“Raaaaaaaaaahhh!”
The curtains of battle rose as Gareth led with a mighty swing from his battle-ax. The witch’s response was a single word.
“Gospel.”
“Graaaaaaaghhh!!”
With an unfairly short chant, a wall of sound hurled Gareth’s stout frame backward. The adventurers, however, knew all about Alfia’s spell by now and had been expecting it. They continued their assault without hesitation.
“Hup!!”
“Tempest!”
Gareth’s distraction gave Lyu and Aiz the time they needed to follow up. They raced across the terrain like panthers, approaching the witch from opposite sides and unleashing a pair of upward swings. Any average monster would have been torn to shreds by the two hurricanes, but…
“I see the echoes have still not died down.”
Alfia was not an average monster. She was a monster among monsters. As the two blades approached her flesh, she spoke the next word in her hymn.
“Rugio.”
Another sound of destruction.
“Wha—?!”
“Aaaahhh!!”
Lyu and Aiz were flung back as if they’d stepped on a mine. The elf crossed her swords and dug her feet into the floor, while the lighter Aiz soared through the air like a ball. The two girls had leaped into the spot Gareth had only just vacated and were immediately enveloped in explosive magical energy.
“That was a spell key!!” yelled Lyu, recognizing the nature of the force.
By reciting the spell key, a spell could be detonated at will, releasing the latent energy in an instant. Lyu realized that this was what Alfia had done just seconds after dealing with Gareth. The scary thing was, she had released the spell once already, so what Alfia was detonating was not a new spell, but the residual energy left behind by the first.
Usually, spell keys were used with spells that utilized homing projectiles or beams, so that the caster could detonate the projectile at will. Lyu had never seen anyone do what Alfia had done, a kind of two-stage attack that cast a spell once, then triggered the residual energy for a follow-up attack.
“Wait, what?! What just happened?!” shouted Alize, looking left and right between the combatants. “I blinked, and now old man Gareth’s on the floor, and Leon and the Sword Princess got blown back as well!”
“She uses sound magic!” yelled Lyra, never taking her eyes off the foe for an instant. “Weren’t you listening when Finn explained it to you?”
“The casting time is ultrashort, hits as hard as Nine Hell’s magic, and you can’t even see it coming!” yelled Kaguya.
“And if that ain’t enough, the wave’ll bust your eardrums and make you dizzy as hell! Every hole in your face’ll be oozin’ blood—even your eyes!”
“Ew, gross! I can handle a nosebleed or two, but that sounds nasty! If even old man Gareth got blasted off his feet, then I hate to think what it’ll do to me! It’d break every bone in my body!”
“…And yet, you all remain in once piece,” spoke Alfia above the hubbub of Astrea Familia. “How curious. A magic item, perhaps?”
Kaguya and Lyra could freely attest that a single spell from Alfia was enough to end the battle then and there, but Gareth, Lyu, and Aiz all staggered to their feet, ready for more. From each of their ears hung a small purple piercing in the shape of a miniature harp.
“Precisely,” answered Gareth. “Finn devised them, and that Perseus lass crafted them for us!”
“One for each of us,” added Lyu. “So don’t expect us to go down easily!”
They were originally a type of accessory called a Silence Lyre, which Perseus had developed to protect against the alluring songs of mermaids and sirens. However, at Finn’s orders, Asfi had modified them to ward off the damaging effects of all sound-based attacks. It combined active and passive noise cancellation, generating a field around the wearer that dampened incoming sound waves. It was a piece of equipment custom-made to counter Alfia, and were it to be given a name, that name would probably be something along the lines of Alfia Velador—Witch Bane.
Aiz picked herself up from the ground and swung her sword as she readied herself once more.
“Evidently, the noise will not die out so easily,” Alfia muttered. “How irritating…but at the same time, it reminds me of something.”
She spoke of the past without much visible emotion.
“You and that elf always did have an answer for everything, dwarf. A wall to our sword, a veil to our magic. And now, these cheap tricks.”
““Grh…!””
“Your own past has saved you,” she said. “All that noise was not in vain after all.”
She spoke of the long feuds between the Loki Familia and Freya Familia and those of Zeus and Hera. The only reason Riveria and Gareth were able to respond so decisively this time was because they had been beaten so soundly and so often in the past.
Yet the witch spoke dismissively of those events fifteen years ago. She considered them but more noise. Riveria and Gareth shot her a rotten glare.
“Then let us see, shall we? Let us see how long that legacy will hold.”
A second passed as Alfia’s unassuming words hung in the air. And then the onslaught began.
“Urgh?!” cried Lyu.
“Dammit! This ain’t fair!” shouted Lyra.
“How are we supposed to get close when she keeps blasting us back?!” complained the dwarven vanguard, Asta.
Alfia’s magic could not be stopped. Even the adventurers’ specialized defensive enchantments could not completely attenuate the raw power of her attacks. Lyu and her allies were dashed across the ground and hurled into crystals that shattered on impact. At long range, fighting Alfia was an impossible task. She alone surpassed all the mages that faced her combined, including Riveria. She cast faster and hit harder. A contest of magic was doomed to end in failure.
“Ignore it! Keep pushing!” came Riveria’s command. “Overwhelm her with numbers and don’t give her breathing room! Keep casting!”
The high elf sprinted to a different position, using concurrent casting to keep up her own attacks. Obeying her orders, the melee fighters leaped into action.
“Leon, Kaguya! Let’s go!” cried Alize.
“I’m coming, too!” came the voice of Aiz.
The four launched themselves at their foe; Alize in the lead, with Lyu and Aiz at her sides, and Kaguya bringing up the rear. All four of them attacked in concert…only for their whirlwind of blades to hit nothing but empty air.
““““Grh!!””””
“Don’t even raise your swords if you lack the skill to use them properly.”
It was like Alfia could see the future. With just a lean of her torso, a tilt of her head, or a brush of her fingers against the sword edge, she deflected or avoided every blow without even opening her eyes.
The four girls reeled in shock. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
I can’t touch her! thought Alize, her eyes wide.
Even four of us can’t land a single hit! observed Kaguya, scowling in frustration.
I’ve never seen a mage move like her! Sweat beads formed on Lyu’s brow. It’s like…
Aiz’s heart thrummed to the melody of the unknown. She’s a frontline fighter, just like us!
Soon, the witch seemed to grow bored of only dodging.
“Give me that.”
Her arm shot out, and in a flash Desperate was hers.
“Wah! That’s mine! Give it back!”
Aiz ran over and began hopping for her stolen weapon like a bullied playground kid. Quickly, the other girls caught on to the witch’s intent and pulled her back, but by then they were too late.
“Let me show you how to use a sword.”
There was a roar, like thunder, and the streak of steel seared a burning horizon into the girls’ retinas. Mere moments before all four were bisected, the old dwarf jumped in the way, greatshield raised.
“Raaaaaaaaaaahhhh?!”
Like a replay of a few moments past, Gareth was blown back, though he succeeded in protecting the lives of Aiz, Lyu, Alize, and Kaguya. All five were scattered across the ground, along with the shattered remains of Gareth’s shield.
“Leon! Alize! Kaguya!” shouted Neze.
“That attack just sent all of ’em flyin’!” yelled Lyra. “The hell was that, anyway?!”
Her eyes trembled in fear. It was Riveria who answered with a scowl. “That was one of Zald’s techniques!”
None among Astrea Familia could believe what they were hearing.