[161] Marsha Clay (4)
"Touch the person whose magic you stole and the theft is undone?"
From the fact that Marsha gave no answer at all, Sirone could be sure he'd hit the mark.
Even so, the sense of wrongness remained. If contact was the constraint on her theft, then it made some sense that she'd keep her distance.
But the real issue was how overwhelmingly advantageous Marsha's position was. She had stolen countless spells that used God Particles, while he, conversely, had to fight relying on nothing but Wind Cutter.
Wasn't that more than enough to try fighting? Yet she fled, tens of meters away, as if terrified.
"Out-of-Rule style…"
Sirone's eyes flashed open. At last, everything arranged itself clearly in his head.
"Found it. A mental opening. Marsha isn't perfect."
In retrospect, it was simple. Touching undoes the theft. If she could steal someone's magic with nothing but that one restriction, who on earth could ever defeat her? In the end, there had to be an additional price bound on top of it.
He didn't know what price was exacted, but it would be closely tied to the trauma that had created her Out-of-Rule style.
"An Out-of-Rule caster is a being with a mental bias. To hold a power this immense, you can only stake it on the trauma that made the ability inevitable in the first place."
Therefore she could not approach. The instant Sirone discovered a way to undo the theft, the chances skyrocketed that she would have to pay that price.
What she feared wasn't having the stolen magic taken back. What she truly feared was the horrific price that would be triggered the moment the theft was undone.
"But she must have stolen countless spells until now. How did she overcome it then?"
The answer came quickly. As soon as he found it, Sirone charged straight at Marsha.
This wasn't a time for thinking. Marsha had been stalling until reinforcements arrived.
Ability deprivation, won by staking her most dreadful pain.
So long as there was a risk that Sirone would trigger that price, Marsha would never choose to fight.
Conversely, without fear of that magnitude, the magic called theft wouldn't have been able to manifest in the first place.
Sirone was no longer afraid. There was still time. One way or another, he had to seize Marsha before support arrived.
"Hrk!"
Marsha groaned and backed away. Even when the distance to Sirone narrowed a little, her face went pale. The playful tone and cutesy expressions were gone.
"I can do it! I can get my magic back!"
Catching the light of hope, Sirone kept after Marsha. Of course, chasing on foot a mage who could cast teleportation was close to impossible, but with the thief who had stolen his entire life before his eyes, he couldn't stand still.
"Sirone! It's dangerous!"
At Tess's voice, Sirone looked up to the sky. With a thunderous roar, a dozen or so flashes streaked through the air and fell.
Color finally returned to Marsha's face. Sirone, by contrast, felt so dispirited he even lost the strength to run.
He had thought there was enough time. It was a misjudgment. The surviving subordinates had used a magic circle to arrive in an instant.
"Hohoho! You're finally here. Now it's all over!"
Close to twenty Schema users swarmed in and surrounded Marsha. It was impossible to slip through those gaps and grab her.
"S-Sirone…"
Amy bit her lip and swallowed her tears.
Was it really going to end like this? Sirone might now have to give up his dream of being a mage.
"No way. I really loved magic. I worked so hard."
Sirone looked at Marsha as if he had let everything go. It was the emptiest expression a human could wear.
"Oh my, Sirone? Why are you looking at me like that? Ah, because of the magic? It's fine. You're young—you can learn from the beginning again. Of course, the magic I took from you will be unusable even if you spend your whole life."
"The sound magic—you stole that from someone else too, didn't you?"
"Hehe, that's right. You know I've got a touch of kleptomania. You once said you understood me—why get so petty all of a sudden? You readily paid 50 silver for the pottery, but you can't give up your magic? Why? Playing the saint and all, but when it's giving your magic to someone else, it's oh-so precious?"
Incensed, Amy shouted.
"Shut up! How can you say that? What did Sirone ever do so wrong to you!"
How could a person be like that? Marsha seemed intent not only on stealing Sirone's magic but trampling his life as well.
"Hohoho! That's what hypocrisy is. There aren't any good people in the world. They harbor all sorts of shady thoughts inside while pretending to look after you to your face—it's disgusting enough to die!"
Marsha was cursing the world, but to Sirone's ears it sounded like she was cursing only one person.
Her father.
He had taken in Marsha, an orphan, and raised her until she was seventeen. But when she realized those long years had been time kneaded by vile desire, how deep must her despair have been?
That is why the Out-of-Rule style is terrifying. The very manifestation of the ability draws its source from human trauma.
For ordinary mages, omnipotence is a force that reinforces omniscience. But an Out-of-Rule caster uses omnipotence to distort omniscience.
"Because the pain is so great, even one's ideology gets warped. That is the Out-of-Rule style."
That twisted humanity borrows the power of magic and is realized in the world. Only now did he feel he understood why the Mage Association refused to recognize the Out-of-Rule style as magic.
"Noona, you're a pitiful person."
Strength snapped into Marsha's eyes. Just who was calling whom pitiful?
The one who had put on a show of embracing the whole world only to have his magic completely snatched away—Sirone—was the one who was truly pitiful.
"Hmph! Is that conciliation now? After you came rushing to kill me? You think that'll make me go easy on you?"
"To be honest, I'm not even sure anymore—how painfully you've been living."
"Hoho! At last you admit it! See now? There is no one who understands another's pain! That's human nature! The world is full of nothing but bad people."
"So… from now on, I'm going to come to you, Noona."
Marsha's heart dropped with a thud. There was no way he could get here. Twenty subordinates were protecting her.
"You might be right. Maybe it was hypocrisy. But I still believe there's a way to share pain—if you truly show your wound. So I want you to show me. Not a lie—I have to see your real pain."
"Don't talk nonsense. Who would accept pity from the likes of you?"
"I'm going to break the shell that's imprisoning you. And I'm going to check for myself how festering your wound is."
"Don't come! Don't come!"
Marsha screamed with a look of horror. It was a wound so painful she would scream if even a feather settled on it. And he was going to pry that wound open? Worse, dig it with his hands?
"In return, I promise I'll never give up on you. Whatever the pain is, I'll take it all on."
The moment Sirone finished speaking, the subordinates drew their blades and moved to block in front of Marsha.
"Don't let him come, no matter what! Cut off his head."
Staring at the enemies standing like a net, Sirone turned his head and called to Rian.
"Rian, guard my side."
Rian, the most badly injured of the four, could barely move. Even so, he got up without a word and rested his straight sword across his shoulder.
Tess came running after Rian.
"Wait! I'll do it. I'm less hurt than Rian."
"It's fine, Tess. This is an order my liege gave me."
"But in that condition…"
Sirone looked back at Tess and shook his head.
"Tess, it has to be Rian guarding my side. I can't ask anyone else to spill blood."
"S-spill blood?"
As Sirone slowly moved forward, he spoke to Rian.
"Rian, cut down anyone who charges at me."
Rian didn't understand Sirone's words. Sirone's magic had been stolen, and Rian himself could barely walk. If they entered the enemy lines like this, only death awaited.
"All right. Leave it to me."
Even so, Rian obediently followed after Sirone. The sword does not judge. If the master orders it, you stake your life and act.
Marsha couldn't contain her fury.
He would check her wounds? Share her pain? Nonsense—utter bullshit.
Sirone was just wagging his tongue, using any and all means to get his magic back.
That's what humans are. No matter how much they pretend to show kindness, in the end they only try to fill their own greed.
"Kill him! Kill that brat right now!"
At Marsha's shout, twenty subordinates sprang out at once. Enhanced by Schema's body-style, they closed the distance in a flash and raised their grim blades.
Rian gripped the hilt of his straight sword tight. He didn't know how long he could hold out, but even if his neck were severed, he intended to keep moving.
The leading swordsman leapt and brought his longsword down toward the crown of Sirone's head. At the same time, Rian clenched his teeth and readied to swing his blade.
But in that instant, the swordsman's body suddenly turned to light and soared into the sky.
The sharp noise of spatial movement split the heavens.
Marsha stared blankly at the spectacle. Amy and Tess, watching anxiously from the opposite side, were the same.
"What are you doing! Attack, all of you! We win no matter what!"
At the captain's order, three swordsmen launched a simultaneous attack. But before they could even swing at Sirone, they too turned into light and flew into the air.
Marsha's lips quivered.
Sirone was coming. With each step he took, subordinates blasted away with a boom.
"What? What on earth is happening?"
The only one who understood the situation was Amy, a mage. But even her voice trembled.
"Amazing. I knew his magical sense was extraordinary, but I didn't think it was to this extent."
Just when had Sirone begun to anticipate this moment?
Since Marsha's subordinates arrived? Since he realized the constraint on the theft? No—likely from the moment he heard from Rian about the Wind Cutter.
"What is it, Amy? What is Sirone doing right now?"
"That's magic. Slow—magic that reduces the speed of time."
To immediately combine a theory that had remained only in omniscience with omnipotence—only Sirone could do it. Honestly, even Amy hadn't expected him to pull it off to this degree.
Which meant Marsha couldn't have foreseen it either. Swept up in all manner of lies and schemes, Sirone's lost insight had finally resurfaced and was swallowing up Marsha's calculations.
"Slow? That's Slow?"
Tess scanned the front again. From the outside, there was no noticeable change. It was just that the moment the enemies approached within arm's reach of Sirone, without exception, they shot away on a boom.
But the sight in the eyes of Rian, who was within Sirone's Spirit Zone, was different.
The instant someone entered Sirone's Spirit Zone, their body flashed with light and then began to move slow enough to be tedious.
Those who have reached the state of near-lightspeed can distort the time within their zone. Of course, it wasn't the extreme slowing achieved by Alpheas, but even at Sirone's level, widening time's relativity by more than twice was enough.
"What? Do I just cut them?"
Rian prepared to swing his sword at the enemy who was creeping toward him. Terror filled the man's eyes. At this rate, he couldn't avoid death. In the end, he used the spatial movement magic bound to his bracelet to disengage.
When the enemy fled before even engaging, Rian snorted as if it were anticlimactic and followed behind Sirone again.
Kiiiing! Kiiiing! Kiiiing!
The distinctive sound of teleportation never stopped ringing. Now only three subordinates stood blocking Marsha's front. But even they broke away as Sirone drew near.
Left alone again, Marsha trembled, her face pale. Only horrifying imaginings repeated in her mind.
"Don't come! If you do, I'll die! If I die, you'll never get your magic back!"