Chapter 34
A Night of Counting Stars (3)
A line of fire flashed.
Onest immediately twisted his head aside and dodged the bullet.
The shot had been aimed precisely between his eyebrows.
Damn it.
Onest bit his lip and staggered backward.
“Damn you, are you serious? You dare attempt to kill a captain aboard a Calion warship? Do something you can actually take responsibility for, soldier!”
“Why would I be the one taking responsibility?”
Ivan approached while twirling his axe.
He did not recklessly close the distance.
Instead, he slowly assessed the man’s condition.
A mage.
One trained in swordsmanship.
Elves almost never wielded swords, especially officers.
Every field-grade officer in the elven military was a high-ranking noble, and elven nobles regarded anything that made them sweat as beneath them.
However, there were a few among them who did carry swords.
That was where matters became somewhat complicated.
The fact that they had trained in swordsmanship despite the contempt of others, combined with the extraordinarily long lives of their race, implied tremendous potential.
Most elves despised close-quarters combat.
Paradoxically, however, the greatest swordsman in the world was an elf.
She was known to have once been the Hero’s teacher.
In other words—
The fact that this opponent was both a mage and a sword-wielding elven officer was holding Ivan back, even though Ivan had shattered one of his legs in the initial surprise attack.
“Elizaveta sent quite the hound. What is your name, soldier?”
“Do you think stalling for time will benefit you?”
Onest frowned at Ivan’s words.
He catches on quickly.
Onest clicked his tongue.
He could not carelessly weave a spell.
For those classified as “superhumans,” the distance between him and Ivan was not even a full step.
They were both within each other’s striking range.
After a brief standoff, the elf sighed and let his shoulders sag.
“I surrender. I will order my soldiers to stand down.”
“Throw down your sword.”
“Why not demand that I sign a formal instrument of surrender while you’re at it? I have no guarantee that you won’t cut off my head the instant I disarm.”
He was not wrong.
Still, Ivan narrowed his eyes.
An elf surrendering this quickly?
Without even properly fighting?
And a field-grade noble at that?
Impossible.
Ivan silently raised his axe.
The elf could surrender after being incapacitated.
Seeing this, Onest clicked his tongue.
“Damn it. Very well. Catch.”
He hurled his sword at Ivan with all his strength.
Clang!
As Ivan knocked aside the incoming blade, Onest was already leaping backward and reaching into his coat.
Ivan lowered his posture and lunged toward him.
No weapon-shaped outline could be seen beneath the tightly fitted uniform.
That meant whatever he drew would most likely be a pistol, a dagger, or an explosive magical weapon.
The last possibility was both the most likely and the most troublesome.
“Sir Veolgrin!!”
“…?”
Why was he suddenly shouting that man’s name…?
Ivan shook off the confusion that surged through him.
This was not the time to think about it.
After all, shouting the name of a technique or an influential person was an extraordinarily foolish tactic.
Ivan kicked off the floor and swung his axe.
There was no time to delicately strike with the blunt side.
He aligned the blade and brought it straight down toward Onest’s forearm.
There was no room for carelessness when confronting a mage’s suspicious artifact.
Click.
Just as expected, what Onest pulled from his coat was a small magical device shaped like an iron sphere.
Its surface was densely covered in purple incantations, giving it an exceedingly ominous appearance.
Just before Ivan’s axe split Onest’s forearm, his thumb pressed down firmly on the top of the artifact.
A wave erupted.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!!
Ivan was hurled away by the violent shock wave.
The mission has failed.
He detonated himself.
Elizaveta’s order had been to secure both the captain of the warship and the scene of his contact with Aleksandr.
How could Ivan possibly have predicted and prepared for the captain abruptly pressing a self-destruct switch?
With his ears ringing from the violent shock, Ivan crashed into the corner of the corridor.
“Ghk.”
The impact squeezed his lungs and forced out a groan.
His expression, however, remained calm.
He immediately checked the condition of his limbs and verified that his fingers and toes responded normally before pulling himself together.
It was an “equipment inspection” ingrained through long training.
The body of a trained operative was itself a piece of equipment.
‘I’m far too intact for someone caught in a point-blank anti-personnel explosion.’
Ivan pushed himself upright while tremors still ran through his body.
His vision swayed slightly from the blast.
As the ringing in his ears gradually subsided, he could once again hear the sirens echoing through the corridor.
That was a good sign.
It meant his hearing was functioning normally.
“This is unexpected.”
Ivan froze at the voice that followed.
It was far too familiar.
And it was a voice that should never have been heard here.
Hearing it for the first time in four years, Ivan momentarily suspected someone was imitating it.
But no.
He had not misheard.
Through his blurred vision, he saw a distinctive dark-green flame.
Ghostly fire burned beneath the retinas of both eyes.
Even the arrangement of mana was painfully familiar.
“Veolgrin…? Is that really you?”
“Yes. Why are you here? Were you alive all this time?”
The uniform had been ruined by the explosion.
The physique, height, and face beneath it all belonged to Onest.
And yet—
Ivan realized it instinctively.
The man’s “soul” had changed.
“Possession…?”
“An amusing choice of words. This is called the [Soul Transference Art].”
The mage of the Hero’s party.
Veolgrin, the Fortress Destroyer.
With that familiar mana, familiar voice, and all-too-familiar arrogance, one of the greatest living mages spoke.
“Where is Aleksandr, and why are you here instead?”
Veolgrin’s appearance was unexpected.
In truth, it was something that could not possibly have been predicted.
But before dwelling on that, Ivan recalled the nature of the mission.
‘Confirm the connection between Crown Prince Aleksandr and the elven captain. Gather evidence.’
‘The elven captain—or rather, this aerial battleship—is believed to be experiencing a mechanical failure.’
‘Elizaveta engineered the situation so that Crown Prince Aleksandr would become the captain’s only available option.’
‘And then there were Veolgrin’s words.’
Where is Aleksandr, and why are you here instead?
Ivan frowned at the heavy implications buried within that dry question.
Veolgrin had given the captain the artifact containing the [Soul Transference Art] from the very beginning.
Why?
To meet Aleksandr.
Then why…?
Because he had joined hands with Aleksandr.
“Was this planned from the start?”
“Of course. Calion’s aerial battleships are the culmination of the archipelago’s technology. Surely you do not believe one would suddenly malfunction after barely two weeks of sailing?”
This warship had departed in order to safely escort Veolgrin’s daughter, Elpheira.
She was the daughter of one of the strongest elves and the mage of the Hero’s party.
Even among the many high-ranking nobles of the Calion Archipelago, her position was unrivaled.
A ship dispatched to protect such an important person would never suffer a mechanical failure after only two weeks.
Not unless “someone” had deliberately sabotaged it.
A chill crawled down Ivan’s spine.
“That is correct. It was meant to provoke Princess Elizaveta from the very beginning. Once that little girl became angry, it was obvious Aleksandr would make contact.”
“Why? Why would you do this?”
“Who knows?”
Veolgrin gave a faint smile.
He flicked his fingertips and began weaving mana, then suddenly asked,
“Where does your loyalty lie, officer?”
“With His Majesty the late great king.”
“The same as always. Admirable. Still, you could at least have sent word that you were alive. Surely our friendship was worth that much.”
Ivan listened to Veolgrin’s words as he adjusted his grip on his axe.
Fortunately, his physical condition was normal.
That was because the shock wave that had thrown him back had never been an offensive spell in the first place.
Could he defeat Veolgrin in a direct confrontation?
The answer came the moment he considered it.
Impossible.
But could Veolgrin truly wield all of his original power?
Probably not.
The amount of mana Ivan sensed belonged only to the captain’s body.
“Oh, you intend to fight? Then again… you were always like this, ‘little’ Ivan.”
“Do I have another choice?”
“Of course. But I doubt you would ever choose it. Come, then. It has been a long time. Let me see your skill.”
The captain possessed far more mana than a human, but the disparity was not hopelessly overwhelming.
In other words, it was a difference Ivan could reasonably challenge.
However—
Even with only that amount of mana, if the one controlling the body was Veolgrin himself, did Ivan truly have any chance of victory?
“No.”
Ivan knew his own limits precisely.
That was one of the most important virtues of a trained operative.
Since he had to regard himself as another tool for completing a mission, he needed an exact understanding of his own catalog specifications.
Therefore, Ivan knew that he had no chance of winning.
Even with half that amount of mana, Veolgrin could effortlessly tear him apart.
But—
The odds did not matter.
“Then teach me something.”
With his eyes sunk into profound calm, Ivan tightened his grip on his axe.
The odds did not matter.
Whether something could or could not be done had never been important to him.
The only question was whether it had to be done.
And if it had to be done, then he would find a way.
Whatever situation arose, he would do everything within his power.
A trained operative should fear giving up, not failure.
Decisions should be made in the shortest possible instant.
Actions should be executed with the greatest possible speed.
The instant Ivan decided to attack, he threw himself forward.
Straight ahead.
Directly at Veolgrin.
It was the sensation of dividing and peeling apart time measured in seconds.
The air resistance striking his body seemed to dissociate the flow of time itself, slowing it to a crawl.
This was the perception of a “superhuman,” entered when mana was driven into every strand of the nervous system and forcibly activated it.
A fleeting interval in which the moment itself was mapped and analyzed.
This was the battlefield of superhumans.
Within this fragmented time, where even breathing was divided into pieces, Ivan’s axe drifted through the air as though swimming.
Smoothly.
Sharply.
And yet with overwhelming strength.
WHOOOOOOSH!!
He aimed directly for the instant dark-green mana began to gather.
An axe wrapped in mana possessed the ability to dispel magic in and of itself.
By cutting between the individual processes as a spell was being woven, it interfered with the spell’s completion.
That was why a warrior at close range had always been a mage’s natural enemy.
KWAAAAAANG!!
The impact came first.
The sound arrived a beat later.
The closer something moved to the speed of sound, the greater the gap between sound and reaction became.
He tore through one layer of magic.
I reached you, Veolgrin.
Ivan said it with his eyes as he prepared his next move.
Now that he had stripped away the spell just before its completion, his axe would clearly be faster than the time needed to cast another.
So he had reached him.
He had reached the place occupied by the giants who had once walked ahead of him.
“Excellent.”
A gently amused voice sounded.
THOOM!!
A light resistance blocked the space before Ivan’s body.
He immediately reacted and twisted his waist.
Five sharp spears of ice plunged through the space he had just vacated.
They were faster than trajectory detection.
The spell had been completed the instant Ivan became aware of it.
By the time Ivan regained his stance and raised his axe again, only another fragmented instant had passed.
However, at the end of that brief clash—
“Ha.”
More than forty spells were already suspended in the air.
Each one had been woven with an entirely different structure.
Veolgrin smiled gently and crooked a finger.
“Show me more. Let me see how much you have grown.”
Ivan clenched his teeth and launched himself forward once more.