Their bodies hit the floor, and Kaguya wiped the sweat from her brow. Then she directed her gaze forward once more at Vito, who stood completely unharmed.
“Magnificent!” he said, clapping. “What beauty and strength! Look at all these grown men and women who couldn’t keep up with one little girl! Am I the only half-decent dancer around these parts?”
Then a cold, brutal smile returned to Vito’s lips as he watched her struggle for breath.
“You must be getting tired by now, mustn’t you, princess?”
“…You repulse me. Shut your mouth!”
Steel clashed with steel, and the dance went on.
While Kaguya and Vito fought under a curtain of dust, Lyu and the other girls were trapped in a conflict of their own.
““Haah!””
Lyu and Alize came at their foe from opposite angles. Alfia gently brushed aside the former’s wooden sword with her palm, while trapping the latter’s blade between two slender fingers.
“Argh! Why are you so fast? It’s so irritating! And how come you’re not feeling the heat from my sword? Is that your magic-nullifying power as well?!”
“Do not bombard me with questions, child. All it means is that you are weak.” The witch’s face was laden with disappointment. “However,” she said. “Your speed and power have definitely improved, red one. You must possess a rare skill.”
Lyu was also powering herself up with Mind Load, but the increase in Alize’s stats were too drastic to explain any other way.
“Heh.” Alize chuckled, pulling a smug grin. “How observant of you! Yes, my skill, Rubrud Beckia, lets me—”
“Alize! Don’t just blurt out what your skills do to the enemy!”
Lyu silenced her talkative captain before she gave the game away and slashed at Alfia. The witch released Crimson Order and stepped back, avoiding the elf’s blow.
“You are especially noisy,” she said with a deep sigh. “I must be rid of you at once.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you very much!” chirruped Alize, a feisty grin forming on her lips. “After all, being noisy lets me distract you like this!”
Alfia knit her brows dubiously, and a second later, her suspicions were answered when a short figure leaped out from behind her.
“Raaaahhh!!”
“!”
Lyra emerged from her veil of dust and sparks and attacked, but Alfia reacted without a moment’s delay. She spun around, catching the prum’s body blow on her elbow.
“A shield bash? Are you pretending to be a dwarf, prum?”
“Shut it, lady. I’m just doin’ what I was told… But damn, nothin’ fazes ya, does it? I shoulda known, but still…”
After her attack failed, Lyra immediately jumped back to a safe distance, knowing a single counterattack from the witch would be the end of her. She screwed up her face in frustration, looking down at the shield in her hands—the one she had been wearing on her back this entire time.
“At least I finally figured it out, though.”
“Figured out what?” replied Alfia, her closed eyes scrunching together.
“That thing you got that nullifies magic—it ain’t no barrier spell; it’s a passive enchantment.”
“………”
Alfia seemed to tremble ever so slightly in response to Lyra’s declaration. It was the first reaction of hers that could be called genuine surprise.
“What do you mean, Lyra?” asked Alize.
Lyra jerked her chin in the direction of the ashen-haired witch.
“You know how when she activates her barrier, she holds out her hand and chants? Well, it’s all just smoke and mirrors to make it look like she’s casting a spell.”
Alize thought back to when Alfia had been attacked by Riveria and the other mages. At that time, the witch had acted exactly as Lyra said, seeming to cast an ultrafast barrier spell immediately following an offensive one.
“Yeah…and when I attacked her with my fire-enchanted sword, the heat didn’t seem to bother her at all! But now that I think about it, I remember the flames disappeared right where she touched the blade, even though she didn’t cast any kind of barrier that time.”
Lyra nodded. “That’s ’cause it ain’t a barrier spell at all. It’s like your fire enchantment, or the Sword Princess’s wind. Only, hers is invisible, always protectin’ her from any magic.”
The Astrea Familia girls all stood around the battlefield, huffing for breath, listening to Lyra’s explanation. They all wore the same look of surprise, which then turned to understanding.
“I get it,” said Lyu. “So it’s not that she’s really fast at switching between offense and defense; it’s that her defense is always on.”
“This explains why you seem to be able to cast two spells at once!” said Neze.
There was a short pause as Alfia remained silent.
“…What of it?” she said at last. “Simply understanding changes nothing.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said Lyra. “But we know one more thing, at least. So long as we’re fightin’, you can’t turn that armor off. You gotta keep it up the entire time.”
If Alfia made one mistake fighting the girls of Astrea Familia, she would inevitably be hit by magic. And magic was deadly, no matter the origin. That was why short-term buffs were so valuable in a Dungeon raid.
No matter what Alfia did, there was always that chance—even if only a tiny, tiny chance—that a spell would finally land and result in her defeat. If Alfia wanted to eliminate that chance, there was only one choice: She needed her armor, even if that armor came at a price.