Ambush
It was Luri Silverwind.
“I heard Your Ladyship had come to the territory and rushed over barefoot, but was my concern uncalled for?”
Erika wiped the blood from her lips with one finger.
“I’ve shown Baldrova’s maid a rather unsightly sight.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. From now on, however, you would do well to keep a more composed bearing.”
There was no need to wonder deeply at Luri’s words. She had already sensed someone walking toward them.
A jet-black suit. Gray hair. Blue eyes. He was tall, yet his slender frame caught the eye at once. Still, no one could look at him and think him weak. His gaze fixed on the enemy without the slightest tremor, as though an army of ten thousand stood at his back.
Ferda Valdrova.
He took his place at Erika’s side with commanding presence.
Two men watched the village from a distance.
“So that is Hestia Village.”
“Yes.”
“Can a place change this much in only a few months?”
The larger man voiced his astonishment. The far eastern frontier—land no one willingly entered, and this stretch especially close to the border—now held a proper village. The sight stirred something almost nostalgic.
“Only a few years ago people said a new settlement could never take root on this ground.”
“It couldn’t. The far east has always carried a foul reputation.”
“Then how is this possible?”
“Nothing short of remarkable skill. Full backing from the Pascal Trading Company, an alliance declared by Iorga’s side, and the southern region of Halim thrown into the mix—alchemy in all but name, wouldn’t you say?”
“Alchemy… Well, where money gathers, the word hardly seems out of place.”
To turn such barren waste into a place that glittered like a goldfield was more than mere surprise.
“And every last bit of it has been done under the name Ferda Valdrova.”
“A dangerous man. If he is allowed to keep expanding his power, our plans will run into trouble.”
“Hmm…”
The man in the robe gazed down in silence. The larger one, watching his back, offered a suggestion.
“What if we show ourselves now?”
“No. That does not suit our design.”
The answer came cold and sharp as a blade.
“What we need is Baldrova’s isolation. If we step out openly and smash Hestia Village, what happens then?”
“They lose their center, don’t they?”
“No. They rally. Exactly as they did in the Dragon-Demon War.”
The Dragon-Demon War. At those words the larger man’s excitement cooled as well. For the demonkin, nothing had ever been more humiliating.
“A cause is a terrifying thing to humans. Once they gathered under the banner of purging the demonic. Even now, with only remnants left, they still hunt us down.”
“True.”
“So we leave them be. Let their descendants lose all wariness of demonkin.”
The man murmured as though reciting poetry.
“Peace rusts the sword. Peace crumbles the walls. Peace dulls mankind itself.”
The larger man agreed with the plan. Yet the unease settled in his chest would not leave him, and he asked,
“Still, if we leave them alone, won’t their power only grow?”
“Of course. That, too, cannot be ignored.”
Destroy the village and the greater design collapses; hide and their centripetal force only strengthens. Everything had begun the moment Ferda Valdrova accepted the betrothal.
“So tossing a few seeds would not be such a bad idea.”
The man showed the fingers he kept hidden inside his robe. They were slender and deathly pale. One finger drew a vertical line through the empty air.
A multicolored rift shimmered open before him. From it emerged wolves—no, monsters in the shape of wolves.
—Grrrrr…
One by one they stepped slowly from the crack and formed a line. Every eye burned with lost reason, yet they waited in perfect obedience, like puppies before the master who wore the robe.
The man gave the order with formal courtesy.
“Sweep them away.”
—Kung! Kung!
The moment the command reached them the monsters burst forward, creatures filled only with the malice of destruction, and raced toward Hestia Village.
“Wartime footing! Summon every soldier and alert the adventurers! I repeat—this is a wartime situation! All civil officials, evacuate the residents! Combat-ready troops, assemble!”
Isabella, vested with command authority in emergencies, shouted the orders.
“How many approaching?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen…”
Isabella stayed busy sending telepathic summons. Meanwhile Erika closed her mouth and stared at the ground.
Something’s wrong.
She stepped farther back to take in the whole picture.
Sudden monster appearance—and fifteen of them at once.
Recent incidents, the present situation, even leaps of conjecture that might have seemed forced—she weighed them all without hesitation, hunting for the answer that fit best.
Maybe…
Erika looked at Isabella.
“Bella! You’ll be fine without me, right?”
“You’re not joining the fight?”
“There’s a ringleader behind this monster raid. I’m going to find them.”
Five separate telepathic voices hammered at Isabella’s ears without pause. She scowled fiercely and snapped,
“The children of Great Iorga watch our rear. Do not worry.”
“Thanks.”
Erika calmly assessed the field and spread her magic circles. Unlike ordinary humans who drew a single circle, five rings now revolved around her—the true power of the renowned Master of the Blue Eye Magic Tower and leader of the Blue Dragon Spawn.
Multi-casting. She could chant two spells at once and hold five prepared.
She activated the first circle.
“Go. Be my eyes.”
The mana condensed in the circle scattered into dozens of blue sparrows. Enchanted with motion-sensing and mana-detection magic, they hunted anything that moved suspiciously. True to her epithet—the Blue Eye that watches every spell—no one could escape their pursuit.
In moments the sparrows spread beyond the village into the dense forest. Something snagged in their vision.
“Found you.”
Erika immediately laid one of her prepared circles on the ground—a teleportation spell. Coordinates locked in an instant, and she dropped directly above the blue sparrow that had made the detection.
What had been mere shapes of mana now resolved clearly to the naked eye. Erika did not hesitate. Anyone who released monsters was, without exception, to be treated as demonkin. She unleashed a prepared circle at the visible targets.
“Bending Time.”
A high-tier spell that slowed time at a designated point to an infinite crawl. A mage of Erika’s caliber could stop it entirely. Everything caught in the effect froze in place.
Two circles remained. She fused them into a new geometric form—a bizarre magic only Erika could wield.
Elemental Demolition. By using the mutual repulsion of two opposing elements it obliterated everything in a wide area—destructive and savage beyond measure. Excessive, perhaps, yet Erika cared not at all. Against the demonkin who had once sought to rule the continent, and against their remnants who must be left no chance, it was still insufficient.
Then her sixth sense, sharpened as a Dragon Spawn, screamed. Something within her field of vision reacted with unnatural sensitivity.
Impossible.
Time itself had stopped. Nothing inside the area should have been able to move. Yet she never blindly trusted her own rational judgment—and that was correct. Inside a space where time should not have flowed, something flew straight toward her.
A black, massive shape with a vicious face stretched out a hand the size of a cauldron lid. The moment Erika saw it she knew: if that hand closed, she would die without resistance.
The monstrous hand seized her leg—or rather, the afterimage where her leg had been. She had already escaped the danger with a teleportation spell.
Landing, she adjusted her stance. Analyzing what had just happened came before preparing new circles.
Was the stop spell nullified?
Leaves still trembled mid-quiver; crawling insects remained frozen and colorless. The magic continued to function. Yet one figure alone moved freely inside that space—a man wrapped in a gray robe, staring at Erika as though nothing else existed.
How is that possible?
To counter Bending Time one normally raised a resistance spell. Yet nothing had resisted even at the moment of activation. Everything had stopped, defenseless. That was why she had intended to deliver the finishing blow.
How could he move alone inside stopped time?
“You seem quite surprised.”
The man’s living voice rang clearly in her ears.
“As the descendant of Great Iorga and the Wisdom of the Twelve Expeditions, this can hardly be your first encounter with demonkin.”
His tone held a faint sneer. Erika steadied herself and answered with composure.
“You’re right. What’s surprising is that I still have anything left to be surprised about.”
“Glad to hear it. It means we have not yet declined.”
Moments later the large man who had been soaring overhead landed with a heavy thud. The ground shook under his mass. He dropped to one knee behind the robed man. Without turning, the robed man asked,
“Failed to catch her off guard?”
“Her situational judgment was faster than expected.”
“Naturally. She is one of the Twelve Expeditions and Master of the Blue Eye Tower. It would be stranger if she fell helplessly.”
Eyes glinted from within the robe—obsidian-black sclera and crimson irises. The leisure and contempt in them stirred deep rage inside Erika.
I should just kill them both…
Reality, however, was far less simple. The backlash from failing a high-tier casting had been severe. She had lost more than mere mana; the mana circulating inside her body itself had been thrown into chaos.
No choice.
Human magic would have to wait. Carefully she reached behind her to the waterskin at her belt and uncorked it.
Pop!
The instant the mouth opened, the contents swam along her fingers. A full ring of water encircled her. One of the large man’s eyebrows rose.
“What’s with the water ring?”
“Iorga is the phase of water as well as magic.”
“Hmph. What can water do?”
When the large man scoffed, Erika extended her hand. Part of the ring condensed into a droplet that floated above her palm.
“This, for example.”
She flicked her finger. The droplet became a bullet and flew in a perfect straight line. The large man thrust out a hand to block it.
“Ugh?!”
The high-pressure water bullet punched clean through, boring into his heart.
“Gah!”
It burst from his back and continued toward the youth standing behind him—yet it could not pierce the mana barrier wrapped around that body and ricocheted away.
“Khh… What the hell? Just a water drop…”
“Did I not say? Iorga is the phase of water and magic. Naturally the magic of her chief can pierce your hide.”
“You should have said so sooner.”
“Don’t you prefer to feel things for yourself?”
The large man wore a face of pure astonishment—yet Erika, watching the two of them converse so casually, was more astonished still.
I fired that intending to kill them both…
Her water droplets carried lethal force. A heart struck by that spinning, crushing pressure should have been torn to shreds. Even for demonkin several times stronger than humans, the wound ought to have been fatal. Yet the pierced one treated it like a trivial stab and rose to his feet.
And I couldn’t even get through the one behind him.
The simple mana barrier around his body was on that level.
Remnants of the demonkin… yet this strong?
At least noblesse-class. Close to emperor-class, even. With both Bending Time and Elemental Demolition failed, she had no remaining options.
I have to withdraw and come back prepared.
She spread a teleportation circle. The circle flared and wrapped her body—yet she did not teleport.
“Cough!”
Blood erupted from her mouth instead. She staggered in pain, coughing without understanding why.
My guts… feel twisted.
She knew the side effect. It appeared when an imperfect teleportation spell was cast.
I misconstructed the circle?
Impossible. Erika had lived more than a thousand years and cast teleportation hundreds of thousands of times. She could draw the circle in her sleep and vanish.
Which means that man played a trick.
She had been caught like a fool. Erika glared at him with a face full of resentment.
“Did you think you could leave as freely as you entered?”
A deep smile colored his voice. She wanted to rage, to stay cold, to do anything—yet all she could manage was to lean forward and groan.
“Since the Tower Master has greeted us so warmly, I ought to return the favor.”
He raised a finger from inside the robe. His hand was pure white, not black. The finger pointed forward and drew a vertical line. Multicolored cracks opened and spat out their contents.
—Krk.
—Krk.
Monsters shaped after wyverns. They beat their wings and rose into the air—easily more than twenty. For Erika, already cornered, the situation was pure despair.
The man’s finger pointed at her.
“End her breath.”
—Kyaaak!
The wyverns dove at Erika as one. In that instant a heavy gale swept toward them. Something vast enough to blot out her vision became a wall. The diving wyvern monsters died in a single strike.
Boom!
It slammed into the ground, sending up a spray of earth. Erika opened her eyes and looked at the object.
It was an axe—a war axe with a blade large enough for a giant. She knew its owner. A silver-haired girl of modest build who nevertheless wielded that vicious weapon, and who bore the epithet Nightmare of the Frost Giants for her unmatched martial skill.
“Greetings, Lady Erika.”