15

A red line, just like the previous wound, was drawn across his fair skin.

A single drop of blood dripped down, but Ains paid it no attention at all and merely spun his words.

“Pseudo-Release: ‘Benevolence Through Seizure.’”

Ains manifested sorcery again.

Once again, Lydia felt a slight sense of weakness.

Lydia continued focusing on the wound on Ains before her eyes.

Naturally, just like before, the wound vanished.

(This is different from what I heard. Wasn’t it sorcery that steals?)

Ains truly continued smiling with enjoyment.

“It has been a long time since I last dueled against a sorcerer, so my senses have dulled. Even I have not used the Incomplete Release of my right arm in a long time.”

The right hand hidden beneath the white glove looked, from the outside, like nothing more than an ordinary right arm. However, what was inside it was nothing but incomprehensible and bizarre.

“Now I get why the Witch is obsessed…”

“Come to think of it, you said you met Lizelotte-san, who is called the Witch. It seems she did not show it to you.”

“Show me what?”

“She can use the Incomplete Release of sorcery too, you know? I have actually received her Incomplete Release sorcery myself, but that is amazing. I still have not fully seen through it, so I have not been able to discern it yet. Yes, that one is amazing!”

“The Witch too…”

Lydia trembled.

She had never imagined that the opponent she had faced without being able to do anything had been holding back. Lizelotte had also stood on the same stage as Ains, yet during her confrontation with Lydia, she had used sorcery while matching Lydia’s stage.

She could not win.

Lydia keenly felt that she had truly been a frog in a well. As she was now, she could not compete with those two at all.

In that case, the action Lydia should take next naturally became clear.

(I have to escape from this place no matter what.)

It was not something Lydia thought at all, but the Ains facing her recognized this confrontation with Lydia as a duel.

If he regarded it as a duel rather than a match, then its endpoint was clear. After all, it was a simple duel with no conditions set whatsoever.

“Aren’t you coming? Personally, I would not mind teaching you more. I am in a very good mood right now.”

“Hey, hey, that’s as tactless as it gets. Don’t provoke me like that. My strategy is to take the counter after the opponent moves.”

Lydia showed a gesture of shrugging her shoulders, but she had only been thinking about how to survive this situation.

For the time being, Lydia tried to put on an act so as not to show her impatience, but after saying it, she mocked herself, thinking that such acting was probably meaningless before Ains’s mystic eye.

“Then I will go first. Pseudo-Release: ‘Benevolence Through Seizure.’”

Ains set Lydia as the source of mana.

All living things possessed mana. And “Benevolence Through Seizure” affirmed the act of stealing mana without another person’s permission.

The sense of weakness that assaulted Lydia was stronger than during the two previous manifestations of sorcery.

It was such a sudden sense of weakness that her vision blacked out for an instant.

(There’s someone in this world who uses such an absurd sorcery…? What kind of cruel desire would you have to hold to awaken to this sorcery!)

Assailed by a sense of weakness similar to a hangover the day after downing alcohol, Lydia still did not collapse before Ains.

“There is nothing easier than using another person’s mana. In addition, this sorcery’s restriction and sorcery effect. I cannot help looking forward to what lies beyond them. —Overheat.”

Mana erupted from Ains’s entire body.

Overheat, which filled the entire body with mana while ignoring the fuel efficiency of mana consumption, explosively increased not only physical enhancement but even the speed and power of magic manifestation.

As if it were teleportation, Ains rushed into Lydia’s chest in an instant, in a movement resembling “Mirror Passage,” and cold sweat seeped from Lydia.

“I could use magic in this state too, but that would not be interesting for you either, would it?”

“What are you—”

Ains, who had closed in to within arm’s reach, placed his right hand against Lydia’s abdomen.

He concentrated the destination of the mana constantly overflowing from his entire body into the palm of his right hand.

“!!”

At the same time as the mana Ains had been wearing like a haze vanished, Lydia felt death.

What would happen if the enormous mana that continued to be released was discharged from a single point in his palm? And what would happen to Lydia, who was being touched by that palm?

Before thinking, Lydia manifested her sorcery.

(Anywhere is fine! I just have to get into a path for now!)

Ains’s palm strike possessed instantaneous speed. It was a blow that a swordsman, mage, or a sorcerer without a specific authority would be certain to receive.

Fortunately, however, Lydia’s sorcery surpassed Ains’s instantaneous blow.

It was almost simultaneous, or perhaps Lydia entered the sorcery path slightly earlier.

Lydia’s body, against which his right hand had been placed, vanished soundlessly.

Ains’s palm strike released into empty air caused a small explosion of mana and smashed the study window located some distance away from his right hand.

The window frame and glass were blown outside into the darkness in tiny pieces, and the night wind blew in.

“Come now, you have to keep moving hard, or you will end up vomiting everything you ate today, you know?”

Ains turned toward Lydia, who had moved, with a broad smile, and Lydia looked as if she had bitten down on something bitter.

“If vomiting is all it takes, I’d stick my fingers down my throat and throw up right now.”

Lydia could only answer with sarcasm.

“Ahaha.”

(What are you laughing so innocently for, you bastard!)

Even knowing that it would only be a drop in the bucket, Lydia took out several silver needles.

Ains turned his body toward Lydia again and aimed for a follow-up attack.

“I have already seen that. But I dislike making wounds too. If I steal any more mana from you, you will dry up before the conclusion.”

While checking the sensation in his right hand, Ains suddenly murmured as if remembering something.

“…I see. This was still the first time.”

“?”

At Lydia, who furrowed her brows, Ains lowered the tone of his voice. For an instant, his eyes showed a color of sadness.

“…Oath. In place of the sorcerer who was conformed to the laws of the world, Ains Silvetas shall inherit the Heroic Spirit’s restriction when using sorcery. May that sorcery reach □□. —Pseudo-Release: ‘Black Flame (Volition).’”

A black flame lit at Ains’s chest.

A black that was black to the very end, black enough to swallow every color.

It stretched from Ains’s chest to his right arm, wrapping around the right hand fitted with the white glove.

It was sorcery handled by the Black Flame sorcerer, whom only Ains remembered in this world.

Having touched a restriction and been conformed to the laws of the world, even mourning that death was not permitted to others. The black flame that Sophia should have seen had left not a single thing within her.

The wish of a sorcerer cut short midway. A technique that interfered with the laws.

Ains inherited all of that distortion while mourning that sorcerer.