The voice answered, “No. You shall not conflate our noble quest with that barbaric squabble.” “Per regulation code 2031129, we hereby warn you.” “You are all hostages.” “Your lives are in our hands now.” “Do not resist. We will instantly slaughter anyone who does not comply.” The marked students spoke in succession, not a shred of emotion in their voices. They announced their threats in the shortest, simplest manner. Without a Familia attached, no one could resist this magic. The sheer power on display made that perfectly clear. “Do as we say, and we promise not to hurt you.” “Surely you understand you have no way to overpower us.” “Resistance is futile. We urge you to comply.” “Even if you don’t, with the city on the brink of war, you have nowhere to run.” Silence fell over the hall. War breaking out between Electric and Magic Town was something everyone had thought about but also never believed would really happen. However, the current situation was dire—the enemy had a point. “We’re finished…,” someone muttered. The students had no way to resist, nor did they attempt to. They could do nothing but sink in despair at their powerlessness in the chaotic situation. Many of them had, at one point, fantasized of terrorists attacking the school, and the students valiantly joining forces to stop them. But the reality was different; they couldn’t defend themselves against one single person wearing a Familia. In the end, fantasy remained fantasy. Several students had lost consciousness and were now being used like puppets. One girl was dead by the entrance. The enemy had the absolute advantage thanks to their Familia. The students were trapped, and the city was about to become a war zone. It took less than a second for them to lose the will to fight. Fear gripped the hearts of these young students, born after the war and without any experience in real battle. People began sobbing. By immediately killing one person and seizing the initiative, a single girl had taken control of the school in the blink of an eye. …Or so she would have, had a certain man not been present. Hizuki was led to the rooftop of the Akihabara School of Magic, which was usually off-limits. It was fully fenced in, with a few AC units and electrical transformers scattered here and there. She stood at the middle of the FV port, a magic circle written with red melted-alesa ore under her feet, and a solemn cloudy sky overhead. I need to run, she’d thought in the elevator on their way there. She wasn’t physically constrained in any way—she could have fled. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t leave her friends behind. “Incredible that we still have to use such anachronistic means for mediumship. If only the Familia’s computation support was a bit more helpful.” Mag poured mana into the magic circle, making it glow red. Then Hizuki felt pain and numbness running through her body like lightning. She grimaced and reflexively tried to move, but… “My body’s…frozen…?!” She could move only her eyes and mouth. Mag twisted Tratte’s face into an eerie smile. “Well then, we still have some time before all processes are completed, so let’s have a short lesson while we’re at it. Mediumship is what we call all magic used to pull a spirit or higher incorporeal being into a physical body…but do you know what’s needed for it to work?” Hizuki ignored her. “Oh? You don’t? The answer is: a location, a medium, and an offering. And here I thought you had good grades in theoretical subjects. In any case, mediumship is quite the troublesome undertaking. There’s actually more requirements, but those three are the biggest.” She explained things concisely, like a real teacher. “Today’s objective will be calling the goddess Meldia into your body.” She spoke with her exact same, usual tone. Then Mag summoned the Crown and placed it on Hizuki’s head. “First, we need the location—that’s Akihabara…or rather, Lu Xel, which is the territory Meldia granted the Hero Gram. That provides the connection to the goddess. One requirement down. Also, as known from the examples of the mediums at the summit of Mount Revinia or the Railrod incident in order to pull a higher being into a lower one, we need a physically elevated location. Though in truth, what was most important here was using the previously prepared magic circle.” Then she made Hizuki hold the Blade. “After that, we need the medium—a direct descendant of the second king of Lu Xel and member of the Reynard house, naturally predisposed for the job for generations. Perfect. The medium is also better the less borg modification they’ve gone through.” Tratte was a full-borg, and Korneah wasn’t part of the Lu Xel king’s bloodline. Naturally, Hizuki was the most fitting. “As for the offering, that’s where the three regalia come in. I’m sure you know by now that gathering them all in one body also serves to facilitate a god summoning ritual.” Something was missing from her statement; the Blade and Crown were present, but the Orb was still nowhere in sight. But then Mag said, “Well, I suppose there was no need for such a long lecture after all. Not when Meldia is already in this world.” “She’s…here?” “Yes. We’re not summoning her, but rather, awakening her. This also counts as mediumship, for the record. How do I know she’s already here, you ask? Because she appeared briefly ten years ago, when I tried to kill the head of the Reynards… She’s slumbering within you. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?” Hizuki’s right eye started twitching, then burning. “So that voice…” She already knew something was inside her. That voice, constantly apologizing—it belonged to the goddess Meldia. “Yes, you are already her medium. The rest of this is all speculation on my part. After the Fantasion, Meldia, being a higher incorporeal being, drastically weakened due to reduced faith. Just as she was about to vanish, Meldia instead downgraded her soul and transferred it to a mortal body. And that was you, when you were a baby, before you had a fully formed mind.” Mag concluded Meldia resided inside Hizuki Reynard-Yamada’s own body. “Meldia remained inactive, but whenever your body received grave-enough damage, it triggered her to momentarily awaken and rampage. I had no choice but to flee, and the Orb appeared to be lost. Shortly thereafter, I was entrusted with a new quest: fully manifesting the goddess Meldia and preserving her existence. I looked for the Orb while I hired assassins to attack you in order to further stimulate Meldia—to awaken her.” “Agh…” The burning sensation in Hizuki’s eye gradually turned to outright pain. “However, although Meldia reacted in self-defense, she apparently never attempted to manifest. So I thought…considering the Orb’s power is to control divinity, perhaps this was regulating Meldia’s rampages and manifestation? This would also be the reason for your abnormally low mana reserve. It’s all going into controlling and sealing the goddess Meldia. Then where is the Orb?” She spoke with ease, though her tone was bitter. It was as if she was finally spilling a decade’s worth of complaints. “I looked up your medical log from ten years ago. After my attack on your parents, you apparently had to have your right eye extracted and replaced with a prosthesis. But that wasn’t just any prosthesis… Man, that doctor sure was tight-lipped. It took me so much work to find this out. I had to kill so many nobles and big shots; I hope you feel at least a little bit bad about that. I did it all because of you, and it ended up giving birth to conspiracy after conspiracy, raising tensions between the two towns…but whatever.” “My…eye…” Hizuki realized something. The voice she sometimes heard, the presence of the goddess Meldia, the twitch in her right eye. “Your mother requested for a little something to be embedded in your new right eye.” The once-thought lost Orb. “And that was the third regalia… The Orb is right there.” Mag poured mana into the circle, activating the spell to wake the goddess. “Ah—aaaaaaaaaaah!” Excruciating pain assaulted Hizuki’s right eye once she became able to move again. “The previous Reynard head—your mother—was a brilliant woman. She hid the Orb and restrained the goddess’s power at the same time. It ended up hindering her daughter’s mana reserve, but that’s neither here nor there.” Half of Hizuki’s vision turned red. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground. “What a long ten years. It’s been a hard journey…but it is what it is. What’s important is completing my quest. I don’t care about anything else.” Mag smiled in a way Tratte would never have, then yelled, “Aren’t you happy, too?! This disgusting city will finally meet its end!” Hizuki could not hear her. No information could enter her brain besides the pain, an ache that felt as though a long, red-hot metal bar was piercing her skull through her eye. “Eeeegh! Ah—ah—aaaaaaaaaah!” Her spine arched backward. A tremendous amount of blood was flowing from her right eye. She held it desperately, but the bleeding did not stop. The pain was so strong that it made her lose consciousness, but it was even stronger still that it brought her back right away. “Ugwoeeeh…!” The agony gripped her brain, and the contents of her stomach reflexively spilled out. “You’ll pay for this… You…!” The pain turned to anger, then to hatred. She felt like ripping out her insides. Fear, hatred, sadness, indignation, despair, any and all negative emotion jumbled around in her soul, increasing with explosive speed. “I was expecting the awakening to accelerate through mental disruption…and it seems I was right. This technic makes use of the Railrod effect, so of course it would.” Someone was inside Hizuki. She could feel it. “Oh, one last thing,” Mag whispered in her ear. “Remember that time you wounded a classmate—the reason everyone started shunning you? That little friend of yours was actually one of my assassins. Sheesh, I’m so glad you forgot about the specifics back then.” Her last sealed memory—buried deep within her subconscious—was wrenched open. Her classmate was holding a knife. She had a cold smile on her face as she attacked Hizuki. Meldia instinctively protect Hizuki. “You seemed so sad about it the whole thing. You even talked to me about it, remember? I had to stifle my laughter the entire time. Your hilarious antics were the only fun part of this boring mission.” It’s true—everyone who gets close to me sees tragedy… She then lost consciousness, as though her brain had run out of battery. Okay, time to move the pieces on the board. Veltol started thinking at the same speed he did when playing turn-based strategy games. Looking at the board from above, he could see that most students were confused as to what was happening. Confusion is only natural. Their curriculum might include combat, but they haven’t had proper training, let alone military experience. I must take this into account for my next move. The mentors, too, were in disarray, barely able to calm the students down. There were five visible enemies at the moment—first, that girl, likely a flesh-and-blood person. Her attire was eerily similar to the Faceless visitor at Hizuki’s manor the previous night. Then there were the four students under her control. They did nothing but stand in front of their classmates. From the mana they exuded, Veltol could tell they were enchanted with buffs. They had no Familia, so the fear was them getting beaten to death or being forced to kill themselves. The sole exit was behind that black-clad girl. She, too, was only standing there, doing nothing. I’ve seen her somewhere… He was hit with déjà vu, but he decided to leave that thought for later. Beside the girl was a corpse. That wrapped up his analysis of the situation. Difficulty: normal…no, easy? Objectively speaking, this was the worst-case scenario, but Veltol felt not a shred of danger. It felt like the climax of a video game. After all, from his point of view, the situation was not perilous in the slightest. A Familia-clad enemy had broken into the school and killed one student, taking the rest plus the mentors as hostages. She hadn’t stated any demands or reasons for her actions, but he could take a guess. Based on her clothing, she had to be connected to Faceless. And Hizuki was missing, separated from Veltol et al., which had to be among the enemy’s aims. Silly Hizuki… This all happened because she got away from me. She should have stayed by my side twenty-four seven… Now I have to go and save her. Ah well. It’s a king’s duty to lend his friends a helping hand. His current objective was to escape without any further deaths and find Hizuki. He had to wait for the right timing to do so, as he had painfully learned by playing strategy games. Veltol made his next move. He looked over at Takahashi, who was a short distance away. She noticed his gaze and nodded. He then glanced at the girl in black and then once again to Takahashi before pointing at his eye. That brief exchange was enough to convey what he was thinking. Now…I want one more as insurance. Veltol then placed a hand on the shoulder of the student right in front of him. “Albert.” It was the aristocratic student he defeated on his first day of school. He talked to him via Whisper magic, using as little mana as possible through direct touch. Veltol got this idea for the new kind of Whisper spell from the high-confidentiality aether-contact-communication function the Familia had. “Wha—?!” “Keep quiet, you doofus.” Albert’s shoulders twitched, and he frantically covered his mouth with both hands. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice. He tried to turn around, but Veltol stopped him. “Don’t look at me, either. Act normal.” “O-okay. Wh-what do you want…?” “Listen carefully. The mentors here don’t stand a chance against the current enemy. Putting that many students under her control is no easy feat, even without Familias equipped.” “Yeah, I can tell as much. Dammit, what the hell is going on…?” “Santa is missing, Korneah is dead, now this… Something big is spreading across Akihabara—it’s no longer just a conflict between the two rival towns.” “I guess we’re really at war…” “It’s likely. But I want to take action to avoid that. In mere moments, the enemy will be distracted; that is when we will strike. Therefore, Albert, I will grant you the honor to help me out just this once.” Veltol didn’t look at him, nor did he give much explanation. He kept things short and sweet. “…So you want me to help you take them out?” “Glad you got that. See those light swords made of aether above the victims’ heads? That’s the core. A downward pointing sword with a winged hilt is a symbol called an Olfeng Cross. Using it to control people is downright blasphemous… In any case, all we need to do is break them, and the students will be released from the spell. Can you do it?” “Yes…probably. Just answer this one question: Why me?” Albert’s voice wasn’t full of confidence like it was the day before—it was weak, frail. No doubt, Veltol was the cause. “You’re the strongest pupil in your school, are you not?” Albert’s expression changed once he heard that. “Got it. I’m a noble. I can do this.” Veltol smiled, then put a fist to Albert’s chest. “There’s no plan; we will improvise. Show me what you’re truly made of, Albert.” “…” Veltol’s words always resounded strongly within the listener’s heart. Albert nodded. His gaze had matured; he no longer looked like just a boy. What happened next was done entirely on the fly. Takahashi was the first to act. Veltol did not give her any instruction; they merely made eye contact. But he trusted her abilities as an aether hacker. Takahashi perfectly knew what he would want, and what she had to do in that moment. “Time to counterattack…!” She did just as he expected. She equipped the Familia she had smuggled in and connected to the aethernet to hack into the enemy’s Familia. She deciphered the logic barrier’s technic algorithm and opened a hole in it, unnoticed by the target. Every act was fast and precise, worthy of Takahashi’s status as a tech wizard. Next, she introduced all her aether-hacking programs through the hole in the logic barrier. “…?!” The girl in black finally realized what was happening, but it was too late. Bunny skulls began flooding her vision, and loud noise overwhelmed her ears. Takahashi had jammed her virtual retinal display, paralyzing her and creating an opening. “Velly!” “Good job, Takahashi!” Veltol made his move then. “Vestum!” He proclaimed without incantation, using the least possible mana to not be noticed, and activated a spell that strengthened his body. Empty-handed, he thrust an extended hand infused with mana in the direction of the sword above the closest student-turned-puppet. “One down.” The spear-like thrust pierced the blade, turning it to particles of light until it vanished. Then Veltol leaped over the students to attack the puppet on the opposite side. “Two down.” He’d turned around midair and unleashed a back kick that pulverized the second sword. It all happened in the blink of an eye. The two puppets fell to the ground, their strings cut. “Gaaaagh!” The orc puppet charged at Veltol as soon as he landed. His entire body was red, like he was boiling, and his muscles swelled up even further, popping off his uniform’s buttons. Residual mana came out his mouth like steam. “Huh, she even set Berserker to go off automatically.” Berserker was a spell that robbed the target of logical thought and sent them into a rampage. It greatly increased their strength, stamina, and pain resistance. The orc was fast. He jumped at Veltol like a beast. “Quite amusing…” Veltol easily stopped the puppet’s destructive fist with a hand. “But not enough for me.” He then restrained the orc’s arm, bringing his body closer, and destroyed the sword of light with the heel of his palm. “Three down. Wait…” The last puppet approached him from behind. Veltol didn’t take a single step. “…make that four.” The incantation was already finished. “Aether Arrow!” Albert proclaimed the maginom. The aether arrow pierced the light sword of the last puppet, leaving them with one fewer threat. The girl in black recovered her senses almost at the same time Aether Arrow was activated. “…Threat acknowledged. Commencing elimination.” Finally aware of what was happening, she raised an arm and pointed at the only person who had used destructive magic: Albert. “Eeek!” He’d just used magic—he had no way to defend himself. “Gall—” The girl proclaimed the maginom, but before she could finish… “Do it, Machina.” …someone else made a move. A corpse jumped up. The silver-haired student who collapsed by the entrance was Machina Soleige. She had not moved an inch since the spear struck her, perfectly passing as a dead body. The sudden movement surprised the black-clad girl, making her falter for a moment. The Duchess of the Dazzling Blaze did not miss that opening. She closed the distance in an instant and placed a palm on the girl’s torso. “Pyro-spring! Bloom into flames!” She proclaimed the spell’s maginom with the shortest chant she knew. “Safflower!” Flames burst from her palm. The girl’s body was blown away like a rubber ball, destroying the entrance door and flying far outside the hall. “Temporarily retreating.” Only Veltol and Machina realized the girl had used a spell of her own right before Machina’s to offset its force and leaped backward to reduce the impact. “Lord Veltol! I will go after her!” Machina took her Familia out from her skirt’s pocket and equipped it, then chased after the enemy. “Leave Hizuki to me! You take care of her!” Veltol said to his trusty vassal as she left. Then before the students could celebrate, he exclaimed, “Do not let your guard down! Keep your sword even closer when you feel victorious!” Veltol knew that relaxing after a win was, in fact, the most dangerous moment of a battle. Besides, there was nothing to relax about in Akihabara’s current situation. He made sure to stop everyone before they got carried away. “Stay together in one spot. Mentors and those good at magic barriers shall secure defenses, and do not forget to parallelize your technics! You are still inside the dragon’s nest!” The students and mentors moved as instructed with astonishing speed. Taking command with concise instructions and raising people’s spirits came naturally to Veltol. “V-Veltol, is Machina really okay?! That hit she took earlier…” The brunette student Machina had protected ran up to him, tears in her eyes. “Not to worry, she’s fine. It was but a scratch.” That was a lie. Machina was able to regenerate the wound in her head immediately, but she couldn’t get up right away, so she decided to play dead in order to analyze the situation. She trusted Veltol would make a move. “Velly!” Veltol turned around at Takahashi’s voice. “I took a peek at the logs in that girl’s Familia. Looks like they’re really after Hizuki.” “Well done, Takahashi. That much was clear. I’ll go look for her.” “Gotcha. Also, one more thing.” “What is it?” “Apparently, the armies of both Electric and Magic Town are on Hokoten Avenue, about to start a war. The Electric side’s claiming that Tratte Götel killed Korneah Seburd.” “That’s certainly an urgent matter, but we still have some time. Information is key in these situations. You stay put and gather intel on both armies. Keep an eye on things here.” “Okey dokey. Go get ’em, Velly. Bring Hizuki back.” Takahashi sat down, brought up multiple holodisplays around her, and dived into the net. “Veltol, what should I do?” Albert asked. His arms and legs were shaking, his forehead a sea of sweat, showing how stressed he was about his first real fight. “You did well, Albert. You take command here. Help the mentors watch over the students. New enemies may appear at any moment, so don’t let anyone leave just yet.” “Command? Me?” Albert was visibly anxious. It was only natural—he was only a student and had no real experience in combat. He wasn’t exactly qualified to take the lead. However, Veltol was not the kind of man to put an incapable person in charge. He trusted whomever he thought could do the job, and no one else. “You will be fine, Albert. You can do it. Ganfall Heygrams was a coward…but not you. You did not run when faced with the enemy. I guarantee that you can take care of things.” “…Got it.” The statement might have sounded like cheap consolation or drivel to some, but not to Albert. He nodded in reassurance. He no longer looked anxious. “What are you going to do, Veltol?” “I must go save the damsel in distress. Heh—it seems I’ve had to do this more frequently ever since my return.” The Demon Lord flashed a bold smile. “No need for concern. There is no quest, be it in a game or in real life, that I cannot complete.”
Chapter 24
20 min read