“You get it, right? You should also have something you want to protect. You came here because you were willing to stake your life on something, didn’t you?”
“Ah...”
Something she wanted to protect. That was right. She had the same conviction, the same emotions. That’s why, even though this boy was injured, he didn’t give in. He stayed standing, and stayed fighting.
So was she really, really okay with letting things end like this? With just giving up? No, she wasn’t. That wasn’t what she wanted. Not at all. She wanted to run once more towards her dream. Just like this young man who would never stop, who held those same feelings. The same young man who was once again facing off against an incredible enemy in order to follow his own path. And when she realized that, she could no longer just stay sitting there.
“I―”
That’s why, once more... Once more, she wanted the power to fight. So even in pain and covered in blood, even in this condition, she offered up a prayer.
“Oh Alshuna, great Goddess we serve. I who was unable to do anything, who was unable to change anything on my own, humbly beseech you. Please grant me the courage to change just this once. I pray that once more, just once more...”
It was a wish and a demand. A ritual so that she could once more take up her sword. The Goddess would likely never come to her aid. She knew that. The Goddess wasn’t of this world. She was an existence who only watched over them, even now. And so in order to change herself, she spoke those words only for herself.
And then, when she opened her eyes, her body was filled with power like it had never been before. As if falling to her knees and capitulating had all been a bad dream, the weakness that had seized her heart was now nowhere to be found.
The one who gave her that power, the courage to overcome herself, was none other than the young man standing before her. Precisely because he taught her to believe, precisely because he demonstrated what that meant to her, precisely because she was able to witness it, she was finally able to stand again.
Gripping the sword that she had dropped, she swung it with both hands with all her might. The wind it generated was like a red slash that cut through in between Suimei and Rajas.
“Wha―You bastard! Just where did that power come from?!”
“Lefille...”
The freshly standing Lefille was greeted with a surprised expression and a delighted one—there was no need to say whose was whose. Lefille unleashed all the power that she held, the power of the spirits. A red wind, just like the red gale which answered to the scarlet spirit Ishaktney in battle, appeared. It was like all the air bowed before that crimson glimmer. And unable to withstand the gale, Rajas took a step back.
“N-No... This is...”
Rajas covered his face with his arm as if shielding it from the wind. Pointing her sword at that demon, Lefille made a declaration to revive her heart.
“Rajas. Look closely with those damned eyes of yours. This is the power that will destroy you bastard demons. The power of the spirits born of the Goddess.”
“The power to destroy us, my ass! You’re nothing but a stupid little girl who ran away from her own death!”
“Silence. I won’t run away anymore. I will stay true to myself, no matter what fate that may bring!”
“You stupid little girl! KEEP PRATTLING!”
Along with a shriek, Rajas faced the large sword and red gale with his arms and fists shrouded in dark miasma. But just this time, Lefille would not be repelled. With a red tempest wrapped around her blade, she let loose a single diagonal slash, and this time, it was Rajas’s remarkable fist that was repelled.
“Guaah! Wh-What?! It’s completely different from...”
Of course it was different from before. Lefille was no longer the girl she’d been before. Her weak, old self had died. The woman who stood to face Rajas now with newfound strength was Lefille reborn. The attacks that had overwhelmed her before would no longer work. Rajas no longer had the leisure to taunt her.
“HAAA!”
Having no ear to listen to his bewilderment, she drove in her sword again and again. It was the complete opposite of what had happened before. She did not fall behind in speed, and she was the one who threw out more strikes. Each and every single one of her thrusts had the power to push him back.
Had he gotten desperate? Rajas lashed out with a backhand as if trying to swipe her away. It was a crudely unleashed fist, but an abominably lucky blow. Rajas perfectly caught a gap in Lefille’s swings and targeted her vitals. If he hit her, it would have devastating consequences. But that was if and only if he hit her.
Like the air gleaming around her, Lefille became a red gale. No one could keep up with her movements. The red wind that didn’t even cast a shadow surpassed the speed of anything and everything. Such speed was truly unfathomable. With a quickness that could be mistaken for teleportation, she slid into Rajas’s flank.
“You bastard, just when did―”
By the time he noticed and turned to her, it was too late. As she finished materializing and swung down with a slash at the same time, she caught Rajas’s chest square on.
“Guugh-AAAAAH!”
She tore open Rajas’s chest, which was built like a massive boulder. It wasn’t deep enough to be a fatal wound, but that dark miasma that was the source of the demon’s power started gushing out like vapor. It was the perfect opportunity.
“Gala Valner!”
Swiveling her massive sword overhead, she took a large step forward, and with that moment and all her strength, she let loose a single strike like she was trying to cleave the sky. As she brought her stance down right against the ground, all of the red wind in the area emulated her movements, changing into a massive slash that tore apart heaven and earth. It struck Rajas, but...
“How tenacious.”
Even having taken Gala Valner, he was still standing. He was torn up from head to toe, and his miasma was leaking out all over his body. His limbs had all stopped moving, and he was certainly unsteady, but he was still standing. After taking Suimei’s attacks and now Lefille’s, just how robust was this demon?
“Ugh...!”
His face twisted with panic, Rajas suddenly took a large leap back. And just as Lefille stiffened up, wondering what he was planning on doing, Rajas’s massive body fluttered up in the sky. Was he going to retreat in this last moment?
“Wha― W-WAIT!”
“I’ll hand over this victory, swordswoman of Noshias.”
He likely judged that he would be at a severe disadvantage if things continued as they were. As he spat his annoyed farewell, Rajas attempted to flee. It seemed he’d kept some energy in reserve, and he used it to put great distance between them in the blink of an eye.
“HAAAAAAAA!”
As if to cut down the escaping figure, Lefille once more unleashed Gala Valner at Rajas. But the red wind never reached him. It weakened over the great distance it had to cross, eventually dissipating as mundane wind.
She’d failed to strike him down. At this distance, no matter what she did, she’d never hit him. If she could fly through the skies like Rajas, it would be a different story, but Lefille had no such power.
Thus, this was as far as she could go. Even though Suimei had gone so far for her, even though he’d saved her, she’d let her enemy get away.
“Shit...”
The conclusion of this fight would have to be deferred. To have come so far only for it to end this way left a bad taste in her mouth. Perhaps just one more step. Perhaps just one more attack and she could have edged him out. Then just maybe...
But that wasn’t how it had gone down. As she was grinding her teeth in disappointment, she could suddenly sense mana swelling up behind her. No, swelling was too mild an expression for it. This was an intense wave, like mana had explosively multiplied. And the cause, naturally, was none other than...
“S-Suimei-kun...?”
Was this young man’s mana bottomless? Running through an army of demon
s, fending off Rajas’s power, then fighting him... How had he not used up all the power in his body? But just like that, he was now walking forward, radiating mana. His gait was steady with an air of composure, as if he were strutting. In a few strides, he stood beside Lefille. And what came next was the powerful call of a magician’s voice.
“Abreq ad Habra...”
[Hurl your thunderbolt even unto death...]
★
The enormous blade of wind clad in a red glimmer turned to regular wind behind him and vanished. It was dangerous. To think that woman would recover in such a short period... No, it wasn’t just that. She’d actually gained power that far surpassed what she’d had before. He didn’t know what happened, but all of it was the fault of that mage. That’s why he’d been forced to taste the bitter defeat that was retreat, and he ground his teeth at the thought.
“Don’t you dare forget the disgrace you brought me, you damn humans. Because when these wounds heal, I will definitely be paying you back...”
Gripped by that feverish anger, Rajas rose up higher into the sky.
“It’ll be dangerous to go through those storm clouds with these wounds, but I have no choice.”
Rajas gazed up at his narrow path of retreat. If he continued to fly too low, it was possible that he would be chased. He would ordinarily think that was impossible, but he’d just had the tables turned on him spectacularly. If he passed through the clouds, they would surely lose sight of him. He’d be safe then.
It was annoying, but he’d been badly wounded by the fight that woman put up. If he passed through a storm in this condition, it wouldn’t be pretty. However, it was a sacrifice that had to be made in the name of escape. To get away for sure, this was his only option.
And just as he was fretting about the storm clouds...
“Wha...?”
Looking up, he was met with a most stupefying sight. In fact, he could scarcely believe his eyes. The storm clouds weren’t there, or anywhere else in the sky for that matter.
“―?!”
Thrown into consternation at the sudden shock, Rajas looked around frantically. Something that should have been there... simply wasn’t anymore. The dark, rumbling clouds were gone. Even though the lighting had been flashing until just moments go, there was no sign of a storm at all now. He strained his eyes, thinking that they were playing a trick on him, but could still see nothing. All he could descry were regular clouds obstructing the starlight overhead.
Up until moments ago, he was certain that thunder was reverberating in the air. Even during the battle, it was annoyingly noisy. So just what did this mean? Had he imagined it? Had there been thunder and no storm? Pondering this mystery, Rajas casually lowered his gaze.
“Wha...?!”
He was speechless at the disastrous scene that spread out below him. It was a spectacle that stole his breath away.
There was a plain between the foot of the mountain and the forest. And the army that he’d gathered there, much like the clouds above, was gone. In their stead were smoldering fires that continued to burn, protruding and caved in masses of earth. There were those imprisoned in ice that would not melt in all eternity, those who were repulsively spread out in a sea of acid and poison to dissolve into nothing indefinitely, and to top it all off, the disgusting shadows of what appeared to be his kin. Most astonishing of all, however, was that even this much devastation didn’t add up to the number of subordinates Rajas had brought with him. The majority of his army seemed to have completely vanished from the face of the earth.
“J-Just what happened here...?”
There was no way this could be real. Not even an entire army of humans could wreak this much destruction. He knew that for a fact after the skirmishes he’d had in Noshias. But the fact that he was seeing it with his own eyes told him that someone had done it. And he had an idea of who that someone might be.
“All I did was brush aside anyone who stood in my way.”
Like a whisper in his ear, he could hear that man’s words once more. Was this what he’d meant?
Without a doubt, he would have encountered Rajas’s subordinates on his way up the mountain. Without a doubt, they would have tried to stop him. That meant that when he’d spoken of those who stood in his way, he’d meant Rajas’s entire force. He could envision his ranks closing in on and swarming him now. Then did that mean that young man had “brushed aside” an army Rajas had brought to defeat the hero?
“Ridiculous, to destroy an army more than ten thousand strong all on his own...”
As he arrived at that answer and a chill ran down his spine, a thunderous roar reached his ears from behind. It was impossible. There were no storm clouds in the sky anymore, so where had that sound come from?
“It couldn’t be...”
Thinking back on it very carefully, Rajas couldn’t actually remember seeing a single storm cloud since he’d arrived. He’d only thought they were there because he’d heard thunder. But no, there weren’t any then and there weren’t any now. So for him to be hearing thunder...
“It couldn’t be...”
The lightning he’d seen and the thunderclaps he’d heard had to have come from something else altogether.
“It couldn’t be!”
And the roar reverberating behind him now sounded exactly the same as the “thunder” he’d been hearing for a while now. Slowly he turned around to find the answer to his own doubts.
Along with a thunderous roar which shook the earth, as if pale blue lightning was shooting up into the sky in reverse, a circle threatened the dark sky as figures and letters were drawn into it.
And before long, what took shape was a large―no, a colossal magic circle. All throughout it, medium-sized magic circles were taking shape too. This was undoubtedly of a sufficient scale to fire off some mighty magic.
And standing at its center was none other than that man. The human who had called himself a mage.
The lightning tore apart the earth, the wind raised a howling shriek, and everything around him was being randomly destroyed. With that man as its center, there was a burst of power that blew away sand and pebbles, turned them to charcoal, and erased them from existence.
And that was a mere tremor. A taste of what was to come. The power that formed this magic, the power that forcibly manifested this phenomenon, was too strong. The surplus power and repellent force were endlessly battering down everything around him. The lightning that bleached the air, the tempest that broke out like a squall... It was all just a meager premonition of the phenomenon to come.
“Th-That’s just the portent...? That kind of ridiculous―”
Yes, the demon general Rajas likely had no way of knowing. This was the Abra-Melin Abraham system of magicka, commonly known as sacred magicka or holy magicka. It was magicka that borrowed the power of a sacred guardian angel and was widely regarded as the most powerful of all magickas created to repel, disperse, and enslave devils―hurl your thunderbolt even unto death, abracadabra, the word’s most famously known spell. Using that as the prototype, it was transformed into offensive magicka by modern magicka theory, and it was one of the ultimate cards Yakagi Suimei could play to counter devils and evil spirits.
As if manifesting from a heat haze, the image of a woman appeared behind that man. Though modeled after a human woman, it didn’t have the slightest hint of life to it. It looked just like a sculpture made of inorganic matter colored in a mix of white and ash. It was neither sublime nor sinister. However, for some reason, it had a dreadful amount of power.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH...”
As the sculpture opened its creaking mouth, it unleashed a remarkably shrill scream and called a pillar of lightning from the heavens.
He’d never heard of this or anything like it. That such a human or such power existed. Not even the hero from another world should be wielding anything like that. The hero was summoned and given the power of the Goddess. This was completely different. An unknown.
It
was true that the hero possessed power far beyond that of the common man. Summoned heroes received an immense amount of divine protection from the Elements. But this man had none of that. It was inconceivable. He manipulated events that he should have no control over, bundled together phenomena, and altered the world created by the Goddess at will. That lightning before him now was holier than anything else, and more dreadful than anything else. No human in this world could wield such unthinkable power. Certainly not. But then... so who was this man?
“Magician Yakagi Suimei.”
“Wait, he said magician... What’s that?! That man isn’t a mage?!”
The thousands of branching lightning bolts in the area left behind a shrill echo in the air and accumulated at the center of the magic circle as they built up. The sculpture’s screaming was incessant. A pale flickering filled the world from the ground to the ceiling of the sky. He could see the face of the woman who’d been gripped with fear and shock just like he was now, and the crimson eyes of that hateful man projecting his iron will. And lastly, the presence of inescapable death.
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”
“Now then, villain who sips on the lamentations of the people like honey. Before the grand desire that we magicians of the Society strive for, rot away and begone.”
He could plainly see that man’s mouth putting together those words.
And immediately following that, he touched the center of the magic circle with his finger.
And in that moment, a deafening thunder broke out. The thousands of rays of lightning that had been concentrically gathering as a beam of light in that magic circle turned into a single massive pillar and swallowed everything in Rajas’s vision.
And in that light, not a hint of the darkness of the Evil God the demons believed in existed. Absolutely nothing and nowhere.
And before that torrent of light created by the holy lightning, the shrieking, resentful Demon General Rajas was completely consumed.
Epilogue
“That’s it... I’m beat.”
Making sure that the flickering lightning completely vanished into the darkness over the horizon, Suimei fell to the ground spread-eagle lying face up. Putting up with the slight sensation of having the hard ground slamming into his back, he began regulating his breathing to try and calm his burning lungs.
The Magic in this Other World is Too Far Behind! Volume 2 Page 26