[437] The Day of the Full Moon (1)
Silence.
Amid absolute stillness, a dozen emotions crossed each other.
Romi Etella smoothed her expression as if nothing had happened and fixed her gaze on Horkin.
He must have noticed already, and in that case the question of "how?" was irrelevant.
"Exceptional acting. If they were Gaold's party, they would have known we were the Cage team the Association sent."
Long ago—back when Horkin's hair wasn't white—rumors spread nationwide about a genius monk from the Carsis Order.
Carsis was renowned across the continent, but unless you had a special interest in ascetic practice, you could easily miss such a thing.
At the time, Horkin had stopped by the order's headquarters on a mission and seen a young girl taking part in a succession ceremony.
'I almost missed her. Lucky dementia hasn't hit me yet.'
Romi Etella.
A teacher at the Alpheas School of Magic.
What were the odds of running into a teacher from the school Gaold graduated from in a monastery?
Even if it were within the bounds of probability, Horkin's instincts told him Etella was the lead they needed.
"You pretended not to know out of fear? Brilliant choice. Now that we've gone this far, will you tell us where Gaold is?"
Twenty mages behind Horkin pressed Armin's group with an imposing aura.
'Dangerous.'
From Armin's perspective as a mage, a head-on confrontation would be difficult.
His teammates were strong, but each of those twenty was on the level of Romi Etella or Olifer Shiina.
While both sides watched each other's reactions, only the swordsman Kuan stepped forward.
A sword-ghost who'd ravaged battlefields, he knew how dangerous these opponents were, but a swordsman fights to cut the enemy in front of him.
"Do nothing. If you move even a little—"
Horkin said.
"Move, you say?"
Kuan's body flew and spun in an instant. But by the time he whirled, Horkin was already gone.
'Rat-like vermin...'
Ten meters from Kuan, a weasel-like man had his hand on the nape of Horkin's neck.
Stik—a reconnaissance mage who specialized in sonar magic and a certified Grade-5 mage.
In a liquid medium, sonar travels at roughly 1,500 meters per second. That's over Mach 4, so a clumsy attack won't get through.
Stik said in a dry voice, "Impatient, aren't we?"
"What do you mean by 'do nothing'—"
Kuan lunged again.
"Not even wag your tongue."
At Kuan's opening strike, twenty-five moved simultaneously.
Each showed a distinctive move as Aroella of the fire line closed on Shiina.
"Fire Extreme!"
Dense flames dripped over Aroella's head, surging into a torrent that crashed toward Shiina.
Shiina clenched both fists and widened her eyes.
With a sound like shattering glass, the air froze.
Thousands of barbed blossoms burst open, and the fire of Fire Extreme cooled abruptly as if plunged into water.
'Definitely not an easy team.'
After each side had tested the other's strength, the real fight began.
When Cage B-team fully engaged, the balance of power tipped sharply.
Team leader Rose's scent magic scrambled minds, and when Mami's word-command spell triggered, the ground rolled like waves.
Buffs and shields, recovery spells, and combat mages flaunting prowess that rivaled a swordsman's effortless skill pushed Armin's group two kilometers from their original position.
Water Dragon.
A massive jet of water from Mongrang of the hydro line swept everything aside.
Absolute Zero.
Shiina faced Aroella while unleashing a finishing spell, and the water dragon froze solid in mid-form.
Etella ran across it.
Yin–Yang Wave Fist: Single Wall.
At only ten centimeters, her fist struck Mongrang's flank dozens of times.
Thick fluid had been protecting the impact points, but even that was shattered by the power of the waves.
'We have to take out at least one of them!'
She stepped forward to finish, but a bald man grabbed Etella's shoulder and rolled them on the ground.
He held her tight so she couldn't move, and the vein in his temple thickened.
'Ugh! How does a woman have this much strength—'
He was indeed a bishop of the Carsis Order.
When Etella tried to stand, the bald man slammed her down with his head and opened his mouth to bite her nape.
It was Benipis's combat-mage ability, "Survival of the Fittest"—consuming an opponent's flesh to strengthen oneself.
Benipis chewed Etella's flesh and, head thrown back in ecstasy, Etella used the hold to thrust upward and headbutt him.
Crack!
Benipis's nose broke.
But thanks to various buffs and recovery spells, his clinch did not loosen.
"Now!"
At Benipis's shout, Tarvan thrust both palms forward.
The vacuum bombardment Kaiser Blast—the same technique that had shattered the fiend Belkir—erupted.
Pwooooom!
A fan-shaped blast spread out, and a radius so wide the formation meant nothing was laid to waste.
As thick vapor rolled and swayed on the wind, Cage B-team strode out, the battle finished.
"What's this?"
There was nothing.
There should have been corpses, but all that remained was a plain swept clean as if everything had been flensed away.
Tarvan turned. "Who explains this?"
Aroella spoke up. "It's magic. The blue-haired woman was fighting me at close range. There's no reason she'd just vanish."
Monoros, an Unlocker and an off-registry operator, offered his view. "If there's any possibility, it's the bandaged man. He was an Unlocker like me."
Saint Moriak said, "What kind of Unlocker magic would do this? Is there really a spell that can make twenty-one Cage-level experts disappear without them noticing?"
Mami, the word-mage with snake-like features, pinched her thin brows. "They didn't vanish. It's more like... severed. Something was cut off."
"Stop, then."
Everyone looked to Horkin.
"You mean Stop magic?"
"Yes. I heard there's one at the Ivory Tower. A blind mage who uses Stop."
"You can't be so certain. Blind doesn't guarantee he's from the Ivory Tower, nor that what happened to us was Stop."
Roche, the metal mage, objected reasonably.
Blind people are few, Ivory Tower mages even fewer. But only one mage in the world used Stop.
"Besides, why would the Ivory Tower help Gaold? Gaold fundamentally doesn't trust people. He's a man who kept secrets for twenty years."
Saint Moriak said.
"I wouldn't put it that way. He's not someone who can't get along with people—he simply doesn't need to. If it's to save Miro, he'd join hands with anyone or fight anyone."
"Enough."
Rose cut the conversation. "Too many assumptions. In any case, the enemy has Stop magic or an equivalent crowd-control power. And... they're probably aiding Gaold."
Even Rose had to rely on hypotheticals. It was natural to recognize the mission had suddenly grown far more dangerous.
Horkin summarized, "What the team leader means is this: as long as that blind man is nearby, removing Gaold is impossible."
Tarvan asked, "So we just sit on our hands?"
Communications mage Weigan interjected, "Wait. There's a question we need to look into first. If they really are helping Gaold, what were they doing here?"
Horkin stroked his beard. "Hmm. True. There's no need to split teams in such a dangerous place. We're actually moving together very inefficiently."
"Right. And Gaold is obsessed with Miro. If a man like him would disperse his team, it's for something big. So if we trace what they were doing here, won't we find Gaold?"
"Indeed... that would make sense."
Rose rested her chin on her hand, thinking. It was clearly the most straightforward solution.
"Alright. We're returning to the mainland. If Etella is acting on someone's orders, we can find out who and locate Gaold. Combat is a last resort. The bandaged man must not interfere."
No one objected.
No one was so docile as to obey blindly, but they all agreed the bandaged man should be kept as far away as possible.
"Then let's go."
Twenty-one flares shot into the sky.
* * *
When Shirone returned after touring units under the Second Rebel Army command, it was early evening.
The moonlight was so strong there was no trouble seeing around.
"Wow."
Shirone stared up at the night sky, entranced.
The moon hung ten times larger than he remembered from his home planet.
It was Full Moon Day—the night when the negative Law is said to strengthen most in Purgatory.
Perhaps for that reason, the howls of beasts in the nearby forest never stopped.
"Unsettling. I feel like something's bound to happen."
"Don't worry. These days even angels don't bother patrolling. If it's not angels, a group spell should be enough."
Arriving at the headquarters, Shirone saluted. "I'll go in first. Thanks for your work."
"Oh, squad leader, you too."
Shirone returned to his lodging and collapsed onto the bed, exhausted.
He wanted to lie still, but before he had time, the door burst open.
"Shirone!"
Pflu came in.
"Huh? Senpai?"
Pflu glanced outside, closed the door, and sat down right beside him. "I need to talk."
"Why that face? Did something happen while I was gone?"
"While you were away I looked into the underground facility. And there—"
Pflu grimaced.
A headache churned up again. Given the image of what she'd seen, her teeth still ached.
Because she was someone who never wavered, Shirone finally asked, curious, "What on earth happened?"
"Human cloning."
"What? Cloning?"
"I figured out why Laysis collected our blood. We can't just sit on our hands—we should act now—"
Wuuuuuuuuuuuuumm!
A foreboding sonic wave shook the headquarters.
Shirone's heart dropped.
He couldn't remember clearly, but he'd definitely heard that sound before.
'No way...!'
When Shirone and Pflu stepped into the corridor, the headquarters was already in a panic.
It was the vibration of angels that anyone in Purgatory had heard ad nauseam.
"Hmm, so this is the place?"
Outside the headquarters, Ikasa hovered on tiptoe, chin in hand, bathed in the Full Moon's light.
From the outside it looked like just a cliff, but Babel's reconnaissance wouldn't lie.
No matter how hidden in nature, human habitation left an unmistakable artificial trace.
Having scanned Purgatory, Babel had flagged this place as most likely the rebel headquarters.
The probability was 83.3785 percent.
"Show yourselves, pathetic humans! Reveal your faces at once!"
Ikasa shouted, but the cliff answered with an eerie silence.
Of course she knew someone inside the wall was watching.
"Heh heh, you want to come out like that?"
Ikasa spread her arms wide and drew in the moon's power.
A fallen angel's presence is far less than a pure angel's, but on Full Moon Day one could wipe out mere mortals easily.
"Haaaaaah."
A cold groan and her sanctified radiance unfurled into a halo; her inherent intellect began to weave into it.
As the calculations finished, countless dark sigils within the halo began to spin like gears.
'I desire.'
Infinite Judicial Halo—Valhalla Action.
Thunk. The dull imprint of a fist appeared on the cliff face.
As a signal, the entire cliff was furrowed frantically, as if a rain of concussive strikes hammered it.
Pff-pff-pff-pff-pow!
It sounded as if the whole world filled with noise.
Dust rose from the cliff pounded at an inexpressible speed and mountain ranges began to vanish.
Nors hiding inside the headquarters clutched their heads and bolted outside as the cliff rumbled and the ground collapsed from the foundation.
'Behold how insignificant these beings are...'
Ikasa's pupils glazed.
As her desire was realized before her eyes, a dry pleasure crawled up her spine.