[248] System Operation (1)
Where the wind had passed, silence settled.
The students were speechless. In just five minutes, Shirone's storm-like assault had brought Dante—hailed as the kingdom's greatest talent—to his knees.
"What? Is this for real? That Dante—"
One student leapt up and shouted.
"Shirone knocked him down! He beat Dante!"
As if on cue, Training Ground 2000 erupted in cheers.
"That's way too one-sided. Was he never a match from the start?"
"Even Dante can't do anything once Shirone gets on him. I knew from the beginning Shirone would win!"
Voices clamored. Across the kingdom's magic schools, Dante's defensive skill was rated the best. That he'd been toppled so quickly, unable to mount a proper counter, naturally sent everyone into a frenzy.
Once a defense has been breached once, what's to stop it from being breached again?
The duel wasn't over, but from the fight so far the momentum clearly favored Shirone.
As countless emotions boiled up, a hot competitive energy shot skyward. The ones keeping cool were the duel's quiet principals: Alpheas and Olivia.
Even they hadn't expected such an opening. Olivia hadn't imagined Dante would fall so easily, and Alpheas was taken aback by Shirone's lightning offense.
But this is the world of magic. No—indeed, in any contest, everything is relative.
"A mage is…" Alpheas selected his words as if defining something important. "Not quite human."
"..." Olivia remained silent. Once Dante had been struck, there was nothing more to discuss about him.
"Most people can't even enter the Spirit Zone. If you've made it into the Magic Academy, you've already left ordinary folk behind," Alpheas continued.
Olivia's gaze sharpened. Taken another way, his words implied that even someone like Dante was, at best, still an academy student.
"So what? Dante hasn't lost yet."
Alpheas ignored that and went on. "Put a gathering of children who transcend humanity in one place, and an interesting thing happens. Someone among them transcends again. They compete at a higher level, and from there someone else pokes their head above the rest."
Contrary to Olivia's expectation, Alpheas wasn't belittling Dante—he was reflecting on his own life through the duel between two students who'd surpassed ordinary humans.
"At the end of climbing like that, you reach a point where there's nowhere left to climb. Isn't that the realm of a first-rank Grand Mage?" Alpheas smiled and looked at Olivia. She sat primly, lost in thought—surprisingly cute for her age.
Olivia finally spoke. "…Are you looking down on me because I'm second-rank?"
Alpheas didn't answer; he turned his head toward Training Ground 2000.
How could anyone dismiss a second-rank Grand Mage?
But think about it—among those who've climbed that high, none are satisfied with their station. Once you enter the Grand Mage ranks, everyone runs for first rank. They just haven't reached it yet.
Students, pros, second-rank Grand Mages—the competition never ends. In the world of magic you spend your life fighting alone to take one more step beyond the pool you belong to.
Alpheas had once dreamed of becoming a first-rank Grand Mage. The future is uncertain, but there was a time when everyone, himself included, expected he most likely would. Then he lost his wife Erina and wandered for ten years; his edge faded.
If he'd started again from that point, could he have become first rank? Alpheas was certain it was impossible. First rank wasn't something you could claim after squandering a decade and then look down on countless younger geniuses.
What of Olivia? She was clever and hadn't lived recklessly like he had. After failing in love she'd honed her magic all the more, driven by a vengeful resolve. Alpheas wanted to know how close Olivia had ever come to that brilliant peak.
"You didn't not try, right?" His question was blunt, but Olivia—also a mage—understood.
She blinked her long lashes, thought quietly, then pushed out her lower lip. "First rank. That's not something you reach just by trying your best. Or maybe I don't know—maybe someone out there tried harder than I did. But to me, it's the realm of absolute talent."
She reviewed her years to judge the claim's credibility, then remembered something she'd overlooked and added slowly, "Or… the realm of madness."
Alpheas's eyes narrowed halfway. Deep lines cut around them and the light in his pupils sank toward an abyss.
"You mean Gaold." Micaea Gaold—an Alpheas School graduate and now head of the Tormia Magic Association. No one at school would have guessed he'd become a first-rank Grand Mage. People had expected him to turn out good—he'd been genuinely kind, a devout believer who once said he wanted to preach love to the world. Yet now he sat at the apex of the Red Line as the kingdom's greatest Grand Mage. It might be the highest glory for a mage, but for Gaold it might also have been a terrible fate.
Olivia dredged up a distant memory. There'd been a day when the gaze of the world's powers concentrated on Alpheas School of Magic—an event that transcended ordinary affairs—and Olivia had been there.
"Miro's case was regrettable," Alpheas said, falling silent. Thinking of Adrias Miro and Micaea Gaold still made his chest ache.
Olivia suddenly asked, "Wasn't it called the Society for Supernatural Psychical Science?"
Alpheas nodded bitterly. All the events that shook the world had started from there. "Miro and Gaold were founding members. Little terrors, both of them. Back then they were a real headache—constantly getting into absurd incidents. But perhaps because they existed, this world became what it is now."
"Is the society still around?" Olivia asked.
Alpheas's mouth twitched into a smile. It had been an odd connection. "Shirone, Iruki, Nade—the protagonists of this duel and this kingdom's troublemakers—are keeping it alive. They're direct juniors of Miro."
Olivia's eyes shone at the mention of Shirone. The Society for Supernatural Psychical Science seemed an odd fit for a school that pursued intellect, but the more one thought about it, the more one trembled at its vast, hidden significance. If Miro had once been at its center, Shirone was now. Maybe coincidence, maybe not—the fact that the academy's only Unlocker had chosen to revive Miro's circle felt like an unknown thread that couldn't be untangled by mere causality.
The students' cheers grated on Dante's nerves. He wanted to leap up and rough Shirone up on the spot, but recovering from the shock of anti-magic would take at least two more seconds.
I'm losing it. I still can't stand, he thought.
Shirone's attack was wondrous in a way the word "brutal" couldn't capture. If he'd been even a moment slower to cast a defensive magic circle, the match might already have ended.
But I held on. That's what matters, Dante told himself.
For a defense-minded mage, danger is familiar. For one who wins by absorbing the opponent's attacks, a single knockdown is not as catastrophic as it would be for other types. Still, the sting to his pride was deep. He'd never been knocked down so fast in any fight before.
Two seconds. One second. Now.
Dante finally shook off the shock and rose slowly. It felt impossible, but in retrospect it might have been inevitable. He hadn't been careless—rather, the crushing tension had robbed him of split-second judgment. The worst moment is always before the strike; having felt Shirone's power in his bones, he would never fall so pathetically again.
"Credit where it's due. You pushed me this far—only a handful in the whole kingdom could. I'll put you roughly in the top twenty," Shirone said flatly.
He paid no mind to Dante's arrogant habit of ranking students. With Immortal Function active, Shirone had been attacking at full power; frankly, he'd thought the duel over. Dante hadn't stayed down. That irked him.
Dante steadied his Spirit Zone. "But from now on it'll be different. Be prepared—"
"Dante." Shirone cut him off as if he no longer needed to hear him.
He had to push it harder. He needed overwhelming force—so strong Dante could never rise again.
"This is the last time I'll warn you before I start." Shirone flashed and closed in. Dante felt his heart drop and hastily teleported away.
He barely evaded Shirone's snapping jaws and exhaled. Had he retreated a split second later, they would have collided.
Had Shirone wanted mutual destruction? No—this reaction had clearly been anticipated. The initiative still belonged to Shirone.
But I'll turn it around here, Dante thought.
As Dante shifted direction during his retreat, Shirone's flash angled just as sharply to pursue. Within the ten-meter radius of a single teleport, two streaks of light slashed across the sky with brutal speed.
The students stared, mouths open. Only a year ago Shirone had taken his teleportation advancement test across an uncrossable bridge. He'd already cleared the ten-step Dragon's Maze then, but the techniques on display now were advanced moves used by professionals.
Dante employed skills at the same level, but he'd been trained steadily from childhood at the royal magic school. In short, Shirone's growth rate was terrifyingly fast—it almost seemed as if his time flowed differently from others'.
"When did he even reach that level…?" Mark murmured as Shirone and Dante lunged at each other at the same instant.
The students' emotions froze in unison.
Perhaps neither Shirone nor Dante expected the other to charge. Still, neither planned to dodge. If one yielded, both would die in that game of chicken.
Two streaks of light met on the horizon. As the students squeezed their eyes shut, expecting the end, the two altered course at exactly the same moment, veering in opposite directions from the center of that meeting point.
Mark couldn't tell who dodged first. Even in a game of chicken, the two were neck and neck.
"Does that mean their magical sense is evenly matched?" Iruki said, awed. Though Dante had been knocked down once, his movements lived up to his reputation as the kingdom's best.
Shirone and Dante chased each other's afterimages. Their eyelids were set, pupils swallowing their entire fields of vision.
Even while displaying concentration beyond human limits, Shirone could only admire Dante's defense. His defensive sense was astonishing—impossible to latch onto. When Dante committed to defense, his movements were art: if Shirone advanced ten meters, Dante retreated ten; if Shirone shifted to 9.8 meters, Dante maintained the exact spacing and slipped free.