“Fass!”
[Take hold!]
“What?!”
The teddy bear seized Suimei’s hand with surprisingly deft movements. And when it did, an unbelievable weight assaulted his arm.
Urgh! This is... a magickal shackle?
Was the teddy bear itself constructed using a curse? Suimei was unable to shake it off, and mana was no longer flowing to his left hand. The left side of his body was being pulled to the floor.
Suimei tried to dispel the curse, but as he did, the dolls rallied and steadily began closing in on him. Did they too have some sort of magickal effect like the teddy bear did? Or did they possess some other power altogether? Five dolls sidled up to Suimei. And perhaps as a portent of the next spell being put into play, a card case on a nearby table began clattering about.
However, the use of multiple magickas at once backfired on the caster. Suimei was able to pinpoint their location by identifying the source of their psychic chill and by tracing the movement of mana. They were right in front of him.
“There you are...”
Suimei ignored the teddy bear still attached to his left arm and thrust his right arm out to attack a doll atop the bed with strike magicka. A satisfying snap resounded through the room. However, the doll dressed up like a stage magician leaped out of the way, further back into the room.
“Oh my, you found me.”
The magician in question—who turned out to really be a young girl—stood up and addressed Suimei in the same flat, unaffected tone she’d cast her spells with. She’d apparently been hiding herself as a large doll all this time. She wore a tophat and tailcoat, and carried a magic wand just like a stage magician. Her long, black hair flowed down her back, and her pale skin had a beautiful porcelain sheen to it just like a doll’s.
She was taller than Annaliese, but shorter than Suimei. After twirling her wand around, she took off her hat with her left hand and lightly bowed to him. Not only was she dressed like a stage magician, she was carrying herself like one too.
“Good day to you. Are you the magician from the Society?” she said.
“That’s right. And I guess that makes you the assistant who’s supposed to come along with me,” Suimei asked indirectly.
“I wonder? That depends on you,” the girl replied mockingly.
Based on what Edgar had said earlier, this was most likely his youngest daughter—the homunculus. As such, Suimei had never expected her to be freely moving around outside of her flask, the shelter for her very life. It was a testament to the incredible and terrifying capabilities of both Edgar and his wife as alchemists.
But as Suimei calmly assessed her, Hydemary kept her mana deployed. It seemed she was hoping for a fight.
“Isn’t this a rude way to treat a guest?” Suimei asked dubiously.
“You’re supposed to be a pretty strong magician, aren’t you? Put in some effort to at least live up to your name, Evening Starfall.”
“Hmph.”
Suimei scoffed at the nickname someone or other had given him. He then began invoking his magicka, boldly staking his claim on the first move after their brief introductions.
“Invocato Augoeides, et sagitta!”
[Invoke Augoeides, and fire!]
Suimei fired down radiant rays of mana from small magicka circles overhead. As he did, the girl immediately deployed a rampart over her. His mana collided with her rampart, and sparks of manalight scattered everywhere, causing the room to flicker with blue and white. But in spite of the spectacle, the rays showed no signs of penetrating the rampart. And upon verifying that she had completely blocked Suimei’s attack, Hydemary spoke up in the same humorless fashion.
“Here’s payback.”
With that, she drew magicka circles overhead identical to the ones Suimei had just used. It seemed she was planning on using the same attack—a rather skillful maneuver. Was she able to read the spell from a single use? Or was she just imitating it?
“Defense shift, overlay.”
Suimei swept his hand through the air, first vertically downward and then horizontally from right to left as if making the sign of the cross. As he did, a hexagram manifested at his feet. It was part of a magicka circle designed to deploy like an enclosed sphere. The hexagram gave off a pale green glow and its outer circumference swiftly enveloped Suimei like a ball right before Hydemary’s mana rays crashed into it.
Once it was all over, Suimei quickly made his next move. He dashed forth as if to attack Hydemary from the flank, sharply changing course at a right angle. He accumulated mana in his right fist and invoked a spell, a rotating, belt-like magicka circle appearing around his wrist. The was Lagline Bells, the ultimate punch Suimei had learned from Lord Ozfield himself.
But it seemed the girl had now figured out what Suimei was up to, and deployed a rampart to protect herself accordingly. However, the signature move of the magician known as Beatorex wouldn’t be so easily blocked.
“Cross Sight...”
Hydemary’s flat voice again resounded through the room. She’d managed to read the nature of the attack instantly and identify it in simple terms. By imitating an opponent’s defensive magicka with a magicka circle in the palm of your hand, the weaknesses of said defensive magicka were exposed. This was a special technique indeed—magicka to break through magicka.
“Puppenspiel!”
[Puppet show!]
Hydemary raised her voice again, this time speaking what seemed to be a keyword. The instant Suimei’s fist broke through her rampart, her body was swapped with that of a doll by a hair’s breadth. Suimei’s fist sent the doll flying, and he used the opportunity to scatter the other dolls who were still in action before jumping back.
Meanwhile, Hydemary seemed to have gotten away unscathed. The doll she’d switched in to act as her substitute also appeared to be quite sturdy; it wasn’t even broken. Suimei couldn’t really compare to the original developer of Lagline Bells, but it was still terrifying how Hydemary had handily managed to thwart the attack.
“Are you not going to show me the Golden Magnale?” she asked.
“That’s not something I pull out for just anyone, okay?” he replied.
“How stingy. Are you really such a tightwad?”
“Shut it.”
Suimei brushed aside her insult with discontent. Hydemary had a composed expression and spoke frivolously as if this were all perfectly natural to her. But in reality, such indifference was a necessity for surviving the harsh world of magicka where fights between magicians were a common occurrence.
In any event, this girl really does live up to the Alzbayne name. Both her use of magicka and her response to mine are good. She has an advantage in that we’re fighting in her room, but even so, that doesn’t negate the fact that she’s handling herself pretty well. She’s strong. Nevertheless, however... She still has a weakness.
“Tanzen, tanzen. Werden ein Kreis.”
[Dance, dance. Become a circle.]
Another chant. No, this was a command. Immediately after she uttered those words, the dolls that were collapsed all around Suimei steadily rose from the ground, joined hands, and formed a circle. It was a dangerous omen. The formation of any circle in the world of magicka largely served one purpose—the foundation for a magicka circle. And indeed, it seemed the dolls were mimicking the outer circumference of one. Following the laws of magicka, mana flowed from each doll around the circle, unifying their mana in one large wave.
What manifested was a dreadful amount of power. It was easy to imagine that a manafield vibration would occur at this rate. Spells that could trigger such a phenomenon were extreme; they were a grade of mysticism higher than normal spells, which also gave way to triggering rank disparity extinction against lower-grade spells.
It wasn’t clear what sort of mystery was being invoked, but Suimei’s body could be scattered to the winds by the time he figured it out. Staring down that possibility, he acted accordingly.
“Meum desiderium est pro tempestas violentiae. O vente, abripe. Emittet clamorem desperationis. Causa delendo omnia pro me...”
[What I desire lies before the violence of the tempest. Oh wind, blow fiercely. Raise the screams of despair. For the sake of eradicating anything and everything before my eyes...]