"If there's one opponent most troublesome for a knight to deal with, it would still be a mage."
At Audin's words, Lawford nodded in agreement.
If you trained the senses that recognized spells, you could respond to some degree, but—
'A prepared mage is more devious than a determined assassin, and more troublesome than a resolved knight.'
That was what spells were like. They had variety, and their power was hard to predict. If an invisible iron skewer came flying in without a trace and gouged through your flesh, who would be pleased about it?
That was what a prepared mage was. Even if they were not at Esther's level, they were unpleasant opponents.
Every swordsman likely thought the same. Even Esther's own mage corps, if three or more gathered and set a trap, could at times put even a knight in a difficult situation.
'Well, if you're willing to take some injuries.'
You could kill them all, but if things went wrong, the knight would take heavy damage too. That was what mages were like. Poison slipping in through a small wound could end with an arm being cut off.
"Is it easier if you use divine power?"
Pel cut in from the side. He was asking how to deal with spells. It was a question born of pure curiosity.
It was the kind of idle conversation people had while taking a short break in the middle of training. Idle, yes, though sometimes someone would suddenly realize something in the middle of this kind of talk.
"Was the reason spells are troublesome because they come at you head-on?"
Teresa added from the side. Audin nodded with his usual smile.
That was not it.
Pure divine power would at times neutralize or erase spells and mana, but mages facing divine power did not come at you so directly. That was common sense among spellcasters.
"Then that knight they called Evergart's Guardian Deity, the one who came before and used both magic and the sword, must have had even more hidden up his sleeve."
Lawford muttered as he reviewed how to deal with spellcasters.
"If it looks like the opponent's using a spell, throw something first."
If they could not respond to a thrown weapon, let them die.
That was a method he had learned from the time he trained with the Red Cloak Order of Knights. Naturally, spellcasters knew this well too, so they would work hard to block it.
That was why they walked around wrapped in protective spells.
'What if you stab from outside their range of perception, like Sir Jaxon?'
Was that the best way?
"No matter how well you hide your presence, the moment you pierce a physical barrier, the opponent too senses the existence that means harm to them."
Something Jaxon had said once.
'Meaning even if you master the arts of assassination, it's still difficult.'
But did every knight hate facing spellcasters?
As far as Lawford knew, one person did not. Whenever people named the single most difficult person to face, Esther was the first person every knight in the order named, yet the person that witch Esther least wanted to face was—
'Commander.'
Enkrid.
He looked at the essence of a spell and cut it. Lawford had asked how that was even possible, but Enkrid had answered simply, and even Rem, who had heard that answer, had shaken his head, meaning it was a skill even he could not imitate right away.
"That's not in the realm of ordinary instinct and intuition. It's a kind of madness."
That was his judgment.
Would Jaxon, Audin, or Ragna be any different?
These were geniuses. They possessed talents greater than any knight Lawford had ever met.
And yet, when it came to sensing, cutting, and tearing open spells, they still could not catch up to Enkrid.
"It's only possible if you've had your body mangled and died to spells hundreds, maybe thousands of times."
That was Jaxon's judgment.
"It is the sort of thing only the Lord could know, and a gift He must have granted."
That was what Audin said.
"I don't know. I just kind of look and cut."
Even Ragna, the one whose nature was closest to Enkrid's, had said that his own spell cutting swordsmanship was like a country boy sitting at a gambling table. He roughly looked and took a swing. If it landed, good, and if it missed? Either you flipped the table in a rampage or just got beaten.
For a moment, Lawford recalled something the witch had said before. A brief thought.
If they were those who had purely honed the path of magic—
"They'd recoil in horror when they saw Enki."
Witch Esther had said that, lifting the corners of her lips. That smile had been so enchanting. Anyone looking at it would lose their senses; her appearance was that attractive. Red lips stitched bright against skin white as snow, neat teeth between them, and black hair rippling down to cover her cheeks.
That did not mean Lawford saw her as a woman, though. He was the sort who would rather look for a different tree than swing an axe at one he could never climb.
'So it really is bewitchment.'
Anyway, even that witch followed the commander. Enkrid was an extraordinary man in many ways.
"It's going to be very entertaining."
Esther had said that again, letting out a laugh. Lawford had no idea what she was expecting, but she had looked positively full of anticipation.
***
Master Eudokia did not raise many disciples. He had brought all of them this time, and among the disciples he had raised, five of the eight truly skilled ones were the people here now.
The other three had been taken out earlier by Enkrid, Rem, and Esther, so these were all the disciples he had left.
One of them, its chest swelling, let out a long belch-like bwoooork and spat out a green mist. The one with a pockmarked face.
At the same time, Esther cast a spell.
"Drmuler's Wind Cliff."
A wall of wind blocked the poisonous mist from approaching. The invisible yet existent current of wind fought the green poisonous mist in midair as if they were playing tug-of-war over territory.
If you set aside the fact that the loser would die with ruptured, shredded entrails, it was quite a spectacle. Green waves surged in the air and repeatedly slammed into the wind wall with thump-thump sounds. The clumped poisonous mist kept growing denser.
"Solisider's Target."
At the words chanted by another of the disciples, a cross-shaped cluster of light appeared over Esther's black robe.
She had blocked that too. If she had remained still, the target would have appeared on her thigh.
After the target came the arrow. It was a common pattern among battle mages.
Solisider was a being that used lava as a bowstring and flames as arrows.
While blocking the poisonous mist, Esther cast another spell at the same time.
"Bartan's Luncheon Hour."
Bartan was a being that ate light and fire but rejected earth and wind. So earth and wind were blocked with a shield, while light and fire were devoured.
Esther blocked two spells with dual chanting, then used an intentional, prepared Glint and extended the fingers of her left hand.
Glint was one of the spells cast reflexively without a trigger word. Esther showed the trick of using it while putting half an intention into it.
Someone ignorant of spell worlds would not know, but to a mage, the very act of putting intention into Glint was itself a feat.
At that gesture, a single invisible wind blade the length of a finger flew out, but the other side was not just standing there watching.
"Merak's Flame Wall."
The third disciple stepped in, swallowed the wind blade, and enlarged the scale of the spell he had formed. The wall of flames, having eaten wind, grew larger.
Not one of them was a low-level mage. Three were women and two were men. One of the men was the one spewing poisonous mist, his face full of pockmarks, and the other had a face covered in scars.
Neither of them was pleasing to look at. Of the three women, one was a middle-aged woman with an overflowing belly, and the other two had short hair and similar features. All five wore robes of different colors and showed mastery over different kinds of spells.
"Child of the Star."
The thick-bellied woman spoke.
"They'd be pleased if we brought you in."
"Is she better than we are?"
"There are five of us."
"All we have to do is hold out until Master is done, but we don't want to do just that, do we?"
It had been a long time since they had come outside. No matter how enjoyable it was to learn spells, pursue research, and dig into truth, getting some outside air like this from time to time was just as welcome.
A murderous air shimmered in all five pairs of eyes.
These were people who would not blink even if hundreds of human lives died. That was the kind of group Astrail was.
In the name of pursuing truth, they casually joined hands with demons, made mothers kill children, and set children against fathers.
And beyond that, they were devious.
"Rot away."
Esther cast another spell.
A long stem made of shadow that had just reached her feet crumbled and scattered like sun-dried sand.
"Got caught."
The scar-faced man spoke. He did not sound particularly disappointed.
Esther knew what she needed if she wanted to crush all five of them at once. More precisely, she had several options.
She could gamble, stake half her life, and wipe out three of the five in one stroke.
Or she could endure the depletion of her spell world and deal with them one by one.
Well, she could also wait until they let their guard down and crush their necks with the physical strength of the lake panther.
'Though if I fought like that, I'd have to spend months recovering afterward.'
They were that kind of opponents. If she had met the five separately, that would be one thing, but right now the five were attacking in coordination.
In that brief span, the thick-bellied witch flicked a glance at the state of the man named Enkrid, who was facing her master.
His appearance was to her taste. The sort of face that stirred the appetite.
Even with just that quick glance, it was not hard to guess his state. It was the typical look of a swordsman who had been hit by her master.
'He got caught.'
A vacant gaze, drooping arms, and then, tap—the tip of the sword struck the ground. It was the natural result. Even a sage-level mage could not escape Master's illusion magic.
Esther saw that too. Even if she could not inspect Enkrid's condition one by one, she could feel the momentum in his body wavering.
And yet Esther chose something outside her options.
'Even they'd be troublesome if they came at me staking their lives.'
She set aside the gamble.
Wasting her spell world was a shame, so she would not use that either. Beating them down with a leopard's strength was not the easy path either.
Then what would she do?
"Bone Head."
Esther planted her left foot, drew a magic circle at the edge of the ground, and summoned a flesh golem. It was just as the steel golem came pounding right up in front of Enkrid, whose sword tip had fallen to the ground.
"Don't even think of running, Child of the Star."
As if she were the leader, the thick-bellied witch spoke for the rest. Esther smiled. With something like a dry little laugh, she thought to herself,
'Idiots.'
Her choice was to maintain the status quo. From here on, she only had to endure. She had dreamed of this moment for a long time while facing Enkrid before.
Someday, with a day like this in mind, she had looked forward to Enkrid's performance.
***
Rem sensed the monstrous strength behind the dwarf's axe swing. If it landed, it felt like it could crush rock into dry sand and even smash through iron.
'Is the density of his muscles different?'
From one glance at the axe swing, it felt as though the strength of five giants had been gathered into one. That was how it felt to him.
Had he used explosive Will? Rem's eyes, holding sorcery, examined and dug through the dwarf's entire body. That was the conclusion he reached.
'Modified body.'
The body reeked of monster.
It was as he knocked aside the thick-bladed axe the dwarf had swung and slipped to the side. The dwarf's eyes followed him.
Rem stretched out a leg, thinking he would kick the bastard in the head as is, then stamped the ground and threw his body sideways.
Because the horns on the dwarf's helmet crackled and turned into white lightning as they flew at him. All of this happened in an instant. Attacking, withdrawing, judging, and the lightning exploding—all of it happened in a single moment.
Boom!
The roar tore at his ears. For a moment, his hearing went dull. The lightning that struck the ground left a hole in it, and as the clouds covered the moonlight, white flashes flickered and briefly blinded him.
'It wasn't trying to hit me in the first place.'
It was trying to take his sight and hearing.
This bastard's got some bite.
Thinking that, Rem gave up on perceiving things through sight and hearing. It did not matter. Fire Bird was already lodged in him through descent. His sharpened sense of touch replaced all the other senses.
Rem casually swung his axe and knocked aside the rapier thrust of the dark-skinned fairy who had sneaked up close.
Ting.
Along with that, if not his sight, at least his hearing returned. Briefly, he had stepped into a world where he could neither see nor hear, and then his senses recovered.
Perhaps noticing that—
"If Master Astrail catches you, you'll become a death knight that has lost its reason. Better to go willingly instead."
The dark fairy spoke. Rem snorted.
"So what you're saying is, that guy's going to win?"
Rem said with his eyes closed. By referring to him as that guy, he diminished the Astrail master's dignity and terror.
"Listen, axe friend. That one is skilled in the business of casting spells. This fairy and I are on very bad terms, and even so, we could not refuse that mage's request today. Do you think you lot would be any different? Rather than becoming puppets that way, it would be better to join this side."
Persuasion again. Were those morons only capable of saying that one thing?
Rem answered the two of them.
"Morons."
The dwarf and the fairy did not show displeasure. This was work. So they were merely doing it.
If their lord had not coveted these people, they would have killed them long ago instead of talking like this.
"You drink Honey wine."
The dwarf said and raised his axe again.
Rem steadied his breathing, withdrew Fire Bird, and spread sorcery through his entire body instead of enlarging it. He was not Esther. He had no reason to drag things out.
'False Descent.'
Instead, he used the new sorcery he had created. Naturally, even while doing this, he did not worry about Enkrid in the slightest.
***
Eudokia had given the steel dolls he summoned a clear role.
'Barrier.'
More precisely, a physical barrier.
The charging steel dolls were meant to tie down the enemy's hands and feet. If they got taken down by mere golems, that was good too. And if not? Naturally, it would be his spells that ended the fight.
So he spread illusion magic like a faint fragrance and suppressed the enemy's reason.
The opponent's pupils went slack, and his mouth fell open.
It was only natural. Along with that thought, Eudokia inwardly ordered the twenty-four steel dolls to bring that human to him alive. At that moment, the man who had been staring blankly vanished.
Eudokia realized that the two spells he had prepared just in case from earlier, Perception Interference and Perception Expansion, had manifested at the same time.
This was one of his Glints. A spell that unfolded reflexively.
Perception Interference made the opponent recognize his position falsely, and Perception Expansion accelerated thought.
Eudokia saw the man who had been standing there blankly suddenly charge straight at him. The man's body left a faint afterimage. Even in his accelerated vision, the man's sword was driving into him with a strange tsu-tsu-tsu sound.
There was no leisure for idle thought. One of the rings on his left hand shone and forcibly changed his position. He vanished and reappeared in the middle of the steel dolls.
And as he evaded, one thought rose in his mind.
'Perception Interference didn't work.'
The man had found his position in a single try.
"Ah, what a shame."
And that was what he said.
"Did I fool you?"
Eudokia was dumbfounded. This time, his emotions actually stirred. He had not fallen for the illusion spell—he had only pretended to?
In that short instant, he had broken through the spell and pulled something like that?
"He's a master of deception. He tricks even his own side! The one who gets fooled is the moron!"
From behind, the man who had been fooled and was aggrieved, the one named Andrew Gardner, shouted. He simply could not suppress the urge to throw in a word. More precisely, he had thrown in three words.
It was a booming voice. Aisia could not hold it in and burst out, pffft, laughing.
A strange thing, but for the first time in a hundred years, anger rose in Eudokia's heart.
'Me, fooled?'
That question swirled inside his mind.