15

“—Restriction Lifted: ‘Clockwork Demon Eye’”

At the same time as Ains’s words, his clouded right eye turned a deep crimson.

“(And on top of that, he is manifesting it while facing me directly. That right eye will without question see through it…. I do not even know whether Stagnation will fully work on him.)”

It might end with nothing more than showing Lizelotte’s sorcery to him for no gain.

What was troublesome for Lizelotte was not Ains’s right arm, but that right eye that peered into the abyss.

“(…No, I cannot use it! If I reveal ‘Arbitrary Flux’ in a situation this far from ideal, my wish will disappear!)”

At the end of Lizelotte’s glare, Ains was extending his right arm toward Kirishiya and was just about to open his mouth.

“…Then, Kirishiya, let us begin the ‘dialogue.’”

Her teeth chattering, Lizelotte squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Behind her eyelids, a single girl appeared. Against a pure white space, she smiled at Lizelotte.

A frail girl smiling weakly in a red-black stained one-piece dress.

“(…Loteria. This time, I must save her, I must keep saving her! But if I do that, then you…)”

Ains’s mouth slowly moved to continue.

No, it was only Lizelotte’s thoughts that had sharpened and accelerated.

The girl in the red-black one-piece somehow had an air similar to Kirishiya.

The girl spoke to Lizelotte. Though no voice could be heard, her mouth moved clearly, and Lizelotte could read it.

“(—! …Loteria, I will take this from you. Please laugh at me for being unable to become ruthless at the decisive moment. I do not want to watch Kirishiya be ensnared before my eyes by a sorcerer’s curse.)”

Lizelotte snapped her eyes open.

There was now an immeasurable resolve dwelling in them.

“—Let us begin the ‘dialogue’—”

Lizelotte cried out forcefully, as if shouting.

“Incomplete Release! ‘Forced Stillness’!!”

The words Lizelotte spun.

There was no doubt that, like Darius, Shiala, Rito, and Ains, it too was sorcery used by a sorcerer.

But the words she spun were ‘Incomplete Release.’ Though it was still sorcery, just like what they used, what it signified was decisively different.

Ains turned the face he had been directing at Kirishiya toward Lizelotte with a look of surprise.

The instant Ains’s crimson magic eye tried to seize Lizelotte, Ains froze.

The threat of Lizelotte’s sorcery lay in its interference with the flow of time.

‘Arbitrary Flux (Flow): Acceleration (Accel)’ and ‘Arbitrary Flux (Flow): Stagnation (Stagnate)’—all of them were sorceries that freely manipulated the flow of time. Even this alone showed just how greatly Lizelotte’s sorcery distorted reason.

The march of time was the march of history. Rich men and paupers, heroes and barbarians alike—none could depart from the march forced upon them by that law.

But Lizelotte’s sorcery ignored it. Distorting reason, she walked as she pleased.

“…If only I had reached this point a little sooner…. You would never have gotten outside.”

As if regretting it, Lizelotte murmured while gazing at Ains, whose voice could not be raised, whose eyelids had stopped, and even whose heartbeat had ceased.

Lizelotte’s sorcery, “Incomplete Release: ‘Forced Stillness.’” This was a power that further sublimated the reason-distorting force held by Arbitrary Flux.

Arbitrary Flux could freely control the speed of that march, but it could not step outside the law of the flow of time. Even ‘Stagnation,’ which came infinitely close to stopping, was still bound by the flow of time. It could manipulate the speed of the march, but it could not stop the march itself.

However, ‘Forced Stillness’ distorted the law of time one step further still. In the form of the complete ‘stoppage’ of the flow of time.

“Seidel, take Kirishiya and go home.”

Without taking her eyes off Ains, Lizelotte gave the order to Seidel.

“…Yes.”

Seidel had not understood the scene before his eyes from Darius’s sorcery earlier up to this point. His thoughts had stopped, and he had merely been watching the passing scene.

At Lizelotte’s words, even if he had come back to himself, it was doubtful whether he had managed to sort things out. Seidel still stood in a muddy swamp of thought where he could not tell dream from reality.

“Lizelotte-sama, I…”

Kirishiya did not understand either. However, the one clear thing she had been thinking about with all her heart was whether she could give form to the justice she believed in.

That was why she was not confused like Seidel.

“Go home, Kirishiya. You are not to make me say the same thing twice.”

“No, I cannot go home! I am a princess of the Santia Kingdom, Lizelotte-sama! I must live for justice in order to protect good citizens. If I do not give it form—”

This was the first time Kirishiya had ever talked back to Lizelotte’s words.

Lizelotte was involuntarily surprised by this, but she also felt intense disgust toward Ains, who had starved Kirishiya for ‘justice’ to this extent and incited her with ‘sorcery.’

Kirishiya was a pure and kind child. What such a girl aspired to was radiant, and righteous.

But whether that could take form while retaining that brilliance, without casting even the slightest shadow and remaining beautiful, was another matter entirely.

“(Annoying though it is, there is some truth in what Ains said as well…)”

And Ains had incited Kirishiya while understanding all of that.

Lizelotte involuntarily clicked her tongue.

Mistaking that click of the tongue as having been directed at herself, Kirishiya’s shoulders gave a slight shake.

“Restriction Lifted: ‘Arbitrary Flux: Stagnation’”

Words spoken in a calm tone. And the sorcery directed toward Kirishiya.

Because of it, Kirishiya’s movements came to a near-complete halt in the middle of her words.

“…Seidel, hurry and take Kirishiya home. As I am now, I cannot keep Ains stopped forever.”

Using sorcery on Kirishiya had likely not been what Lizelotte truly wanted.

Seidel could read that feeling.

“As you command, Lizelotte-sama.”

Carrying Kirishiya’s light body on his back, Seidel left the scene.

Seidel, who served Kirishiya as his mistress, had his own thoughts on the matter, but even so, there was nothing he could do in this place. He had no choice but to obey Lizelotte’s words.