[124] A New Encounter (5)
Tess was unquestionably built to pair with the hulking Rian. Her limbs were long, she was tall, and her waist curved in a way that made her silhouette striking.
By contrast, anyone could tell I was a mage. My height was average and my frame lean for my age.
Physical beauty isn't everything, but standing before Tess—who was a head taller and radiated raw presence—I couldn't help feeling insignificant.
"No, we're just friends. She insisted on coming along."
"I see."
Tess didn't take that at face value. The fact that a girl from the first rank of nobility had come along with a commoner partner hinted at something unusual.
Rian thought the same. When planning this trip, his biggest worry had been that Shirone might not find a partner.
There was the matter of status, and Shirone was introverted—he could get hurt if things went wrong.
But when it came down to it, Shirone had shown up with a girl so beautiful even someone who usually wasn't interested in girls was taken aback.
Rian had always thought a girl should be cute enough to trigger a protective instinct—like Amy.
Tess, however, was someone whose abilities outclassed his, so there was no way he'd feel any romantic pull.
Even if it was just the Schema's effect, few men were attracted to a woman stronger than themselves.
"Do your best, Shirone. I'll help push things along."
While Rian schemed, the repaired carriage arrived. The four of them grabbed their things and headed for it.
Then—
"You bastard! Rian—!"
A voice blasted from the mansion with ear-splitting volume. The murderous intent threaded through it made Rian realize immediately: everything had been found out.
"Damn it! Run, everyone!"
"What? The carriage?"
"If we ride, he'll catch us! Look behind you! We have to get over the wall, no matter what!"
They all turned toward the mansion. A towering ochre whirlwind was barreling straight at them.
Without fully understanding what was happening, Shirone and the others broke into a run.
"Rian! What's going on?"
"Damn! The report cards must've arrived! I actually got last place! Dad's going to kill me!"
"Seriously? He'll really kill you? Let's just tell the truth and go. We're going on a trip—what is this?"
"Try telling him that. I'm running. And for the record, my dad's a certified fourth-class prosecutor."
Color drained from the three faces. Tess activated Schema and lunged forward; Amy followed right behind.
Shirone, trailing, felt his heart pounding. They were running forward, yet the wind hit them from behind.
Running while displacing the air like that meant Bishop's speed exceeded normal human limits.
"Rian! I think he'll catch us!"
"We can't help it! I'll sacrifice myself! You two go to the island and enjoy yourselves!"
Rian would have been capable of that—he could do it and then some. But nobody was going to abandon their friends. Amid the chaos, Shirone thought of a solution.
"Amy! Teleport! Rian, don't move!"
Shirone grabbed Rian and cast a photonic spell. Their bodies flashed and became light, bursting forward in a blinding streak.
Experiencing teleportation for the first time left Rian dizzy. His field of vision narrowed and the scenery rushed at him.
It was the mage's perspective.
Amy understood Shirone and grabbed Tess, casting teleportation as well.
Two streaks of light tore across the garden at incredible speed. There was a real risk they'd smash into cover and be shredded, but Shirone and Amy allowed no margin for error.
When Shirone thought they'd put a decent distance between themselves and the mansion, he turned back to look. He had to clench his teeth to stop himself from breaking down.
The whirlwind was closer. It was smashing through anything in its path.
The image of Ozent's great sigil flashed through his mind.
"Amy! This way!"
Shirone skidded to a halt in the middle of a dense forest. Amy sacrificed a turn to close the gap with him.
The whirlwind destroying the woods was only a hundred meters away.
Tess stamped her foot and shouted, "What now? Just get caught?"
"Grab me! I'm going to fly!"
Shirone expanded the Spirit Zone to its maximum radius. It wouldn't let them escape the garden entirely, but there was one option.
If they couldn't beat him in speed, they would erase their coordinates in an instant.
"Now!"
When the others reached him, Shirone used his synesthesia to search for a safe spot. He hadn't expected to use the spell so soon in real combat.
Targeting the forest's edge, he cast spatial transport. Their bodies flared into light and were sucked into the sky.
At the same moment, a furious wind swept over where they'd stood, erasing their traces.
Bishop clenched his hand in frustration—the one that had failed to catch Rian. It had been a hair's breadth.
"Damn it…!"
He spun 180 degrees and braked with both legs. His body skidded some ten meters as if on ice.
Beyond his heels, a mound of earth, weighing perhaps twenty times his body weight, surged up. The sight showed how much brute force his body contained.
Bishop looked back at the path he'd run, conflicted. The ground was torn up and trees snapped.
All because of Rian. To dare deceive his father.
"Schema?" he muttered, pulling the report card from his pocket with trembling hands. The more he thought about it, the deeper his sigh.
Still, he couldn't help feeling some pity for his stubborn son. How much training had it taken to acquire strength comparable to a Schema?
'Consider it an award for effort,' he thought.
Apparently Shirone had already mastered spatial transport. For a magic even professionals found difficult, that was enormous growth in just half a year.
Shirone and Rian. Rian and Shirone. Bishop pictured the two boys' futures, bound together by fate.
Their talents and temperaments might be worlds apart, but in terms of the number of steps they'd taken, weren't both doing their best in their own way?
"Must be a good memory, that," he muttered, tossing the report card over his shoulder and heading back to the mansion.
Island: Galiant (1)
Shirone and the others vaulted over the Ozent estate wall and sprinted full-out away from the noble district.
Teleporting had put them off Bishop's predicted coordinates, but they weren't safe yet.
A Schema master's movement range was animalistic; no ordinary teleportation could be relied on to shake one off.
Only when they reached the bustling part of town did they finally breathe easier. Bishop's face still loomed in their minds.
They hadn't expected him to physically harm his son, but the murderous look he'd worn while whipping up that whirlwind suggested he might be capable of worse.
Shirone exhaled. "Now what? We've come this far—no point going back."
"Doesn't matter. We were paid well. Let's hire a carriage and head to the harbor."
Rian wasn't afraid of anything as long as his father wasn't around. He'd probably get chewed out someday, but this wasn't the time for gloomy thoughts before a fun trip.
They went to the stables on the outskirts of town. The place sold horses to travelers and also offered transport services with hired drivers.
They couldn't afford to dawdle to catch a ship, so Rian rented a four-person carriage they could leave with immediately.
Rian and Tess sat side by side; Shirone and Amy faced each other. It was a commoner's carriage, cramped, so they had to sit close.
The awkwardness dissolved quickly as cool air streamed through the windows.
Tess fanned herself and looked at Shirone.
She'd never learned magic, but she knew how difficult it was to teleport out of a dense forest. As she'd suspected, Shirone was a mage of considerable skill.
But there were plenty of talented mages among the nobility. That still didn't explain the shock Rian's revelation had caused—why he'd been the one to take a knight's oath, for instance.
"By the way, what was that second spell? Teleportation felt… different."
"Oh, that was spatial transport. Space bends along the time axis, so it probably felt disorienting."
"What? That was spatial transport?"
Tess's eyes went wide. Her friends all attended the Magic Academy, yet none of them had mastered spatial transport.
It wasn't a magic one could learn from theory alone. It required mental fortitude—something conquered only through time and effort.
"Incredible. Did you get some kind of lucky break? No offense, but I thought only pros used spatial transport. Isn't it nearly impossible without learning magic from childhood?"
Tess assumed Shirone had entered the magic world after some fateful discovery. Otherwise, a commoner wouldn't have had the means to learn magic.
Shirone simply nodded. Her assumption was half right and half wrong, but it wasn't important enough to correct.
"Yeah. If it weren't for Rian, I wouldn't have been able to attend the Magic Academy. The Ozent family helped me get in."
"I figured as much. Still, that's impressive. Competing with nobles from a young age must've been tough beyond just studying."
"Ha! At first it was. But it's okay now. Amy's watched over me a lot."
"Hmph, what did I do? You didn't even tell me."
Amy sniffed and turned away. She didn't show it, but Shirone's modest reply irked her.
Tess seemed unwilling to believe a commoner like Shirone could have mastered advanced magic purely through effort.
It was natural—she'd never known him. But the notion that Shirone's hard path could be written off as a lucky chance didn't sit well.
Rian scratched an itch Amy's pride hadn't been able to reach.
"Besides, it was only six months ago. Shirone's only been learning magic for half a year."
"What? Six months?"
Tess craned her neck to look at Rian. For once, she was utterly baffled.
No known method could let someone master spatial transport in six months. That was common sense in noble society, separate from any prosecutor's mindset.
Tess glanced over. Shirone smiled, but Amy still sat with her chin propped, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.
Only then did Tess realize her mistake.
Prosecutors and mages often pursued different values and so developed opposite ways of speaking.
Where prosecutors said what they thought and took it at face value, mages gleaned many meanings from the spaces between words. From Amy's perspective, Tess's attitude had likely felt belittling.
"Oh my, I'm sorry. I babbled without knowing anything. I didn't mean to be rude. I'd be angry if my boyfriend were treated like that."
Amy's face flushed. Mages were the ones who best understood language, but that made them vulnerable to a blunt apology like a child's comfort.
"I—I didn't say anything. And he's not my boyfriend! We're just friends."
She answered curtly, but her expression was noticeably more relaxed.
"We're strangers, so it's natural we don't know each other. Tess didn't mean harm—she's honest. If you want to talk about anything, feel free."
Rian said it plainly, in his usual straightforward way. Shirone and Amy faltered, unsure how to respond.
Used to weighing every angle, they found the prosecutors' plainspoken manner oddly overwhelming.