Alchemy, magic, sorcery, witchery, and so on and so forth. By the present day the techniques for handling magic power had divided into a great many kinds. That each field had come to hold firm and distinguishing characteristics was a bonus.
Only, the more varied the fields, the more measuring sticks got held up against them. Naturally, how a magic-power user's stage was classified differed by field. It was the same logic by which one could not test an alchemist who crafted objects for fighting strength, nor expect a biomancer who used his body to solve advanced chemical formulas.
Even so, there was one thing. Regardless of field, there were stages every magic-power user shared.
Those who could stimulate their nerves with magic power and accelerate consciousness alone. People decided to call them 'Challengers.'
Next, those who had succeeded in dyeing sky-blue magic power with the color of their own souls. Those who thereafter circulated that color-imbued magic power through their bodies at all times. People named them the stage of 'Resister.'
Third, those who used their own magic power to seize the space around them and reorganize it to suit themselves. Those who created a Field in which they took precedence over providence. People spoke of them as 'Scribes,' and praised them. It was the stage at which a person ceased to function as a person and functioned as a strategic weapon.
And last... the stage in which Scribes, having made a Field of their own within the world, went one step further and took a portion of the world as their own territory: 'Usurper.'
Odysseus was a warrior who had reached the end of the Scribe stage among these. There had been no such classification back then, so it would not be exact, but even so he was certain. In his past life he had indeed been a warrior who had reached Scribe.
He had not unfolded it with the detailed understanding he had now, but there had been a time when he placed himself above providence, so it must be so.
"A paltry trick—!"
In truth a Field was not such a difficult concept. Only reaching it was hard; once you had engraved a Field, handling it was easier than one imagined.
"I'll beat you to dea—?!"
"Get out, now!"
Even so, the reason Odysseus had not unfolded his Field was simply a matter of time. Time to adapt to this body and this magic power; time, once adapted, to dye the magic power the color of his soul; time to spread magic power without pause and reorganize the space around him.
He could not because he lacked exactly that time, and he did not because of the eyes around him. It was a technique quite the opposite of consciousness acceleration, which cost excessive stamina to use but showed nothing to those nearby.
SLICE!
But he could not hide his power even in a situation where he had collided with a Scribe. All the more so considering that a Scribe's Field placed its master ahead of physical law and providence, refracting away outside harm wherever it could.
The most effective counter to a Scribe was a Scribe of the same stage. The blade Odysseus swung split open the thigh of Ironstick's boss, Kimberly.
"......!"
With the blood that had wet his cheek, Odysseus stretched the length of his consciousness like pulling a rubber band. His opponent was easily two or three times his bulk, but even that did not frighten him.
When the stages were equal, what decided victory or defeat was rather which side's craft and skill were superior.
WHIRL!
And Odysseus had no fear of coming up short against that bear oaf in either of them. The dagger he had received from Flag in advance tore open the enemy's reflexively outstretched palm.
"A wound on a Scribe......!"
From behind, a voice he presumed to be Zex's could be heard expressing astonishment.
"Y-you swine!"
'...What the hell, this son of a bitch?'
Not something to mind right now.
Turning away from the voice, Odysseus chewed over the attack he had just made. His cut had bitten into the skin more easily than expected.
He had assumed that neutralizing a Field with a Field would mean less refraction of his attacks, but this was more than he had imagined. Magic power or not, the blade went through skin far too easily. It was enough to make him wonder whether the enemy had any biological enhancement on him at all.
'Was he holding off on enhancement to conserve magic power?'
But at the level where one could engrave a Field, one could not fail to read the presences nearby even if one tried. And if he had noticed an enemy closing in, enhancing the body first was combat basics.
So this made no sense. Not unless the bastard did not know so much as the R in real combat. Truly.
SWISH!
Breaking into his thoughts, the bastard Kimberly swung the iron door he was holding. From how indiscriminate the attack was, it did not seem aimed precisely at him. If one had to put it somewhere... it was a motion hoping for a bit of luck. The sort where a hit was nice and a miss did not matter.
SWIP.
But with a motion that big, who would oblige by being hit?
Odysseus flattened himself to the ground. Ordinarily he would have rolled aside to dodge, but the iron door's trajectory, grasped through consciousness acceleration, did not require that much.
Having dodged without wasting a step, the boy sprang like a toad and drew his dagger across the ligament of an ankle.
'But why didn't he aim toward the ground?'
In the course of it, though... a very small doubt did arise. Even for an attack made hoping for luck, when the enemy's frame was small it was rather more effective to attack as though scraping the ground than to aim straight ahead.
'Hm, is he just not used to it?'
Surely a bastard on the level of a Scribe had not failed to gauge his opponent's build just because it was a bit dark. Thinking with great common sense, Odysseus swallowed his suspicion.
Naturally, underestimating an opponent too far was also a shortcut to defeat.
"Grrgh!"
Instead, leaving behind the blade that had only now begun refusing to sink in, Odysseus passed between Kimberly's legs. One arm braced on the filthy floor and became the support for his forward-pitching body. With the arm wedged between the ground and his head, his legs lifted slightly.
THWACK!
From that position the boy bent one leg for an instant and then snapped it straight. The leg, enhanced with magic power, kicked Kimberly in the crotch.
"AAAGH!"
Compared to Kimberly, who stood two meters thirty, the boy's body was endlessly small, but before the unknown energy called magic power, the size of a body lost its meaning.
At the attack packed full of malice, Kimberly roared wildly.
SCRAPE.
In the meantime Odysseus' body rolled across the debris-strewn floor. Without his Field and his tough-fabric clothing, his skin would certainly have been scraped raw by all the stone dust, iron shards, and wood splinters.
The salt-soaked stink peculiar to the harbor district, the dirt dust off the floor, and the blood smeared on his cheek each tickled the tip of his nose.
"Hoo."
That smell, more than anything, made him feel he had truly been flung into the middle of a fight.
The boy stamped down the excitement surging up in him and poured strength into the balls of his feet. His senses, which had begun pressing down Kimberly's Field and seizing the world, were sweeping keenly over everything around him.
A sense of touch that now registered even the stirring of down hairs gifted him a second field of vision, clearer than the night-vision goggles he had thrown away out of discomfort.
His planted foot, which had gained the strength to spring out in the space of a single breath, shot the boy's body straight forward.
"You crazy kid, get down!"
Just then Migo came charging in with Flag on her back, the ground shaking. Made at some point, in her hand was an improvised spear. A crude thing, a dagger lashed to a mop handle.
"Grrgh!"
Ordinarily an attack like this would have been nothing to him. He had body enhancement, consciousness acceleration, and a Field.
But now, having been struck in the groin, it was different. With the pain rising from his crotch, Ironstick's boss could not move properly. All the more so because behind him Odysseus was just moving in to put a blade in him.
Migo's thrown spear and Odysseus' dagger.
Kimberly, darting his eyes about countless times with accelerated consciousness, finally made his decision. His legs drew together in an ugly shape, and the hand that had been clutching his crotch rose into the air.
CRUNCH!
The hand thrust forward snatched the spear with ease and crushed it.
SLICE!
The hand thrust behind him, on the other hand, failed to catch Odysseus.
The boy, having nimbly torn open Kimberly's grip, bored in deeper. What he was after was the joint inside the elbow.
The veteran warrior's fang pierced cloth and went for the tendon between bone and bone.
SWISH!
At this, Flag, who had used Migo as a springboard to rise into the air, dropped something toward the crown of Kimberly's head. As far as his senses told him, it was a bundle of grenades tied to a steel cord.
Landing behind Odysseus, Flag yanked hard on the steel cord attached to the grenade bundle.
"Kuh!"
The steel cord and the grenade bundle caught precisely on Kimberly's thick neck, and his brows shot up like mountains. He looked ready to seize the cord at his throat at once and hurl Flag off into the distance.
The hand that had just crushed the spear surged rapidly up toward his neck.
"Bro, let go!"
At that, Odysseus meant to drive Kimberly harder still. To stop Kimberly's next move there was no other way.
Odysseus' consciousness ran forward faster still, outstripping even time. The point where thought became faster than sensory perception had arrived once again.
'First, the left arm gets completely disabled.'
Within that instant the boy arranged what he had to do in order. In a world flowing by in minute increments, he issued instructions with magic power to his flesh.
The dagger lodged inside Kimberly's left elbow drove in very slowly, harder, prying his skin apart.
Next came the dagger that had torn the grip and was drawing a straight line down into the inside of the wrist.
Watching Kimberly's right arm rise faster than his own swaying hair, Odysseus resolved himself. However fast he moved, he could not catch that right arm. A bolder judgment was needed.
'And if there's no time for it.......'
His thumb pushed lightly on the spine of the dagger that had been cutting the wrist ligament along its grain. Changing his grip slightly as well, the dagger, which from his position had been tilted horizontally, stood vertical.
'Fire it.'
THUNK!
Unlike a body caged in its limits, magic power could keep pace with the speed of consciousness. Provided one could perceive it, yes.
The magic power gathered at the dagger's pommel struck the dagger forward.
WHIP!
Ejected as hard as the force that had struck it, the dagger shot out in a straight line. The point of impact was slightly off, but that was no great problem. If the dagger was hard to adjust, one could simply move the target board.
CLUNK!
"......!"
The one man who could more or less keep pace with Odysseus' time opened both eyes wide. His right hand was blocked by a navy-blue membrane that had appeared out of nowhere.
SLICE!
Right after, the dagger drew a long line across the back of the bastard's hand. Had he not forced his hand to twist upon noticing the attack, the wound would have been larger than it was.
Of course, that wound could go either way, so it hardly mattered. What did need doing was slackening the consciousness acceleration again. The boy's stamina had not yet risen to where he could use consciousness acceleration as freely as he liked.
To ration his stamina, Odysseus matched the strides of thought and perception, and at the same time wrenched his ankle around. With it, the boy's body turned a half circle. Thanks to Odysseus' small height, Kimberly's left arm came to rest beside his head, over his shoulder.
CRACK!
"Y-you, damn it!"
From this position, pressing the arm draped over his shoulder downward, in cooperation with the dagger lodged in the joint, blew the ligament out entirely.
Having achieved everything he wanted, the boy deliberately let the strength out of his legs. SWISH! A few strands of hair that fell later than the boy brushed down along Kimberly's right arm, which stretched out half a beat too late.
THWACK!
Setting that aside, Odysseus, having dropped low, swung one leg and hooked Kimberly's. Regrettably, Kimberly did not fall. His legs were drawn oddly together and his pelvis and waist were twisted from forcing his right arm out, so his balance ought to have been strange, and yet he held on through native muscle alone.
'Nothing but pointlessly heavy.'
Still, he had bought enough time.
"Y-you swine—!"
THWACK!
Before Kimberly could do anything, Migo closed in and landed a blow. The moment she reached him she spun her massive body a half turn and kicked him with her hind legs.
Before force as great as a horse's, Kimberly's enormous bulk went flying with a whoosh. "Whoa." Flag, who lay in the path of Kimberly's flight, ducked lower. He had evidently taken the advice promptly; the steel cord was no longer in his hand.
"Get down!"
BANG!
Instead he grinned and fired his gun. It must have been arranged beforehand; Migo had already come to the boy's side and was just lowering her body. The ballistic cloth draped over her lower body was drawn by her hand to cover the boy and herself completely.
KABOOOM!
Right after, the grenade bundle Flag had gifted Kimberly set off a great explosion.
RUMBLE.
PATTER-PATTER-PAT. PATTER-PAT.
He had expected it to some degree from the moment he saw the grenade bundle, but his ears still rang. Odysseus dispersed the magic power that had plugged his ear canals and pushed lightly at Migo's arm around him.
"Let go, Sis."
"Very well."
Even with the ballistic cloth over her and the benefit of Odysseus' Field, she apparently had not been able to avoid the grenade fragments entirely. Migo released her arms with pain mixed into her voice. Outside the ballistic cloth, the smells of blood and gunpowder hung thick.
"Bro."
"You all right? Hurt?"
"It grazed my rump a little. Not enough that I cannot walk, so do not worry."
"Sis, do you have a dagger?"
And at the far edge of his Field he could feel the breathing of the being that had survived even the explosion.
"I do, but."
"Give it to me. And pull back with Bro."
Odysseus' hand took the dagger from Migo as though snatching it. Sized to Migo's hand, presumably, it was longer overall than the ones he or Flag carried. He liked it.
"Hey, what are you talking—"
"Do you think a Scribe dies from that?"
Separately, the two of them had landed a respectable blow just now, but it was not enough for a Scribe. Naturally, the heat energy and pressure an explosion produced were among the refraction phenomenon's favorite prey, and the iron fragments inside a grenade had far too little mass.
"Thanks for trying to help, but don't get involved past this. You'll really die."
Which was why the two of them were better off withdrawing. Muttering that, Odysseus ran forward. WHOOSH! Out of the darkness a concrete wall came flying. It looked as though a wall had been ripped off a building and thrown.
Left alone, it would hit Flag or Migo standing behind him square on.
Grasping that, the boy forced his fist out. Enhanced blood and flesh smashed the concrete and sprayed fragments in all directions. In the process several pieces of rubble struck or clawed at the boy's body. The work of things too heavy for the refraction phenomenon to push aside. "Urk." Flag, struck by fragments along the way, rolled about clutching where he had been hit.
"If you really want to be useful, deal with the rabble on their way over. Or else find a gun of 14.5 caliber or better and give me covering fire! Not that it'll work either!"
As this showed, the refraction phenomenon was not all-powerful either. Things too heavy, too enormous, or holding another's magic power could not be properly turned aside.
It was why bullets and grenades were meaningless against a Scribe, and the reason a blade could kill them. Well, the blade in question also had to carry magic power, with the condition attached that the one holding the sword brace himself and lend it his mass.
In any case, having thrown Flag one last warning, Odysseus kicked off the ground in one motion and went. BOOM! More rubble from a concrete wall came flying, but it was meaningless. He had left that spot long since.
"You rotten little shit!"
Even accounting for his being a Scribe, was he on the tough side? Refraction phenomenon or not, given Migo's mass, a rib or two ought to have cracked.
Thinking that, Odysseus flung himself straight at Kimberly. At that, the enemy, who had been tearing off the building's outer wall like snapping a biscuit and hurling it, swung his hand. The pain from the dagger still lodged in him must have been fairly severe, yet his strength alone was formidable. FWOOM! The air burst apart.
But for all the vicious noise, the boy's body sprang up lightly and laid materialized magic power beneath his feet. Leaping once more off the foothold that formed, his body wrenched its direction around.
FWOOM. And so Kimberly's second attack came to nothing as well. Now it was his turn to strike back.
Odysseus' magic power summoned one more foothold. It was an eccentric feat possible only because his magic power was ample, but it stirred nothing special in him.
Instead the boy stepped on the foothold he had made to gain thrust, and with that thrust kicked the enemy hard in the head. CRACK. The feel of a nose bridge breaking under the heel of his boot was distinct. Odysseus' body spun in the air and dropped.
BOOM!
Just then Kimberly, who had not taken his eyes off the boy even with his nose broken, drove out his fist again. Mid-landing, it was hard to dodge.
Realizing that, he gathered navy-blue magic power between his own body and Kimberly's fist. The subtle blue of a starlit daybreak looked like a Shield.
CRASH!!
While the navy-blue Shield held that fist the size of his own head for even an instant, Odysseus used a magic-power foothold to fall back quickly. Of course, the man was only stupid, his physical ability was not lacking, so that alone could not cover all the damage.
His abdomen throbbed where the wind pressure of that single punch had struck it. Had he taken it square, no amount of body enhancement would have kept part of his organs from being crushed.
'A goddamn sturdy body.'
In any case, perhaps because he was Kallistidai, his toughness alone was outrageously good. Between the shower of grenades earlier and that last attack, his brain ought to have been rattled, and yet not the least confusion could be felt in him.
'If my body had grown just a little more.......'
Just as the refraction phenomenon could not be a master key, enhancing the body with magic power was hard to get much effect from without a base of flesh beneath it.
That this fight held together at all was because that bastard was stupid and because he was steamrolling him with an absurd quantity of magic power; otherwise, it would have meant fleeing even at the cost of sacrificing Flag.
'A shame.'
Still, being able to contend at all was something. Satisfied with that, Odysseus condensed magic power over the dagger. A blade of materialized magic power. What the world commonly called an 'aura.'
The blade, which had been under twenty centimeters, extended to just short of thirty.
Right after, Odysseus' body wrenched around. Perhaps hoping to assassinate him, the being caught at the edge of his Field held a compact submachine gun.
RATATATAT.
The gunfire that started at once threw up sparks all over where Odysseus had been. The face dimly visible each time fire bloomed at the muzzle was Ironstick's vice-captain, Sotiropoulou.
It feels rather like raindrops tapping at my body. Odysseus thought that about the bullets losing their force to his Field. This was his first time experiencing it directly, so it left him feeling a little strange.
CLICK. Having emptied his whole magazine in that brief span, Sotiropoulou clicked his tongue and tried to break away to the side.
"Tsk."
What to do. He was not going to die to a gun, but if the man swapped to a blade it would be a serious nuisance. And focusing on him might mean taking a surprise blow from Ironstick's head honcho.
"Yul! Leave that one to us!"
"...We cannot handle that monster, but we can cover one like this. Leave him to us."
"......! Bro! Sis!"
Just as Odysseus was deliberating, Flag and Migo went after Sotiropoulou. RAT-TAT-TAT. RAT-TAT-TAT. RAT-TAT-TAT. Precise three-round bursts kept Sotiropoulou in check. It looked as though neither side would be able to intervene in this fight until one of them went down.
"I'm counting on you!"
With them going this far for him, he could not lose if only for the sake of his face. Odysseus' body rotated in a circle and rose into the air. BOOM! What slammed down where he had been standing a moment ago was Kimberly's right fist, driven by a great leap.
The ground rippled like a lake with a stone thrown into it, and the buildings around gave off a rumble. Truly, in strength alone the fellow was magnificent.
"Rat bastard!"
In strength alone.
In midair Odysseus rotated the muscles of his waist to turn his belly toward the ground. Then he straightened the legs that had bent slightly on the jump and stepped onto a newly made foothold. Magic power materialized as hard as a shield braced the boy's body like a wall.
His body, standing perpendicular to the ground, shot toward Kimberly and swung the blade.
SLICE!
The aura, which had gone for the neck but in the end cut only the shoulder, split apart in an instant and drove into Kimberly's flesh. Back when he had little magic power, it was a technique he had used to fair profit as his so-called finishing move. The area around Kimberly's shoulder became an utter wreck.
TAP!
Setting that aside, Odysseus, landing behind Kimberly, drew a fresh aura and rolled a long way back. Kimberly, whipping his body around with his arm tracing a half circle, smashed the floor again. BOOM! Muscle that his current body could not hope to imitate shattered still more of the ground.
In the process the wounds on his shoulder and arm bled, but Kimberly paid them no heed. Blood scattered in every direction stung the boy's nose.
"You statusless sewer-rat son of a bitch......!"
"Ugh. And you, with enough status to get a dishonorable discharge, must be nice?"
How long would it take for that thing to die of blood loss? If he was a biomancer he would probably hold out a good while.
Inwardly Odysseus felt the frustration of it, but outwardly he let out a laugh. At the blatant provocation, the man's face twisted.
"A moron who believes in a cult, no less."
The abuse that followed had a fair effect too. He seemed to know that letting emotion into a fight put you at a disadvantage and was trying his hardest to endure it, but... only so far. How deep could the patience run in a man who not only believed in a cult but had his devotions found out by those around him and was dishonorably discharged for it?
"The beggar son of a bitch has nothing but a mouth on him!"
The bastard finally erupted, and Odysseus dragged the fight a little further, however slightly, to his own advantage. The bear, wild-eyed with rage, roared and swung both arms. He swung the ruined arm too: whether as a show of force meaning this much did not faze him, or simply because he had lost his reason, could not be told.
Only, the veins stood out on the hand with which Odysseus gripped the dagger.
'I can't drag this out long.'
It was not a problem right now, but there was no telling when his lacking stamina would catch him by the ankle. All the more a problem considering how his condition had dropped in an instant from taking that one hit, and the presence of consciousness acceleration endlessly eating away at his stamina and will.
The decisive battle must never be drawn out. It had to be a short one, without fail.
'Lure him into the trap, then end it in one stroke.'
The boy took one look at the warehouse where his magic power waited and kicked off the ground with his navy-blue blade.