10

A dark crimson flame was born at Shiala’s chest. It gradually grew larger, wrapping around her right arm and all the way to the tips of her fingers.

“Since we’re enemies, I’ll offer a bit of advice. …Brace yourselves. The one you’re facing now isn’t the nameless girl who was only ever exploited. She is a sorceress—a single mage named Shiala, the Black-Flame Sorceress.”

The black flames released from Shiala’s right hand surged forth at her will, swallowing the building and burning it to nothing.

Talidge and the other men all dodged the flames, barely managing to weather them.

By the time the black flames subsided, the building had vanished without a trace, and they found themselves standing in the wide street of the commercial district.

“…I suppose I’ll have to deal with you myself.”

Ains said this as he turned toward Talidge, stepping away from Shiala.

Talidge quietly followed Ains.

As Ains and Shiala split into two fronts, Sophia hesitated, unable to decide whom to accompany.

Normally, she would not hesitate to go to Ains’s side. But after witnessing the earlier “questioning” between Ains and Shiala, she felt uneasy about the shifts in Shiala’s heart.

Shiala had obtained tremendous power through sorcery, and the ominous nature of the magic she manifested gave Sophia a different kind of unease than Ains’s Miracle Right Arm.

Added to that was the intense killing intent—an emotion wholly unfit for a young girl. Sophia sensed that Shiala’s overwhelming will to eliminate any and all harm directed at her, regardless of scale, and the hatred underlying it, might be pushing her toward self-destruction.

‘Ains-sama went so far to save her… I don’t want her to die here, but…’

As Sophia walked, Ains spoke to her.

“Sophia. If you don’t want Shiala to die, then stay with her. And this will be difficult, but you’ll have to maneuver so that her mother’s pendant does not end up in Shiala’s hands.”

“W-What?”

Sophia cried out in surprise, but Ains did not elaborate.

‘Shiala came here to take back the pendant. Ains-sama must have known that. But what he just said contradicts that. What does it mean?’

Sophia could not understand Ains’s words at all, but she did not believe he would speak without reason. There had to be something behind it—that much she accepted.

Turning her back on Ains, Sophia headed toward Shiala.

“Shiala, there are too many opponents. You mustn’t overdo it. I picked up a sword inside the building earlier. Let’s divide the work.”

Sophia called out to Shiala’s small back.

“…I don’t need you. I’ll deal with all of them myself.”

Shiala rejected Sophia’s help outright.

Ahead of Shiala stood more than ten men with vicious expressions and weapons in hand. Among them, of course, was the man holding the pendant that was her mother’s keepsake.

Wary of the black-flame sorcery Shiala had just unleashed, the men began spreading out, surrounding her.

Sophia watched their coordination with alarm. She had yet to fully grasp the nature of Shiala’s magic, and the threat posed by being encircled weighed heavily on her mind.

The men communicated without words, exchanging only glances.

One man sprang out from Shiala’s left.

His poorly maintained sword had a dead edge, reduced to little more than a blunt club.

Even so, when swung with full force by a grown man, such a weapon could easily shatter a girl’s bones—if it struck a vital point, it could even be fatal.

These men had not survived as criminals in the royal capital by chance. When abusing a girl not yet an adult, people often hesitate or subconsciously hold back. But these men harbored no such softness. In the world of criminals, those who indulged in mercy were the first to die.

The man raising his sword regarded Shiala as a full-fledged enemy, his eyes filled with pure killing intent.

As his weapon closed to striking distance, the black flame flickering at Shiala’s chest writhed ominously and spread thinly between them, forming a wall.

“Even if fire clings to my sword, I’ll split your skull and send you clean to the other side!”

The man assumed Shiala’s black flame was a fire-based spell. Even one powerful enough to burn down a building would take some time before it could fully consume a sword. In that window, he could crush her soft brain and end it.

He brought the sword down with all his might.

“…Huh?”

There was no sensation in his hands. No impact—only the sickening feeling of cutting through empty air.

The thin wall of black flame vanished.

The blade of the sword he held was gone. The instant it touched the black flame, it had been burned away.

“W-What the hell was that…? That flame!”

The man leapt back, putting distance between himself and Shiala.

“I won’t let you get away!”

The essence of Shiala’s sorcery, Black Flame Will, was the elimination of harm directed at her. It merely manifested in the form of “flame.” It was not fire.

The defective sword swung at Shiala was itself a manifestation of harm. There was no reason for her sorcery not to eliminate it—so it erased it instantly, leaving not even ash.

The black flame that had formed a wall now stretched out like a tentacle toward the retreating man’s right arm, wrapping around it.

“Damn it, what is this!? It won’t come off!”

The coiling tendril engulfed his right arm and began to burn it away.

The sword blade swung at Shiala was harm itself. And if that was so, then the right arm that wielded it was also recognized as harm by Shiala’s sorcery.

Eliminating harm—that was the core, the will, of Shiala’s magic.

The man desperately tried to beat the flames away with his left hand, but they would not vanish. The stench of rancid fat charring filled the air as flesh and bone were consumed.

And the agony assaulting the man was not limited to the burning of his right arm alone.