The feeling was ominous.
Bloodlust surrounded me from every direction, thick enough that I could almost feel it pressing against my skin. The participants hiding around the Voilà spell weren't merely watching me. They wanted me dead. Every one of them was waiting for the right moment to tear me away from the spell and take the opportunity for themselves.
Fortunately, I only had to endure it for another minute.
Arsius Markius raised his sword and pointed it directly at me. I responded in kind, drawing my own blade and lowering my stance. I still didn't know exactly how strong this noble brat was, nor did I understand what he and his emotionless servant were planning. But I didn't need to defeat him. I only needed to buy time.
That was all.
One minute.
Arsius suddenly charged.
His sword collided with mine.
CLANG!
The impact shook my entire arm.
What the hell?
The strength behind that strike was far greater than I expected. My feet slid backward across the illuminated ground, and I barely managed to maintain my position inside the Voilà spell.
Behind him, Zylas didn't move.
Not even a step.
I didn't understand it.
Was he waiting for something?
Or was he simply confident that his master didn't need his help?
I pushed wind outward.
A violent burst of air exploded between us and sent Arsius flying backward. He flipped through the air before landing several meters away.
Then he smiled.
A grin slowly appeared across his face.
His sword began glowing.
Light gathered around the blade, forming a dense layer of aura.
So this was the power he had been hiding.
He came at me again.
I raised a wall of wind.
The aura-covered sword struck it.
The barrier shattered.
I was pushed backward until my heel almost reached the edge of the Voilà formation.
One more step.
That was all.
If I was pushed outside, I would lose my position.
Arsius jumped.
His sword descended toward me.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
So instead of blocking, I lowered my body.
The sword passed over my head.
In the same instant, I twisted my body and appeared behind him.
Wind gathered along my blade.
I struck.
The force sent Arsius flying away from the Voilà spell.
I landed inside the formation and immediately looked behind me.
For a brief moment, I realized my mistake.
My back was completely exposed.
It was the perfect opportunity for Zylas to attack.
I turned around.
He was still standing there.
His sword wasn't even drawn.
No confusion.
No fear.
No visible intention to attack.
Nothing.
I stared at him.
Who was more confusing?
The master or the servant?
Arsius shouted from across the battlefield.
"You! What are you doing daydreaming about?! Do something!"
Zylas didn't even turn his head.
I narrowed my eyes.
Something about that man wasn't normal.
Arsius raised his sword again.
Aura covered the blade.
So this was common among these fairies.
I'd seen descriptions of aura in novels before. Normally, manifesting it was supposed to be difficult. Here, however, almost everyone seemed to be casually coating their weapons with it.
Maybe this world simply had a different standard.
Arsius charged again.
"Same tactic?"
I almost laughed.
"Are you an idiot?"
This time, I didn't bother blocking his sword.
I simply raised my hand.
Wind erupted.
A powerful wall of air slammed into him and pushed him backward.
Easy.
Too easy.
I glanced down at the Voilà formation.
Then—
Slash.
The wind wall split apart.
My eyes widened.
Arsius stood on the other side.
His expression had changed.
Anger.
"You dare play with me?"
He raised his sword.
The aura surrounding it became denser.
"Sword Style."
The pressure around him suddenly increased.
"First Form..."
His sword descended.
"Nightly Cut!"
A massive wave of aura tore through the air.
It wasn't merely a sword strike anymore.
It was a cut given form.
I jumped backward toward the edge of the Voilà formation.
There was nowhere else to go.
"Seriously? No other way?"
I poured wind into my sword and swung.
The two forces collided.
For a moment, I managed to redirect the attack.
Only partially.
The aura wave still struck my shoulder.
Pain exploded through my body.
My balance broke.
I was about to fall outside the formation when I reacted instinctively.
My sword plunged into the ground.
The blade dug into the wood beneath me.
I held on.
My body stopped just before leaving the illuminated area.
I laughed.
"Haha..."
Blood was running down my shoulder.
"Arsius Markius."
I pulled myself upright.
"I thought you were weak."
I meant it.
He was strong.
Stronger than the aura user I had fought before.
But I couldn't show everything I had.
Not here.
Not with dozens of enemies watching every movement.
And now I was injured.
Arsius began walking toward me.
"I told you not to look down on me."
"I heard you."
The countdown continued.
Then I felt it.
The atmosphere around us changed.
Everyone was ready.
The hidden participants were preparing their spells.
Swords were being drawn.
Aura was being forged.
Magic circles were appearing beneath the bushes.
Arsius noticed it too.
He looked around.
"You lousy fairies!"
His voice echoed across the battlefield.
"What do you think you're doing? You think you can go against a four-moon swordsman?"
He raised his sword proudly.
"I am the heir of the Markius family!"
Four moons.
So that was what they meant.
Rank?
Power?
Something like the star rankings I'd read about in novels?
I didn't have time to figure it out.
The countdown was almost over.
I pulled my sword from the ground.
I was still standing inside the Voilà spell.
Every participant was ready to fight for it.
Or at least, that was what it looked like.
The truth was simpler.
Everyone had been waiting for the cooldown to end.
And when it did, they would reveal themselves and attack.
Our plan was about to change that.
4...
The atmosphere tightened.
3...
Magic began gathering.
Aura covered weapons.
The hidden participants prepared to launch their attacks.
Then—
Something happened.
Arsius and Zylas didn't know about our plan.
Neither did anyone else.
The swordsmen hiding nearby had planned to remain concealed at the beginning. They wanted everyone else to exhaust themselves before making their move.
Then their leader suddenly sensed something behind them.
His eyes widened.
"What's that?"
They jumped from their hiding place.
Not to attack.
To escape.
The moment they moved, every other hidden participant noticed.
One by one, they emerged from their hiding places.
Mages.
Swordsmen.
Archers.
Everyone who had been waiting in secret suddenly abandoned their positions.
For a moment, the entire battlefield froze.
They had all realized the same thing.
Their original plans were ruined.
Nobody had wanted to reveal themselves first.
But now everyone had already been forced out.
They had only two choices.
Return to hiding and waste more precious time...
Or fight.
The answer came almost instantly.
We've already wasted our patience.
Take the spell now.
Every pair of eyes locked onto the Voilà formation.
The light inside it had finally reached its limit.
The cooldown was over.
And I was standing right in the middle of it.
The battle royale had begun.
I swallowed.
I told Alysa I'd be fine.
But...
Would I?
An ominous feeling crawled through my chest.
Then everyone charged.
Some participants collided with each other immediately.
Others avoided the fights and continued running toward the spell.
Magic exploded.
Aura flashed.
Swords clashed.
The entire battlefield descended into chaos.
And in the middle of it all stood Zylas.
He wasn't looking at me.
He was looking toward one of the places where the participants had been hiding.
His eyes widened slightly.
There was something there.
A figure with the appearance of a fairy—or perhaps a human—stood among the trees.
Except...
It was made of wood.
A wooden doll.
Zylas stared at it.
Then understanding flashed through his eyes.
"So that's what happened..."
His gaze swept across the battlefield.
"They thought they were being ambushed."
He looked at the wooden figure again.
"A puppet?"
His expression finally changed.
"I heard there were two Creators."
His eyes narrowed.
"One became the center of attention..."
He looked toward me.
"...while the other found every hidden participant and planted these wooden puppets near them."
His breathing became slightly heavier.
"Then she made them believe they were being attacked from behind."
He looked around.
But something still bothered him.
"No..."
His expression hardened.
"This can't be everything."
There had to be more.
He suddenly shouted.
"Arsius!"
His voice cut through the battlefield.
"Fall back!"
Arsius turned.
"What?"
"It's a trap!"
I heard him.
But I couldn't pay attention to them.
Five swordsmen had already reached me.
I was fighting all of them at once.
Another group of mages began chanting.
A magic circle appeared above the Voilà spell.
My eyes widened.
Fire gathered inside it.
Then it descended.
A massive torrent of flames crashed toward us.
I pushed outward with everything I had.
Wind exploded from my body.
The swordsmen were thrown backward.
Then I created a barrier.
The fire struck.
The impact nearly broke my arms.
My legs trembled.
The pressure was enormous.
I gritted my teeth.
Too much.
My body was reaching its limit.
The firestorm spread outward.
Other participants were caught inside it.
One mage immediately reacted.
He raised his staff and cast a wind spell.
The flames were redirected.
Not away from the battlefield.
Toward the other participants.
The mage had sacrificed everyone else to protect himself.
The battlefield became even more chaotic.
He slammed his staff into the ground.
Another spell began forming.
Everyone was fighting for themselves.
No alliances.
No rules.
Only survival.
Then the fire above me disappeared.
The moment I saw the opening, I moved.
My fingers grabbed the floating key.
The Jelic Radius.
I forced it toward the altar.
The moment the key touched it—
The Voilà spell erupted with light.
I immediately understood something.
The moment I removed the key, or stopped maintaining the contact between the key and the altar, the spell would stop.
That meant someone had to hold it in place long enough for the teleportation to complete.
And I was standing in the worst possible place to do that.
Because everyone realized what I was doing.
A sword appeared beside me.
Another came from the opposite direction.
Archers raised their bows.
Mages prepared spells.
Everyone had the same thought.
If he activates the spell, our attacks become meaningless.
So every participant abandoned their previous targets.
They came for me.
I looked up.
There were enemies everywhere.
And then I smiled.
Perfect.
I left the ground.
My body rose slightly above the formation.
I turned upside down in the air, holding the Jelic Radius against the altar with the edge of my sword.
It was insane.
It was dangerous.
But it worked.
Three seconds.
I only needed three seconds.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Arsius.
Zylas had grabbed him.
"Fall back!"
Zylas shouted again.
"It's a trap!"
Arsius stared at him.
For the first time, his expression became serious.
He nodded.
Then they jumped backward.
Too late.
I shouted.
"Alysa!"
I looked toward the forest.
"Now!"
For a second, nothing happened.
Then I heard it.
A sound.
A rumble.
A tremendous number of footsteps.
The forest began shaking.
Everyone turned.
Something was coming.
Wooden monsters.
Hundreds of them.
Maybe thousands.
They poured from the trees like a living wave.
A horde.
They weren't individually strong.
That didn't matter.
When hundreds of weak creatures charged toward the same place at the same time, their combined force became terrifying.
The participants were hit.
Some raised barriers.
Others coated their bodies in aura.
Swords flashed.
Wood shattered.
But there were too many.
The monsters overwhelmed them.
They pushed everyone away from the Voilà spell.
Everyone except me.
I was already in the air.
I couldn't be pushed back.
The spell's light was almost completely filled.
And then I saw her.
Sitting on top of one of the wooden monsters as it charged.
Alysa.
She had a huge smile on her face.
It was far too mischievous for someone who was supposed to be innocent.
I almost laughed.
So that's where she was.
I reached down and grabbed her as the monster passed beneath me.
She immediately came flying into my arms.
Everything had gone according to plan.
First, I became the center of attention.
While everyone watched me, Alysa used her Nature ability to locate the hidden participants.
She planted wooden dolls near them.
Those dolls looked enough like living people that the hidden participants believed someone was sneaking up behind them.
They panicked.
They abandoned their hiding places.
Everyone came onto the main battlefield.
Then Alysa used the same wooden puppets to guide the wooden monsters toward the battlefield.
It had been simple.
But it had also been extremely difficult.
Finding every hidden participant.
Planting the puppets without being noticed.
Then luring the monsters into the same location.
If she had been too early, we would have failed.
If she had been too late, we would have failed.
She had carried just as much responsibility as I had.
Maybe more.
I looked at her.
"You impressed me."
I gave her a proud smile.
"That gamer brain of yours is pretty useful."
She smiled.
But we had missed one thing.
Mages.
Some of them could fly.
I looked up.
My expression changed.
Nineteen participants had taken to the air.
They had avoided the monster horde entirely.
And now every single one of them was preparing a spell.
"Seriously?"
Magic circles appeared overhead.
I couldn't stay in the air anymore.
I dropped.
My body descended toward the ground.
But I still maintained the connection between the Jelic Radius and the altar.
The teleportation sequence had begun.
3 seconds.
Three seconds.
That was all.
I landed.
A sword flashed toward me.
I pulled Alysa against my body.
Then I raised my arm.
The aura struck.
Pain exploded through my flesh.
My arm went numb.
I couldn't move my sword.
The impact almost forced my hand away from the key.
Almost.
Then another hand grabbed mine.
Alysa.
She held my wrist with both hands.
"Don't let go!"
"I wasn't planning to!"
The aura attack had come from Arsius.
He had avoided the monster horde because Zylas pulled him away at the last second.
Now he stood several meters away.
His face was filled with anger.
I looked at him.
The teleportation light was already surrounding us.
One second.
I smiled.
"Let's meet in the next branch."
I raised my middle finger.
"If you can catch up."
The light exploded.
Everything disappeared.
---
When I opened my eyes again, the world was different.
The battlefield was gone.
The wooden monsters were gone.
The Voilà spell was gone.
The countless fairies were gone.
I slowly pushed myself upright.
My arm still hurt.
My shoulder burned.
But that wasn't what made me freeze.
I looked beside me.
Nothing.
"Alysa?"
Silence.
I turned around.
There was no one.
My expression darkened.
"What?"
She had been right beside me.
We had been touching when the teleportation activated.
So why...
I looked around the unfamiliar branch.
The realization came slowly.
"...Don't tell me."
My stomach sank.
"Did the teleportation split us apart?"
I clenched my fist.
"Fuck."