[141] The Time-Space Maze (5)
The mage returned with a serious expression. Between her palms she formed a globe of fire.
Unlike Amy's, it was a single orb, so raising its density would be far easier.
'She's concentrating her firepower, huh? Really desperate to win.'
As Amy had guessed, the mage was tense. No one had ever put the magic's power into numbers here, so nobody knew what score would appear.
Still, no matter how Amy thought about it, it seemed unlikely the mage could top Electric Arrow by threefold.
"Ta-ha!"
The mage thrust her hands forward.
In the Spirit Zone, inertia is ignored, so a caster doesn't need a special motion to cast. Even so, taking a firing stance was the mage's last-ditch effort to squeeze out a bit more focus.
Amy tracked the fireball with her eyes. Miro's spacetime drank the flame as a vortex of fire spun within it.
The mage watched the orb with hopeful eyes. A moment later her face fell.
The score: 1,330. Only 310 points higher than Electric Arrow.
That's a huge margin in an assessment that purely measures physical force, but in the realm of magic that manipulates phenomena it was virtually the same level.
"N—no way. No! It dispersed the power. I should be able to hit at least two thousand."
No one answered the mage.
The gap was simply too wide. No matter what she tried, she couldn't surpass Amy's number.
They'd already written off the archer's chance. The girl who scored over 3,000 was probably the strongest among them.
Even a mage hailed as a saint in the mercenary world had only 1,330. Someone who'd displayed more than twice that number was at minimum the top talent of their age.
Rian and Tess felt the same.
It wasn't to belittle Shirone—Amy had been his senior at the academy. If a graduating senior like her had failed, it was reasonable to expect Shirone wouldn't easily do better.
The only person who didn't think this was the end was Amy.
"Shirone, you need to take this seriously. Maybe it was a narrow miss."
"Got it. I'll do my best."
The leader scoffed through his lips and sneered.
"Hah! Doing your best won't help. You need results. It's over. Let's pack up and go back."
Shirone took something from the leader's decision to give up without even trying. Miro's spacetime—the altar called the angel's eye—what on earth had she made this for?
That fleeting insight had to wait. Right now the priority was the altar's test.
Shirone closed his eyes and ran the numeric sequence. A faint point of light appeared ahead. Countless photons surged toward the center, swelling the point into a growing mass.
"W-what is that? Photon output? What kind of impact would that even make?"
The mage said, baffled. Still, she couldn't look away—there was a presence to it ordinary photon emissions didn't have.
When Shirone finished the sequence and snapped his eyes open, a fist-sized white sphere trembled as if enraged.
Gritting his teeth, Shirone fired a photon cannon. A beam streaked out at near-light speed and struck Miro's spacetime as if to smash it apart.
At first, even the mercenaries who had no expectations were captivated by the beauty of the flash, waiting with shaking hearts for the score.
4,783.
When that unexpected number appeared, everyone's eyes widened.
The mage and the archer, players familiar with magic, were especially stunned. Shirone's attack had been nothing but photon output.
Light has no innate explosive power—only impact defined by the product of speed and mass.
And yet it scored 4,783. Compared to his comrades, that was equivalent to the impact of twenty strength-build warriors bringing their full force down together.
"W-what on earth are those things?"
Unease spread among the mercenaries. They didn't understand Shirone's method, but if it landed, there would be no one among them who could withstand it.
They didn't have time for other thoughts. Even after that tremendous blow, Miro's spacetime flared red and pronounced a failing grade.
Shirone felt the strength go out of him. What kind of orb was this?
Maybe 5,000 was the cutoff for passing. But he couldn't see how to boost the photon cannon's power any further.
"I wish I could try one more time."
Amy covered her mouth and laughed as if she'd been waiting for this.
"Heh! You feel it too, right? I did. But how many points do you actually need to pass?"
"I don't know. Maybe a laser would score better."
"Oh, right! A laser can accumulate energy."
Shirone's laser vibrates molecules so its destructive power grows over time. Theoretically it could destroy anything—perfect for this kind of evaluation.
"But there's a next turn. We'll go around once and then try. What are you doing? Aren't you going to go?"
Shirone asked the leader. He just stood there with a face like he'd swallowed something foul.
As turns passed and scores climbed, the leader couldn't bring himself forward. A swordsman like him could only expect a score around two hundred at best.
"Tch! Whatever. It's done. We can only go back."
The leader hurried to the entrance in a panic, but no matter how he twisted the handle, the iron door didn't budge.
Puzzled, the party turned back. The white-tattooed man spoke.
"You are one. If one is judged, all must be judged. You cannot leave before that."
When the archer translated, the group finally understood. The rule didn't just unify wills—it demanded synchronized action.
"Ah! Annoying! Why make us do something pointless?"
The leader's complaints never stopped. But to leave, he had no choice but to prove his own ability.
'So that's it. This is a cruel rule.'
Shirone felt a chill.
How had he not realized sooner? Every rule the white-tattooed man had described relied on one premise.
Trust among comrades.
It was a strangely designed test. If you only considered firepower, a mage clearly had the advantage over a swordsman.
That didn't make swordsmen weak. Even if a mage split the earth, a swordsman specialized in biological combat could cut that mage down in one stroke.
Measuring magic's power was also problematic. If Amy, a ranged specialist, had tried sniper mode, she would have scored much higher. But this place ignored such variables.
A cramped eight-sided altar where special means couldn't be used, and eight spheres.
'Why eight? Just for symmetry? But in practice, the eight of us were judged on one orb, weren't we?'
Most puzzling was the voice of the god. Miro's spacetime measures impact and displays it as a number.
Why? What did those numbers mean?
If Miro was screening those who would go to Kergo, a simple pass-or-fail would have sufficed.
Scores vary wildly by specialty. And yet everyone had to be judged.
One feeling emerged from that rule.
An obsession with scores. If a comrade scores higher, you feel uneasy. If they score lower, you dismiss them. Without perfect understanding of each other's roles, discord is inevitable. And at the end of that rule waits—
Someone sent for the sake of another.
Shirone drew a deep breath. What on earth had Miro been thinking? This test was set up to make them turn on one another.
"Shirone, once that guy's done, let's just go."
Amy whispered. Her eyes showed the same tension.
Rian and Tess also wore serious, troubled expressions.
They prized camaraderie, so they were sensitive to the atmosphere—and since the rules clearly disadvantaged the swordsman, they quickly grasped the intent.
As expected, the leader didn't know what to do. He could feel his comrades' gazes on him had changed.
"H-h-haaah!"
Without time to steady himself, the leader sprinted. He dashed forward, but to Shirone he looked like someone running from something.
Had his schema opened? Where was his sword? How far to the target? Not knowing any of that, his steps faltered.
He took a shallow breath and, as if collapsing, swung his sword, the blade swiping off the orb and bouncing away.
"Ugh! Damn it!"
As the leader tried to step out of Miro's spacetime and away from the altar, he scrambled to regain his balance and turned back.
A score of 32 hovered.
No one smiled. The companions' faces hardened as if they'd been deeply humiliated.
"So what! It wouldn't have passed anyway! We tried, didn't we? Let's get out of here!"
The leader made a fuss and left the altar. But his steps took him away from the others.
'That party's over. Once they leave, they'll probably disband.'
Shirone thought it was time to drop it. He regretted not trying again, but he couldn't continue with mercenaries whose trust had broken.
"Hey…translate for me, please."
Shirone asked the archer. Even if they were leaving, there was one thing he wanted to confirm.
The archer, sharing the same emptiness, readily agreed.
"All right. What should I ask?"
"Has anyone passed this gate so far?"
The white-tattooed man nodded firmly.
"It's a gate for passage. Not a trap."
"How many points from Miro's spacetime are required to pass?"
"The angel's eight eyes will judge you."
The man repeated his earlier words. In the end, everything was decided by Miro's spacetime.
Shirone paused, then asked his final question.
"Of the people who've come here, what proportion pass?"
"Exactly, I don't know. Sometimes many come, sometimes only one. From what I've seen, about one in ten passes. Most often, a lone traveler passes."
Shirone flinched. The rate was far higher than he'd expected.
At first he'd thought there might be no passers at all—he'd assumed Miro hadn't designed this place merely to test skill.
That belief remained, but the white-tattooed man had clearly said there were passers. Ten percent was an astonishing rate.
A smile trembled at Shirone's lips and a chill of excitement ran up his spine.
"Shirone, why are you suddenly like that?"
"The Director…he's such a trickster."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Amy asked, puzzled, but Shirone couldn't speak. Alpheas's voice had slipped into his mind like an echo.
-You should get a rough idea of what kind of world Miro lives in.
Not just a rough idea—he got it clearly. If he couldn't clear even this obstacle, he had no right to try to learn more about Miro.
'I'm sorry, Director. But I've already found out.'
Shirone didn't give up. He was determined to pass this place during the journey.
Amy watched him in silence and guessed.
'You haven't given up, have you, Shirone.'
Then she wouldn't give up either. She'd come to help him at first, but now she truly wanted to know more about the woman called Miro.