When I turned to look at the sky over the wreckage, everything I beheld was beautiful. The azure expanse that seemed like it would swallow me into its depths, the dazzling contrast of light and dark as the sun illuminated the scattered clouds—and more than anything, the archangel whose six pure-white wings were outstretched across it all. To be frank, the sight left me so emotional, so awestruck, I almost forgot to breathe.
That was when I realized there were phenomena in this world more beautiful and more glorious than I’d ever be able to imagine—and that, in this particular instance, this particular phenomenon was trying to kill me.
The absurdity caught me off guard, and I ended up letting out an incredulous chuckle.
The archangel was just that impressive. She was way up in the sky, floating just below the clouds. She was likely the same size as the clouds, considering she was easily taller than ten full-grown men. Her long, golden hair fluttered in the westerly winds, her eyes hidden behind a silver mask.
There was also the fact that she was quite underdressed. While her arms and shins were properly covered by silver armor, the rest of her bodily contours were left unprotected. Both her shoulders were bare, and her intricately decorated breastplate was cut so low, it wasn’t even protecting the body part its name referred to. The apron dangling over her pelvis seemed to invite rather than conceal, and the little armor that accompanied it only protected the sides of her hips. A single long stretch of pure-white cloth fell from behind the angel, fluttering in the wind like a tail.
It was said that many men fell in love with angels.
That seemed likely. Considering their humanoid shape and their elegance—their grandeur—it felt only natural that most humans would let their hearts be stolen away. Naturally, the same applied to me. It wasn’t like I didn’t appreciate them—even if one was currently after my life.
“Gah! Agh!!”
I squeezed out all the strength I had to push aside the rubble and sit myself upright. I slapped myself in the face, trying to remind myself of the danger we were in after I’d been entranced by the archangel for so long.
“Hey, you two! Y’all alive?!” I yelled between coughs. “Dammit, this is ridiculous. It’s like she’s tryin’ to kill us.”
I patted down my long conjurer’s robes—which looked a lot like a clergyman’s garb—as I stood up.
But dusting myself off ended up proving pointless when I was showered with rubble from a nearby pile as another person appeared next to me—they were tall, dark, and handsome.
“This only happened because you decided to step on the tiger’s tail, Feil,” my teammate said, brushing aside his blond braid. Then he extended a hand to the rubble pile he’d been buried under a moment ago and said, “Are you all right, Myfila? You’re not hurt, are you?” He pulled up a small girl whose arm barely poked out of the sleeve of her own conjurer’s robe. She looked no older than sixteen. “Anyone could have told you that we can’t stop Sasha by melting off her clothes with a slime.”
That was Cyril Ojlock—a first-year at the summoner’s training school, also called the Academy. He was one of my teammates for the Academy’s ranking matches. The guy’s deep-set features and jewellike blue eyes were popular with the Academy girls, and he was about half a head taller than me, not to mention physically fit. I was also pretty sure he was one of the most athletic Academy students.
Some people made fun of him for having a braid, claiming it made him look effeminate, but he was super popular with the ladies, and they all found it endearing. Just went to show what a specimen Cyril was.
He was the heir to the great Ojlock aristocracy, after all. The words dignity, grace, and pride seemed to exist solely for him, and he put in the effort and had the talent to play the part. His composed demeanor made him seem older than sixteen. Plus, even though he was a summoner just like me, he was also known for his prowess with the sword and the lance. Even today, he wore an aristocratic military uniform with a stiff collar under his Academy robes. A large empty scabbard was also strapped to his side.
“Seriously. We never should’ve gone with your plan, Feil.”
Cyril picked his large sword off the ground. “The angel took out my summon with one blow,” he said. “It’s a wonder we’re all alive.” Then he plunged his drawn blade deep into the ground. With his hands now free, he quickly dusted off the girl standing next to him.
“Wait, Myfila. A girl like you shouldn’t walk around covered in so much dust.” The guy was starting to sound like an overprotective dad.
He ignored me when I told him, “Myfila can handle herself, y’know.”
“The two of you should care more about these things. The Academy allowed for an audience, and I’d think our duties as students include looking the part,” he said, quickly fixing even Myfila’s hair now. Then he looked into a winged round mirror that had been hanging out near us and gave it a tender smile. He even went as far as to wave a hand.
The mirror broadcasted all it saw to a screen in front of an audience of about a thousand. The women and children who had come to see Cyril were probably screaming and swooning in the Academy’s great hall right around now.
…Meanwhile, we were out in the Academy’s expansive rear yard on the verge of death.
“The princess didn’t even seem embarrassed,” Myfila muttered as she turned to me. Just then, her cowlick sprung right back up at the top of her head. Despite all of Cyril’s attempts to fix her hair, it was always an untamable, explosive force. That was Myfila. She didn’t even have a last name. Just Myfila.
She was so small that her robes dragged even when she wore the smallest size available. At times, she’d even get mistaken for a ten-year-old when she ran errands at the market.
Despite that, everyone at the Academy likely knew of her, considering she was supposed to be a genius who’d deciphered the Arcane Autogram even before entering the Academy. She was also an odd one—her favorite things in the world were corpses possessed by necrospecters, the elementals that were supposedly the observers of death and fate.
She spoke in a monotone, so it was difficult to read her, especially with how her bangs hid half her face. There weren’t a lot of guys who’d notice her, but if they just bothered to look, they’d find a small, beautiful girl with golden eyes staring back up at them.
“Yeah, she really didn’t,” I said. “But I sure thought it was a good idea.”
I tousled Myfila’s hair and surveyed the area around us, which was almost unrecognizable from just barely ten seconds ago. I let out a sigh. A strained smile had worked its way onto my face before I’d even realized it.
The angel’s spear of light had overturned the terrain with its supernatural destructive force. She’d transformed the vast field that was normally peppered with rocks—now the ground was split and heaved up to expose even the bedrock underneath. It looked almost apocalyptic.
I was surprised we’d all even survived.
One misstep, and we would’ve been crushed under some shattered boulder or nose-diving into the deep chasm.
This destruction had been wrought by none other than one of my own classmates. One Sasha Shidoh Zultania.
I couldn’t even hold a match to her when it came to summoning ability. No matter how I worked and struggled, catching up to her seemed impossible—and right as I thought that, I let my guard down for just a wink.
“Shadow Shield.”
Amethyst light shone toward the sky from Myfila’s extended hand. It was beautiful, like the sky before sunset, but instead of immediately fading, traces of it hovered just where Myfila’s fingertips had been.
She drew a simple summoning circle with a single stroke, and my shadow on the ground came alive, abruptly standing up to shield me from a lightning bolt coming in from my blind spot.
When I saw the attack burst right in front of my eyes, my heart nearly leaped out of my chest.