48

Thud thud thud

Three blue swords plunged into the spot where Hamel had stood.

Agnes’s magic swords drew meteor-like arcs and lightly gouged the wall.

Dodging the attacks like flowing water, Hamel thought.

‘First, I should close the distance.’

Hamel gathered strength in his legs and sprinted toward Agnes.

His steps were light.

With each step the floor dented and left afterimages.

But Agnes’s eyes caught that precise movement of Hamel.

Bang!

Noticing Agnes’s gaze fixed on him, Hamel twisted his body hastily.

At the same time he narrowly avoided a sword flying straight at him.

If he had kept running straight at Agnes he would have been struck.

Hamel did not stop.

He continued to run in a zigzag pattern.

When it seemed he would be surrounded by swords, he leapt and ran along the Magic Tower’s walls.

If needed he leapt across desks in the lobby.

Books and papers on the desks fluttered everywhere.

A rain of swords flew relentlessly, and Hamel kept evading them.

The glancing blades scattered wood and stone fragments, but Hamel dodged obstacles like a performer, steadily closing the distance on Agnes.

How much time had passed like that?

‘Now.’

Hamel realized it instinctively.

Crack

Hamel’s form slammed into the ground and shot forward in a straight line.

Agnes saw it but couldn’t react in time.

She hadn’t even closed her eyes, yet the opponent who’d been ten meters ahead now had a blade at her throat.

‘Slice.’

Hamel did not hesitate.

Agnes had been willing to risk her life ever since she entrusted her body to an enemy mimicking the tower master.

Hamel respected her choice and resolve.

So he swung his sword without wavering.

However.

Clang!

A thick steel blade slid between Hamel and Agnes.

Hamel’s attack struck the sword with sparks but did not reach Agnes.

Ego Sword, the ‘Shield Sword.’

One of the magical tools possessed by the Sword Mage Agnes Lowell.

Hamel had no way of knowing, but it was a device that automatically defends if its user’s life is in danger.

‘…It’s coming!’

Hamel felt a violent presence from behind and flinched back.

Moments later, a sword swept fiercely through the spot where he’d stood.

A white sword that scattered chill air.

This too was Agnes’s Ego Sword, the ‘Ice Sword,’ a device that automatically attacks enemies within a certain radius.

“So she had a hidden trick…”

Hamel clicked his tongue and kept running.

Even if he retreated, he couldn’t stop for a moment.

Thud thud thud!

Because swords formed from Agnes’s mana kept pouring down on Hamel.

Overwhelming at range, yet sufficiently defended at close quarters as well.

This was the mage called Agnes.

From the Colorless Magic Tower in the east, to the northern noble house Glenval, to the veiled western Ashitaka.

Her monstrous skill was such that in duels she would not be outmatched by any of the three great powers.

In some ways it was strange that Hamel was facing her head-on.

Members of the order led by the Exorcist priests were not specialized for duels.

Exorcist priests were, above all, specialized in banishing demons.

Their field was different.

But Hamel was different.

Whoosh!

Hamel nimbly dodged a pillar-sized sword swung at him and threw two throwing daggers.

The blackened daggers lurked in the shadows and surged toward Agnes, but the Shield Sword calmly blocked them.

It even intercepted attacks the user did not consciously perceive.

“As I thought, this won’t work either.”

Hamel muttered with a hint of regret.

He had never expected to topple her easily.

That an Exorcist priest like him could hold an even fight against Agnes, the Magic Tower’s second-in-command and one of the mages’ top talents, was remarkable in itself.

If he hadn’t drunk the dragon’s blood, he would already be a corpse.

Though that attack fizzled too, Hamel didn’t stop.

He continued to close in and swing his blade.

And as those blows piled up.

At some moment.

Ssshh

Hamel’s sword grazed near her throat.

A thin red line appeared and a little blood welled out.

“…”

Pattern.

It was the result of a difference in the variety of attacks.

The Ice Sword’s attack patterns and the Shield Sword’s defensive patterns were limited in number.

How it reacted to Hamel’s attacks, or how it moved to defend.

The opponent had excellent devices but was not a seasoned swordsman.

It simply moved according to set rituals.

It may seem a simple solution, but only a handful of people could pull off such maneuvers.

Most would have their heads cut off or bellies pierced before they learned the patterns.

‘It hit.’

Hamel was sure he hadn’t been wrong.

At the same time, as if thinking this wouldn’t do, Agnes summoned dozens of mana blades behind her.

The dozens of swords hovering in the air began to twirl in a circle.

The swords’ whirl.

Her signature magic and finishing move.

It meant she intended to finish it now.

Hamel could sense an ominous sign in the magic’s prelude.

But he had no intention of fleeing.

“Come.”

Hamel said calmly and steadied his breath.

Excited breaths scattered from his mouth with each exhale.

As Hamel inhaled deeply, Agnes’s staff pointed at him.

The dozens of circling swords crushed everything and surged toward Hamel.

“…Now!”

Hamel gathered power in his legs and stamped the ground hard.

Spell word.

[Katico Deoriasia]

Thrum

With a heavy vibration, the Magic Tower’s floor caved in.

Then, in the next moment, the caved-in floor around Hamel erupted upward like an explosion.

Huge rocks rose up and blocked the flying swords’ whirl.

But….

Kwa-ga-ga-ga-gak

The rocks could not stop the swords.

They only bought a moment, the swords pulverized the rocks and kept advancing.

But that was enough.

Because Hamel was already gone from where the sword-wheel had pierced through the rocks.

Rocks grated away, raising a thick cloud of sand.

Whoosh

Hamel cut through the dust and had already gotten behind Agnes.

When he swung his blade, Agnes’s Shield Sword quickly blocked it.

Hamel simply let go of the sword.

Hamel’s sword rebounded from the Shield Sword and spun into the air, but his hand was already gripping Agnes’s slender neck.

Crack

The belated Ice Sword’s swing had been anticipated, so Hamel raised his other hand and caught the blade.

The sword that pierced through scales sliced Hamel’s arm halfway and froze it, but it did not kill him.

In short……

“It’s over.”

Hamel tightened his grip on her throat.

With a sickening sound, veins stood out on Agnes’s neck.

Applying force half-heartedly would only prolong the suffering.

Just as he was about to apply decisive force to snap her neck.

“Stop, Hamel!”

A familiar voice stopped Hamel.

Hamel turned his head to look toward the sound.

There stood Ono, covered in wounds.

And in front of him the tower master was collapsed, bound in massive plant vines.

He had succeeded in subduing the creature.

Agnes’s body sagged with a dull thud.

“…”

Hamel carefully relaxed his hand and checked her pulse.

A faint but steady pulse.

Her life was not in danger.

‘That magic…’

Seemed to have been released.

The threads of mana that had bound her were no longer visible.

“Is it over?”

He had steeled himself, but he did not want to kill her with his own hands.

If he’d killed her, another shadow would have followed Hamel for the rest of his life.

Hamel felt deep relief and laid Agnes’s body on the floor.

Then he looked at Ono, who had detained the tower master.

“You’ve done well, Mr. Ono.”

“Yeah. It was rough. I thought I might die fighting around whoever was rampaging.”

Come to think of it, the scratches on Ono’s body weren’t from magic.

They looked like rips from stone shards, dust caked all over him.

Who would have done that was obvious.

“Sorry. There wasn’t time.”

“I’m joking, but come here quickly. We caught it, but it felt too easy….”

As Ono spoke, uneasy, it was at that moment.

Step

Since when had someone been there?

A child in a Magic Tower student’s robe approached behind Ono.

Hamel was the first to notice something odd.

“Behind you!”

“Hm?”

Ono frowned and turned his body.

A male student was looking up at Ono.

But his eyes were strange.

Something colorful seemed to writhe inside his eyes.

The next moment.

Squelch

A sharp blade plunged deep into Ono’s abdomen.

A cold, searing sensation.

The blade churned his internal organs wildly.

“…You son of a bitch.”

Ono smashed the student’s head—who’d plunged the dagger into his belly—with his mace.

The head burst open and a larva that had been parasitizing the eye popped out.

Leucochloridium.

A parasitic demon that controls its host.

The creature disguised as the tower master had secretly implanted it into the student.

Although the mind-control magic had been undone by the contract, they hadn’t expected demons to have been implanted in advance.

And then.

Squelch

“…!”

Another dagger sank into Ono’s back.

There was more than one student possessed by demons.

Over ten students surrounded Ono.

“Ono!”

It was when Hamel was sprinting toward him.

Rustle

The tower master’s body, tightly bound in plants like a cast-off skin, writhed.

As if shedding its shell, a black-haired woman painfully pushed free from the plant bindings.

She staggered and began to run.

She’s the one.

The culprit who mimicked the tower master and wrecked the Mage Tower.

“…”

But Hamel did not pursue her.

Saving Ono came first.

Hamel swung his sword without hesitation at the students surrounding Ono.

Screech

A chilling slicing sound rang out.

The demons, severed along with the students’ skulls, writhed and fell to the floor.

Once a demon had burrowed into the head, the person was effectively dead, but that didn’t feel right.

While Hamel dispatched the parasitic demons, the woman had already dashed out of the Magic Tower.

“Crazy… You caught a high-rank mage alone? So is it true you caught a super-class demon too?”

The horrified woman hurriedly touched her neck.

A hidden tattoo seemed to creep up.

Crackle

The woman’s lower body burst in an instant and swelled monstrously.

Eight long black, leg-like blades rose up.

A spider-shaped lower body.

An upper-tier demon, Arachne.

Someone who had just been human had suddenly become a demon.

She began to flee at even greater speed.

Hamel flinched at that for a moment, then quickly checked Ono’s condition.

There were three blades lodged in him: two in the abdomen and one in the back.

“…”

Hamel carefully reached out and placed his hand over Ono’s nose.

Then he remained still.

He stood like that for a long while.

But even standing there.

No matter how much time passed.

Nothing changed.

Ono no longer breathed.