But though he appeared to be quite dead, Ishmael’s left hand seized Satie’s wrist. His corpse had stopped just short of hitting the ground, as though he were being held up by strings. Like a marionette, his head rose, followed by his body. The contours of his body seemed to blur like mist, and where he had stood moments before was a man in a white robe and a hood that cast a shadow over his face.
“That’s...”
“Schwartz!” Satie swung her invisible blade, but before she could cut him down, Schwartz channeled mana into the branch and unleashed a shock wave of energy. Satie took the full force of this powerful blast point-blank and was thrown backward. Angeline raced to catch her while Percival interposed himself to protect them. “Get our weapons!” he called out without turning away from the threat.
“Oh, right!” Anessa turned and ran.
Percival stood like a wall between Angeline and Schwartz. His muscular back put Angeline at ease, but Satie was shivering in her arms, all the color drained from her.
“Why...? I’m sure I...”
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Ange...” Satie looked up at Angeline, full of fear and fatigue, and grabbed her sleeve. “I’m sorry... If only I... If I’d just made sure of it...”
Strangely, Angeline could feel power welling from deep within her chest. The compassion she felt for her mother and the anger she felt towards Schwartz served as a stimulant of sorts, helping her muster her strength.
“Ange,” Anessa called out and handed over her sword.
“Dammit, just when I was about to win!” Marguerite complained, appearing with her rapier drawn. She seemed to be in a foul mood to have had her checkers match with Percival interrupted.
Byaku, who had rushed over from the field after sensing the presence of Schwartz, glared at him with deep loathing. “That bastard...”
“Long time no see, failure,” Schwartz said with a grin.
“Shut up!” Byaku deployed his three-dimensional circle constructs, rage plastered over his face.
That peculiar surge of mana had surely tipped off Kasim and Graham, and Angeline’s team would soon assemble as well. Regardless of how skilled Schwartz was as a magician, he was certainly outmatched. Bolstered by that thought, she got up and readied her blade. The man had no openings in his stance, and now that she was facing him for real, she could feel the immense pressure weighing down on her. His presence was almost as heavy as Graham’s. Percival was motionless, waiting for someone to make the first move. Schwartz’s peculiar intensity made even armed S-Rank adventurers hesitant to engage with him.
A cold wind blew down from the north and brought snowflakes and piercing coldness with it. The sky was covered in dark clouds, cutting off every last ray of sunlight.
“What did you do to Mr. Ishmael?” Angeline asked.
Schwartz scoffed. “That man never existed to begin with. If it makes you feel any better, he actually wanted to help you people.”
“You’re lying!” Angeline strengthened her grip on her hilt. “Lucille said you smelled completely different. I don’t know what you did with the real Ishmael, but I won’t forgive you... This time, I’ll take you down once and for all.”
Schwartz cackled. “Of course we smell different. The Ishmael that traveled all the way to the capital with you was a different Ishmael from the one you met in Orphen. The first one was a complete persona—that was why he could enter your midst without being suspected. But there were some tasks I needed to get done in Orphen on short notice, and his personality and memories turned out unstable. That was a trivial matter in the end.”
“Huh...? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t dissemble your way out of this one.”
“That elf never told you about false personas?”
“I don’t have a clue what you mean.”
Schwartz chuckled. “Perhaps your mother doesn’t trust you as much as you thought she did.”
“That’s not true!” Angeline said through gritted teeth. He was trying to sow dissension, and she wasn’t about to let him get away with it.
Angeline pointed the tip of her sword at Schwartz. “Everyone’s here in Turnera. Percy and Kasim and Grandpa. Even dad is nearby. You won’t get away.”
“I have no intention of running. This was my objective.” Schwartz gestured subtly with the branch.
Whenever Angeline looked at the branch, she would feel an aching pain deep in her heart. Perhaps he had already used some form of magic on her; simply standing before him made it hard for her to breathe, and her emotional equilibrium was completely shot.
“Was it painful to be betrayed?” Schwartz asked.
Angeline furrowed her brow. “I wasn’t betrayed. I was tricked...by you.”
“I see. That may be so. But do you have the right to say that?”
“What...? Who did I ever trick?!” Angeline roared.
Anessa tried to pacify her. “Calm down, Ange. Don’t let him get in your head.”
“That’s right,” Miriam whispered. She held out her staff. “And if he keeps emanating that strange energy, it won’t be long.”
Just as she’d implied, they could hear the sound of hasty footsteps coming their way. Kasim and Graham were running over at full speed. Kasim skidded to a halt, staring straight at Schwartz, a look of shock on his face.
“Ah, guess he wasn’t dead after all...”
Schwartz smiled merrily and swung the branch again, teleporting himself a short distance away, just far enough that he wouldn’t have to fend off attacks from two sides at once.
“The events are starting to amass. But the Red Ogre isn’t here yet.”
“You’ve changed a bit. You’ve got a more dangerous vibe to you than when we fought before.” Kasim straightened his cap with a troubled expression.
Graham’s holy sword was roaring more fiercely than ever before, and Graham’s gaze was locked on Schwartz, his face set in grim determination.
Faced by Angeline, Graham, Percival and Kasim, all S-Rank adventurers, Schwartz didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. Surely he was aware of the threat they presented, and that was precisely what made it so ominous, never mind the strange aura that seemed to lock everyone in place.
The source of this twisted power was most certainly the apple tree branch. It wasn’t Schwartz himself but his possession of that branch which prevented all these powerful combatants from lifting a finger against him.
“Mom, what’s a false persona...?” Angeline asked softly.
“That man named Ishmael...was a false persona created by Schwartz’s magic. Memory, personality, appearance, it’s possible to completely falsify them. However, if you want to do it perfectly, you have to seal away the memories and personality of the original individual. I’d reckon that since Schwartz needed to get something done, he had to leave a little bit of himself, which made the Ishmael persona unstable.”
That seemed to explain how Ishmael had at times seemingly become a completely different person, going off on peculiar tangents. That knowledge was cold comfort in the face of the realization that Ishmael really had never existed. But this was no time to get depressed. Angeline glared at Schwartz and at the branch that seemed to suffocate her every time she looked at it.
“Hey... What is that branch? What does he mean by ‘the Key?’”
Satie took a deep breath. “That...is Solomon’s Key. A relic that anybody researching demons would be desperate to lay their hands on.”
“Huh?! But didn’t you say you stole it and broke it?”
“I thought so... I shattered it and expended all its mana... It should have been completely unusable.”
Schwartz cackled, brandishing his prize. “Did you think someone on your level could destroy it?”
“There were no signs of it regaining its power after everything I did to it. What’s more, after I left the capital, that space should have ceased to exist. It should have disappeared without a trace.”
“Solomon’s power is greater than you can comprehend. That space was maintained purely by the remnants of the Key’s mana.”
“No...” Satie murmured, crestfallen.
“How naive you are,” Scwartz said scornfully. “If you’re so foolish when left to your own devices, you should have just let me use you... But you couldn’t, could you? You feared that you’d be immersed.”
Satie bit her lip and glared at Schwartz.
“So that’s Solomon’s Key? The one you told us about?” Kasim asked, his eyes narrowed.
“Yeah...”
“The real one? You’re sure about it?” Angeline swallowed her breath. She never could have imagined it. Back in Orphen, she’d picked it up herself and had inspected it up close. She’d never had any idea of its true nature.
“I’m sorry, Ange. If I’d just talked about it, if I’d told you everything...” Satie murmured.
“It’s not your fault, mom.”
“Hmm. And that stick of yours is why you can stand so boldly against us?” Percival said, pointing his sword. “Going point by point is agonizing. Let’s just get down to it—what’re you trying to do here?”
“You’ll see.”
“Hmph. Not talking, huh? Then we beat you and that’s the end of it. You’re gonna regret revealing yourself to us.”
Schwartz smirked and waved the branch, generating a shock wave great enough to warp space. Percival’s eyes shot open as he stepped out and took it head-on with his sword. The mana of his blade clashed with the magical energy, erupting in a great gust of wind that swept over everything around them.
“Testing the waters, huh? Don’t underestimate me!” Ignoring the violent tempest, Percival rushed forth.