In Lefiya's eyes, Hedin was just like one of the instructors of the [Academic District].
"Chest out, head up."
Elegant. Composed. Meticulous down to the smallest detail.
Even in the thick of combat, Hedin was not merely holding himself to the strictest of standards — at the same time, he was holding Lefiya to them as well.
But in the eyes of the elf maiden, the blinding flashes of golden-yellow lightning had all but blotted out every single thing before her sight, and her ears were filled to overflowing with the crackling, popping reports of the electric serpents bursting one after another — she could hardly make out anything else at all.
In point of fact—
Hedin's magic was not particularly complicated.
One was a magic that summoned vast numbers of thunder orbs which could explode — similar to Ryuu's [Luminous Wind], a wide-area, annihilation-type spell.
The other was a magic that loosed thick, powerful beams of lightning — in a certain sense, a single-target type of magic.
Both magics were extremely-short-verse incantations; the chants themselves were even highly similar to one another.
Of course, Lefiya was certain that a mage of Hedin's caliber would have three magics — it was simply that he had not yet brought it out.
And after that, there was nothing else. It was just that simple.
Her opponent's method of attack was not complicated, and it was not in the slightest bit flashy — there was even something inexplicably plain and unadorned about it.
But just like that, it was already enough.
After the brief exchange just now, Lefiya had already felt it: the "enemy" before her, at this moment, represented — in a certain sense — an extraordinarily rigorous form of "foundational technique."
"Omen of the end... white snow upon white snow... as the hour of twilight draws near, raise up the raging gale!"
Dodging, falling back, blocking in five staggered movements the lightning strikes that came at her from in front.
At the same time—
She also had to watch out for Hedin himself, the long staff in his hand — whose attacks always seemed to come without warning.
Hedin was a magic swordsman.
His extremely-short-verse chanting paired with his exceptionally strong close-combat ability had made him, in a certain sense, an "all-rounder warrior." Under such circumstances, Lefiya knew perfectly well that there would be no point in trying to compete with him on the strength of her close-combat technique.
She herself belonged, after all, to "Lady Riveria's" school.
Rather than try to fight him with some half-baked close combat, far better to bring her own advantages into full play.
And so, as the maiden's chant unfolded, ice and snow descended once again upon this stretch of mountain forest, as if it would freeze every single thing within it solid.
Even the thunder orbs that Hedin had set loose had the Mana sustaining their existence frozen along with everything else.
And so — strand by strand, the golden-yellow currents of electricity were coated over with a fine layer of frost.
It was a frankly unbelievable sight, and it was the very first time Hedin had ever witnessed such a phenomenon.
What Lefiya was now chanting was Riveria's magic, [Ecstasy · Fimbulwinter]. Its effect was to scatter a ring of ice in a circle around the caster — a large-area, control-and-defense-oriented type of magic, and the Princess's standard "opening move."
The reason was simple.
No matter how great the destructive power of a mage's magic, if it could not actually hit its enemy then it was all in vain — and what gave mages the worst headaches of all was, naturally, the "high-speed" sort of fighter.
In ages past—
Whether out upon the continent or down within the Dungeon itself—
There had always been adventurers who specialized in honing the [Agility] and [Dexterity] traits with the express purpose of countering mages, and there were also monsters specialized in pure speed, and so on — all of them dubbed by the title of "Mage Killer."
And in order to combat their own weaknesses—
Mages had been thinking up countermeasures for thousands of years. Among those countermeasures, Concurrent Chanting stood out as one of the high-level techniques.
Beyond that, Fuyi's "Heart of the Great Tree" could near-forcibly maintain a mage's current "mental state," preventing them from being affected by anything else at all.
Mental fear and over-excitement, all of it gone; bodily pain and exhaustion likewise had no effect upon the self.
[Heart of the Great Tree] was not merely so simple a thing as letting one's mood settle down — in a certain sense, it could even be counted as a kind of extraordinarily advanced support magic.
But at this present moment.
What was truly playing its decisive role was the magic wand in Lefiya's hand—
As everyone knew, mages' equipment — whether robes or weapons — was generally far more expensive than the gear of other adventurers.
And as for the steep price — there was a good reason for the steep price.
Among such gear, no small number of magical implements possessed quite peculiar effects, comparable to those of [Mystery]-class items.
For example, this very mana-gem that Lefiya was using at this moment — it was a fragment of the elven race's sacred relic known as "Eternal Hope," obtained by Isagi and the others from within the Dungeon on the previous occasion.
It had been temporarily mounted onto the maiden's magic wand.
Of course—
Because the method employed had been a fairly rough-and-ready one, and because they had not yet fully grasped the specifics of how it was meant to be used—
For that reason, the Lefiya of this moment was unable to bring out the full extent of its power — could not, for instance, like Alfia before her, directly invoke its "time-freezing" function.
But even so, the ability to simply "freeze Mana" as she could now was already enough.
Together with the ice-and-snow magic that she was unleashing—
Lefiya had nearly succeeded in entombing in ice on the spot every single thing that came near her. Once she had confirmed that it was working, without the slightest hesitation she immediately set into motion the second step of her plan.
"[Explosion Magic]!"
With practically no windup at all—
Lefiya directly deployed her strongest "ultimate technique" as of now. That colossal, concentrated mass of Mana, all at once, enveloped the entire area in which the two of them stood.
That's right.
The Lefiya of this moment had even drawn herself inside the attack range of [Explosion Magic] — which naturally also meant that Hedin had no way to escape it either.
"?"
The gods and the great crowd of spectators were, of course, utterly bewildered by this; their thought was — could the maiden possibly be planning to self-detonate?
To go down together with one of the senior officers of Freya Familia?!
This was nothing more than a War Game — there really was no need to take things to such an extreme.
Only the one person watching all of this from a great distance — Alfia — seemed to have noticed something, and the expression on her face was one of considerable, fascinated amusement.
Because—
Lefiya's [Explosion Magic] had likewise been frozen.
That massive, gathered-together Mana, in the very instant it was about to detonate, had been held in suspended stillness by "Eternal Hope," the elven race's sacred relic.
The unimaginably brilliant colors, the chaotically arranged shapes, and the various "particles" formed purely from the radiance of Mana itself—
Lefiya and Hedin both now seemed to stand at the very center of some kind of "fireworks display."
It was incredible!
Something even the gods found it difficult to fully understand had just taken place.
And almost simultaneously—
Hedin too had fallen into a state of bewilderment — because he, too, could feel that contained within it all was a power that belonged uniquely to the elven royal family of old: the residual force left behind by the Holy Maiden Sertia.
[This is—]
Every single thing in the world seemed to have come to a halt, until — suddenly — a portion of it ignited and burst forth.
A small part of Lefiya's [Explosion Magic] had been "thawed."
Right at the very spot where Hedin stood.
A sudden eruption of Mana — utterly impossible to anticipate.
And following that — one after another, in continuous succession — a magic that precisely tracked the other party's silhouette, that would silently detonate wherever Hedin happened to be.
That's right.
Now that Lefiya could make use of this fragment of the elven race's sacred relic to freeze Mana, naturally she could also, in turn, cause a portion of that "freezing" to lapse.
The result of which was exactly what was now unfolding.
Now, within the area of effect of [Explosion Magic], the maiden could — with nothing more than a single thought — cause any place she pleased to detonate at any time, or, alternatively, keep it as it was.
[This is what's called a Domain Expansion!]
She couldn't understand a word of what Isagi was saying.
But Lefiya had certainly come to a realization, all the same — namely, that within the area of [Explosion Magic], there would probably be precious few opponents capable of matching her.
Because once they stepped in—
The detonations of Mana would follow them like their own shadows — there was no way of dodging at all.
In a certain sense, it could even be counted as a copy of Alfia's own "shameless" magic.
Against which—
Hedin had no countermeasure either, of course.
The Lefiya of this moment was, in a certain sense, an "invincible" being. The maiden was like a walking "bomb," capable at any time and any place of detonating any spot in her vicinity, and at the same time, of freezing in place every single magic that came her way—
—
"So in theory, Lefiya should be able to win — but Ryuu-senpai, in all likelihood, is going to lose."
Inside the carriage.
Although there was no divine mirror broadcasting the battles in real time, Isagi could, in all likelihood, already guess at the outcome.
The wind and snow in the mountain forest had stopped; the once-raucous surge of Mana, and the air-bursting reports coming from the distance, had likewise gone silent.
The battles of the two maidens must both have entered their final stages.
"With that fragment of the elven race's sacred relic in her possession, there shouldn't be a single mage who can match Lefiya as her opponent. And on top of that, Mister Hedin, in all likelihood, won't be fighting at full strength."
"Why is that?"
"It's roughly the same as how Finn and Gareth wouldn't be going all out either, you see."
Isagi was at this moment explaining things to Tiona and Ais, who were both still in the carriage. The two maidens were blinking at him — clearly, they understood none of it.
"What is the meaning of this War Game, would you say?"
The young man pointed straight at the essence.
"That the strongest familias of the city today, Loki Familia and Freya Familia, want to give the up-and-coming Astrea Familia a little hammering?"
"Wrong."
"The answer is — the Goddess of Beauty wants to find opponents for her familia's children. That, and nothing more."
Adventurers grew strong precisely by relying on competition.
A wild beast with no natural enemies would, by and by, see the sharpness of its teeth and claws go dull.
It was a simple truth.
"But 'opponents,' too, have to be chosen — or rather, with some of them, now simply isn't the time."
If it were simply a matter of wanting to pit her people against adventurers of the same level, then Goddess Freya wouldn't have bothered with anything like this — because the reason was simple. The Goddess of Beauty's champions, with the sole exception of Captain Ottar, were every one of them Lv. 6 adventurers.
If she wanted regular opponents of the same level for them—
Then all she had to do was set them upon Finn and the rest of Loki Familia. As far as that sort of thing went — if Freya truly wanted to do it, it was absolutely not the case that she couldn't pull it off.
But forget about even that.
Even those two Lv. 6 members of the foreign Kali Familia had, to this very day, never once crossed swords with the executives of Freya Familia.
And what did that say?
It said this.
The Goddess of Beauty simply didn't regard them as opponents.
It wasn't that Isagi was being arrogant — rather, from the very moment the War Game had begun, even the goddesses Astrea and Demeter would have been capable of realizing it.
The opponent Freya had handpicked was the young man himself — and the enemy, that was the city's current strongest, the [Warlord], Ottar.
Their side had been wanting, all along, to obtain the [Excelia] necessary to level up to Lv. 8.
So much so that, more than once, they had ventured deep into the Dungeon all alone, and gone all alone to challenge Balor, the Monster Rex of the 49th Floor.
The young man himself, it would seem, was being treated by the Goddess of Beauty as the [Excelia] for her warrior's level-up.
So this War Game, from its very inception, had been nothing more than the setting of a stage for the young man and Ottar.
And naturally—
Finn and the rest of Loki Familia had no real interest in this whatsoever — and that was precisely why Isagi had said they wouldn't be fighting at full strength — because there was simply no need.
Riveria and the others had long since come to an understanding with the young man.
When the young man went down to the lower floors, they too would enter his special Dungeon together to adventure, and through that obtain ability values and [Excelia].
As for battling other adventurers — or even "life-and-death duels" for the sake of leveling up — neither Finn nor Gareth nor Riveria had the slightest interest in any of that.
And as for Hedin and his side—
Battling juniors like Lefiya and the others, who had only just leveled up to Lv. 6 — even if they won, there would be no [Excelia] or any meaningful improvement to be had.
So Isagi was convinced they wouldn't be fighting all-out either. Most likely it would just be a matter of going through the motions, and that would be about it.
"The only one I'm really worried about is Ryuu-senpai—"
Allen — that guy had a screw loose in his head.
It wasn't exactly nice to say such things about the dumb little cat-cat's older brother, but the situation was the situation.
The man was just too easily set off and made to lash out — so no matter how things went, in all likelihood he would still be going all-out. Which was exactly why Isagi had judged that Ryuu-senpai had a high chance of losing.
Facing down a senior, top-tier adventurer — for an elf maiden who had only just leveled up to Lv. 6 — was, in the end, just asking a little too much.
Soon enough.
The host's voice rang out from over the mountain forest — and verified that Isagi's judgment had been correct.
"Astrea Familia's [Thousand Fairy] has defeated Freya Familia's [White Elf Magic Wand] — unbelievable!!"
But very soon, another piece of unexpected news came drifting in.
That was...
[Gale] — had won.
____
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