☆★☆★☆★
Time passed quickly, and soon it was the eve of the finals.
We were currently gathered around the table for a strategic council of war. Well, in reality, it was just our usual dinner routine pulling double duty as a pre-match pep rally.
“So, what’s the actual game plan, Ephthal? I mean, you can obviously blow away whatever poor soul stands in front of you, but what about us?”
“Anastasia is right. For people like us, going up against opponents who can casually fling Level 5 spells is… well, it’s practically impossible.”
“Merlin-sama is forced to forfeit the match, right? And Sheryl… it looks like she has way too much on her mind to actually focus and go all out.”
“Um, so… when you look at the board, does the path to victory rely entirely on Master, Maria-san, and me winning every single consecutive bout?”
They both raised perfectly valid points. Going strictly by their baseline catalog specifications, their anxiety was completely reasonable.
“Whether we have a plan or not, the core strategy is actually incredibly simple,” I replied smoothly.
“Hmm? Simple? What do you mean by that?”
“Just hit them with absolutely everything you’ve got. I didn’t put you two through that brutal training regimen just to have you play soft. Besides, you both possessed outstanding combat instincts from the very beginning.”
“No, but they’re throwing Level 5 magic around, right? The raw gap in destructive power alone is—”
“Up in the higher domains of magic, dealing with that kind of gap is a daily occurrence. From here on out, you’d better make a habit of closely reading your opponent’s mana manipulation and formula construction. Let me ask you this, though—the only reason those guys threw you for a loop when they cast Level 5 magic was because you were taken completely off guard, wasn’t it, Maria?”
“Huh? What are you actually trying to say?”
“Their strength is entirely borrowed power. In practice, they’re no different from a novice swordsman desperately trying to swing a massive greatsword that’s twice his own height. I handed you both Level 4 formulas to practice, but I made you run repetition drills until you could cast them flawlessly, didn’t I?”
Out there in the real world, those students were trading their very lifespans just to wield that overwhelming power for a few fleeting moments. They couldn’t exactly afford to sit down and practice refining their technique. Their sloppy execution was entirely inevitable.
“…Master? Which means that…?”
“Keep your cool, think with your head, and counter accordingly—if you do that, you have a perfectly realistic shot at winning. To put it concretely, their accuracy is atrocious and their formula assembly speed is abnormally slow. Well, that’s about as far as my advice goes.”
Maria gave a deep, resolute nod.
“Right! In that case, Anastasia! I’m leaving the heavy thinking to you!”
“Eh?! Leaving what to you, exactly?”
“Come up with some incredibly dirty tricks and underhanded tactics—think as hard as you can! You’re practically a natural at that kind of stuff anyway!”
“Ehh?! What kind of horrible archetype are you trying to fit me into?!”
“Umm… a soft-and-fluffy fiend of a girl?”
What even is a soft-and-fluffy fiend…? I couldn’t help but let out a genuine chuckle.
“Fine, I get it,” Anastasia grumbled, her cheeks slightly flushed. “If that’s the way it is… I’ll think of something! I’ll find a definitive way for us to win!”
It was easy to fire the two of them up. Maintaining a positive mindset was excellent, and realistically speaking, they actually stood a decent chance of pulling off an upset. Under normal circumstances, it would be a brutal uphill battle. But if they managed to catch their opponents off guard, they could absolutely pull it off. Both of them possessed the necessary tactical wit.
Right at that exact moment, Sheryl stood up from her chair without uttering a single syllable and began walking directly toward the dining room exit.
“Sheryl? Where are you going?”
“…Ephthal… a messenger from Brother arrived earlier today. He insisted that I come live with him, no matter what.”
Sheryl pushed the door open, took a single step out into the hallway, and then paused, turning back to face us.
“…I finally understand exactly what Brother intends to do. Because of that, I have to go.”
She slipped her slender hand beneath her robe, reaching up to her neck, and pulled out an intricate necklace.
“…Because I am the only person in the world who can truly stop Brother. Back during the semifinals, he actually ceased his attack the moment I spoke up. If I confront him sincerely… he shouldn’t do anything reckless.”
With a sharp, brittle crack, the gemstone embedded in the necklace suddenly shattered.
Instantly, an enormous, violent torrent of magic power—heavily laden with a biting, sub-zero chill—came flooding out of the broken relic.
“…If I cannot stop him, the entire academy will be reduced to a horrific disaster zone. Because of that, I cannot allow you to step outside… until the final match has concluded… I need you to wait here quietly.”
A thick, white haze rapidly filled the room.
The freezing air clung aggressively to the walls. Right before our eyes, the solid structure of the room was swiftly encased in a dense, heavily reinforced layer of magic-imbued ice.
“…Perfect Ice Guard. It is a powerful legacy relic left behind by the first Ice God Emperor so that his descendants… so that we would always be protected. This was the final one left in existence.”
With a final frostbitten breath, even the doorway was completely sealed shut behind a massive block of solid ice.
“…I’m sorry. And goodbye, Ephthal.”
Looking thoroughly taken aback by the sudden development, Maria raised her voice in a frantic shout.
“Hey, wait a minute?! What is going on here?! In a single second… we’ve been completely locked inside an ice barrier loaded with an outrageous amount of magic power?!”
“A Level 9 defensive barrier, huh…” I muttered, casually cracking my knuckles. “Using a high-tier defensive wall as an impromptu prison cells… I have to hand it to Sheryl, that was a clever piece of tactical thinking.”
“Yes, Ephthal-sama,” Merlin chimed in, her eyes narrowing slightly. “That is, without a doubt, Isaac-sama’s signature technique.”
I stood up from the table, stretched my arms lightly, and rolled my neck from side to side, letting out a series of satisfying cracks.
“And what do you intend to do now, Master?”
“I managed to plant a Trace on her right before she activated the relic. For now… I think I’ll let her run for a bit.”
“Let her run?”
“There are still portions of the opposing side’s background strategy that I can’t fully read yet. Since this whole mess involves the Fire God Emperor, playing it sloppy simply isn’t an option.”
“Which means?”
“If the opportunity presents itself, I fully intend to save Brad as well.”
“…Not just Sheryl…?” Merlin asked, her voice laced with mild surprise.
“Isaac was a highly specific, unique individual to me in my past life as well. I can’t exactly sit back and watch Sheryl cry.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, my late wife, Bridget… every single year on her birthday, that man would personally pick a bouquet of incredibly rare flowers and send them to her, complete with a handwritten poem attached. He was a genuinely, unadulteratedly insufferable bastard. But Bridget always looked so genuinely happy to receive them, so I never felt like stopping him.”
“…I confess, I am having trouble following the logic of this story?”
“Bridget never found out during her lifetime, but… he was a man who happened to love the exact same woman I did.”
That was a significant part of it. Even past the age of forty, throwing himself so entirely into the service of a spirit… somewhere deep in my heart, I couldn’t help but cheer that pathetic guy on. Because I understood exactly what he felt when he ultimately chose to pull back from Bridget without ever uttering a single word of confession.
Merlin’s eyes went wide with realization.
“Truly… you are an incredibly unique sort of man, Ephthal-sama… Still, what do you plan to do about this barrier? At the very least, my own magic isn’t capable of dismantling a Level 9 quickly…”
“Who exactly do you think you’re talking to, Merlin?”
I casually snapped my fingers.
Instantly, deep, jagged fractures violently spiderwebbed across the frozen surface—and with a thunderous roar, the massive Level 9 ice barrier crumbled into absolute nothingness.
“My deepest apologies, Ephthal-sama,” Merlin chuckled, letting out a soft, thoroughly exasperated laugh. “But you truly do possess an innate habit of picking up the most troublesome things imaginable, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I replied, a small smile playing on my lips. “It’s the exact same habit that led me to pick you up out of the Demon King’s castle, after all.”