Volume 1: Enrollment at Magias Academy of Magical Arts
Chapter 17: Everyone’s Going to Die!
When Gerald and I landed at the blast site in the Central Tower, the flames were gone. In their place stood a solitary old woman.
“Oh?”
The stooped woman looked as though she belonged in a rocking chair with knitting in her hands. She turned when she noticed us. I’d never seen her at the academy before.
“That’s Vice Principal Gertrude,” Gerald said.
I stopped short.
I see. Then she must have extinguished the flames.
“Are you boys from the Emperor Faculty?”
“Indeed.”
Gerald answered before I could.
Indeed, he said.
“I am Gerald Whitesmith, first year of the Grand Magical Emperor Faculty. I have come to resolve this emergency. I shall reclaim the barrier, while this man repairs the tower.”
Gerald acted superior even toward Professor Blanchard, yet now he was practically bowing and scraping. I’d have to look into the vice principal’s background sometime—assuming we survived.
“That’s all well and good, but are you sure? The principal is supporting it for now, but as you can see, one of the main pillars has been destroyed.”
Supporting it?
What did she just say?
Did she mean one person was keeping this whole tower from collapsing through sheer power? Was something that superhuman even possible?
Weren’t the most important staff members weakened by the barrier? Could he be doing that even now? No. Questions could wait. If he was buying us time, there was no reason to waste it.
“I’m Brendan Walker, representative of the Emperor Faculty. I’ll repair the tower.”
“Walker?”
The vice principal peered at me through eyes so narrow I couldn’t tell whether they were open. Her gaze settled around my waist, on the magical catalyst hammer Grandpa had given me.
“Ah, I see. Then I’ll leave this to you. I’m going to do something about that ring.”
“We will not disappoint you,” Gerald said.
He bowed deeply. Vice Principal Gertrude smiled, then stepped through the blasted-open outer wall.
She appeared to simply fall, but she was probably fine.
I had to focus on my own job.
“We split up here.”
“Agreed. We’ll remain close. Share any developments.”
With that, Gerald floated out through the opening and flew higher. He remained a man of many mysteries, but right now, his presence was reassuring.
I surveyed the damage.
Just as I expected, the central support column was exposed, and nearly half of it was gone. Every floor above this one leaned far enough to be obvious to the naked eye.
Fortunately, we’d arrived quickly.
There was still something I could do.
I channeled magic into my hammer and struck the column.
A moment later, the walls and floor across the level grew thinner. The missing section of the central column swelled by the same amount.
First, I needed material.
I gathered enough substance from the surrounding slabs and walls to reinforce the missing portion.
I couldn’t use it as-is. Refinement would have to compress the material and increase its density while removing impurities that served no structural purpose.
I swung the hammer again, harder this time.
The floor disappeared inward from its edges. The stolen matter became building material and forge-welded itself onto the column.
By the sixth hammer blow, the missing section was almost completely restored.
The level where I stood, along with those above and below it, had been reduced to little more than a skeleton with only the minimum necessary footing. This area wouldn’t be usable for a long time, but there was no alternative.
If the principal really was holding up the tower alone, even this should reduce the burden on him.
But the real work started now.
Leave it alone, and the collapse would resume immediately.
I had to reinforce the structure with Refinement so it could withstand the abnormal stress created by its uneven tilt.
I’d never forged anything this enormous, but compared to a magic sword’s incomprehensible internal structure, the work itself was simple.
I gathered every drop of magic I possessed into the hammer and struck the core.
Stronger. Harder. Tougher.
A sound like a great bell rang through the tower.
It felt as though the structure had regained just a little of its ability to stand on its own.
◇
Not long after entering the basement, Wilhelm became aware of the flies interfering with his plan.
“Hmm.”
He stopped in a dim corridor and listened to the commotion beyond the ceiling.
Control of the barrier allowed Wilhelm to know who was where. That was precisely why he found it so baffling that no one had died yet.
He had intended to sever their command structure, yet the Magias side still showed signs of coordination.
He had thought he’d neutralized almost every major Magias combatant. Apparently, however, this year’s incoming class was exceptional.
So Magias intended to survive the attack by shamelessly exploiting first-year children.
The ordinary Magical Arts Faculty was full of weaklings, and its students had no contractual obligation to respond in the first place. Excluding outside reinforcements, reliance on the Emperor Faculty was indeed the only remaining option.
The magical-control interference was powerful, but once its targets had been selected, it couldn’t easily be redirected.
In other words, Wilhelm would have to face the approaching youths himself.
“Take this!”
Wilhelm elegantly dodged Gary’s lightning spear without even looking. The color of the uniform that flashed past confirmed his suspicion: a first-year Grand Magical Emperor Faculty student.
There were three of them.
One dark-skinned young man who had just arrived.
Two women positioned on opposite sides of Wilhelm.
One was a petite girl with dark-blue hair. The other was a tall, strongly built young woman with brown hair.
The brown-haired woman carried an unusually shaped longsword.
A weapon of the Hinoe Single-Sword Style.
Then she must be the rumored daughter of the Sword Saint.
“My, my. You found me sooner than expected. Very well. Your senior will play with—”
A flash from Mercedes cut off Wilhelm’s taunting smile without warning.
She drew and slashed for his neck without hesitation. He barely managed to deploy a buckler-sized barrier in time to stop the blade.
Fast—no. Heavy.
What was this magical coefficient?
Even if this woman belonged to the Emperor Faculty, hadn’t she only just entered Magias?
“This is Mercedes. Target acquired in Basement Sector Thirteen. Commencing engagement. Gary, Amae, cover my openings.”
The woman touched a hand to her ear, still regarding him with cold contempt. She was likely sending telepathy to her allies over a private channel.
“Amae copies.”
“Let’s finish this fast.”
The instant all three assumed combat stances, Wilhelm stopped viewing the mages before him as adorable juniors. They were enemies obstructing his plan.
And if they were enemies, it couldn’t be helped.
He regretted extinguishing such promising young lives, but they must be acting under formal orders.
They could hardly complain if they died gruesomely here.
◇
When Gerald Whitesmith reached the protective barrier’s control room, every operator lay on the floor, unconscious and foaming at the mouth—just as he’d expected.
He had allowed for the possibility that the dedicated casters who monitored and inspected the system had already been incapacitated or killed. His prediction had proven correct.
They’re breathing.
After confirming only their vital signs, he looked toward the center of the room. A massive sphere formed from an enormous quantity of magical language floated there. That had to be the core formula.
Gerald immediately opened the control panel and examined the spell structure. First he had to determine precisely how the barrier was currently operating.
As expected, its command priorities were a mess.
Functions that should have been neatly partitioned into defense, detection, communication, protection, and other roles had all been rewritten from the foundation to place Wilhelm above every other priority.
The existing structure remained intact, while only the deep command hierarchy had been cleverly replaced. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the entire Magias campus had become a simulated extension of Wilhelm’s domain.
Most notable was the addition of a new function.
As far as Gerald knew, the Magias protective barrier had never possessed anything resembling magical-control interference.
Wilhelm had presumably combined numerous existing functions into a complex system that produced an effect absent from the original design.
It was also impressive that the system had been designed to keep running as long as magic continued to flow from the great ley line.
The crime had been engineered so the severely weakened people of Magias would have front-row seats while their workplace, students, and innocent spectators were trampled, forcing them to confront their own helplessness.
It was a feat only an extraordinarily spiteful and obsessive person could have achieved.
Gerald could not begin to understand Wilhelm’s ideology or motives, but he had to acknowledge the man’s barrier-engineering skill.
Then there were the endless hordes of magical beasts, purchased at immense personal expense, and the mysterious transfer technology bringing them to this location.
Wilhelm had indeed come prepared to attack Magias, an institution said to rival an entire army division.
Had he not chosen his weakening priorities incorrectly, this might truly have become a catastrophe recorded in history.
“Right.”
Gerald quickly rewrote part of the spell syntax and moved on.
As he suspected, Wilhelm had planned for a short battle and installed no protection against the system being reclaimed.
He had feared discovery of his preparations so much that changing a few critical points was enough to tip the system back toward normal. Even so, there was no time to restore everything from scratch.
Luluk was already simulating the information-sharing, alarm, and surveillance functions.
Brendan was handling the Central Tower.
The faculty and security personnel were dealing with the magical beasts.
That left two priorities: remove the weakening effect and protect the spectators.
Restoring those functions would be Gerald’s most efficient contribution.
The knots in the program had all been tied in the same predictable places. Gerald merely had to follow a straight road and pick up the stones lying along its edge.
A very simple task—from his perspective.
The spectators evacuated swiftly. Control of the barrier returned little by little.
Moreover, the Central Tower’s condition was improving at a remarkable rate.
Not bad command.
And Refinement magic of an exceptionally high standard.
Walker appeared to possess enough ability to justify calling himself the Emperor Faculty’s representative.
All the more reason Gerald Whitesmith could not allow himself to lose.
“Hah…”
A smile escaped him naturally.
He decided to consider the reason later.
◇
“They’re stupidly tough! What the hell are these things?”
Elfin Jare, professor of Ancient Magic, spat the words and clicked her tongue for what felt like the hundredth time.
A swarm of crustacean magical beasts in thick shells crowded before her.
Their armor was every bit as strong as it looked. Each required more than ten solid hits before it fell.
Ordinarily, Elfin would have made short work of them. The difficulty came entirely from the barrier suppressing her Dragoon spell to less than twenty percent output.
The beasts were slow, but their killing power was high.
If a first-year witch from the Emperor Faculty hadn’t directed the evacuation routes away from them, the death toll would already have been enormous.
“Wil-helm…!”
A curse seeped through Elfin’s teeth.
They never should have tried him through proper procedure.
Without that man, the nameless infant, the wandering old man, and everyone here would have been spared their suffering.
Calm down.
Everyone’s cooperation had kept the situation one step short of disaster so far.
Elfin Jare’s job was to keep the beasts away from the evacuation routes. Quickly and certainly. Quickly and certainly, while maintaining a broad view of the battlefield.
“Waaah! He cut off the communications network outside too!”
A black-haired female student clutched her head and screamed behind Elfin. The two had happened to be walking together during the match.
She was also a member of the Grand Magical Emperor Faculty—an upper-course student and one of Brendan’s seniors.
Naturally, she had received emergency-response orders.
But the magical-control interference had targeted her as well, leaving her in no mental state to fight.
“It’s over! We’re going to die! Everyone’s going to die!”
“Hey, Nico! Quit panicking and help me!”
“No! I’m scared! Save me, God! Please, God!”
Regrettably, she was useless.
She had always been timid, so Elfin could hardly blame her.
Elfin turned to send her away with the spectators—and caught sight of a beast charging straight toward the girl called Nico.
“Nico! Run!”
“Eek!?”
Too late.
The instant Elfin resolved to take the blow in Nico’s place, a translucent giant emerged from the girl’s back.
“What!?”
The giant leaped forward to shield Nico and drove its right fist into the approaching beast’s belly. The counterstrike carried enough power to knock the breath from it.
Nico Bright’s The Lord Is Present (Phantom Order) had activated.
Moments ago, she hadn’t even been capable of producing a barrier.
Which meant—
“H-Hey, Nico! Your magic’s coming back!”
“Huh? Wh-What? It is! Ah! Ahahahahaha! G-God!”
As Nico burst into unnatural, rattling laughter and tears, Elfin sensed her own condition improving as well.
Was someone reclaiming control of the barrier?
She was still far from full power, but this was enough to fight back.
“God! God came! An angel of God!”
“All right! Follow me, Nico! We’re pushing them back!”
◇
Their response was faster than expected.
Without taking his attention from the enemies before him, Wilhelm once again surveyed his circumstances.
Someone was attempting to reclaim the barrier.
Who?
He had marked and neutralized every person involved with the protective barrier beforehand.
Almost no one currently on the Magias grounds should be capable of repairing it.
No, that wasn’t even the real issue.
Wilhelm, a once-in-a-generation genius, had seized and encrypted the spell system. Restoring it should have been extremely difficult even for the casters who conducted its regular inspections.
Could the person interfering with the barrier’s control panel be someone other than a first year? Even so, this was much too fast for an outside party.
No matter.
Reclaiming the barrier was impossible in any case.
Still, they had submitted a respectable answer to Wilhelm’s challenge. He would offer them honest praise.
“It appears I underestimated you. I can no longer afford to take my time.”
“Don’t say that. Hang out with us till the clock runs out!”
The dark-skinned young man—the student called Gary—grinned provocatively. Perhaps he hoped to emphasize that he still had enough composure for banter.
“A rustic southerner, wielding magic—the intellectual property of Griefian nobility—as if it belonged to him. My, how terrifying the passage of time is. It has robbed the poor even of their awareness of their station.”
“What?”
A vein stood out at Gary’s temple.
His parents had presumably told him some portion of that history.
“Gary. Don’t let him provoke you.”
Wilhelm sensed a telepathic wave from the petite girl.
As it was private communication, he couldn’t make out the words, but she had evidently moved at once to support her pitiable classmate.
Those two didn’t matter.
The problem was Meltzeria’s daughter.
She alone possessed enough destructive force to break through Wilhelm’s defense.
“Very well. I shall grant you a special demonstration of my research.”
Wilhelm swept his staff like a conductor’s baton.
The preparations for the most troublesome opponent, Mercedes, were almost complete.
Until then, he merely had to endure their attacks.
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