The Magic in this Other World is Too Far Behind! Volume 2

by Gamei Hitsuji

  “□□□□□!”

  The demon let out a roar towards the heavens. It was a jarring voice—no, just cacophonous noise. It was like malice in the form of sound. The repulsive shriek assaulted Suimei’s ears, and with that, the demon’s power began to swell. It was likely drawing out the remaining power it held inside its body. Before long, that power began pouring out of the demon’s body in the form of a black haze.

  What is that? Mana? No, that’s...

  Suimei was gripped by a sense of deja vu at the sight of this power pouring out of the demon. The adventurer loudly raised his voice.

  “Th-This is bad! Everyone, we need to defeat that demon quickly!”

  As Suimei was frowning to himself, the adventurer began to panic. His companions all nodded in agreement, and collectively charged towards the demon. However, the overflowing black power from the demon sent them all flying back as they drew near.

  “Shit! We can’t get close!”

  “Magic! Throw all your magic at it!”

  “Oh Flame! Thou shall become the spearhead which pierces my enemy...”

  At the adventurer’s command, everyone in his party that could use magic began chanting at once and fired off their spells. A flood of fire, lightning, and wind rushed at the demon. However, when the destruction cleared like a fog, lo and behold, the demon was still there without a single scratch.

  “No way! For magic to be ineffective...!”

  The adventurers began to lose their cool when they saw the unharmed demon. In fact, it only continued to pour out its dark power. Suimei could sense it had a potent yet vile talent. The power it was letting out was somewhat similar to when a magician ignited their mana furnace.

  But Suimei had never seen anything like this.

  Things are about to get ugly. If I don’t do something, these guys are in trouble.

  Suimei was interested. He was interested, but now wasn’t the time to indulge his curiosity. If the demon continued to build up power and attack, it would spell certain disaster for the adventurers. So before that could happen, Suimei began his chant.

  “O flammae, legito. Pro venefici doloris clamore...”

  [Oh flames, assemble. Like the cry of the magician’s resentment...]

  When the demon heard Suimei chanting, he scoffed and spat bitter hostilities his way.

  “Ha! Didn’t I tell you that magic from a pest like you would never harm me?!”

  “Is that so? Certainly that may have been the case when I was holding back. But I wonder what’ll happen when I actually put some power into this one.”

  “You think a flame which only gives out that much heat could possibly burn me?!”

  “You bet I do, you devilish looking jerk! Don’t underestimate a magician’s flames!”

  Suimei made this declaration and picked up his chant again.

  “Parito colluctatione et aestuato. Deferto impedimentum fatum atrox!”

  [Give form to death’s agony and burst into flames. Bestow the one who obstructs me with a dreadful destiny!]

  With those words, flames began to flood forth from several magicka circles hanging in the air. Some shot downward from the sky and some shot upward from the ground. All the flames gathered together, but instead of crashing into the demon, this time they wrapped around its body. With the demon as its center, the flames twirled like a whirlpool and burned everything in their vicinity, instantly reducing all of it to ash.

  “Guh! What?! But before...”

  The light of the fire painted the surrounding scenery vermilion, and shone through the trees in a brilliant red spectacle. A burning orange magicka gem appeared in Suimei’s hand, which was wreathed in a small magicka circle. And with the final keywords of his chant, he closed his fist and crushed it.

  “Itaque conluceto! O Ashurbanipalis fulgidus lapillus!”

  [So shine! Oh Ashurbanipal’s dazzling gem!]

  In an instant, the flames that had been coiling around the demon engulfed it entirely with a fiery roar that drowned out all sound in the area. All who witnessed it could see nothing but flames. The ground erupted, the sky was dyed red, and the air was one giant explosion. This was deflagration magicka.

  The surging crimson haze had transformed into great power and exploded with such overwhelming force that the demon wasn’t even able to cry out in agony as it died. It was all everyone else in the area could do to shield themselves from the intense heat of the blast. And when it died down, all that remained was the smell of soot and the smoldering forms of a few trees.

  Suimei had adjusted the power of the spell so that it wouldn’t cause too much collateral damage, but even so, the sheer ferocity of the flames that blew away the demon had transformed the ground below where it stood into magma. The adventurers all stood there, mouths agape as they beheld the scene, but eventually one of them spoke up.

  “Th-That was amazing magic!”

  It was the mage girl of the group. Perhaps coming to their senses after hearing what she said, everyone else began talking too. Taking in the charred surroundings that looked like they might burn you just from looking at them, the other adventurers were saying things like “What destructive power...” and “Th-The ground is melting!” They were all aghast. In a few moments, however, the armored man of the group approached Suimei.

  “Hey, you! You can do it if you try, huh? If you got that kind of trick up your sleeve, then whip it out at the start next time, you hear?”

  “Y-Yeah. But, you see, this was my first time fighting a demon.”

  “What? Is that why you were being stingy? Next time, just take it out first thing, alright?”

  “Y-Yeah...”

  The adventurer let out a hearty laugh, and after Suimei gave a vague reply, he walked back over to his comrades. He seemed to be under the wrong impression, but Suimei didn’t really care. He stood there, scratched his head idly as he pulled himself together, and once more looked over to the ashes of the demon.

  In any event... That’s a demon, huh?

  In short, this was the main reason Suimei and the others had been called to this world. Well, a subordinate of that reason. Suimei had intended to play with it until he had a full grasp of its abilities, but he’d had to prioritize the safety of the people around him and use a spell powerful enough to take it out in one go. And that was easy for Suimei. Defeating the demon had taken some time, but that was all. Suimei hadn’t even had to fight seriously against it.

  “Even using Ashurbanipal’s flame, it took nearly a minute to completely burn it to ash...”

  The magicka Suimei had used to defeat the demon was magicka using the fire attribute. Of the five elements, it was the one he had the most expertise in. He had good aptitude for the spell he’d chosen and it contained plenty of power, too. Compared to other magickas of similar strength, the chant was also fairly short.

  But even then, it still took nearly a minute for the demon to be completely reduced to ash. That was far too long. Normally it would only take a couple of seconds to incinerate something. But one pesky demon had taken the better part of a minute. As someone walking the path of magicka, Suimei couldn’t rationally accept that. He was standing there pondering it, one eyebrow raised and rubbing his chin, when something came flying in at a terrifying speed from behind.

  “Wha―?!”

  Suimei turned around when he heard crashing sounds, and what he saw was multiple silhouettes of what he’d just fought—more demons. Or something close. Rather than individual demons, it was a lumped mass of them. There were two or three bodies with bent arms and torn legs and necks. They were all practically melded together after being dealt a horrible blow by something big and heavy.

  What the―

  Suimei focused on this most unusual arrival. They were indeed the bodies of demons, and not far behind them was Lefille, carrying her massive sword in a single hand. The red and silver tip of it peeked through the trees. Seeing her now, she didn’t give off a single hint of the gentleness she had when Suimei
met her. She was walking with her head lightly hung down and leaning forwards. One of her eyes was shining with a red light. She held her sword in one hand as if drawing a bow, and she radiated the aura of a fierce god. She was so consumed with a fighting spirit that she nearly looked like she was on fire.

  The sound of someone gulping could be heard in the otherwise silent group of onlookers, making it sound much louder than it was. Taking it as some sort of starting signal, a demon who’d managed to survive lunged out of the mass of corpses towards Lefille. The charging demon, however, was quickly intercepted by a horizontal slash from Lefille. It was a clean swing; the tip of her blade did not waver from start to end. With enough force to create a gale, she split the demon clean in two. And right after the first terrifyingly fast slash, she followed up with a second from overhead. The cross she cut in the air with her brilliant sword was like an X-shaped vortex, and the demon was cleaved longwise this time.

  There was no way the demon was still alive, but Lefille didn’t stop. Any more was needless. She was only carving up a corpse with her slashes now. But completely ignoring the fact that it was overkill, Lefille continued to swing her massive sword like she hadn’t had enough, right up until she finally crushed the demon’s head.

  “Crumble to pieces... Scum.”

  As Lefille muttered those words, what Suimei could sense from her was an overflowing sense of resentment. After a few moments, the tension seemed to leave the air, and Lefille placed her sword upon her shoulder and approached the group.

  “It seems you’re finished here as well.”

  “W-Well, yeah...”

  It was the warrior from the party of adventurers who knew Lefille that replied to her casual comment. It seemed the fight was over for now, but perhaps because of the ghastly sight he had just witnessed, his voice was quiet and stiff. In his stead, Suimei spoke to Lefille.

  “How ’bout you?”

  “Same. With those stragglers just now, I’ve finished cleaning up the last of them. There aren’t any more deeper into the forest that way.”

  “Weren’t there way more over there than here, though?”

  “That’s exactly why I went in that direction. I wanted to take them all out first.”

  “Huh...”

  “There weren’t any problems, right?”

  Hearing her make such a statement so fearlessly, Suimei confirmed for himself how abnormal Lefille was. And not only had she gone on her own personal demon eradication mission, she looked disappointed with herself that she’d allowed one to get away like that. Suimei knew Lefille wasn’t normal, but he didn’t know exactly what she really was.

  Lefille then took a look at the surroundings.

  “A short while ago, I heard an earth-shattering sound from around here. Was it the cause of this destruction?”

  “Yeah, it was my magicka.”

  Lefille looked quite surprised, then gave Suimei a bright smile.

  “No less from Suimei-kun, I’m sure. You played quite the role here, didn’t you?”

  “Nothing of the sort. I spent all this time just defeating one of them.”

  “Wha―Just one?”

  Lefille sensed the incongruity between the scale of the destruction at hand and the alleged number of defeated enemies. With another surprised expression, she pushed Suimei for an explanation.

  “I thought I had confronted all of the extremely powerful demons in the woods, but one of them made it over here?”

  “No, I think it was only about as strong as the others. It was probably the same as the one that you just cut up into pieces.”

  Suimei glanced over at the lump of dead demons. All of them had the same appearance. He didn’t think the one he’d fought was any different from them in terms of strength based on looks alone.

  “But to use magic of such power against a lowly demon... I would have guessed this was at least an intermediate level spell. Am I mistaken...?”

  “Intermediate?”

  “It was, wasn’t it?”

  When Suimei thought about it, this world didn’t subscribe to the five elements. Instead, it bound itself to eight attributes. Not only that, but there was some sort of inexplicable division of levels of magic—lower, intermediate, and advanced. Suimei could remember the joyous celebration at the castle when Reiji had learned advanced magic.

  But just what was used to determine the grade of magic? Suimei didn’t have any point of reference to judge for himself, so he couldn’t really give Lefille a proper answer. Thankfully, the mage girl standing off to the side timidly raised her hand.

  “A-About the magic you used just now... From what I’ve seen from other mages, I don’t think your spell was lacking in any way, but... um... even though it had such destructive force, it didn’t seem like it affected the demon much.”

  “...Is that so?”

  “Seriously... Just what is different?”

  Suimei shrugged his shoulders at this conclusion. He wasn’t sure why his magicka seemed so ineffective. He was forced to draw his fight with the demon to a close before he could figure it out, but he had a faint idea of what it might be. Towards the end of the fight, the demon had unleashed a strange power. Suimei had seen that dark, repulsive power that left the hairs on your neck standing on end somewhere before. It was very familiar to the power wielded by devil worshipers in his own world.

  “Come to think of it, I heard that the demons believe in the Evil God or something...”

  This fact may very well have been the key to the mystery that Suimei was missing. While Suimei was considering that possibility, Lefille called out to him and the others.

  “Suimei-kun, everyone...”

  “Hmm? What’s up?”

  “It seems that wasn’t the last of them.”

  When Suimei turned to the adventurers from the vanguard, he saw that they were all standing there aghast at what Lefille had said. Confirming her claim, Suimei could suddenly sense the presence of mana approaching them.

  “Seriously...?”

  Suimei made a stiff expression, and then the mage girl raised her voice.

  “I-It’s exactly as Lefille-san said! Worse yet, there are more than before!”

  “Really?!”

  “Shit, and now we have injured people from the fight... We don’t have enough forces!”

  After hearing the girl’s report, the other adventurers and returning mercenaries were astir. They were shaken at the prospect of consecutive battles. Though a little late, Suimei sharpened his senses and focused in the direction the demons were coming from. Shutting his eyes and blocking out all unnecessary stimuli, he used his sixth sense as a magician.

  There’s ten... No, twenty of them. Just like she said, it’s more than before.

  And much like last time, the presence was coming right for them. The power he could sense from the group was about the same as before, too. It seemed likely it was another squad of same type of demons. As Suimei was staring off to the west, the other escorts began raising their voices in a clamor.

  “Tch... What do we do?”

  “Our only choice is to face them head on! There’s no escape in a situation like this!”

  “Listen up! Anyone who was wounded in the last fight, fall back! Everyone who can fight, get ready!”

  One of the adventurers let out a battle cry as the tension began to rise in the air. The enemy was drawing nearer. Gallio, who was hiding with the other merchants, popped out from behind one of the wagons.

  “The fighting still isn’t over...?”

  Gallio was as pale as a sheet. To a civilian like him, demons were the very embodiment of fear. It seemed he’d grasped the situation from the conversation among the escorts. One of the armored men turned to Gallio to answer him.

  “U-Unfortunately. Please wait a little longer. It seems there are still demons coming this way.”

  “G-Goddess... Are we going to be alright?!”

  “That’s... According to the kids, there are more headed this way than
last time. We also still have injured people who haven’t been treated, so this is shaping up to be a tough fight.”

  Hearing these words from his escort, Gallio was cast into the depths of despair.

  “W-We were only going to Nelferia to do business... Why did demons have to...”

  His face was now ashen, if not ghastly. According to his commission, the journey would be relatively safe and the trade corps should have arrived in the Empire with no real problems. But it seemed all bets were off now. As Gallio began moaning in anguish, Lefille—the one who had noticed the second wave first—stepped forward to clear the air and reassure Gallio.

  “Please do not worry, Gallio-dono. Those demons are headed towards us, but I will defeat them down to the last one.”

  “I-If I remember correctly, you are Grakis-dono, no? I’m glad to hear you so confident, but for a tender young girl like yourself, demons...”

  His next words were likely “won’t be so easy to defeat,” but he trailed off before he could finish the thought. The girl standing before him was surely just an overconfident child who didn’t know what she was getting herself into. The adventurer who had approached Suimei during his fight with the demon then walked up to Gallio without hesitation.

  “No, it’s alright, Gallio-san! Lefille is strong! In the fight earlier, most of the demons were defeated by her alone!”

  “That’s right! On top of that, Lefille-san also has the sword skills to split even an ogre clean in two! So we’ll be fine, even if there are more demons.”

  Backing up the armored adventurer’s claim, the mage girl chipped in her own opinion. Compared to the others standing around, these two didn’t seem to be as anxious. This was surely because they had worked together with Lefille before and knew what she could do.

  “Is that so...?”

  “Yes. So there’s no need to worry.”

  Their words weren’t quite so reassuring to Gallio, but after he took a look at Lefille, who wasn’t betraying a single hint of weakness or timidity, he seemed to calm down some. Ultimately, he now judged this girl to be on the same level as the approaching demons. It seemed the two adventurers had managed to convince him of that much, though there was still something of an air of skepticism about him. Before speaking to Lefille, he cleared his throat and did his best to put his appearance in order.