Volume 8Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Final Adjustments on the Eve of Battle

The Sword God Emperor’s Perspective

A gigantic object had appeared in the skies of every nation, with no warning.

The heads of state panicked, and they traced it at once to the Magic Society headquarters. Elite personnel were called up, and the allied nations sent out survey teams. The choice fell on the three of us, now watching the headquarters from the air. Three is few, but our mission was only to investigate, and for that a small elite force serves better.

“Impressive, Sword God Emperor,” she said.

“Impressive how?”

“Flight magic comes in many forms, and none of them is easy.”

The woman beside me wore old-fashioned witch’s clothes: a pointed hat over striking white hair, a robe wrapped around her.

“Ah, that. I have studied every skill that serves my swordsmanship. Striking from the air is useful in many situations, and I can manage as much of a mage’s trick as that requires.”

In truth, the spell I was using was nothing much. It laid a continuous run of invisible footholds in the air, nothing as advanced as an application of gravity magic.

“Still, it’s a comfort to have you with us, Sword God Emperor, after such a sudden summons!”

This was a huge man with a great shield, laughing his “Gahaha.” His crude, imposing heavy armor looked oddly out of balance beside the hearty, friendly smile.

“The honor is mine, traveling with Lord Eberhard, the hero they call the Great Shield of Aegis.”

“If it’s honor you’re after, you should be happier to be traveling with this lady here… the Witch of the Sanctuary, Liliya Abakarov!”

“True enough.”

“And if the Undead Emperor were along, we could call ourselves the strongest party in the world and not be exaggerating! Gahaha!”

That sunny grin let a little light into a world gone black, strangely enough.

“It is remarkable that they gathered the three of us in so short a time,” the Witch of the Sanctuary said. She was a pillar of the magic world, said to stand beside Merlin-dono. And Lord Eberhard was a warrior’s warrior, famed as the strongest in close combat, a man I had long hoped to cross swords with.

“By the way, Sword God Emperor, speaking of the strongest, what of your master, Breit-dono?”

There was a reason I had left my disciple Naomi and the others in a nearby town and come ahead alone. In fact, I had already been on my way to Magic Academy City. Merlin-dono, the Undead Emperor and the Thunder God Emperor had all dropped out of sight after the Earth God Emperor invited them. Before that, my master, the War God Breit, had vanished as well. He and the Thunder God Emperor were old friends, and both had dropped out of sight in connection with the Magic Society. I had felt something wrong in the air around me, and then this giant floating object appeared.

Something important was happening at the Magic Society headquarters. That much was certain. I owed the Thunder God Emperor a debt, and my master was probably in danger as well. I could not imagine my skill matching theirs. But with every capable fighter I knew gone, it could only fall to me.

“I am afraid my master’s whereabouts are unknown. Liliya-dono, is that the Magic Society headquarters?”

I looked down at the building. The Witch of the Sanctuary shook her head.

“I stayed in Magic Academy City myself once. From what I remember, it is not.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is as if the building had been swapped overnight… That is the best way I can put it.”

“Well, that building matches no regional style I know of, does it? It looks wrong,” I said.

The Witch of the Sanctuary gave a small nod.

“Specially treated outer walls. Concrete, or perhaps reinforced ceramic.”

“Concrete? Ceramic?”

“I have deep ties to the ancient magic civilization. As you say, this building plainly does not belong to our civilization. Please stay on maximum alert.”

So some extraordinary power had made this building appear. Then… this had to be the place, the reason my master had vanished, and the Thunder God Emperor too.

“Let us go in.”

Whatever was waiting in there, we would find out. We landed on the roof and went inside by the stairs at its edge.

⁂

“Ha! A giant’s house.”

Lord Eberhard gave a rueful laugh, and he was not wrong. At the bottom of the stairs, a passage fifty meters square ran from one end of the building to the other.

“Is it for hauling galleons?” I said. “Even so, it is excessive.”

“Maximum caution,” Liliya-dono warned us again.

A moment earlier, seeing the passage run on for a kilometer or so, we had stopped for an instant, unsure. Then we soon walked on. We had accepted the danger from the start, and turning back now would make the whole survey pointless. Until we sensed real danger, retreat was off the table. We had agreed on that beforehand.

“Everyone, as I told you earlier, depending on events I may leave the survey party. It concerns my master.”

“So we agreed. You can’t mean the War God’s being held somewhere in here?”

“If only I knew.”

In truth, I could imagine the Thunder God Emperor and the Undead Emperor being held as well. But saying so would only worry these two for nothing.

“Still, you’ve got a tidy arrangement there, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean, Lord Eberhard?”

“You came to find the War God, so you’re using the Witch of the Sanctuary and me as bodyguards on the way.”

“Well… that is true. But we all agreed to this from the start, did we not?”

“Right you are. Going in as just the two of us would be riskier than teaming up with you, even partway. That’s the math.”

“Then there is no problem, is there?”

“But we’ve got terms of our own.” Lord Eberhard put it bluntly. “If you drop out partway… we want at least a bodyguard fee.”

“A fee?”

For a man called the Great Shield of Aegis, he had a worldly streak. Before I could be exasperated, he grinned.

“There’s a popular standing bar in the capital that serves great sausages. Buy me a round there.”

“…What?”

Liliya-dono chuckled.

“If that is the arrangement, I will come along too. I should warn you, I drink like a fish.”

These two were as pleasant in character as in skill. For a makeshift party, we were remarkably lucky.

“Yes. I think we would drink well together.”

We walked on, and had reached the middle of the passage when the loose mood snapped taut. All of us looked toward the dead end ahead.

“What are those?”

Lord Eberhard sounded puzzled, and I agreed. Far-sight magic showed me the figures: about twenty reptilian demi-humans, human-sized, with silver skin, rounding the corner at the end.

“Lizardmen…?”

No. It struck me then that they were machines.

“Dragon machine soldiers, humanoid machines shaped like dragons,” Liliya-dono said. “The ancient magic civilization used them for security.”

“But I have never heard of dragon-shaped magic weapons turning up in ruins.”

“The answer is simple. This is not a ruin. It is a facility that is alive right now.”

Liliya-dono had gone tense, and the two of us swallowed hard.

“Now, what do we do?” I asked.

Nobody answered. I looked back the way we had come. We were already halfway along it.

“No, a foolish question. We can no longer run or hide.”

Lord Eberhard raised his great shield and moved to the front. I drew my sword, and last of all Liliya-dono took her short staff at the rear. The formation was set.

“This passage itself must be a trap to keep intruders from escaping.”

“No choice, then,” Lord Eberhard said.

And so we went into combat against an unknown magic weapon.

⁂

I cut down the last dragon machine soldier with a single stroke.

Twenty-three wrecks lay scattered around us, and I confirmed that every one had stopped. I let out a breath.

“…Reinforcements!”

Lord Eberhard bellowed a warning. Another twenty were coming around the corner.

I readied my sword and steadied my breathing. From their speed, the next clash would begin any second.

Then a high, lovely, almost singing voice rang down the passage.

“Level 10: Nova Blaster.”

Liliya-dono pointed her short staff ahead, and a white flash that swept everything away shot toward the dead end.

A deafening explosion went off, and the dragon machine soldiers were blown to bits in a single blow.

“That’s… tremendous.”

Like Lord Eberhard, I was left without words.

“You never disappoint, Liliya-dono. But Level 10… is a power lost four hundred years ago, is it not?”

“Surely others use Level 10. The Undead Emperor, for example.”

“He has lived over a thousand years.”

“…Very well. I will let you in on a little of it… I was born not on this continent but in the outside world.”

“The outside world? The Unexplored Territories?”

“Yes. My role is to keep things in balance. If there are dangerous ruins, powers too great for people, I investigate and seal them. That is my duty.”

“But I have never heard of anyone from the Unexplored Territories.”

“That is why I have Level 10. More than that is classified. Will you pardon me?”

I see, I thought, and swallowed. The first Thunder God Emperor’s reincarnation, and now a Witch of the Sanctuary. One after another, people who could use Level 10 were appearing around me. The world I had known was far too narrow, and the real world beyond it… was wide.

“Still…”

I looked down at the pieces of machinery scattered around us.

Too fragile.

I could not believe anything this weak could hold my master prisoner.

“What is it, Sword God Emperor?”

“By my estimate, a dragon machine soldier is about Level 6 or 7 by the mage scale.”

“Mine as well.”

At that level… Merlin-dono, the Thunder God Emperor’s disciple, could take on twenty or more at once and play with them. The Thunder God Emperor and Sasha-sama could wipe out hundreds alone with ease.

“Whatever caused that absurd object in the sky is in here somewhere, and a guard force like this seems far too…”

I got that far when the facility’s lights turned entirely red.

An ear-splitting alarm followed.

“What is that sound!?”

At Lord Eberhard’s shout, Liliya-dono’s face went pale.

“An alarm! Be careful!”

In that moment, a single dragon machine soldier appeared at the end of the passage, and then…

It happened in an instant.

All my eyes caught was the start of its motion… and the end. It showed itself beyond the corner at the dead end, and then, with nothing between, it was standing in front of Lord Eberhard, carelessly swinging its mechanical arm.

“A… byu…”

It swung its arm. That was all. With that motion alone, Lord Eberhard’s torso, great shield and heavy armor and all, was cut in two. With a wet thud he collapsed where he stood, his insides spilling.

“What… is that?”

Another blink of movement, as if it had teleported again, and it appeared behind Liliya-dono. This time I could just follow it with my eyes, and that was exactly what silenced me.

It was not teleportation. It was plain ultra-high-speed movement, too fast even for me, who had trained for close combat. If it had been magic teleportation, there would at least have been some comfort. But if it could reach this speed on raw strength alone, we had no chance.

A swish cut through the passage.

“Ka… ha…!”

Liliya-dono’s arm flew off. It spun, scattering red blood, hit the floor, bounced, rolled and stopped.

This is bad!

I raised my sword and charged the dragon machine soldier.

“…It vanished!?”

It was gone from my sight.

“Where!?”

I was being completely played with. I turned left and right, and it was nowhere to be seen.

“Above!”

The instant Liliya-dono’s voice registered, I moved and swung my sword with godlike speed.

Metal rang in midair, and sparks flew. I had blocked it by instinct alone, barely, thanks to her warning.

“What… is this?”

There are plenty of people stronger than I am. I know that well. But I am the Sword God Emperor. And still… it had not let me see even a shadow of its motion.

For the first time in my life, an ugly sound came from my own mouth, something close to a laugh of despair.

“…Ha… What is that? Haha… This has to be a joke.”

Right after I thought it had vanished, Liliya-dono’s head was cut off.

Fast was not the word. People were dying one after another, and none of us understood what had been done to them. It was pure, overwhelming power, and against that senselessness all I could do was stand there.

Lord Eberhard, Liliya-dono and I were none of us green. But… there was literally nothing we could do.

“But… why, so suddenly?”

This dragon machine soldier was the same kind we had just been fighting. By a mage’s rank it should have been Level 6 or 7… Yet it seemed to have leapt to Level 10 or beyond in a single moment.

The dragon machine soldier took one slow step toward me. It did not attack at high speed this time. It had probably judged that I alone was no threat at all.

“And the man they call the Sword God Emperor… can do nothing in close combat. A monster like this exists in the world… It feels as if I have learned, for the first time, how powerless the sword is.”

That was my self-mocking mutter, and from behind the dragon machine soldier came a familiar voice.

“The sword’s not the problem. You’re just green, that’s all.”

A flash of steel came down on the dragon machine soldier.

The blade was wreathed in faint blue flame. It was the magic sword Hinokagutsuchi, wielded in a flowing, dancing style, and the man holding it had used the old shinobi art of stealth, an eastern martial discipline, to keep even me from noticing him until now.

“Ah… ah!”

The bisected dragon machine soldier fell to the floor, and my master gave a snort.

“Breit-sama!”

“Been a hell of a long time, dumb disciple.”

He grinned broadly, the War God Breit, famed as an old friend of the first Thunder God Emperor.

⁂

“That damn clod Ephthal’s back from the dead, for real? Reincarnation, seriously… That old geezer never changes, always been outrageous.”

My master Breit, said to be the best-looking man in the three thousand worlds.

He was slender but well trained, with a body of almost heavenly beauty, long silky blond hair, and a refined, androgynous face without a flaw.

“So long story short… that rotten bastard Balthazar played me for a sucker and I got caught and held in here looking like an idiot. Worst feeling in the world, I’m telling you, no joke.”

He was beautiful enough to be taken for a woman… His speech was filthy.

That was supposedly one reason he and the first Thunder God Emperor hit it off, but never mind.

“Still, cutting down a dragon machine soldier in one stroke, that is Breit-sama for you.”

I sighed in admiration. Breit-sama waved it off. “Nah, nah, not that.”

“Look, check this out.”

I looked. Blood was seeping faintly from Breit-sama’s right hand.

Which meant that Breit-sama, who could dodge with a dancer’s grace beyond any human, had failed to see the dragon machine soldier’s attack coming.

“Yep. So that’s how it is. I’m not exactly cruising against those things, either.”

“…”

A sword genius ranked with the first Four Emperors, the incarnation of martial arts itself… and he had been wounded? I swallowed hard.

“Are you all right? Your wound…”

“This? Spit on it, it’ll heal. But—”

Breit-sama spread his hands.

“Even I can only handle two or three of those at a time.”

“…”

“Which brings me to my question.”

“Yes?”

“How many of those do you see?”

At the dead end Breit-sama was pointing to, the usual spot for reinforcements by now, dragon machine soldiers were swarming out again. This time the number was abnormal. Not ten or twenty. They looked close to a hundred.

“All of these dragon machine soldiers… have that power!?”

“Yep. No way we win.”

“Wh-what do you intend to do?”

Breit-sama came up to me and tucked me under his arm.

“Hey!? Breit-sama!?”

“So we’re making a run for it.”

“Run where!? This passage is a single straight path, and they are fast beyond reason!”

“Being outrageous isn’t Cliff’s or Ephthal’s private business, you know.”

With that, Breit-sama leapt toward the ceiling.

“Aura Sword: Purgatory.”

He drew his sword one-handed, and enormous aura gushed from his beloved Hinokagutsuchi. The ceiling melted away under the light and heat of aura and flame.

“Once you’ve cut through the ceiling, you can get out. Those things only guard the inside of the facility, so they won’t follow.”

He went straight up to the roof, landed, and tossed me down without a care.

“What a fearsome enemy,” I said, rolling to break my fall.

Breit-sama grinned.

“Right. Dealing with that’s going to be a pain.”

“But why did their power rise so suddenly?”

“Looks like when the alarm goes, the mechanical dragonmen get a massive buff. And as you saw, each one ends up with power like mine or Ephthal’s.”

“…So this facility has about a hundred soldiers of the original Four Emperors’ class?”

Just thinking about it made my head swim. That alone could conquer the world. The absurdity of it made me shudder.

“Nah, as far as I know there’s around a thousand of them.”

“…What?”

“I said, a thousand.”

“Meaning…?”

“Yep. We’re toast.”

“What do they want, with a power like that? What are their demands?”

“Destroying the current civilization,” Breit-sama said, breezily. “Put plainly, wiping out most of humanity.”

“So the world is in crisis… and nothing can be done…?”

I had nothing more to say. Breit-sama grinned at me, stunned as I was.

“Well, an ordinary guy like you would think that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world’s got that clod Ephthal now, right? Then no problem.”

“I do not follow. You said each dragon machine soldier has power on the level of the Thunder God Emperor.”

“If that clod hasn’t shown up here, he’s scheming behind the scenes. And scheming behind the scenes means he’s in the middle of winning. As long as he hasn’t thrown in the towel, no problem.”

“…Is that how it works?”

“I’d never want that clod as an enemy. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

Breit-sama’s face was as confident as ever, without a shadow of doubt in his eyes. There must be a world there that I did not understand. But for Breit-sama to say so, the Thunder God Emperor must truly be something extraordinary.

“Then for now, let us escape together.”

“Huh? Why? You can go home if you want, but why do I have to?”

“Why…?”

“I mean, Balthazar played me for a sucker, right?”

“Pardon?” I tilted my head.

“And besides, this is a sure win with Ephthal in on it, right?”

“…?”

“Then it’d be a waste not to ride this wave. I won’t settle down till I’ve punched that rotten bastard Balthazar once.”

I could not help laughing.

It was Breit-sama as I remembered him, the same as ever. He was not a man to take a beating quietly. I had heard the Thunder God Emperor was like this too, and birds of a feather, it seemed, do flock together.

“You really do trust the Thunder God Emperor.”

“Well, we go way back.”

Ephthal’s Perspective

“That’s the outline of Balthazar’s dragon machine soldiers.”

By the time I’d told it all, the adventurers were nearly done gathering the bodies.

“Hm…”

Sasha looked grim, and no wonder. We were talking about a thousand mechanical soldiers, each as strong as one of the original Four Emperors.

“One by one, before the boost, they’re nothing special. Any mage at Level 6 or 7 or above can handle them.”

“Take just that part and you and I could shut them down cold. But the boost is the problem, isn’t it?”

“Right. The instant a watcher sees a dragon machine soldier take an attack from outside, the alarm goes off and the buff kicks in. Depending on how dangerous they judge you, that can be a fraction of a second… Less, even.”

“Watcher?”

“The watchers aren’t in the building… They’re outside Magic Academy City: spheres hanging in the sky to the north, south, east and west, about ten kilometers out. Magic can’t blind them and walls don’t block them. They see through everything. The Thousand-League Magic Eye.”

“Hmm… And the dragon machine soldiers are machines, so my World Magic Circle’s debuff, which only works on living things, won’t touch them. Doesn’t that leave us in checkmate?”

“A thousand of them, each able to go toe to toe with any of us. Yeah.”

Sasha puffed out his cheeks, at a loss. He looked badly shaken, so I decided to throw him a rope.

“That’s only if we play it normally.”

“Meaning?”

“Here’s how their boost works… A watcher senses danger and tells the facility, the alarm goes off, the boost system kicks in, and the soldiers get stronger. The moment that happens, the fight turns into an unwinnable game. That much you follow?”

“…Yes. So how do we get past the boost?”

“I’ll ask you the same. What would you do?”

“Hmm…”

Sasha took a flask from his robe, wet his lips with a sip of water, and settled in to think.

“Simple enough. We don’t let the alarm ring.”

“Right. After that, all that’s left is to beat the unboosted ones senseless.”

“And how? Take out the watchers first, I suppose… but that’s no easy job.”

“No, it isn’t. They saw that plan coming, so the four watchers are set up to watch each other.”

“Meaning that if we hit even one…”

“The alarm goes off right there and we’re finished.”

“Hmph. That’s a nuisance.”

He took another sip. Sasha hardly ever drinks water, so I knew he was rattled.

“But we already have enough to work out an answer.”

“An answer?”

“To sum it up… the four spheres over the facility are watching each other and watching for any threat to the soldiers inside. Take out any one of them and the alarm goes off, with a lag of a tenth of a second or less at the fastest. Once that alarm goes off it’s over: super-boosted machine soldiers pour out by the swarm.”

“So what do we do?”

“We go straight in and blow them away. That’s the plan.”

“…”

“…”

“…Are you joking?”

“I’m dead serious.”

I grinned. The way I’d opened was a joke, but I meant every word.

“Even if we go for the watchers, they cover each other… Hit one and the alarm rings and we’re done. So it can’t be done.”

“You’re slow on the uptake. We take them all out in one blow.”

“Impossible. They’re ten kilometers out in four directions. Can you bombard all of that in one shot? Even I can’t, of course, not by a long shot.”

Sasha shook his head.

“Then we hit them all at once, with several people.”

“Also impossible. Say a few of us fire long-range spells. The allowable error is a fraction of a fraction of a second, and the shots have to land together. That takes mages trained to the utmost… with coordination honed on top of that. Where in the world would you find people like that…”

Sasha broke off, mouth open.

He’d finally seen what was in my head.

“Well. Such people… are right here.”

We both turned to Cliff and the others, talking among themselves a short way off.

“Nobody beats us Four Emperors at working together, right?”

“I’ll grant that. One way or another you lot are always in step.”

“It’s still a tight window,” I said.

“You could pull it off cold, though. And you’ve got two weeks to tune the coordination.”

Sasha’s firm nod was a relief. I’d always valued his fighting sense.

He took a chocolate from his robe and popped it in his mouth, his face going slack with bliss. Then he frowned.

“Still, something doesn’t sit right.”

“What?”

“If they can be boosted that far, why not boost all the soldiers from the start? Then you’d have an invincible army from the beginning.”

“Because even the Ten Sages and the ancient civilization weren’t omnipotent.”

“Hm?” Sasha tilted his head. “Meaning?”

“That facility runs on its own system. It doesn’t have unlimited resources to throw around.”

“So if they ran at full power all the time… the fuel cost would be terrible.”

“Exactly. That’s why Balthazar put his base right on the key point of the geomancy, the site of the Magic Society headquarters.”

“Geomancy… the dragon vein underground?”

“Yeah. The facility draws its energy from the dragon vein under the headquarters.”

“I see… Feeding a thousand soldiers of the original Four Emperors’ strength all the time would drain even a dragon vein… It could wither the whole region.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Well, that settles the thousand boosted soldiers. We won’t just take him down a peg. We’ll take him down a hundred.”

Sasha grinned, a little imp of a grin.

Maria’s Perspective

It had been two weeks.

Tomorrow at noon was the day he’d come to this roof.

He’d chosen to resist, not to submit. Knowing him, he’d probably turn things around somehow. I figured he had a plan.

But then I looked up at the Nine-Headed Dragon overhead and sighed. Faced with that overwhelming presence, I couldn’t help feeling nothing could be done.

Over these two weeks, survey teams and subjugation forces had come from every country, again and again. None of them had been any match. They’d all been wiped out in a heartbeat.

And something else was bothering me. The sun hadn’t reached this place the whole time.

Magic Academy City was already empty, but the street trees and plants were still here, and some of them were starting to wither. The forest in the distance looked much the same… And it wasn’t only sunlight. There hadn’t been any rain, either. Even if Ephthal stopped Balthazar, regions all over the world were in this state. Farming villages would be wiped out before long, and the refugees would throw the world into chaos. Thinking about it, I felt like we’d been finished as a species the moment the Ten Sages set their sights on this planet.

I was gazing at the trees along Magic Academy City’s main street, feeling sunk, when a mechanical soldier came into view.

“…Is that a dragon machine soldier?”

I could see about three of them. According to Balthazar, these killing machines had already butchered a hundred people who’d come charging in.

“You have never seen one, have you?”

That was Balthazar.

I’d heard about them, but they really did look like two-legged reptiles. They had ‘dragon’ in the name, like Svetlana-san, but they were nothing like her. Her people look almost human. These looked like mechanical lizardmen.

“They don’t look that strong, somehow…”

They were about human-sized, and even for artificial creatures like golems… the magic around them wasn’t much.

Balthazar nodded, pleased.

“Quite so. In fact, they are fragile.”

“Huh? But they killed the strongest people from all over the world right away, didn’t they?”

He gave a small snort.

“Why do you suppose they are modeled on reptiles, on dragons? You have heard of dragon veins and earth veins, I assume.”

“…Of course. I’m a mage, however minor… and I’ve got everything they teach first-years at the Academy in my head.”

“Dragon Princess Svetlana and her bloodline: why do they hold such enormous power? Have you ever considered that?”

“Because… that’s what kind of race they are?”

Tigers are strong. So are lions. Dragons are strong from birth. It’s blunt, but it’s also true.

“If I were an instructor at your Academy, that answer would earn ten points.”

He didn’t even try to hide his contempt, and snorted again. Was this man a genius at getting on people’s nerves? Everything he did was condescending, and he went all out to look down on everyone.

“Then let’s hear the full-marks answer.”

“Very well. The secret of the dragon race’s strength… is that dragons alone can replenish mana from the dragon veins and put it to use. They are born with an organ that receives power from the veins.”

“I’ve never heard that… And from an evolutionary standpoint, isn’t that odd?”

Plants make energy by photosynthesis, and all sorts of plants in today’s world can do it. That’s because somewhere near the root of the family tree, they acquired the ability, and every plant that branched off carried that useful trait forward. But if Balthazar was right… only dragons had this organ. No other creature had such a useful ability, so dragons had to be outside the tree of evolution altogether.

“Precisely. They began as ordinary lizards native to this planet. The Ten Sages redesigned them genetically as biological weapons.”

I’d always thought Svetlana-san’s people were practically cheating. I hadn’t expected a story like that… and I caught my breath. Of course, Balthazar might be lying. But he had nothing to gain by it, and with his need to show off, I doubted he would.

“And the ultimate evolution of the weapons that draw on the dragon veins is the dragon machine soldier.”

“Ultimate evolution…?”

His words had a weight to them, and I caught my breath again. But then I looked down at the dragon machine soldiers on the street. Yes, still the same. Not much magic, and nothing like the monsters he was making them out to be.

“Are those really so extraordinary?”

“You have not seen them as they truly are, so you would not understand. Let me put it this way: each of them, at full strength, rivals the Thunder God Emperor. Does that give you some idea?”

“The same as Ephthal!? Wait a second, there are about a thousand of those, right!?”

I could feel the blood drain from my face. Seeing me panic, Balthazar laughed with pleasure.

“Until the dragon vein’s power flows into them, they are as fragile as you say.”

“But,” he went on.

“When the watchers perceive danger, the facility sends the dragon vein’s power to the dragon machine soldiers on that information. The ancient magic civilization called this dragon vein reinforcement the Gaspar system. And further…”

“Further? There’s more?”

“Gaspar has a weakness. If an ultra-wide-area bombardment destroyed every watcher, for example, the dragon machine soldiers could not draw on the vein and would stay scrap. The Gaspar system has a fatal flaw.”

“…And?”

“The Ten Sages would never leave such a flaw alone… They moved the development of the dragon machine soldiers on to the next stage.”

The next stage…

They weren’t satisfied with weapons that mass-produced a thousand copies of Ephthal, so they’d improved on that too? But still… the Ten Sages, and Balthazar for that matter. Maybe we should never have made enemies of them. I’d thought so ever since the Nine-Headed Dragon appeared, and Ephthal had already made his decision.

“In truth, the dragon machine soldiers are built to show their real worth once they are destroyed.”

Once they’re destroyed?

My head filled with question marks.

“Though they need not be destroyed at all. At the moment I decide, by a method separate from the Gaspar system, the dragon vein’s power flows into them.”

He went on with a pleased chuckle.

“Several hundred dragon machine soldiers each become a part and form one enormous vessel. That vessel can receive far more of the vein’s power than any single soldier. It is the incarnation of the dragon vein itself, the mechanical dragon Melchior. Our greatest strength, and our strongest trump card.”

“Wait… greatest strength? You mean it’s stronger than you?”

Balthazar nodded, deeply and emphatically.

“Naturally. I fall far short of it. In an instant it devours the dragon vein energy of the entire surrounding region. It is a difficult beast to use, a bit of a wild horse, but in summoning terms it is equivalent to Level 20. A flawless weapon of annihilation.”

Level… 20?

I nearly collapsed.

What did a Level 20 force even mean? A first-year at the Academy casts Level 1 magic, so that was… like the gap between a first-year and Ephthal, maybe?

“There’s nothing we can do about that…”

My voice was weak. Balthazar shrugged. Obviously.

“If you ever thought for a moment that you could do something against me, you were gravely mistaken. After all, you and I are on different stages as living beings.”

Ephthal’s Perspective

“So that’s the picture, and Balthazar must think he has the absolute upper hand.”

Two weeks had gone by, and tomorrow we’d storm the place.

We were about ten kilometers from Magic Academy City, gathered around a campfire, going over the assault plan one last time, the final adjustments.

The necromantic lich legion had been finished two days ago. There was some rush-job roughness here and there, but all that was left was for Sasha to snap his fingers and set off the trigger. That alone would flood Magic Academy City with the dead.

“Still, you know…”

“What is it, Sasha?”

“When Balthazar and Gaspar turned up, I thought Melchior would come next, but to think they’d actually use that name… No imagination, you might say.”

Sasha had a point. The Three Magi, the Three Wise Men of the East: on Earth that’s a pretty famous tradition. The Ten Sages are a calamity on a cosmic scale, so I could see them borrowing from Earth’s legends. But how did Sasha know about the Magi? Well, there was no point asking where he got his knowledge. He kept his secrets, and he wouldn’t tell me anyway.

“Level 20, though. Quite a boast.”

“You look awfully cheerful for it.”

He’d been grinning the whole time, an impish, wicked grin… A bad look, basically.

“Well, you say we can win.”

“Eight or nine times in ten, maybe. It’s not a sure thing.”

“But picturing the face of someone who’s grown cocky from being on top, once he’s whipped… it gives me the shivers.”

Sasha gave a happy ‘Kah-kah.’

Then Svetlana raised her voice. She’d only joined us thirty minutes earlier. Of course I hadn’t told her how to deal with Melchior, or even Gaspar. The point of this last briefing was mainly to teach her the assault procedure.

“W-wait, Junior!? Level 20? Big Sis hasn’t heard anything about this!”

“Yeah, because I haven’t told you.”

I’d been so offhand about it that she got even louder.

“Fighting a Level 20? That’s not reckless, that’s suicide!”

She was in a complete panic. Sasha laughed out loud, delighted.

“Fuhaha! This one’s recklessness is nothing new!”

“Well, true, but our trump card is the World Magic Circle, right? The debuff won’t work on machines, and anyway it only knocks the spell level down two!”

Svetlana was right. Even if the debuff worked on machines, it wouldn’t change much. Level 20 becoming Level 18 doesn’t change anything.

“But what are you actually going to do? It looks like checkmate to Big Sis.”

“Relax. I’ve got a plan.”

“A plan? But…”

Then Svetlana gasped and murmured, “Oh. If we can’t win fair, you mean not to play fair?”

“No, this time we have to go toe to toe with the mechanical dragon Melchior and break through.”

“Hmm… But that’s impossible, isn’t it?”

Sasha sighed.

“Hear me, Svetlana. Why do you think we gathered that horde of the undead?”

“To boost our strength, obviously. A hundred users of Level 7 to 10, that’s a huge force…”

“Against Level 20? Or a thousand soldiers of the original Four Emperors’ class? A drop in the bucket has never been so apt.”

Svetlana puffed out her cheeks.

“Then why?”

I nodded.

“It’s like this—”

⁂

When I’d finished explaining the countermeasures, Svetlana started thinking. Then she murmured, “We can win.”

“But… Junior? You really mean to go in with tricks from start to finish, don’t you?”

“I’d say dealing with Melchior counts as head-on slugging, just barely.”

Svetlana smiled, exasperated.

“Still…” Sasha said, “the bodies from Cocytus, my necromancy and the red-haired whelp’s… all of it was groundwork for this. Who’d have thought.”

Cliff chuckled.

“Yes, Undead Emperor. To think the masterpiece of necromancy, not just ours but our whole era’s, would be used up as a decoy.”

I nodded.

“Bottom line, what you need is a good master and good friends.”

Cliff sighed.

“Reading Balthazar’s memory gave you a breakthrough in your knowledge of the dragon vein, true. But at the root it’s your own outrageous idea.”

“I don’t know about that… The real root cause is Balthazar looking down on us. If he’d come to kill us at full strength from the start, we’d have been wiped out without being able to do anything.”

“So we would,” Sasha said. “Though once the trick is cracked, that changes things.”

I clapped my palms to wrap it up.

“Let’s sum up. First, countering Balthazar.”

“Yes. My trump card, the World Magic Circle, comes into its own.”

“Right. The World Magic Circle’s weakening comes first, and after that we tangle him up in a dirty slugfest of layered plans. Next, Gaspar, which turns out a thousand Four Emperor-class soldiers on demand. We Four Emperors blow the watcher spheres away in a simultaneous bombardment, and that’s the end of it.”

I looked at the three of them. Isaac and Itam thumped their chests, leave it to us, and Cliff shrugged.

“Lastly, the mechanical dragon Melchior, the incarnation of the dragon vein’s power formed when a mass of dragon machine soldiers combine. We handle that the way I told you.”

That was the walk-through done. All that remained was to wait for tomorrow’s assault.

Sasha looked uneasy.

“What is it, Sasha?”

“Each plan has a high chance of success. But still… aren’t there too many gates we must get through?”

“True. But if nothing unexpected happens and luck doesn’t desert us… we’d win nine times out of ten.”

Sasha’s uneasiness deepened.

“Luck is what worries me. You were born unlucky, weren’t you?”

“Born unlucky?”

“You had no magic aptitude… And on top of that you got dragged into all this, and even if you win, the end of it is you become the human sacrifice.”

“Well, the goddess of fortune’s not with me, I’ll give you that.”

“Right? In the end, a fight really can come down to luck.”

“…Yeah. I don’t think the goddess of fortune likes me, and she won’t smile on me from here on, either. But Sasha?”

“Hm? What?”

As Sasha tilted his head, I grinned.

“The Goddess of Reincarnation is on our side, isn’t she?”

Everyone froze for a moment. Then they got it, and laughter burst out all around.

“A goddess who looks useful but isn’t very, I’d say,” Sasha said.

“Come on, without her we’d have been checkmated from the start. Anyway, that’s all.”

Eat, then sleep—

I was thinking that when Anastasia and Sheryl came over, timidly.

“Um, Master… to be blunt, we’re dead weight, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. No question.”

I nodded, and tears welled up in Anastasia’s eyes.

“I knew it, but I think saying it that bluntly is cruel.”

“So it’s up to you what to do. Come with me, hide somewhere far away… whatever you like.”

“Is that why we’re allowed to come… what you said before about wanting us within your reach?”

I thought about that for a moment. Then I took a small pouch from inside my coat.

“That’s part of it, but not the only part. There are things only you two can do. If you come with me, here’s what you do: have Isaac and Itam pile concealment and defensive magic on you, then lie low and strike when there’s an opening.”

“So because we’re small fry, you want us to make the most of them not watching us? And this pouch is…?”

“Think hard about Balthazar’s nature. Do that, and there’s a plan.”

“His nature? He masters magic up to Level 14, cancels any attack spell below his own highest level, a true monster, right?”

“Yeah.” I put a hand on Anastasia’s head. “And because his power is so great, he looks down on every human.”

Anastasia loosened the pouch’s drawstring. She looked inside and froze, speechless.

She’d gotten my intent at a glance. Anastasia’s whole style is trickery, so she’s quick that way.

“It’s true… this might take him down a peg. But—”

“What is it, Anastasia?”

“Can such an old-fashioned method work… in this kind of ultimate mage battle?”

“It’s simple, so it works as a surprise attack. Balthazar would never dream of being burned this way, would he?”

⁂

Night.

After everyone had gone to sleep, I sat alone before the campfire, lost in thought.

I’d never slept well the night before a fight where lives were on the line. It’s a nuisance, going into a decisive battle short on sleep, but I’d half given up on that bad habit.

Then…

“Can you not sleep, Ephthal-sama?”

“You can’t sleep either?”

Merlin gave a small shake of her head and set a pot on the fire to heat water.

“I thought you might not be able to sleep. Would you like some tea?”

“Ha, what a good disciple. Sheryl could stand to learn a thing or two from you.”

I’d meant it half as a joke, but Merlin took it seriously and her face hardened.

“That girl is, indeed, too much her own person. There is not a speck of the disciple about her.”

“Frankly, you’re about the only one who treats me like a proper master these days.”

The faces of Anastasia and Maria floated up, and my head started to ache. The polite, boyish side of me hadn’t shown up once lately, which made it worse.

“A boy’s looks don’t carry any dignity, I suppose.”

“That may be so, but I think it has more to do with those girls’ natures. After all, Ephthal-sama… has always picked up strange things…”

“I can’t argue with that.”

I kept my tone light, and Merlin smiled wryly.

The surroundings gradually fell silent, and all that reached my ears was the water coming to a boil.

“…”

“…”

“…Ephthal-sama? Can you truly win?”

There was only one answer to that.

“No fool broods on losing before he’s even started.”

“If I may be so presumptuous… might I state a plan of my own?”

“Go ahead.”

Merlin pressed her lips together, resolved.

“I am aware that I am not strong enough this time. That is why I have not been given a role in the heart of the plan… Is that not so?”

“It’s so no one dies for nothing.”

“Then my role in the assault is a light one. So I propose this: if things go beyond saving through some unforeseen event… I ask permission to act on my own judgment.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where strength falls short, I will cover the shortfall by any means necessary. And throughout history, there is only one way for a mage to draw out more power than she has.”

“…Magic overload. You’re thinking of blowing yourself up?”

Merlin nodded.

“Balthazar should not be counting me as part of the fighting strength. Which is why, depending on the timing… it might work as a bluff at the least.”

“…”

“Naturally, it would be a last resort. The most effective use of my life would be a ritual spell: I burn my life to overload my magic, weave a power-focused formula from it… and you control it.”

“…”

“My life is the one you picked up four hundred years ago, Ephthal-sama. If so, I would ask permission to offer it up to protect you.”

Just then, my fist whistled past Merlin’s nose, a backhand that grazed the tip of it.

“…Ephthal-sama?”

“Say that in front of me once more and next time it connects. I’ll do worse than break your nose.”

“…”

I sighed.

“We’ve had this talk a few times, haven’t we? Every time I scolded you, and you still haven’t learned…”

“…I am sorry.”

I stood and pulled Merlin into a tight hug.

“But still. Thank you for sticking with me, all this time, no matter how reckless I was.”

“What are you saying?”

“Thinking this is the last of it, I’m getting sentimental. You’re the only one who’d stick with me… without getting fed up. So… thank you.”

I laughed, and Merlin laughed too. Then tears began to gather at the corners of her eyes.

“Ephthal-sama…? If you say such things, I have a mountain of things to say myself.”

“Go ahead.”

“You took me in, raised me like your own child, trained me strictly as your favorite disciple, and above all… after four hundred years… you came back to me. Thank you.”

Partway through, Merlin’s voice turned to tears, and by the end I could hardly hear it. But I understood what she meant, painfully well.

Damn. Old men do get weepy, it’s true. Funny, with a boy’s body.

“If you think of me as your master, let me ask one last outrageous thing.”

“…What is it?”

“Don’t die before me. I won’t allow you to even think about achieving something by sacrificing yourself.”

“You mean to become the Nine-Headed Dragon’s human sacrifice yourself, do you not?”

“No, it’s fine for me.”

“…Why is that?”

“I’m your master. A disciple doesn’t argue with what her master does.”

“Ephthal-sama truly says only harsh things.”

I smiled and began to ruffle Merlin’s hair, hard.

It was the same unsparing way I’d done it four hundred years ago, when she was a kid.