Beyond the underground passage, there was another door.
It was made of iron. Heavy and solid. But it wasn’t locked.
I opened it.
It was a large room. Old desks and chairs were lined up. It seemed like a place that had once been used as an office.
There was one person inside.
A middle-aged man. He was sitting in a chair, looking at me. He wasn’t panicked. His face said he had been expecting this.
“You’ve come,” the man said. “Just as the rumors said, you’ve got guts.”
“Are you the mastermind?”
“That’s right,” the man stood up. “I am Allen Ignite. I’ve been wanting to meet you, Miss Rene de Croire.”
“Why would the head of the Ignite family, a noble house of the kingdom, do something like this?”
I stopped.
The family name Ignite echoed in my head.
“…Malette.”
“You know, I presume. Malette, the friend of Miss Lian. That’s my daughter,” the man laughed. His laugh was thin. “My daughter was in your care. She gathered information quite well for me.”
“Information.”
“Miss Lian’s schedule, the details of the magical interference experiments, the relationship between you and Miss Lian. I received reports from my daughter every month. Thanks to that, I was able to plan tonight’s operation.”
Malette.
Malette, who was Lian’s friend, had been the informant. I couldn’t readily accept that fact. My palms were sweating.
“Did Malette know? About tonight?”
“Who knows,” the man shrugged. “I only told her to gather information. I didn’t tell her about tonight. She might not have known.”
“You’re despicable.”
“Despicable is fine. I’m just stating facts,” the man placed a hand on the edge of the desk. “I’ve heard plenty about your dark magic.”
“So, why did you kidnap Lian?”
“I can’t tell you that. Just that it was to make use of Miss Lian.”
“To make use of Lian.”
“If a Saint candidate and a dark attribute caster team up, they can nullify any magic. I wanted to obtain that. Tonight was a failure, but I can just create another opportunity.”
Another opportunity.
I couldn’t tolerate those words.
“Another opportunity? I won’t let you create anything like that.”
I raised my right hand. I deployed my interference field.
The man—Allen—looked at me. For the first time, his eyes looked interested.
“Oh? You intend to fight me?” Allen said. “Me, who contends for first or second place among the kingdom’s nobles in magical skill?”
“Yes,” I said. “Rest assured. I won’t kill you. But I’ll make sure you can’t create another opportunity.”
Allen laughed.
His right hand moved.
It was a diffusion-type spell formula. Light magic spread out in a fan shape. The range was wide. I concentrated my interference field to the front. I infiltrated the starting point of the spell formula. I dismantled it. The light scattered like mist.
“Just as the rumors say, your magical control is impressive,” Allen said. He seemed admiring. “Well then, how about this?”
He pointed his index finger at me.
A bad premonition hit me.
I maximized my perception. The refinement of magic power—there was none. There was no process of constructing a spell formula. It was almost entirely omitted.
Fast.
“—!”
Interference magic wouldn’t make it in time. I jumped.
It wasn’t in time.
A bullet of light grazed my shoulder. A burning heat shot through me. My skin tore. Blood seeped into my clothes.
Instantaneous activation, with the spell construction process reduced to its absolute limit. Theoretically possible, but almost no one could do it in practice. It required both precise control of magic power and complete memorization of the spell formula simultaneously.
This was the essence of the kingdom’s foremost mage.
“A graze, huh,” Allen said. “A shame. But the next one will hit.”
“Black Mist Haze.”
I deployed black mist.
To rob his vision. To grasp his position with perception, and deal with him one by one—that was my usual procedure.
But Allen didn’t panic.
“I just need to fire blindly.”
Within the black mist, bullets of light began to fly. There was no direction. In all directions, disorderly. He was scattering them omnidirectionally.
One gouged my left arm.
“Guh—”
It was the pain of flesh tearing. I fell to my knees.
I tried to deploy my interference field while maintaining the black mist. But keeping both at high density simultaneously was beyond my limits in my exhausted state. The black mist thinned.
I could see Allen’s position.
He was constructing a single-point concentration-type spell formula.
This time it wasn’t instantaneous activation. He was taking his time. Pouring all his power into its potency.
I won’t make it.
I intuited.
I might be done for.
The moment I thought that—
A voice came from behind.
A voice I knew.
A wall of light was deployed. It was Lian’s light magic. It was warm. That warmth I had touched so many times during the interference experiments.
Allen’s single-point concentrated light collided with Lian’s wall of light.
They were evenly matched.
They canceled each other out.
“Lian.”
I turned around. Lian was standing there. She was breathing heavily from her shoulders. She must have run here. But her eyes were calm.
“Why?”
“I was worried about you, sister, so I came.”
Lian smiled.
She wasn’t apologizing. She didn’t say she had been told not to come. She just smiled. She said she had come.
Given that I had charged in alone without even waiting for the teachers to arrive and had almost lost, I couldn’t say anything. I, too, simply felt a smile overflow.
“Let’s do it. Resonance.”
“Yes.”
Lian nodded. There was no hesitation.
I gathered my last strength. I deployed my interference field. I ran towards Lian.
“I won’t let you—!”
Allen shouted.
He fired a bullet of light towards my back.
But I was one step faster.
I pressed my lips against Lian’s lips.
Light magic touched dark magic.
They resonated.
A domain that was neither light nor dark, yet both, was deployed. The air around us changed. The flow of magic power changed.
In that moment—
Magic vanished from the world.
Allen’s spell formula scattered like mist. The light magic he was trying to deploy completely crumbled. All magic that touched the resonance domain vanished.
“Wha—”
Allen looked at his hands. He couldn’t deploy magic power. He couldn’t construct a spell formula. Not a single fragment of light magic emerged from his fingertips.
He was just flesh and blood.
I drew my gun.
I fired. One shot.
I aimed for his leg.
Allen collapsed. He hit a chair and fell to the floor.
The room fell silent.
I released the resonance. Lian’s light magic slowly receded. The lingering warmth remained in my hands.
Footsteps sounded outside the door. The sound of multiple people running.
“Are you two alright?!”
“Yes, both Lian and I are fine.”
The teachers came in. They assessed the situation. They restrained the man.
We left the room.
Outside, Edvard and the others were waiting.
“It’s over.”
“The mastermind?”
“He’s inside. The teachers are dealing with him.”
Lian nodded. Then she looked at me.
“Did you hear about Malette?”
Edvard looked at me.
“I heard.”
Lian fell silent.
“Malette was leaking information. The mastermind said Malette herself might not have known about tonight’s events. But the fact is she was providing information.”
Lian lowered her eyes.
“…I see.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have noticed sooner.”
“It’s not for you to apologize, sister,” Lian raised her face. Her eyes were red. She wasn’t crying, but she was on the verge. “It’s because I didn’t notice.”
“The reason you didn’t notice is because Malette hid it well. It’s not your fault.”
“But—”
“Lian.”
“…Yes.”
“Rest tonight. We can talk tomorrow.”
Lian nodded.
Cyril said, “I’ll walk with you.” Lian began walking with Cyril.
Edvard came to my side.
“Malette…”
“It seems her whole family were spies. He had his daughter gather information,” I said. “Whether the daughter knew about tonight or not, I don’t know.”
“We need to talk to Malette herself.”
“That’s right.”
“That can wait until later,” Edvard looked up at the sky. “Tonight, everyone is safe.”
“That’s right.”
We were safe. That was true.
But the fact remained that Malette had been Lian’s friend. The fact remained that Lian had trusted Malette.
The reason Lian was on the verge of tears tonight wasn’t just the terror of the kidnapping.
I looked up at the sky.
The moon was out.
The lover’s stone was in my coat pocket. I touched it.
It was cold.