trees are shedding leaves this close to winter, but rooting a single one of you hiding among them is a hassle. But all I need do is burn down the entire forest! You assumed the forest would make it harder for the cavalry to chase you, but you didn’t think this through. Wood burns well this time of year! These woods shall be your grave!” Neuro raised his dread weapon from his position high in the air. Tsukasa, who’d joined back up with the Yamato leaders, frowned as he beheld the spell. “Isn’t Rage Soleil supposed to take years just to prepare?” “That…man used Philosopher’s Stones on his own soldiers and took their magic to bend the spirits to his will…!” Lyrule said, her face pale. She probably heard the spirits’ screams. The Philosopher’s Stones she mentioned were coagulated chunks of blood and flesh from Neuro’s master, the evil dragon. According to Yggdra—another homunculus—the evil dragon had forced his body to evolve repeatedly in the pursuit of revenge against his home world, which exiled him. Thus, the cells of his body tissue possessed incredible power. When introduced to another organism’s system, the evil dragon’s cells overwrote the host’s, forcing the organism to evolve into something stronger. The involuntary evolution massively bolstered the host’s physical and magical capabilities, but human bodies weren’t built to withstand that sort of transformation and ended up breaking down. That’s why Yggdra had suggested that Neuro would be unwilling to use them on himself. “He wants to spare his body, but he’s fine transforming others, huh? When I think about how we nearly trusted that vulgar man with sending us home, I feel like we dodged a bullet,” Tsukasa remarked. “This is bad, that it is,” Aoi replied. “If that is the same magic as Gustav’s, then those flames will pursue us. If he launches such an attack into the forest…we will all surely perish!” “Tsukasa, do you have some sort of countermeasure?” Keine asked. The others all turned to Tsukasa for guidance in the face of the impending crisis. For all their worries, though… “We won’t need one.” …Tsukasa’s answer was succinct and confident. “The key to our victory lies in capable hands. Don’t worry. As a prodigy magician, he’s a professional among professionals. He wouldn’t accept a job he couldn’t see through to completion. He agreed, and I have the utmost confidence he’ll pull it off!” Tsukasa checked his wristwatch. It was just past the appointed hour… “Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!” …and on cue, a familiar laugh boomed from the other side of the hill the Yamato forces had just crossed. Back at the briefing before the Prodigies left the Byakkokan Checkpoint, Tsukasa Mikogami entrusted Prince Akatsuki with a role that would turn the impending battle their way. “Akatsuki, I want you to set out tomorrow morning before sunrise and take half of our two thousand soldiers with you.” “Wh-whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on a second! I can’t lead a thousand people! I—I don’t know the first thing about fighting, s-so even with that many, I’d still be useless!” “I’m not asking you to command them in the battle itself,” Tsukasa had replied to reassure Akatsuki, who was flabbergasted at the sudden assignment. “I have a different task in mind for you, and it’s one that only you can pull off.” “Huh?” “I want you to take those one thousand troops to this exact spot on the south side of the Tomino Basin, and I want you to do so completely undetected.” “…!” “’Tis to be an ambush, then?” Kaguya had said. “But…are you not asking the impossible? By your own admission, the enemy’s Dragon Knights have reign of the sky. They shall spot our scheme the moment dawn breaks.” “Lady Kaguya is absolutely right,” Kira had agreed. “With how many eyes the enemy has in the air, there’s no way we can move a thousand people undetected.” Neither of them were sold on Tsukasa’s plan. Given the situation as it stood, their odds of success were nonexistent. “I’m of the same opinion,” Tsukasa had replied confidently. ““What?”” “And that’s because I’m just a common man. As an ordinary person, I have no idea where the limits of specialists hailed and feared as superhuman lie. So tell me, Akatsuki. As a prodigy magician who stands at the very forefront of illusionists who deal in misdirection—can you pull it off?” All worry had faded from Akatsuki’s expression at the inquiry. After closing his eyes and considering things for a bit, he’d replied, “To answer your question with a question… This plan is going to help all seven of us get back to Earth together, right?” He’d opened his eyes and fixed them on Tsukasa. There’d been a statement—a threat, really—present in that gaze: “Don’t you dare lie to me.” Tsukasa hadn’t hesitated. “Of course,” he’d said, as though the question didn’t bear asking. At that, Akatsuki had breathed a sigh of relief… “Okay. Then I’ll do it.” …and promised to fulfill Tsukasa’s request. “And you’re certain you’re up to the task?” “The surveillance is basically just a couple dozen drones hovering around, right? Compared to my performances, this is going to be a walk in the park. You’re talking to the magician who made the Statue of Liberty vanish from right under the US military’s nose, remember?” “How are you going to do it?” Tsukasa had known just how outrageous his request was, and he needed to be sure. However, Akatsuki had let out an exasperated snicker and told Tsukasa the same thing he had once before. “C’mon, Tsukasa, you know better than that. A magician never reveals his secrets.” And now, back to the present. “Ch-chief of staff! We’ve got enemies behind us on top of the hill to our south!” “What?! Th-that’s the Seven Luminaries’ deity, God Akatsuki! I’m sure of it!” “B-but that’s impossible! He just fled into the forest with the others!” Akatsuki had done it. He was a consummate professional when it came to misdirection, and he’d fulfilled Tsukasa’s request to perfection. Using all his prodigy magician skills, he’d successfully concealed a thousand-soldier march. Then… “Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Where do you think you’re looking, you imperial dullards?! Thanks to my miracle, all the people you were fighting have been transported to me! Behold!” …an explosion of stage smoke erupted from the southern hill, and right on cue, Akatsuki’s thousand Yamato soldiers came charging from the colorful fumes. “Come, my divine vanguard! Our foes have been foolish enough to show us their backsides, so go forth and shred them to pieces!” “““RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!””” When Akatsuki gave the order over the megaphone Ringo had made for him, his troops surged down the hill like an avalanche. The imperial rearguard cavalry was exhausted from the bitter counterattack it had suffered during the second charge, and this surprise ambush sent the Freyjagard leaders into a panic. “An enemy battalion’s stampeding from the south hill! It looks like there are roughly a thousand of them!” “I-it can’t be! Did he really move an entire army in the blink of an eye?! Nobody can do that!” “But if they were waiting in ambush, our Dragon Knights would have spotted them!”