That was when a wizard appeared, wearing a white mask, practically oozing power.
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His robe and his staff were as white as his mask. He was obviously on a different level from the small fry we’d been dealing with. He seemed oddly…pure for a member of the Demon King’s army. Almost holy…
“I see someone has come out. I wonder if this is the alleged ‘world’s strongest wizard.’” Megumin, her cheeks flushed and her eyes redder than ever before, stopped and watched the wizard emerge from the castle. She caressed a piece of manatite with glee; she was still buried practically to the waist in the stuff. Seeing that the barrage of explosions had abated, White Robe walked past the barrier, heading leisurely in our direction. A semitranslucent shell seemed to cover him, and he had those white robes that just screamed Big Trouble.
He was still too far away from us to have a conversation. I assumed he had come out to ascertain who exactly we were and what we wanted. Then again, maybe he saw that Megumin was more powerful than anyone he’d ever encountered before and had emerged to throw down with her for the title of strongest. Or maybe…
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Right at that moment, with no hesitation whatsoever, Megumin unleashed her spell.
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“Exploooosion!”
““Hey, hold it!”” Darkness and I cried, but obviously it was too late to stop the spell that erupted from her staff, spearing toward White Robe. A second later, there was a huge blast and a massive boom.
When the smoke cleared, we could see a man collapsed on the ground in the middle of a crater—now naked, his mask and white robe blown away by the spell. We could see white wings on his exposed back. Was he some kind of angel monster? Like the “fallen angel” Duke who Wiz had exploded out of existence?
We watched from a distance as, trembling, the naked angel got to his feet.
““Oooh!”” Darkness and I were both very impressed to see he’d survived Megumin’s explosion. He really must be the guard they called the world’s strongest wizard. The naked angel, still not very steady on his feet, faced our plateau and looked up.
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“My…n…! Str…f the Demon King’s…! How dare…!”
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He was shouting something, but he was too far away to really hear what it was. It was probably, you know: My name is So-and-So. How dare you blow me up, etc.
Megumin and Darkness looked at each other, perplexed, evidently unable to hear him, either. In an effort to figure out what he wanted, I combined my Second Sight and Lip Reading skills.
“If you can hear me, give me a sign! Who or what are you? Are you adventurers?! To attack the castle directly from such a distance—have you never heard of the legend of the Demon King and the Hero? Or even common decency? Confronted with such base and foul deeds, the blood of the Clan of the Gods that runs through my veins—”
My skills allowed me to understand what the naked angel was saying but not to, you know, actually make sense of it.
“What’s with him? Do you know what he’s saying?” Megumin asked.
“I used my Lip Reading skill, yeah. I guess he thinks it was unfair of us to attack the castle from a distance. Like, super unfair.”
“Kind of childish logic for someone who’s supposedly the strongest wizard in the world… Although it’s true I’ve never heard of anyone defeating a Demon King quite like this…” Darkness looked conflicted.
Megumin gave a shake of her staff. “Whatever. Can I blow him up?”
“Be my guest. We’ve got the range on him. We don’t have to stand here and listen to him.”
“G-gee, I kind of feel bad for him…,” Darkness mumbled.
Megumin was more patient this time—she started chanting, the way you’re supposed to. She wasn’t going to drop a whole series of explosions on him, but she was going to make it powerful enough to do this in one shot.
“You have been warned! Behold my power! With infinite magical energy drawn from the demon realm and versed in every form of magic known to man, I shall take aim at you and—”
“Exploooosion!” Megumin intoned before he could finish. The naked angel was blown into the sky mid-sentence. It took him a long time to come back down, and when he did, he hit the ground. Hard.
This time, the explosion seemed to do the trick: With a look of shock frozen on his face, the naked angel twitched a couple of times and stopped moving.
But then a complicated magical circle appeared beneath the angel’s body, shining with an intense light. As we watched, the wounds on his body began to heal themselves.
Come to think of it, we had heard something about him having powerful regenerative abilities. The wizards who had been repairing the barrier scurried out and tried to pull the naked angel back to safety.
Megumin thrust her staff out in front of her, watching them. “It seems they’ve taken refuge behind their barrier. Well, it matters not, for I shall destroy it in any case. And then we shall see who the strongest wizard truly is!”
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“Exploooosion! Exploooosion!”
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As Megumin continued going nuts with her spells, I read the lips of the guys behind the barriers.
“Aaahhhh! What do we do? What do we do now?!”
“This is it—we’re done for…!”
“Good gods! What in the hell is she?! Is she completely insane?!”
“The barrier’s not going to hold! If we don’t get out of here, that awful Crimson Magicker will blow us to smithereens!”
“Why would a last-boss type like her suddenly attack us? And how can she use so many explosions?! Is she a Demon King from some other world?!”
“M-Mommyyyy!”
While the Demon King’s mages were busy panicking, the naked angel groggily opened his eyes. When I saw that, I signaled to Megumin to stop firing for a moment.
The angel somehow managed to get to his feet—not very steadily—and the wizards put a cloak on him. I activated my Lip Reading skill again.
“W-with my…profound…power…s-such a pitiful…Crimson Magic Clan member…could…never…”
“He says that if he got really serious, he could OHKO the chestless wonder of a Crimson Magic Clanner up on that plateau.”
“Exploooosion! Explooooooosion!”
My interpretation caused Megumin to resume her attack, until it was clear the barrier was about to give.
“K-Kazuma, is that true? Did he really say that?!” Darkness asked.
“More or less.”
The former general of the Demon King stood, wobbling a bit. I could see that his wounds really had healed up pretty well.
“A-ahem. We need that crazy Crimson wizard to run out of magic! She may outdistance us, but we only need to keep repairing the barrier! I can draw a limitless supply of MP from the demon realm! If we can force a contest of endurance, we need not even face that insane spell-caster directly!”
“““Right!”””
The cloaked angel, never knowing that I was listening in on his plans, raised his hands and got to work fixing the barrier.
“They say they’re just gonna wait for the crazy Crimson wizard to run out of magic. He’s all, I’ve got unlimited MP; I don’t give two shits about some insane spell-caster, blah, blah, blah. They’re going to keep repairing the barrier to draw out the fight.”
“He’s so dead.”
“Wait, Kazuma! Is that true?! Is that really how he said it?!”
“Pretty much.”
The cloaked angel and his wizards were desperately trying to repair the barrier…
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Megumin’s eyes glowed a particularly sinister shade of red, and she took a deep breath…!
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“Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Exploooosion!”
“W-wait… Wait!”
In the blink of an eye, Megumin’s rapid-fire volley of explosions demolished the barrier that had protected the Demon King’s castle for so many years. The enemy wizard was reduced from “cloaked angel” to “naked angel” again. He was shouting something, but…
“Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Explosion Exploooooosion!”
…Megumin didn’t let up with the magical blasts, blowing away the other wizards around him and leaving the battered, naked angel in the center of a whole pile of craters. Maybe there really was something to this “strongest wizard in the world” stuff.
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Megumin, almost looking impressed by the enemy’s resilience, started a very long chant. There was another thrum of magical energy, but it was different from before. She wasn’t drawing from the manatite this time. She’d saved her own MP for when she really wanted it, and now she was going to use it, summoning up every bit of magic she had. And her most powerful magic was even more potent than the stuff stored up in that super-high-quality manatite.
The angel found that even his healing powers were overwhelmed by the relentless string of explosions, and he was on the cusp of death. He could see the uncanny aura coming from Megumin, and he began to whimper: “I am…the strongest…and longest-serving member…of the Demon King’s army… And my name is…”
He was trying to mumble out his name, but he never quite got there.
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“Explooooosssiiiioooonnnn!”
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Megumin’s explosion spell, the most powerful she’d ever unleashed, slammed into him, and he disappeared before we ever learned his name.