Volume 7Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – A Fight to the Death in Magic Academy City

Ephthal’s Perspective – At the Demon Lord’s Abandoned Cabin

What the Demon Lord had told us left Sasha and me with nothing to say.

Breaking the moon just by clenching a fist? Then again, beings who could summon something the size of the Nine-Headed Dragon could probably manage that much.

I’d already thought so back when the dragon came up, but the Ten Sages were… on a scale far beyond imagining.

After thinking it over, I asked the Demon Lord a question.

“So… you yourself are also registered in the Akashic Records, and you were revived from them?”

“Just so. The difference is that I no longer carry the urge to destroy. Though… whether this is a revival at all depends on how you define the word.”

“How so?”

“Take teleportation… Tell me the principle.”

“The body is taken apart once, and rebuilt in another place from its own data.”

“Just so. The Nine-Headed Dragon and monsters appear the same way: data registered in the Akashic Records is pulled out and rebuilt. It is no different from teleportation.”

“Follow it through, and you could call a teleported person a clone with the same memories.”

“Just so. No one debates life or death over teleportation. Whether my present state counts as a return from death is a very hard question.”

Hm. This was turning into science fiction.

Then Sasha clapped his hands.

“Enough of this Zen business. It gets us nowhere.”

He had a point, and I nodded.

“So what does it mean that Maria is Bridget’s reincarnation?”

“As I told you, four hundred years ago the Fire God Emperor made contact with Balthazar as well as with me, and received all manner of knowledge and technique. You know well how strong that made him.”

“Yes,” I said. “More than one man could stand against.”

“To Balthazar, even the Four Emperors were only humans, little more than ants. Why, then, did he single out the Fire God Emperor alone? Do you know?”

“…Bridget?”

“Just so. Reincarnators born as something other than pure humans, as elves, dwarves, demons, and other demi-humans, are rare. After reincarnation, it is the part of them that is not human that is exploited, and so we are tormented by the urge to destroy.”

“There’s something I’ve been wondering for a while. Why don’t I, a reincarnator, turn into a Demon Lord? Could it be…”

At my question, the Demon Lord shook his head.

“In your case it is probably the Re-Reincarnation skill. Even an ordinary human who dies will often come back as something like a monster, if a weak one. Knight orders and the like usually put them down as local threats.”

“…”

When I said nothing, the Demon Lord sighed.

“At any rate, four hundred years ago the Fire God Emperor caused human magic civilization to decline. If it had continued, Bridget would have gone on destroying without end… and by now the Nine-Headed Dragon would have appeared and this planet would be bare ground.”

“But… that didn’t happen, did it?”

“A brother’s love.”

“…Love?”

“The Fire God Emperor used every dark art there is to hold down Bridget’s urge to destroy. For four hundred years he kept the mana she scattered to a bare minimum.”

“Then… what about Maria? Why is Maria Bridget’s reincarnation?”

“The Fire God Emperor carved as much of the elf out of Bridget’s soul as he could and put it into this planet’s cycle of souls. It mixed with other souls native to this world and was born as… that girl.”

It was an outlandish story. But between the reincarnation system, the Nine-Headed Dragon, and the Ten Sages, there was so much I couldn’t understand that all I could do was accept it.

“Therefore Bridget alone is not yet fully qualified to be the core of the Nine-Headed Dragon. Not unless the two vessels are returned to one… That is why Balthazar is after Maria.”

I fell silent for a while. Then I held up a finger and asked the Demon Lord one more question.

“One last thing.”

“What is it?”

“Why are you telling us all this?”

“I sympathize with the Fire God Emperor.”

“…Sympathize?”

“He too is someone the system has thrown completely off course.”

“Like you?”

A silence.

The Demon Lord gave a resigned nod.

“Just so. I once killed my own sister with my own hands. The Fire God Emperor, knowing it was hopeless, tried to rescue his sister from her suffering. Is that not reason enough to sympathize?”

“…No, that’s reason enough. Thank you. Then I have a proposal.”

I glanced at Sasha. He gave a small nod; he seemed to feel the same.

“Then why not come with us and land a punch yourself?”

The Demon Lord stared blankly. Then he began to laugh, his shoulders shaking. “Kuh, kuh…”

“You and I killed each other four hundred years ago.”

“But right now there should be someone we both want to punch.”

I smiled. The Demon Lord looked at me, startled.

“No grudge… no bad blood? You truly mean that?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, did you?”

When I put it that flatly, the Demon Lord gazed into the distance, thinking.

“…And your reasoning?”

“If I condemned what you did back then, I’d have to do the same to Bridget.”

Bridget, too, had killed a great many people in the past. Cliff had probably held it back as much as he could, but the death toll was staggering. And the Demon Lord had started wars and carried out massacres in many lands. I had mixed feelings about all of it, but…

“In the end, you and Bridget are only victims, I think.”

“…”

“You were controlled, forced to destroy against your own will… So at least as far as I’m concerned, there’s no grudge and no bad blood.”

“…”

“What I should hate isn’t you or Bridget. It’s the Ten Sages who built this system… and Balthazar who serves them. Isn’t that right?”

And I held out my right hand to the Demon Lord.

“So let’s go punch them.”

The Demon Lord gave me an incredulous look, then clutched his belly and roared with laughter.

“Straightforward. And refreshing, I must say.”

“All my old friends say I’m hotheaded and thoughtless.”

“Just so. But I do not believe I have ever met a bolder man.”

He laughed and laughed, and Sasha, of all people, started chuckling too.

“This one’s always been like that.”

“Just so. If I could, I would help you… But it seems it is already too late.”

“Too late? What do you mean?”

The Demon Lord shook his head, exhaling.

“The die is cast.”

“The die?”

“Just so. Balthazar has released the mana Bridget stored. And it seems he means to wipe out the followers he has gathered, and ghosts of the past like me.”

“Wipe out…?”

“With that, the conditions for the Nine-Headed Dragon’s revival are met. If there is something you mean to do… hurry.”

Before my eyes, the Demon Lord’s head began to swell.

His eyes bulged as the pressure built, ready to pop out like ping-pong balls, and then…

Flesh spattered across the cabin. I stood there in a daze.

“His head just… exploded?”

Sasha brooded over something, then clicked his tongue.

“Ephthal… This is bad.”

If the Demon Lord’s story was true, the mana of the monsters Bridget had absorbed had just been released all at once. And the beings Balthazar’s side had revived, the Demon Lord included, had been wiped out along with it, human-monster fusions and all.

That meant a rapid spike in mana concentration.

If that was what Balthazar had planned…

“Yes, the worst possible turn of events.”

“Mm. He means to summon the Nine-Headed Dragon.”

Well… this was trouble. I put a hand to my chin and thought it over. Of course, I had no intention of dying in its rampage.

“So what will you do, Ephthal?”

“We have to go straight for the stronghold.”

“The stronghold?”

“If the mana has hit the threshold, they’ll do whatever it takes to get Maria.”

“But for now Maria’s still here with us, isn’t she?”

“…Before they get to her, we storm the Society headquarters and strike first. We’ll split the work with Merlin and the others: bury the Demon Lord, then move out right away.”

⁂

Outside the cabin, Sasha and I stood speechless.

“Merlin and the others are gone, and there are signs of a fight.”

“Mm. Seems they’ve beaten us to it.”

I took out a communication crystal the size of a pebble and put magic power into it.

“Ho. You carry one of those rare artifacts?”

“I borrowed it a while back, from one of Cliff’s men inside your Otogi Fantasia. I gave Merlin one just like it.”

The crystal glowed faintly, and the formula activated.

When I confirmed it was working, I spoke into it.

“This is Ephthal… Merlin? Can you hear me?”

“Oh, Master!?”

“What’s going on, Anastasia!? Why is it you and not Merlin…”

“Merlin-sama told me to keep it… She said that if something happened, I’d be good at hiding a communicator from the enemy…!”

True, Anastasia was better suited to that than Merlin. It was a smart call.

“What happened?”

“Well, um… Balthazar beat Merlin-sama, and we got put in a cell… and it’s awful!”

“…”

“Sheryl-chan won’t wake up, Maria-san was taken away, I don’t know where Merlin-sama is… I don’t know what to do at all!”

“…Understood. I’ll come and get you, I promise. Keep your heads down. Using this might give us away, so let’s cut it here for now.”

Great. Now we had a problem.

Then I clicked my tongue.

“Merlin’s been taken down, master, and they’ve carried everyone off. The three girls seem to be alive, but nobody knows whether Merlin is.”

“I heard it myself.”

“Damn it… These people just keep getting worse.”

I went back into the cabin, paid my respects over the Demon Lord’s remains, palms together, with a bow of my head.

“Sorry. The burial’s going to have to wait.”

Outside, I traced that communication back to its source and pinned down where Anastasia and the others were.

It landed exactly on Magic Academy City… Specifically, the Magic Society headquarters.

“We go the fastest way. Can you keep up, master?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean I don’t have any aptitude shackles on me anymore.”

“Hmph. Look who’s talking big now, you fool of a disciple. I’m still in my prime.”

He’d gotten my point.

Sasha and I started weaving formulas at the same moment, and the same words left our mouths together.

“Level 9: Long Teleport.”

The target was two hundred meters up.

I glanced behind me. The cabin looked like a pea. A single jump had carried us about five kilometers.

“Level 9: Long Teleport.”

We jumped again, to four hundred meters. Two jumps, ten kilometers in a straight line.

“This wears you out, you know…”

“That’s why I asked if you could keep up.”

“Still, it’s two hundred kilometers or so to Magic Academy City from here, isn’t it?”

“You can always come later.”

When I goaded him, Sasha snorted.

“I told you, I’m still in my prime!”

“Then we cut straight through.”

We cast it together. “Level 9: Long Teleport.”

And we began our chain of jumps toward Magic Academy City, where the Society was.

⁂

Below us lay Magic Academy City.

Sasha and I hung in the air and took a breath, looking down at the streets enclosed by the city wall.

The city was about ten kilometers on a side.

Nostalgic. For a moment I let myself feel it. This was a city I’d stayed in for a while four hundred years ago. Back then I used to go out drinking with the Ice God Emperor every day. Some parts had changed, but the main buildings were the same.

“We can’t get any closer by teleport,” Sasha said. “Not past this point.”

“Obviously.”

The city has several thousand years of history, and it’s stayed neutral that whole time. Staying neutral takes military strength, and when it comes to magic defense the city has no equal. Even a Level 10 attack from outside the wall wouldn’t budge it, and teleporting in is out of the question.

Since ancient times it’s leaned on armed golems and armed homunculi for the bulk of its defense. That force could hold its own even four hundred years ago, which makes this city one of the biggest military powers in the world. Human magic has declined, but this place still runs its ancient magic weapons at full strength.

Nobody’s ever interfered with it. It’s a peaceful, neutral city of learning, funded by research money from all over the world. But…

“We land here, Sasha.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Something’s wrong.”

I followed his gaze.

People were pouring out of the wall gate, running for their lives.

“Something’s happening in the city.”

“Looks like they’re fleeing some monster…”

Given the timing, it was probably Balthazar again. What a guy, handing us one lousy show after another.

An armed homunculus in silver armor came out of the gate, swinging a sword.

“So that means…”

“We may safely say the city’s security system has fallen into Balthazar’s hands.”

A kid had fallen behind, with a homunculus charging down on them.

I went into a steep dive.

“Aaah! Help! Somebody help me!”

The kid was screaming. The adults around them were too busy escaping to care.

Damn. Not good.

The kid’s legs tangled and they fell. Of course, still nobody helped. Then…

WHAM!

I came down on the homunculus’s head with a stomp.

The helmet crumpled, and the head went into the ground. Dirt flew, and a small crater formed. I dusted off my clothes.

“Target destroyed.”

In the middle of the crater, the helmet lay scattered in pieces.

Sasha shrugged at me.

“That was some landing! Can’t you come down like a normal person?”

“Two birds, one stone.”

For good measure, I burned the rest of the armor with magic. Then I looked toward the gate.

“Looking at that crowd… it turns my stomach.”

The wave of people fleeing the city, one after another, reminded me of a station on Earth at rush hour. Sasha seemed to feel the same. He made a face. “Bleh.”

“It’s gotta be a hell of a mess in there.”

I pulled the fallen kid to their feet and brushed the dirt off their clothes.

“What’s going on inside?”

“Armed golems and armed homunculi came out of the Society headquarters and started attacking everyone, and then, and then—”

“It’s all right now. Just get away from the city.”

“Th-thank you!”

The kid ran off in the opposite direction from the gate.

When they were safely far away, Sasha and I started walking toward the gate.

“What a nuisance… They’ve even brought out the golems.”

Sasha shrugged, thoroughly fed up.

“Doesn’t change what we do.”

“How so?”

“You know the gate opens onto the main street.”

“It does.”

“We go straight down it. That leads to the Society headquarters, right in the middle of the city.”

“A lot of armed golems out there, I’d wager.”

I laughed.

“We knock down everything in front of us and keep going. That’s all there is to it.”

⁂

I pushed through the crowd and went in through the gate. On the way I saw several people who’d fallen and been trampled, and I hurried to help them up and used healing magic.

“Th-thank you!”

They always tell you in fire drills: stay calm, never run… Now I could see why.

“A truly terrible mess,” Sasha said.

“Yeah.”

Somehow we made it through the gate. Then I saw empty, quiet streets.

As planned, we went straight down the main street, fifteen meters wide. Partway along I saw a group of mages blocking the road. I spoke to the one who looked like their leader, a bearded man in a robe.

“Let us through.”

The bearded man scowled openly.

“No entry past here! Kids stay back!”

I could see it was closed off. But I asked anyway.

“No entry? What’s going on?”

“You know this city has safety devices for golems and homunculi, don’t you?”

“Yeah. They lock the weapons into a fixed zone if they run wild, right?”

“Some of them got out before the blockade was ready. But as long as we keep the barrier up here, the armed golems and homunculi can’t leave.”

“You mean it’s dangerous to go in?”

“That’s right. Leave this to us, the vigilance corps, and get out of here!”

You don’t just say “All right” to that and turn around.

I checked the main street. At the end, about three kilometers off, I could see the Magic Society headquarters. And on the road ahead, a few dozen armed homunculi and three ten-meter golems.

“Sorry, but we’re going through.”

When Sasha and I tried to go in, the bearded man grabbed my shoulder roughly.

“Women and children stay out! I said stay out! Don’t make more work for us!”

Just then I heard a woman’s scream from beyond the barricade.

I looked, but there was nobody on the main street. Probably someone being attacked by a golem or homunculus in a back alley.

But even hearing that scream, the bearded man gave his men no order. He only glared at me.

“Hey, aren’t you going to help her?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“You’re the vigilance corps, aren’t you?”

At that, he flew into a rage.

“Even an armed homunculus is on the level of an A-rank adventurer! The golems are beyond S-rank adventurers, even if they band together!”

“That’s no reason to leave people to die.”

He gave a contemptuous snort.

“It’s the fault of the dolts who were too slow to run, that’s all. Why should we risk our lives in a reckless fight?”

There was no point talking to this guy.

True, they were holding the golems in with a barrier. I didn’t like how he did it, but I decided to think of it as useful for saving lives.

“I need a favor, master.”

“I thought you might.”

“Looks like plenty of people are still stuck inside. Can you handle that?”

Sasha pulled a sour face.

“I’d rather not spend magic power here… I’m tired from all that teleporting.”

“We can’t just leave them.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll destroy every homunculus inside the barrier.”

“What about the golems?”

“From my scan, the ones on the main street are all there is. I’ll clear the homunculi. You handle the rest.”

Armed golems are practically bundles of magic resistance. Unless you use a solid Level 10, it’s hard to break one in a single hit… It was going to be flashy, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Got it. We work together.”

Sasha closed his eyes, and particles of magic power poured from his body.

A search spell…

He’s something else. The particles, spreading out in a hemisphere, covered the entire blockaded district in an instant.

“What do you think you’re doing! I told you to get out of here!”

“Lock-on complete!”

Sasha raised his right hand high.

“Level 10: Aegis & Sagittarius!”

Countless arrows shot from Sasha’s hand into the sky.

Once up, each arrow changed course as if it had a will of its own and flew, curving like a homing missile, straight at its target.

“About seven kilometers across. Two hundred forty-one in all.”

Right after he muttered that…

Boom-boom-boom-boom.

Explosions went off all over the city, and I felt the homunculi winking out one after another.

One arrow, one kill. No, ‘kill’ wasn’t the right word. It was more like ‘smash.’

“You really are a monster. I can’t pull that off.”

“Homunculi are artificial life, lumps of magic power. They’re easy to pin down, you know.”

True. But still… two hundred forty-one of them within a radius of several kilometers.

That was my master all right.

Anyway, it was good to have someone so reliable on my side in this mess.

“Hey! What did you just do!? Don’t take it on yourselves! I told you to leave!”

With an angry shout, the man grabbed my shoulder again.

I was fed up with him by now.

I glared back at him.

“You people are abandoning civilians, so we did it for you. Got a problem?”

“You mean that little girl’s spell destroyed all the homunculi just now? Haha! A Level 10, too… Don’t talk nonsense!”

Not a little girl, an old man.

This guy was a pain too, but I didn’t have time to argue. I’d push through.

Just then, a voice came from behind us.

“…Is that you, Ephthal-kun?”

“President of the Magic Society?”

I’d met and talked to him on the island and remembered his face. But… what was he doing here? No, wait. The Society’s headquarters was here, so of course the President would be here too.

“Hey, President… don’t I get a greeting?”

“Ah, Sasha-sama.”

The President hurriedly dropped to one knee and bowed his head to Sasha.

“But why are you and Ephthal-kun here…?”

“A pressing matter. We have business at the Society headquarters.”

The bearded man gasped. I wondered what was wrong and looked at him. He was staring back and forth between the President’s face and ours, his mouth opening and closing.

What an easy man to read.

I was half exasperated. But I had no time for him.

“President. We’re going through. Is that all right?”

“Naturally, for you and Sasha-sama. But why are you talking like that?”

“It’s a long story.”

The President thought it over, then sighed.

“…I watched your fight with the Sword God Emperor.”

“And?”

“You were about to cast Level 10: Thunder God Emperor Ephthal, weren’t you? And now you’ve appeared with Sasha-sama in Magic Academy City’s hour of crisis.”

“…”

When I stayed silent, the President sighed again.

“No, I won’t pry. It would only trouble you.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“At any rate, I can’t stop this disturbance… and I can’t fight my way through the golems to the Society headquarters. But… you can, can’t you?”

“Yeah. As far as getting to the headquarters, a hundred percent.”

The President turned on the bearded man.

“Let these two honored guests through, now!”

“Y-yes, sir!”

At the words, the mages blocking the main street opened the way.

Sasha and I stepped onto the blockaded street. Then a lump of iron over ten meters tall came charging at us down the road with a heavy thud, thud.

“Well…”

Sasha held back, and I walked five more paces. In the middle of the main street, I held out a hand ahead of me.

The nearest one was about two hundred meters off.

“Golems resist lightning…”

What to do?

Level 11 here was clearly overkill. The real fight was still to come, and I didn’t want to waste my magic power. But Level 9, or a low-powered Level 10, would have trouble taking down an armed golem in one hit.

That left… this one, probably.

I built the formula and gathered my magic power.

“Level 10: Fire God Emperor Cliff.”

A flame as hot as a nuclear blast shot out. I adjusted the angle, and a hellfire spread over the entire main street, running straight to the far end.

Pebbles. Trash. Signboards. And…

Golems.

At a touch, everything evaporated or turned to charcoal.

It swept, burned… and left not so much as a weed behind.

“The road’s open, Sasha.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Sasha nodded, satisfied.

As we started walking, I heard a thud from where the bearded man stood. I turned and saw him sitting down hard, his legs having given out.

“L-L-Level 10…? A child…? Really…?”

Never mind him… But there was an ominous feeling coming from ahead.

“You feel that, Sasha?”

“A strange surge of magic power from around the Society headquarters.”

“They just keep coming… What a pain.”

Ahead of us, from around the Society’s main gate, flying things were being spat out. Ten, twenty, thirty, and the number kept growing.

“Look at them swarm out. What are those? Gargoyles?”

Sasha shook his head.

“No. Those are magic-armed golems.”

“I’ve heard of them. They have an armed golem’s toughness and cast high-level magic, right?”

“That’s them. Fairly tough, they say, but…”

Then the bearded man shouted from behind us.

“That’s r-reckless! It’s like two people taking on an army, I tell you!”

I ignored him again and looked at Sasha.

“They’re just tin dolls. Smash them all.”

“Not tin. Adamantite.”

“Details.”

I cracked my knuckles and stepped forward.

A Certain Earth God Emperor Faction Chief Senior Researcher’s Perspective

Explosion after explosion rang out.

Flames and smoke covered the whole area, and I couldn’t tell what was happening.

“Don’t let the magic-armed golems trade fire! It’s the Thunder God Emperor and the Undead Emperor! You can’t win a long-range exchange against them!”

I was a hundred meters from the Society’s main gate.

The Thunder God Emperor and the Undead Emperor were hidden in the smoke. They would be about two kilometers off.

More than fifty magic-armed golems had already been butchered.

But what were they… What were those two?

They were surrounded by a pack of a hundred magic-armed golems. It was a battlefield where even a top mage would be turned to meat in an instant, and they were walking through it… as if it were empty ground.

Straight toward us, toward the Society’s main gate, without once stopping.

So this is the Undead Emperor and the first Thunder God Emperor.

Their power, the power of the ancient mages, was ferocious beyond belief, and I trembled.

But I couldn’t let them get through here.

“Close combat! Kill them in close combat!”

Then the lookout reported over the communication device.

“It’s no good! That swordsmanship is unbelievable! They’re being cut to shreds one after another!”

“That’s the Undead Emperor! Then take out the Undead Emperor first!”

“The golems! The magic-armed golems are being punched flat by the Undead Emperor… no, the adamantite bodies… are being gripped bare-handed and torn apart!”

“What monster in what world tears adamantite apart with his bare hands!”

“Right here! Distance doesn’t work! Ranged attacks don’t work either! What should I do, Chief Senior Researcher! Orders… orders, please!”

“Damn it! They’re ten times the monsters I was told!”

I had thought even the advance intelligence was exaggerated, and now it turned out to have been the tame version.

I threw the crystal away and roared at my subordinate behind me.

“Bring out three of those! Even he can’t fire Level 11 in a barrage! Those can withstand a few Level 10s!”

His face went pale at my fury.

“Those… you mean the orichalcum golems!?”

He pushed up to me and shouted.

“Chief Senior Researcher! Are you going to destroy this entire city!?”

“Balthazar-sama has said anything within three kilometers of headquarters may be destroyed! It doesn’t matter, reduce everything to ashes!”

“But… this is only a sideshow before we take on the world! If we destroy the city that is to be our base for conquering the world…”

“We have the ones who received seeds! If they go out, we can invade and take any number of bases!”

“B-but even so…”

I rapped my subordinate on the head.

“If it comes to it, our exalted seed-bearers will step in. But that can’t happen! We can’t have them troubled during the celebration… We have to avoid an ugly development like that!”

I took a deep breath and shouted at him as loud as I could.

“Stop them here at all costs!”

Those of us in the Earth God Emperor’s faction have a bright future waiting, after all.

With Balthazar-sama at the head, we’ll overwhelm every nation by force. Then even we researchers, who aren’t executives… are guaranteed a rank of duke or higher in any of today’s nations. Or even a king’s seat in a small country.

No, more than that. If we make our name here, we might even be given a human-monster fusion seed and become executives. Then we’d be set for a hundred generations of glory.

“This is the make-or-break moment!”

At my order, my subordinate ran off.

Soon he came back from the headquarters hangar with three orichalcum golems.

“Stop them! Whatever it takes, stop those two here!”

The huge bodies of the orichalcum golems strode past me at the side of the road.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

A heavy bass that echoed deep in my chest. The guardian gods who had protected this city since ancient times were marching out.

Ancient magic weapons that Level 10 magic couldn’t destroy, one of which was said to be able to topple a small frontier nation by itself. Because of these, the city had been able to stay neutral in every age.

“Now is the time to show your power, orichalcum golems!”

They advanced, unhurried.

Weapons of mass destruction that once made neighboring countries tremble were marching toward the Thunder God Emperor and the Undead Emperor. And then…

KABOOM!

An explosion and a flash so destructive it seemed the world was ending. The light whited out everything and blinded all of us.

When my sight came back, I saw what was in front of me and lost my voice.

“Two orichalcum golems are gone!? Is this… the Thunder God Emperor’s Level 11!?”

In answer to my half-scream, a report came in over the communication device.

“Level 11: Four Emperors confirmed! The orichalcum golems have evaporated!”

“I can see that! But… one is left! Fuhaha, now they can’t do as they please!”

From the Thunder God Emperor’s combat data on the island, everyone knew he couldn’t fire Level 11 in a barrage.

True, losing two had been unexpected. But at least… we could catch our breath now.

“Still…”

We had only seven of the orichalcum golems, our trump cards, and we’d lost two. We might be in for a scolding.

Even so, that was far better than failing to stop those two here.

“Go, orichalcum golem! Crush the Thunder God Emperor!”

I had just shouted that when…

KABOOM!

Another destructive blast shook the world, and the world went white again.

No. A cold sweat ran down my back.

The lookout’s report made my premonition real.

“Level 11: Four Emperors confirmed again! The orichalcum golem… has evaporated… All gone!”

I could only stand there, stunned by what I heard over the communication device.

Back-to-back…?

Level 11… in a barrage?

I hadn’t heard he could do that.

No, this was no time to think. I whirled around and screamed at my subordinate.

“Bring out every orichalcum golem we have left! Everything we have, full force! Every man, stop the Thunder God Emperor, and—”

Then a blade whistled through the air.

“Too late!”

A black shadow appeared out of nowhere in front of me. The katana came down, and my body was cut in two. A thump, and then another, as my upper and lower halves hit the ground together.

“If you were going to bring them out, you should have brought them out at the start.”

“Impossible…”

“Committing your forces piecemeal is a mistake. Basic military doctrine.”

“But… with only two of you… what can you…?”

“Only two? That’s a bad joke.”

“…What?”

My consciousness was fading. I lay on the ground, looking up at the sky. What I saw was…

“Dra… gons…?”

A pack of magnificent huge dragons soared overhead. With a deep rumble, they began to land on the main street, one after another.

Dragons. Why dragons, here? Then I laughed under my breath.

Of course.

Here and now, Ragnarok, the final war for the fate of the world, was about to begin.

The Dragon Emperor Mikhail, the Dragon Princess Svetlana, the Undead Emperor and the Thunder God Emperor.

No single person could settle this now, and neither could a great nation’s army. What was about to unfold was a war between transcendent beings, each worth ten thousand men.

“Looks like Svetlana made it in time.”

“Right. Shall we go and take a look at this Balthazar’s face?”

“Yeah. Playtime’s over. From here on, no holding back.”

And as I listened to the sound of their shoes striking the ground… my consciousness went dark.

Ephthal’s Perspective

The Magic Society’s main gate.

Facing a huge wooden door, Sasha crossed his arms.

“I never thought I’d live to storm Magic Society headquarters, a worldwide organization. It’s stirring, in its way.”

I laughed.

“Didn’t we do something like this four hundred years ago?”

“…That time it was the Merchants’ Guild headquarters, wasn’t it?”

“That was when the harvest failed and people were starving, and the Merchants’ Guild hoarded the wheat to drive up the price.”

It was a fond memory. The Alcott ducal domain had been about to see famine deaths, and Sasha and I had teamed up and wrecked the place.

“Come to think of it, you’re right. We’ve been doing the same thing all along.”

“Yeah, no doubt.”

Chasing down rotten bastards we couldn’t stand and punching them once. That’s all we’ve ever done.

“So what’s the plan?”

“What plan?”

“Do we just walk in the front gate like fools? Or… find another way in and sneak? Or break in all at once with the dragons?”

“No, we go in the front, politely.”

I stared hard at the gate in front of me.

It looked like it had been left wide open for the golems until a moment ago. But now, how considerate, a bar had been dropped across it and it was shut tight.

“Politely, you say?”

“Yes. Like this.”

I held a hand toward the door. I built the formula in an instant and fired the explosive spell.

“Level 9: Ex Explosion.”

The main gate blew apart and burst into splinters.

Sasha brushed burning bits of wood off himself and gave me a look of utter exasperation.

“You’re outrageous as ever.”

“Not like we’re doing anything shady we need to hide.”

“Well, let’s go.”

“It’s just…”

“Hm? What?”

“What you said before, master, about it being stirring. About four hundred and fifty years ago, one of my goals in magic was to walk through the Magic Society’s main gate.”

“Well, it’s been in the same place since before I became undying. It’s a real authority, no question.”

“Like you said earlier, master. Never thought I’d be storming this place.”

This is something of a holy place for mages. Every student of magic dreams of it and hones their art to pass through its gate. And here I was, storming it… Funny how fate works.

“Honestly, I’m not without feelings for this place myself. I show my face at the Society every year, after all.”

“All the more reason it burns me to see some guy I can’t even make sense of do whatever he likes with it.”

“Yes. To tell the truth, in my lovely girlhood I dreamed of passing through that gate.”

There was no use teasing, so I let the ‘girlhood’ go.

Anyway, Sasha and I are comrades as seekers of the summit of magic. We both know how much feeling the other has for it. And each of us, in our training days, had given this gate a special meaning.

Which was probably true of Anastasia, of Maria, of Sheryl.

I don’t know what road those girls will walk. But if they choose to become great mages, sooner or later they’ll walk through this gate.

This was the place our successors, the young mages all over the world, looked up to. Seeing it defiled was more than I could stand.

“All right, master, let’s go. Svetlana and the dragons will follow soon.”

“Yes. Let’s.”

And we stepped into the Magic Society headquarters.

⁂

The entrance hall.

The long-pile red carpet was still there, in the same quiet, subdued interior.

I scanned for an ambush, and then I couldn’t help smiling.

“…Merlin. You’re safe!”

Merlin stood alone at the edge of the hall. No answer came.

Up close, her eyes had no light in them.

This was going to be a pain.

“…Merlin?”

“…”

No reply. She seemed to be conscious, though. Then, after a moment’s thought, she shook her head.

“I am not Merlin. I am the Goddess of Reincarnation.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Be careful. The summoning of the Nine-Headed Dragon is about to begin.”

“Hold on, the Nine-Headed Dragon? What are you talking about?”

Then…

Goose bumps rose on my whole body.

My sixth sense was sending a full-strength danger signal.

An explosive flow of magic power around me.

The ground began to shake with a rumble.

And a beat after the tremor, I felt a dense blast of magic power from the upper floors.

“Ephthal! Barrier!”

“Already on it!”

Cracks ran through the building, and pebbles rained down from the ceiling.

The air itself shook. The building groaned and cracked apart, the ceiling came down, and a shock wave struck us from above.

The physical and magic barriers Sasha and I raised were both Level 10.

They didn’t slow the shock wave at all, and they were gone in an instant.

“Damn!”

“What is this!?”

Maybe that’s what it’s like at the edge of death. The walls, the ceiling, the whole Magic Society headquarters came down in slow motion. And just before the shock wave from the upper floors swallowed us, Merlin took Sasha’s hand and mine. No, it was the Goddess of Reincarnation.

And before I knew it, we were standing in a pure white space, the Reincarnation Chamber.

Maria’s Perspective

The roof of the Magic Society headquarters.

Bridget-chan’s body lay on the flat floor, and Balthazar stood beside it.

And I could only stand there, shaking, watching it all happen.

“Why did you release the armed golems?”

The main street had been wrapped in smoke for a while now, and explosions loud enough to burst eardrums kept going off.

Ephthal and Sasha-sama were clearly fighting the golems.

“This, too, is mercy.”

“…Mercy?”

“The aftershock of the Nine-Headed Dragon’s summoning spell alone will blow away everything within a kilometer.”

“…You made them attack the townspeople on purpose, so they’d run away?”

“Correct,” Balthazar said with a nod, and went on. “Your generation is fortunate. You will witness the destruction of the world.”

“…?”

“Since you were born in this age, we will let you see the end at least. Do you not think that is only humane?”

And with white smoke and fire behind him, Balthazar spread his arms wide.

“…What a nasty thing to do.”

That was all I felt about him, that and nausea.

But I had no way to stand up to him.

No. The same went for Ephthal.

I’d seen his memories, so I knew.

With the power the Ten Sages had given him, he could cast up to Level 12, and his skill at building formulas was far beyond Ephthal’s.

And he had the worst trump card of all.

The Nine-Headed Dragon.

A giant snake, three hundred kilometers across and ten thousand long. It could stretch across a continent. It was absurd, past anything I could imagine.

Ephthal, Sasha-sama, Merlin-sama, Anastasia and Sheryl, Svetlana-san too: every one of them would be squashed like bugs.

“But if you summon something that huge, what happens to Magic Academy City? It’ll be flattened in an instant.”

“Adjusting the appearance coordinates is difficult. Appearing underground would be a nuisance. So it will be in space, about a thousand kilometers up.”

A thousand kilometers up… I looked at the sky, and a dry laugh came out of me. All I could do was laugh. Overwhelming power… no, overwhelming unfairness. There was no other way to describe it.

Many of Ephthal’s enemies probably thought the same. But this time the positions were reversed. At last it was our turn to be on the receiving end of that unfairness.

“Look, Maria. Your master is about to crush the orichalcum golems.”

And a glittering flash.

A mass of magic energy so bright I couldn’t keep my eyes open. That was…

Level 11: Four Emperors.

Ephthal was almost here. With that thought, I shook my head, tears in my eyes. “Don’t come…”

“Please… please don’t come!”

Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a flock of dragons.

Ah. Even Svetlana-san and the others… had come.

My voice shook. I was begging.

“…Stop, don’t kill everyone!”

“Everything is up to you. Even I cannot interfere with the fusion of souls.”

“…”

I clenched my fists. Balthazar smirked at that.

“As you know, Bridget’s vessel alone can call the Nine-Headed Dragon, but it cannot control it.”

“…”

“Then it would rage without order and destroy everything. Even the Ten Sages do not want the humans of this planet wiped out entirely.”

“…If I fuse with Bridget-chan’s soul and become one… will you really let Ephthal and the others go?”

“You yourself will become the core of the Nine-Headed Dragon. Now, what will you do?”

“Even you can’t fuse Bridget-chan and me without my consent, can you?”

He had seen this coming and set the situation up.

That was why he’d shown me his memories and made me see I could never win.

Yes. If I was taken…

That guy would come to save me, no matter what. I just knew it.

Even he had to know, somewhere in his heart, that this time it was reckless.

“I have conditions.”

“I will hear them.”

Right. He had probably seen this proposal coming too.

That part really galled me, but I had no choice.

“I want that guy and everyone close to him saved. Spare the Alcott ducal domain and our magic academy.”

“That much is acceptable. We will allow their civilization to continue and let them live in isolation on some island nation.”

“…”

“For one generation only. We will take away the ability to reproduce. That is the most I can concede.”

This man made me sick to my stomach.

But… at least this way that guy wouldn’t lose his life.

Either way, if it was left alone, this planet would be destroyed by the Nine-Headed Dragon in ten years.

What else was there to do? I’d never had a choice… not from the very start.

“Fine.”

When I nodded, Bridget-chan’s body turned into particles of light and was drawn into my chest. And then…

The summoning of the Nine-Headed Dragon began.