17

Ains pointed the Miracle Right Arm toward Lizelotte as she walked toward him.

“Stop with the transparent threats, Ains. I have no intention of using sorcery.”

“I wouldn’t mind making you use it once more right here. It’d be a somewhat forceful method, though.”

Ains stared at Lizelotte with a steady gaze.

“I am a sorcerer, and you are a sorcerer as well. My will shall not change. Then surely you understand that whatever result lies ahead would be pointless, do you not?”

“…”

“You should hurry up and take the Brandy girl and go home as well. This has become quite the uproar, but the grudge between you and me is our own affair. It would be irritating if Darte, Wenceslav, and the rest interfered. I shall let today pass without question.”

Ains, too, understood the meaning behind Lizelotte’s words.

Because he was a sorcerer.

Letting out a deep breath, Ains dismissed his right arm. Fastening the now-empty white glove to his right shoulder, he peeked at the book in Lizelotte’s hand as she passed by him.

(…“Memorandum of Loteria”? It’s giving off rather dense mana. I’ve never heard of that grimoire before, but is it a holy relic like the Original Canon?)

And so, amid the savage atmosphere that lingered, Lizelotte calmly showed her back to Ains and left the archive behind.

All that remained were Ains and the corpses of the kingdom’s knights.

Judging from Lizelotte’s state as well, a unit under the kingdom’s public order authority would likely arrive at the Sorcery Academy before long.

Ains wanted to leave this place as well before he got dragged into any troublesome business.

There was nothing left for him to do here anymore.

“…Heh heh heh, heh heh heh heh.”

The archive was littered with books. In that archive, where several knights’ corpses lay sprawled, the smell of rusted blood filled the air.

In the midst of that, Ains let out a quiet laugh by himself.

Its strangeness was eerie enough to suit Ains, who was called the Demon God.

Was he exhilarated because he had produced a new sorcerer in Darius, or was it excitement over Lizelotte’s sorcery having reached the realm of partial release?

After chuckling with his shoulders shaking, Ains looked up at the ceiling and murmured.

“…Even if I’m told to go home, I don’t know how I’m supposed to get back. Seidel-san isn’t here either, and if I’m alone I’ll get lost…”

It was neither of those.

Ains simply did not know the way back.

“…I wonder if Laika will come rescue me?”

After that, until Laika came in exasperation, Ains could do nothing but stand there feeling utterly pathetic.

When Laika saw the knights’ corpses, she mistakenly assumed Ains had done something reckless, shot him a cold look, and told him, “Turn yourself in.” Ains desperately explained himself and cleared up the misunderstanding, but that is another story.

“…Huh, where is this?”

When consciousness returned to Kirishiya, she realized that she was lying on a bed.

A ceiling she knew well, and a pillow familiar to her.

She understood that this was her own room.

“So it was Lizelotte-sama’s sorcery. …It was the first time I had ever received Lizelotte-sama’s sorcery upon this body…”

Kirishiya remembered facing that Lizelotte in the archive of the Sorcery Academy, and even going so far as to argue back against her words, and only now did it begin to terrify her.

Kirishiya’s final memory was of Lizelotte casting sorcery on her while wearing a sorrowful expression.

Lizelotte’s tone was always sharp, but even so, Kirishiya knew her kindness to the core of her being. Kirishiya had faintly realized it. Unlike her father Wenceslav and her elder brother Haral, Lizelotte was somewhat overprotective of Kirishiya.

It was not only once that she had wondered why it was only her.

That sorrowful expression of Lizelotte’s.

More vividly than the terror of having sorcery used on her, that expression of Lizelotte’s remained within Kirishiya.

Kirishiya sat up and looked out the window.

Outside, the sun had completely set, and she realized that quite a long time had passed since the incident in the archive.

A great deal had happened.

Now that the blood that had been boiling with agitation had completely calmed down, Kirishiya looked back on the affair in the archive, which she still could not fully comprehend even now.

There had been the assault by the Next-Era Luminaries, Darius’s involvement, and Darius awakening to sorcery and displaying astonishing power. And at his side had been Ains. Lizelotte had been there as well.

Rubelmel too, but that place had not been a battle between magicians as Kirishiya understood it.

As Kirishiya sat there absentmindedly gazing outside in thought, there came a knock on the door from outside.

“Excuse me, Kirishiya-sama. It is Seidel.”

“I just woke up. Please, come in.”

The door opened after waiting for Kirishiya’s reply.

Bowing once at the doorway, Seidel entered Kirishiya’s room.

“Kirishiya-sama, have you calmed down?”

“Yes. I’m embarrassed, realizing just how dreadful a thing I did by standing against Lizelotte-sama…”

She moved her gaze away from the window and toward Seidel.

“What happened after that? How was it… handled?”

The reason Seidel had come all the way to Kirishiya’s room was, along with checking on her condition, to report the outcome of the matter.

Seidel had carried Kirishiya on his back and left the archive. After both Lizelotte and Ains had departed, a unit of the kingdom’s knights and an investigative team rushed to the scene, recovered the bodies of the fallen knights, and investigated and recorded the traces of Rubelmel’s magic.

The members of the Next-Era Luminaries were not clearly identified.

Because of that, there were many unknowns regarding who could use what kind of magic, and no countermeasures could be prepared.

However, this time, Kirishiya, Seidel, and Lizelotte had all clearly seen Rubelmel’s face. As for her magic, Seidel had directly confronted it.

From now on, Rubelmel would likely no longer be able to move freely within the Santia Kingdom. Wanted notices were being spread, and she had become a fugitive.

As for Darius, Seidel’s report likewise stated that he had cooperated with Rubelmel in helping steal the original copy of the Original Canon, had taken part in the killing of knights, and had sided with the Next-Era Luminaries.

Naturally, just like Rubelmel, wanted notices on him would spread throughout the country.

And at the same time, there was the question of holding Marquis Zoin Sobi, head of the Sobi House, responsible. However, since this too had been Darius’s independent decision, and because he had left the Sobi House of his own will, the matter did not go so far as stripping Zoin Sobi of rank.

Partial compensation toward the cost of repairing the Sorcery Academy, and in addition a salary reduction for three years.

That was where the matter settled.