[606] To Someone (4)
* * *
Liz, who had stayed up all night waiting for Oscar, buried her face in the table, leaving her now-cold coffee untouched.
"Haa."
She hadn't expected her heart to be this unsettled when she took a long leave and came to Creas.
'He met another woman?'
Until Nade told her, she hadn't even imagined it, but it was true that Oscar hadn't come or sent word.
'Nade isn't someone who would lie.'
How had it come to this?
She had only wanted to see Oscar one last time before promising him her life.
"Don't move!"
In Wiz the alchemist's warehouse, Nade had taken down six mages in an instant.
As the last mage prepared to finish him off, the concentric ring of flames binding Liz flared higher.
"Don't even twitch a finger. Do anything stupid and this woman dies."
For a guild-born mage, time-splitting was unfamiliar—so their only option was to take Liz hostage and use her to threaten Nade.
"Tch."
When Nade quelled the electricity coiling around his body, Wiz finally smiled.
"Enough! Finish him!"
The mage hesitated—he couldn't cast other spells while holding Liz.
Still, it would have been foolish to admit, "This is all I can do."
'This is why street-breds…'
Wiz frowned as he read the mage's expression, then quickly found another solution.
'There!'
If he fired the Ultrix that discharged electrical energy at Nade, Nade would burn away without a trace.
Wiz activated the Ultrix and Liz's face drained of color.
"Nade! Run!"
"Shut up."
The mage holding Liz warned Nade.
"Don't move. If you want her alive—"
He wondered whether the bargain was even worth it, but to everyone's surprise Nade disarmed completely.
"Do as you like."
"Nade, why…?"
Looking at Liz's bewildered face, Nade gave a bitter little smile.
"I dunno. Why, I wonder?"
Even to Nade, who recalled that day's events, the reason for his decision remained a mystery.
Maybe he wanted it to end.
"Wiz! Now!"
The mage shouted, thinking they had to kill him before he changed his mind.
Powerful electrical energy condensed at Ultrix's muzzle, ready to immolate whatever lay ahead.
"No!"
Seeing Nade exposed to the Ultrix, Liz made the only choice she could.
'I have to die.'
She stepped out past the ring of fire and the flames shot up to the ceiling.
"You idiot!"
As Nade yelled, Wiz fired the Ultrix.
"Krrrrrk!"
The bolt leapt out at near light speed and struck Nade. Even Wiz, brutal as he was, shut his eyes at the sight.
"Krrrrr!"
When Liz opened her eyes to Nade's continuing groans, even the man with thirty years of alchemy experience couldn't believe what he saw.
"W-what is that?"
A savage lightning wrapped Nade's body.
"Immune to electricity?"
No human—or any living flesh—should be able to withstand that.
There was only one possibility.
"No way."
In that instant Nade's body vanished like a bolt of lightning, cutting through the mage's flames.
Liz, who had been in Nade's arms a moment before, lifted her head.
"Nade?"
"Grrrrr!"
Nade's face was mapped with veins rising from his neck; he gritted his teeth as if suppressing something desperate.
"This is insane…"
When the flames that had missed their target diminished and died out, the mage finally understood.
Spark—the electrical element's premier movement technique.
Unlike photon-type teleportation, Spark consumes the caster's flesh to move; without special equipment, it cannot be used.
"Run. I can't hold on much longer."
Nade shoved Liz away and, seized by uncontrollable murderous intent, turned his body.
"Get out! Get away!"
Wiz and the other mage scattered in different directions. Nade screamed and unleashed surging power.
The warehouse flashed as thousands of currents coiled like razor wires and hurled everything forward.
* * *
"You… bastard."
Struck by Lightning Thunder, Nade hunched over and trembled, then lifted his head with terrifying eyes.
When Oscar met those eyes, all the blood in his body felt as if it evaporated.
"How could he control electricity…!"
People encountering Nade's phenomenon for the first time always reacted the same way.
Those ignorant of magic panicked; those versed in it were horrified and thought of one thing.
"Mana assimilation?"
Also called magical alignment.
A state in which a mage's mind completely merges with the magic—exemplified by the Ice Queen exiled to the Res Mountains.
But a normal, rational mage could never reach that state. Mages are fundamentally rational, and mana assimilation is the mind aligning with a natural phenomenon—an utterly irrational condition.
Mages who fell into it brought disaster wherever they went, and their ends were always tragic.
'No, that can't be.'
Nade had been conversing normally with him moments ago.
But the Nade approaching, wrapped in electricity, was clearly electricity itself.
"Die."
At Nade's declaration, Oscar hastily cast teleportation.
Where he had stood, a lightning bolt struck, arcing down with an absurd thunderclap and leveling a twenty-meter radius.
"AAAGH!"
Oscar's scream burst out as the shockwave sent him skidding across the floor.
It wasn't a human thought but an electric one. The emotion lodged in Nade was nothing but a natural desire to destroy everything.
"Krrrrr!"
His face contorted, veins bulging, eyes glowing blue.
'I'm going to die. Really die.'
A purposeless urge to annihilate.
A natural phenomenon manifesting as human—exactly the same terror Prings had once experienced—and Oscar trembled all over.
"S-somebody s-save…!"
When Spark was cast, Oscar's body landed a full hundred meters away.
"Ugh!"
Nade slammed into a log; the impact detonated at the back of his head and a strangled voice came out.
"Why… did you do it?"
Hearing that question, Oscar—like Prings before him—found a sliver of hope.
'There's still some reason left.'
How that could be he didn't know, but one thing was certain: if he didn't answer, he'd die.
"What do you mean, what I did?"
"Why did you bring Liz? If prestige was so important, you shouldn't have brought her. You could've just gone to that woman."
"I told you not to go! I hesitated, I did… I had no other way into the Association."
"That's not an answer."
"It's true! I loved Liz too!"
It was sincere, but a packaged sincerity.
"Die."
Oscar felt his heart drop to the bottom.
"I didn't know! The negotiations might have gone badly, I didn't want to lose Liz, so I brought her!"
Faced with human weakness he couldn't wholly condemn, Nade's power grew even stronger.
"Please, spare her. Kill me and Liz won't even know I cheated on her. She'll hate you for it!"
None of that mattered to Nade.
What truly terrified him was the guilt of having killed the man she loved.
"Krrrrr!"
But the mana assimilation he'd been desperately suppressing seemed to be reaching its limit and tearing at Nade's mind.
"Go. Get out of here—"
As Nade's grip loosened and Oscar sank to his knees, the last limit snapped.
"KRAAAAA!"
Oscar's scream as he clawed and crawled away was swallowed by detonations of the electrical storm.
"Someone save me!"
Behind him, jagged bolts struck like beast fangs.
He'd lost his senses entirely and didn't even notice the dampness in his trousers.
Breathing like a beast, Oscar turned and saw Nade completely wreathed in electricity, charging with a white glare.
"AAAAAAH!"
As his most miserable howl tore out, someone darted in like the wind.
"Nade!"
Shirone blocked Oscar's path and activated Rampage; Nade cast Spark and moved at a right angle.
The first veil touched skin and the abnormal speed that let him avoid it left Shirone stunned.
"Iruki! Quick!"
When Shirone called, Iruki landed at once and took Oscar away.
They'd been waiting for Nade at the Dolphin Inn and rushed over at the sound of the explosion when Oscar teleported.
"Shirone! You move, too!"
Once mana assimilation set in, Nade made no distinction between friend and foe.
"Nade! It's me! Snap out of it!"
Shirone didn't give up and shouted. At that moment Nade vanished and reappeared right before him.
There was a pop, and Nade's hand tore away half of Shirone's face.
The powerful electricity made skin crack and explode—the sound of the next second was already stamped into the future.
'Shibulsangpokmae!'
Shirone hastily turned his head and saw Nade's hand rake past.
With no time to think, Shirone teleported backward in quick succession and planted his hand on the ground thirty meters away, stopping.
"Hah! Hah! Hah!"
His heart pounded like mad and his whole body trembled as if electrocuted.
One of the legs that had been holding his weight went weak and collapsed.
'I told you it wouldn't work.'
Iruki, already outside the radius, clicked his tongue.
Nade was no longer a mage but magic, no longer human but electricity—twisted by murderous intent.
'This isn't fear. This is my friend.'
Anyone before Nade would feel absolute terror, but Shirone rose again without giving up.
"Nade! It's me, Shirone! Please, come to your senses!"
"Shirone…"
One of Nade's eyes dimmed and a human voice leaked through.
"Nade! Come back to your senses—!"
"KRAAAAA!"
But it was brief. Nade darkly spread plasma across the floor and cast Spark again.
Lightning flashed everywhere. Time and nature were grotesquely warped and mixed—the scene felt like something happening in a distant corner of the cosmos.
"How can that be?"
Oscar, watching the fight with a blank expression, muttered.
'A graduating student?'
Earning his license had swelled his pride as a mage, but he'd never imagined such savage, irrational combat could exist.
'Still, he's a friend, right?'
Iruki, too, watched transfixed.
Facing Nade's transcendent murderous intent head-on proved that Shirone's mind had reached a state beyond nature's terror.
'But Shirone, you know this, right?'
Even so, it was better to stop this fight even for an instant.
"Mana assimilation has no limits."
"AAAAAH!"
Unable to restrain Shirone, Nade howled and the electricity exploded outward, burning everything.
"We're going to die! We're dead!"
Oscar couldn't even think to dodge the tidal wave of electricity sweeping in like a tsunami.
'We can't stop this!'
Faced with a vast natural phenomenon, Shirone threw his arm back.
'Yes, Iruki. Seeing this now, it's definitely different.'
To stop Nade, he had to accept he might die too.
"Vajra Armament!"
As Shirone gripped Armand's hilt and shouted, Nade came roaring in with thunder.