All three members of Bernhart’s team had been forced to go on the defensive as they were cornered by a trio of blazing fire elementals summoned by the second-years they were up against. Wait…no…more accurately, this wasn’t really even a match.
It was just a pair-up of the hunters and the prey. Like rabbits against tigers.
I hadn’t expected that things would end with Bernhart’s knight-shaped water elemental powerless when he had such an advantage.
Immediately after the match had started, the second-year team had come out with the three fire elementals and blasted the ground and rocks below their feet with as much firepower as possible, then started throwing all the hot rocks at the water elemental.
Even cold water ends up turning to steam when it’s exposed to hot rocks, and not every water elemental could deal with hot water or ice, either. Though they were amorphous and had an infinite water supply, they were susceptible to large changes in temperature—particularly the younger ones with less power.
Once Bernhart’s water elemental had tons of hot stones inside it, it wasn’t able to maintain its form. Actually, it didn’t just lose its form—it turned straight to steam and was absorbed right into the dry ground.
“…Bernhart’s team just doesn’t compare with second-years. Guess there was nothing he could do with ’em throwing out that firepower right from the start,” I grumbled as I crossed my arms.
Cyril asked me, “What would you have done in his position, Feil?”
I snorted before I replied, “Fled, obviously. Would’ve run for my life and used the time to make the water elemental bigger. That way, no little hot stones could’ve made it boil away.”
“So you think they got it all wrong from the start. They must have thought they had an advantage and wanted to see what’d happen.”
“Ha-ha-ha—watchin’ ’em ain’t a good strategy against upperclassmen.”
Even though the end-of-match bell hadn’t gone off, the winners and losers were basically settled.
The second-years had trapped Bernhart’s team in a fire funnel and were launching a barrage of flame spells at them from outside. Their attacks were ferocious—merciless without any hope of finding an opening.
Once the defensive spells Bernhart’s teammates had cast were broken, that’d be it.
“Has Bernhart really got nothin’ up his sleeve…? We should’ve watched Lulua’s match if this was how it was gonna turn out.”
The screen just continued to show the nasty aristocrat being tormented.
“Why’d he even buy that angel summonin’ stone…?”
The other participants around me started leaving the screen once they were sure of Bernhart’s loss…but I stayed to watch. Cyril and Myfila also didn’t budge.
“Huh?”
I unintentionally grunted when I saw Bernhart pulling artifacts from his robes as he was surrounded in his hopeless situation.
The relay zoomed in on him right then.
Though the waiting room had no speakers so we could concentrate on our upcoming matches, Raddermark would have likely been ringing with Bernhart’s laughter right around then.
“What the heck is that thing…? Is it really worth guffawin’ over like that…?”
Bernhart had raised both his hands. In his left was a fist-sized blue gem—likely the angel summoning stone—but his right hand held a silver chalice I didn’t recognize.
The summoning stone broke apart in Bernhart’s hand, and a two-winged angel appeared above him.
She wore a snow-white robe and held a slender sword in her hand. She was just human-sized.
How’ll she be able to help fight in the situation they’re in?
My brows furrowed as I thought that.
“Whaaat the…?! Wait! Wait!”
I left the screen and ran at full speed to the one of the library windows.
I practically threw myself at the north-facing window as I yanked it open and hung outside, looking at the summons-festival battlefield and glaring in the direction where Bernhart’s team should have been.
Since I’d panicked out of nowhere, the participants who hadn’t been watching Bernhart, including Sasha, seemed genuinely perturbed as they looked between me and the relay screen.
But they wouldn’t have been able to tell from that. The screen that should have been showing Bernhart was currently blank.
“Huh? What happened? Wasn’t the match basically over?”
“No idea. But one of the first-years suddenly started making a scene and—”
The waiting room began to stir. People started to gather at the window where I was. “Huh? Seriously?” “Did something bad happen?” They were all making random comments as they tried to follow my gaze.
“Silver…,” someone murmured in amazement.
That’s right, silver.
Far into the distance of the wide, vast field—in a corner—was a giant surge of liquid silver.
At first glance, it looked like some sort of endless geyser of water…but it was firmly blocking and reflecting the weak rays of sun that came down with the snow as it glittered. It had to be easily spouting a hundred mejals tall. The spout of water was also pretty thick in circumference, and once it reached the atmosphere, it fell headlong back to the ground—not like rain, but more like a gigantic waterfall.
It didn’t fit in at all with the flitting snow scene around it; something was extremely ominous about it.
“What the heck is that thing? What happened?” someone watching the scene out the window said. But it wasn’t me or Cyril or Myfila who answered—apparently, others had also been watching Bernhart’s match out of curiosity—and a third-year girl replied, “It was some sort of artifact I’ve never seen before. There was an angel summoning stone—that one, I recognized—but there was something else that suddenly swallowed up the angel that came from the stone. What was that? Some sort of magical slime creature? What was inside that cup?”
It seemed like even she was confused after witnessing everything, though. When she realized everyone there was staring at her, she cleared her throat lightly and explained, “Um, so the son of the Hadcheck nobles used two artifacts. One was an angel summoning stone, but the other seemed to be a cuplike artifact that housed some sort of magical creature…”
She stopped there and turned to look at the window, where the unusual events were progressing.
“And that silver geyser is what came out of the cup artifact. As soon as the creature—which was waterier than a slime—swallowed up the angel, it started to expand. It swallowed up the Hadchecks’ son and also even the flying relay camera.”
One of the second-year boys spoke up. “What happened to Gerald’s team? They were up against him.”
The third-year replied, “They weren’t on-screen, but they were really close, so…” She didn’t clarify any further.
“But it increased in volume so quickly. What’s it using to expand like that? The magic floating around in the air wouldn’t account for that much growth.”
“The thing’s probably usin’ the magic from the angel it swallowed first.”
“But it’s just a summoning-stone angel. I don’t think it would have the power to make something like this possible.”
“Right. You’ve got a point.”
“Perhaps the artifact itself was storing magic?”
“Well, that seems like it’d be reasonable, but is there any material that could store that much magic?”
They all sure seemed worthy of being participants in the festival just from their conversation. Everyone had naturally started analyzing and trying to identify the phenomenon in front of them. It didn’t matter what year they were in or their position.
“This is… Feil…?”
Cyril had said my name after making his way next to me. He sounded bewildered, as if he was seeking answers.
But…
“Sorry. Could ya wait a sec?”
…I didn’t have the wherewithal to give him what he wanted. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, my mind automatically filled with images that made me shudder.
That silver spectacle in front of me—I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t help but think it was the beginning of the end of this world.
That was what the drunk from my workplace had been going on about.
And for some reason, Bernhart had been fully confident he could bring about the destruction of the world.
Then there were those beings from mythology that no one fully knew the particulars of, which Sasha had told me about in the Academy dining hall.
All those things that couldn’t be easily connected were instinctually and insistently coming together in my head—giving me a nasty and foreboding premonition.
Finally, I grabbed hard onto the sides of the open window as I murmured, “The Executioners…”
When I practically growled my words, they seemed to have reached the discussion happening behind me.
“The Executioners?” someone said. “As in the Six Metal ones?” “What were they again? The Grace-Crusher of Iron, the Dawn-Guide of Gold, the Angel-Eater of Silver—?” And that was where the conversation stopped.
“No—nononono!! There’s no possible way!! That’s utterly inconceivable!!”
“Is that seriously the Angel-Eater of Silver for real?!”
They were all knowledgeable summoners. But even as they denied it, they all rushed at the windows with enough force to almost throw me out.
They threw open all four large windows, and the temperature in the library dropped precipitously.
“B-b-but…that…might just be true?”
“A relic of the gods—of the Supreme God? No way.”
“No, I refuse to accept it. If that’s supposed to be a divine creature, then anything could happen.”
“You mean like it could swallow anything whole to create an infinite magical supply through transmutation? Or it could transform the matter into any form it wants?”
“That’s right. That’s not anything like what we’ve learned.”
“Then try explaining how a single artifact and an angel could be causing this to happen.”