“All right, let’s do this, Gondola.”
“It’s Gordon. Heh-heh-heh. I’m gonna kill you, Rix.”
“Just to double-check—I’m a regular guy who can’t use magic,” Rix said, pointing to the sword at his hip, “so is it all right if I use this?”
“Yeah, do whatever you want. Some little stick like that will be about as useful as a fart against my magic,” Gordon replied with a grin. “But you know…you really threw a wet blanket over my heart-pounding battle with Shino. You’re gonna have to pay me back for that.”
“Pay you back? What do you want me to do?”
“Oh, it’s simple. We’ll wager something on this battle that’s equal to my losing Shino. Let’s see. If you lose, you withdraw from the acad—”
Just as Gordon was about to finish, Rix cut him off.
“Understood. I wager my life on this battle.”
He said something so extreme with such a casual attitude.
“…Huh? …Wha…?”
“If I lose, you can have it. My life,” said Rix. “But in return, you have to wager your life, too.”
“What?! You little jerk, are you crazy…?!”
“Crazy? Isn’t that what a battle is in the first place? Or do mages do things differently?”
“D-don’t start acting cocky… You think you can scare me with something like that…?!”
Gordon stared Rix in the eye.
He seemed normal, neither crazed nor desperate. Nothing like that.
And he wasn’t being swept up in violent emotion or cockiness, nor was he bluffing.
Rix was his normal self, just staring straight back at Gordon.
But the fact that he was acting so normal was what made him terrifying.
“You prick… Who do you think I am?!” Gordon howled in an attempt to stifle the fear welling up inside him.
He summoned lightning…and their fight to the death began.
“Diiiiiiiiiieeeeee!”
Gordon swung his hands down.
When he did, innumerable bolts of lightning started raining down over Rix’s head.
His field of vision flickered and glowed white-hot. A thunderous noise rang in his ears, and a fierce electric current hailed down on him.
But…
“…Hup!”
…at once, Rix started running toward Gordon in a flash of speed and whizzed past him.
Then, weaving his body back and forth with the slightest movements, he completely dodged the bolts of lightning as they came down around him.
Using the shortest possible route, Rix had quickly closed the distance between him and Gordon.
“Wha—?!”
Gordon’s face wavered with shock.
Then Rix drew his sword and aimed for Gordon’s neck.
His sword flashed with explosive speed as he unsheathed it.
With overwhelming sharpness and precision, Rix’s sword was about to meet Gordon’s neck…
But then—
Clank!
—Rix’s sword clashed against Gordon’s neck but stopped. The blade didn’t pass through even a slice of flesh.
“…?!”
“Heh-heh-heh-heh… You tryin’ to threaten me?!” said Gordon.
Rix showed the slightest surprise when he saw Gordon go pale and flash a vile grin.
Gordon summoned lightning again, and Rix jumped backward.
Serephina was watching this exchange and said with anguish in her voice, “This is it…! The reason why an ordinary human can never win against a mage… A mage’s defense is too strong…!”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Alfred pushed his glasses up. “It’s the basics of the basics—physical enhancement magic. Once it reaches a certain level, a mage’s body is protected by a kind of mana shield, making the body basically impervious to non-magical physical attacks. In reality, there’s no way to take down a mage without using magical attacks. And that’s not the only advantage mages have over ordinary humans.”
Just as Alfred said this—
“Graaaaaagh!”
Gordon once again started bringing down his lightning in a frenzy.
But his target was Rix, a battle-hardened mercenary.
Rix predicted the trajectory of each bolt, and with a speed almost imperceptible to the human eye, jumped back, dodged right, tumbled left, and leaped out of the way.
He kept evading each and every lightning bolt.
However, the bolts kept aiming for where Rix was about to land as they assailed him.
No, they weren’t aiming for him—it was as if they knew where Rix was going to go next and had been planted there.
Then suddenly, there was a direct hit.
“Guuuuh?!”
Rix’s face contorted in anguish as pain shot throughout his whole body.
“Wh-what was that just now?! Was he able to read exactly where Rix was moving? Even though he was moving so fast…?!” Randy’s eyes were peeled wide in disbelief.
“That’s the second major advantage mages have over ordinary humans,” said Alfred. “Did you forget? Mages are omnipotent within their own Spheres.”
“Oh! Th-that means…”
“Right. Mages can perfectly sense and grasp any phenomenon that occurs within the boundaries of their Spheres. No matter how inhumanly fast Rix moves, no matter how much he tries to feint, it doesn’t matter. Gordon can see everything. And as long as he knows how Rix will move, there’ll be plenty of ways to deal with him.”
Then, before Alfred and the others…
“Man, you’re a slippery little thing… Just behave for a second, will ya?”
The moment Gordon said this—
“…?!”
Rix’s movement, and his speed, blatantly slowed.
Then Gordon’s lightning attacked once again.
“He used a debuff…?!”
“Looks like it,” Alfred remarked. “Against another mage, he wouldn’t have had such an easy opening, and there’s always the risk of getting countered with a curse. But if your opponent is just an ordinary human, there’s no risk. He can curse Rix all he wants. That’s what happens when a regular human fights within the bounds of a mage’s Sphere.” Alfred sniffed before continuing. “In a fight between mages, it’s essentially a struggle between the bounds of each Sphere. It all comes down to whittling down the opponent’s Sphere and controlling the field with your own Sphere. But if it’s a regular human…a swordsman can’t do that. No matter what, the swordsman has no choice but to fight unprotected in that zone of almost certain death, within the mage’s Sphere. That’s why it’s a common saying in the magical world: ‘A swordsman can never win against a mage.’”
Randy and Annie fell into a hush.
Then—