[79] An Unwelcome Visitor from the Dark (3)
Nade picked up a pen and wrote something on his palm. The others watching him wrote the same phrase on theirs.
- I have lost my memory. Whoever knows the keyword is to be trusted. The keyword is Polaris.
Shirone and his group opened their palms with satisfaction. If they marked themselves like this, even if they lost their memories they would still cooperate.
"All right, done? Let's go."
With his confidence back, Shirone stepped out of Istas.
Students were moving across the campus after classes. Looking more carefully with clearer heads, Shirone noticed there was more than one odd thing.
Where groups of three or five would normally walk together, students were moving alone. Stranger still, their routes were a jumble even as they hurried along.
"Guys, those people over there..."
"I know. I felt it too. They don't seem to have any destination. They're just walking wherever."
Nade scanned the crowd for someone he knew. It was Gabe, a classmate from Class Five.
"Hey, Gabe. Where are you going?"
Gabe came up, then answered in a flat tone as if meeting a stranger for the first time.
"Who are you?"
Nade pouted. But since Shirone already knew what had happened, he didn't worry and asked the question that mattered.
"No, forget that. Where are you headed right now?"
"Where am I going?"
Nade thumped his chest in frustration.
"You were walking just now. What's your destination?"
"Me?"
Gabe looked down at his legs. Then, as if realizing something, he began to look around.
"Where is this...?"
"Hey, snap out of it. What's wrong with you? Has anything happened in the last few days? Did you see anyone suspicious?"
"Do you... know me?"
"Of course I do. How could I not?"
Gabe's face drained of color. He suddenly grabbed Nade's shoulder and shook him, panic in his eyes.
"Then tell me! Who am I? No—where is this place? What... what is my name?"
When the terrified Gabe clutched his head, Nade stepped back slowly, ready for anything. Fortunately Gabe didn't turn aggressive. He was, however, unraveling.
"What is that sound? I can hear a strange sound! Why does it keep happening?"
As Gabe shouted and looked around, his speech began to slur. Soon incomprehensible, primal noises slipped out of him.
Shirone's eyes flickered. He'd realized what state Gabe was in. Iruki, on the other hand, hadn't seemed to notice yet and was listening to the sounds around them.
"He says he's hearing sounds? Auditory hallucinations?"
Shirone asked in a trembling voice.
"No—he's hearing his own voice."
"What? His own voice?"
"He can't remember language. He speaks out of habit but doesn't know the meaning. Of course he's scared."
Gabe had completely lost the language system. In the end he'd even forgotten syllables and was emitting primitive cries.
Chills ran through Shirone's group. Judging by the speed of mental regression, memories were disappearing at a frightening pace.
As time passed, Gabe's voice subsided, the spark in his eyes vanished, and finally he lost motor control. At that same moment... everyone on the street froze.
A terrifying stillness settled across the Magic Academy. As if wax figures had been set up, no one showed any sign of movement.
"What on earth... happened?"
"At least we're safe for now. We can't be optimistic, but we might have a little room to investigate."
Shirone looked people over one by one. It felt like Armin's stop spell had been cast on the world. But time was definitely passing. Besides, since people still blinked occasionally, they weren't actually frozen stiff.
"Their thoughts... have stopped."
If this was a kind of magic, it was more dangerous than a simple stop. It posed a threat—if someone willed it, even a child could harm everyone here.
The three of them slipped into the crowd and ran a few tests. When they tickled a junior, he burst into laughter. But when the tickling stopped his expression hardened immediately. When they pretended to poke his eye, he blinked. Their nerves were still alive.
"Huh. So only thought has been arrested. That's unusual."
"If that's the case, they'll have endurance limits. They can't stay upright forever. Who would do this?"
"First we need to find out who did it. Let's keep looking."
Shirone's group headed north to check whether the graduating seniors and teachers with higher magic levels were in the same condition.
At the top of the incline the seniors were pouring out through the iron-arched gate.
Shirone and the others hid in the bushes.
The fact that only the seniors were moving while everyone else couldn't was reason enough for suspicion.
A face they didn't recognize appeared among the seniors.
A young man and woman who looked about Shirone's age, and a man wearing twin swords who didn't fit the Magic Academy at all.
Lucas whistled and jabbed at them.
"Phew—seen a lot of gruesome stuff, but this is something else. They've all turned into zombies, huh?"
Abyss Nova was a spell that cut off the memories of those exposed to the Nova for twenty-four hours. Without memory, thought itself becomes impossible; it was almost accurate to call it a deanimation spell. Memories were blocked starting from the most recent, most vivid ones.
Leading those whose memories had been cut was Arin's job. Specialized in mental magic, she had led the seniors into the part of campus where Shirone's group had met Gabe.
'Shadow of Capture.'
There she cast another spell. Her shadow writhed like tentacles and threaded through the people's own shadows.
It was a form not used in the fourfold method. But for mental mages it was a classic tentacle configuration.
The tentacle form unspooled the Spirit Zone into thin threads, making it far more flexible than the fourfold method.
That flexibility came at a cost: it took time. To pass through every senior's shadow took at least twenty minutes.
While Arin worked, Lucas killed time rating the girls. As nobles, they all had pale skin and pleasant scents. Lucas's viper gaze swept over them and stopped when he found someone to his taste.
"Oh ho. Look at this."
Even without memories, the girl's eyes were clear. Her retro style—red-tinted bangs falling over one eye—was striking; outwardly she was the most beautiful among the students.
"She looks like she has spirit. I don't like vicious girls, though."
The moment Lucas's hand reached for Amy, Kanis grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
"Lucas, knock it off. Keep your indecent behavior to yourself."
"What? You telling me to stop, Kanis? You talkin' to me?"
"If you do anything useless, I won't let it slide."
"Pfft!"
Lucas let out a hollow laugh. Had the Parrot Thieves' reputation sunk this low?
"Hey, why so serious? I heard this is some kind of revenge play. What's wrong with a little fun?"
"It's revenge to restore our master's pride. I won't forgive rotten behavior."
"And if you don't forgive, what will you do? Duel me right here?"
"I'll void your employment contract."
"Haha! Kid, you're mistaken. I'm employed by Arkein, not by you."
"It's the same. Arin is casting Shadow of Capture. If you interfere with the operation, I can fire you anytime. And if you complain..."
A whirlpool of abyss opened in Kanis's eyes.
"I'll kill you on the spot."
Lucas smacked his lips and backed off. He'd killed many mages before rising to deputy leader of the Parrot Thieves; he knew how dangerous it was to show hostility inside the Spirit Zone.
"All right. I'll quit. If I don't get paid it's my loss anyway."
"Let me be clear. Interfere with our work one more time and I won't be so lenient."
"You lot are picky about partners. The master never shows himself. Where is he, anyway?"
"He's preparing something important. He expects us to handle simple matters ourselves."
Arkein was currently hidden, recovering the mental power spent on Abyss Nova. Kanis kept that fact to himself; there was no benefit in revealing it.
"Sure, sure. I bet he is."
Lucas's eyes flashed sharply for a moment as he turned away.
'Hah. He's probably hiding somewhere, resting.'
Lucas knew the principle of equivalent exchange for mages. A spell that blocked the memories of hundreds was beyond what an ordinary mage could attempt. Even a great mage would likely be unable to perform at full strength for a while.
'Enjoy your puffed-up act while it lasts, kid. There's no way I'd pass up a chance this entertaining.'
When Arin finished, the seniors and advanced students started moving all at once. After they had put distance between themselves and the academy, Shirone's group left the bushes. From what they'd seen, it looked like the entire student body was being taken somewhere.
"Who are those people?"
"There's no time to theorize. For now it seems calm, but once they reach their destination we don't know what they'll do. And the teachers were taken too."
Shirone said.
"The girl who cast the spell looked like she used dark magic. Does that mean they did this?"
"Unlikely. To cast a spell at that scale, the zone itself has to be huge. Two of the three look too young, and the one with weapons is probably not a mage."
"So there's a third person."
"That's what it looks like. Let's focus on tracking them for now. If someone gets into danger, we can step in then."
To seize the Magic Academy—these were madmen. And dark magic on top of that...
With a nameless foreboding, Shirone's group trailed the uninvited guests.
* * *
Etella stayed in the training hall in the same clothes as the day before. Sitting cross-legged without moving, her brows twitched. Her forehead creased and the bridge of her nose tightened. Veins stood out in her neck as she clenched her teeth, and her body began to shake violently.
The building trembled with Etella's convulsions. Dust rained down as walls and ceiling vibrated. When she finally opened her eyes, she gasped and collapsed forward.
"Haa! Haa!"
Etella, who had struggled all night with a Shimma that appeared at dawn, was drenched in cold sweat.
'What on earth was that?'
She couldn't identify it exactly, but it had been the kind of magic that invades a person's mind and blocks memories. Dark magic belonged to the orthodox school, but the malice within the spell had driven Etella's vigilance to the extreme. If not for the Law of the Karsis Convent, she too would have lost her memory.
'Dark magic. But it's forbidden on campus.'
Etella checked the time. It was as bright as midday in summer, but it was well past class hours.
'Was I trapped in the Shimma for over twelve hours?'
Considering Etella's supreme mental strength, the spell had to have been extremely powerful. What baffled her even more was that she'd missed classes entirely and no one had come looking for her.
She wasn't the only one affected.
Realizing that, Etella dashed out of the training hall without even changing clothes.
* * *
A flash streaked across the sky above the Magic Academy. It arced toward the ground as if drawn by a magnet and plunged down. Without a sound of impact, a single man landed.