13

“Yeah, yeah, sorcerer. Whatever. Just finish it already. Even if I leave this place, I’ll probably be punished once I go back to the Sobi house anyway.”

Talidge’s contribution as a retainer of the Sobi family had been minimal.

His plan to make up for that by delivering the holy relic to Darius was clearly doomed to fail if Ains stood in his way—there was no chance Talidge’s companions could succeed.

Talidge had given up on many things.

“You’ve stirred my interest this much. I’m not bound by any oath, but parting ways here would make even me question my humanity.”

Talidge let out a short laugh at those words. Their acquaintance had been brief, but he never expected the word “humanity” to come out of Ains’s mouth—it simply did not suit him.

Talidge raised the face he had lowered and stared at Ains.

Unlike himself, Ains was neither sweating nor injured, standing there with a cool, untroubled expression.

At that moment, Talidge caught the words Ains murmured.

“—Limited Release: Clockwork Magic Eye.”

The cloudy right eye of Ains slowly bled crimson from within.

A vivid red, as if it had drunk blood.

“…I see.”

That scarlet gaze pierced Talidge.

“…Talidge. Are you really going to give up here?”

After a brief moment of being fixed by those red eyes, Ains finally spoke.

“Huh? That’s none of your business. I’m already… done. I can’t do it anymore.”

Talidge could no longer envision himself going any further from this point.

“I can show you what you seek.”

“What?”

Talidge frowned as he stared at Ains.

“It won’t be immediate. But I can show you what lies beyond.”

“Are you out of your mind? Or are you just mocking me?”

There was no point in explaining things to Ains, but Talidge had devoted himself to swordsmanship with blood-soaked effort—far beyond what ordinary people could imagine. All of it had been for the sake of his goal.

“I’m saying this as a sorcerer standing here. I wouldn’t say it as a joke or out of whim, would I?”

“At this point, even if I learned from someone else, it wouldn’t—”

“Talidge, take up your sword. We’re starting a Q&A.”

Talidge snapped to attention, grasping his sword and taking a stance.

Ains’s presence changed completely. The pressure he radiated was incomparable to before.

Talidge felt cold sweat burst from his skin.

“…Overheat.”

Mana began to erupt from Ains’s entire body.

The immense quantity of mana he had compressed within seemed unable to fit inside its vessel any longer, overflowing outward.

“Abbreviated Chant: Simultaneous Reenactment.”

Up until now, Ains had manifested arms made real by mana from his left shoulder.

This spell allowed him to freely choose what to reenact and over what range. However, when reenacting over a wide area, the increased complexity of movement caused the effectiveness of manifestation to drop proportionally.

Thus, to achieve high effectiveness, reenactment had to be limited to localized parts such as arms.

But this time, what Ains reenacted was not just his left arm.

His entire body.

What took form through mana was a duplicate that even radiated Ains’s own oppressive presence. There were slight differences—such as hair length—between the original and the two manifested bodies, but they were unmistakably Ains.

“…Divine Art, True Triple. Hah! What kind of nonsense is that. It’s honestly laughable…”

Yet the blue and red eyes of Ains were fixed on Talidge with utter seriousness, focusing on him with an intensity never shown before.

That alone made Talidge happy.

His intuition spoke to him once again.

From here, from this very moment, Talidge could advance one step—no, several steps further.

“Talidge. You need to elevate it into a Divine Art through your own power. But I’ll conduct the Q&A you need to reach it.”

Ains and his doubles charged at Talidge.

Every one of them moved as if they had perfectly read Talidge’s actions in advance. Feints were useless. Surprise attacks meant nothing.

It was like the ultimate form of mind’s eye—the pinnacle of swordsmanship.

“I don’t stand a chance. But this is damn fun!”

Talidge’s heart pounded. His body trembled. A warrior’s thrill coursed through him.

Like a child holding a sword for the first time clashing with a master swordsman, it was a one-sided, miserable exchange of blows—but it drove Talidge onward.

“This is… honestly…”

Sofia murmured behind Shiera.

She could only stand there, speechless at the sight before her.

The unknown power—this magic shaped like flames—that the young girl Shiera wielded was slaughtering her enemies one-sidedly, and Sofia’s body would not move.

Flames that could have taken each life in an instant instead inflicted maddening agony before finally claiming them.

A freely moving, shape-shifting scythe of death. Flames burning at the edge of hell.

All of it was born from the small chest of a young girl.

Strangely—eerily—there was no wind here at all. Only the stench of burning human flesh hung in the air. The sounds that reached her ears were the distant clash of blades between Ains and Talidge, the dying screams and sobs of the enemies, and the crackle of flesh burning.

Charred viscera littered the ground. Corpses that barely retained their shape were crushed under Shiera’s feet without her averting her gaze.

This gruesome, nauseating spectacle—one that even grown adults could not endure—was something Shiera had completely blended into.

Only two enemies remained.

Even among the bodies that still retained some form, there were few left; most had been burned away without leaving even ash behind.

“…You’re next.”

Shiera’s short, childlike arm pointed at a man who could barely stand, his knees shaking as he clutched his sword.

Tears streamed down the man’s face at the sight before him. Terror seized his heart as that youthful hand was aimed at him.

His heart, clenched tight by fear, would not function properly.

Breathing became impossible. He began to hyperventilate, choking on his panic.

“…A-at least… make it quick… p-please…”