Chapter 109
Just before Prince Valerius's sword could cleave Lunaris's body in two,
Meteors came pouring down from the starry night sky.
Each beam of light was a mass of mana with physical destructive power.
“Ghk?!”
-Thudthudthudthud!!
Accompanied by the sound of metal being hammered, Prince Valerius's body was pushed backward.
The mana-wreathed blade failed to touch even a single strand of silver hair, cutting only empty space.
“Ha, hahaha...! Looks like you've finally decided to put up a proper fight!”
Blood flowed back up and spilled between his lips, but Prince Valerius merely wiped it away roughly with the back of his hand and erupted into maniacal laughter.
Pain was the last thing on his mind. More than that, the alcohol had dulled his senses too much for him to feel it.
Instead, that sharp, tingling sensation poured oil onto the Second Prince's fighting spirit.
In the Second Prince's eyes, only the presence before him—Lunaris Evermoon—remained clear.
“...”
Rather than answer Prince Valerius, Lunaris merely waved her fingers with an indifferent expression.
-Humm.
The space surrounding the Second Prince warped with a crunch.
An invisible, enormous grip tightened around both his arms and both his legs.
It was a force that crushed and folded space itself.
His muscles swelled as if they would burst, then finally tore, while every joint in his bones screamed.
A spell derived from telekinesis, manipulating the spatial coordinates themselves.
It was one of the spells Lunaris had favored even before she was called an archmage.
“Grrrk... This kind of thing... A spell like this...!”
Even under the pressure that threatened to crush his limbs, Prince Valerius gritted his teeth.
The capillaries in his mad eyes burst, dyeing them a vivid red.
“It won't work anymore! Hahahah!!”
Mana exploded from Prince Valerius's body.
Then the Second Prince swung his sword in a wide circle from where he stood.
With it, he forcibly tore apart the power crushing him and the twisted space itself.
“Do you know how many times I've replayed that day—the day of the investiture ceremony—in my mind?!”
The Second Prince sprang forward like a beast, keeping his body almost flat against the ground.
His gaze remained fixed on Lunaris.
Those calm eyes, that unbearably arrogant expression.
The composure only a genius who had crossed the wall could display.
I wish I could make an expression like that.
I want to catch up somehow.
I want to see the view beyond the wall.
That yearning took over Prince Valerius's thoughts and his entire body.
“Your magic! I've replayed it hundreds of times in my dreams—no, thousands!”
-Clang! Clang!
The Second Prince swung his sword like a madman.
“I felt as though I'd somehow taken a step forward! And yet I still couldn't cross the wall! Do you have any idea how agonizing that was...!”
The barriers Lunaris had erected were torn apart one after another.
“Why?! Why didn't you come sooner?”
Soon, the Second Prince's sword came rushing toward Lunaris's neck.
“If you meant to make me desperate, if you meant to slowly drive me to my death... then yes. You succeeded spectacularly, Lunaris Evermoon!!”
A close-quarters exchange followed.
Mana burst in every direction, and swords cleaved through the air.
It was a fierce battle that hardly looked like a spar between a mage and a swordsman.
On this continent, Lunaris was the only mage capable of matching blows at such close range with a swordsman of the Empire's caliber.
Swords and mana barriers collided, sending sparks flying.
Valerius brought his sword right up against her and glared into Lunaris's eyes from point-blank range.
In those calm eyes, he saw his own desperate reflection.
That stark difference made Prince Valerius feel utterly humiliated.
He ground his teeth, and then, suddenly,
he noticed the pure-white staff floating behind Lunaris: Arke.
“Come to think of it... why aren't you using your staff?”
“If I use this, the spar will end too quickly to be interesting.”
Her tone sounded almost as though she were pitying him.
A fire suddenly lit in Prince Valerius's eyes.
“Do I look like a joke to you? Didn't I tell you to face me properly and give it everything you've got?!”
“No... that's not the problem, Your Highness. You'll die.”
“Didn't I tell you? Life itself means nothing to me!”
Prince Valerius tightened his grip on his sword once more.
“A life that stagnates and goes nowhere! A life that rots away without ever seeing beyond the wall is more fucking awful than dying!!”
A pathological obsession with surpassing one's limits.
I knew it was no ordinary madness, but I hadn't realized it was this deeply rotten.
“Haa...”
A small sigh escaped Lunaris's lips.
By then, she had already moved well away from Prince Valerius.
“This won't do. Why don't you cool your head first, and then think?”
Lunaris spread her palm wide.
One enormous snowflake crystal after another began to bloom across the night sky.
-Saaaa.
The temperature of the space steeped in darkness plummeted below freezing in an instant.
It was a chill so intense that merely exhaling seemed capable of freezing the alveoli in one's lungs.
“Ghh...!”
Prince Valerius's movements became visibly sluggish.
His skin had frozen and was rotting black, yet the Second Prince remained completely unaware of it.
He could think of nothing but the wall before him and the need to reach Lunaris.
Before long, house-sized chunks of ice began raining down like a torrential downpour.
It was the very spell that had subdued even a swarm of wyverns controlled by a dark mage.
Prince Valerius let out a voiceless scream and cut down the ice chunks flying toward him.
He somehow sliced apart and shattered the first one or two, but the endless bombardment of cold soon pinned his feet in place.
Frost gradually settled over Prince Valerius's body.
At this rate, his body would freeze before his head had time to cool down.
But for the Second Prince, whose madness was already severe, this much was just right.
Apparently deciding that this ought to make him listen, Lunaris suddenly offered a proposal.
“I'll help you cross the wall, Your Highness.”
Prince Valerius's body twitched and stopped at the voice coming from beyond the ice storm.
It was an offer that touched upon his most primal desire.
“You'll... help me?”
“Yes. But there are conditions.”
Lunaris held up her fingers.
“First, don't summon me to the imperial palace anymore. And don't hound Senior Miriel, either.”
It was not persuasion, but a notification.
“There are separate places for learning, you know. Come to Elterion Academy.”
“Ha! What does the location matter...? Fine, I can move my residence to that damn academy dormitory!”
There was not even a hint of hesitation in his answer.
The comfort of the imperial palace had never even been a consideration.
“Second. I'll limit our spars to once per semester.”
Even this was an enormous concession on Lunaris's part.
If the other heroine, Miriel, hadn't shown such an uncharacteristically unstable side of herself, Lunaris wouldn't have cared about the Second Prince in the slightest.
If Kyle were around, she could at least have passed him off to that guy with instructions to treat him decently.
When the hell was that guy going to enroll already...!
Of course, from the Second Prince's perspective, that was an utterly unacceptable interval.
“What? Half a year? Are you kidding me?! Every day wouldn't be enough...!”
“Enlightenment isn't something you gain simply by wearing your body out without thought.”
Lunaris cut off Prince Valerius's furious rant.
“You need time to digest what you've learned. And more importantly... just because Your Highness throws a tantrum doesn't mean I have any reason to indulge you, does it?”
It was a rather vicious tone to use toward a member of the imperial family.
But Lunaris didn't care.
Manners are something you show to people of your own kind; when dealing with a beast whose brain has gone bad, you need to be a little firm.
“Ghk...!”
“If you find that difficult to accept, shall we make a bet?”
“...What? A bet?”
“You may use any means or methods you like. If you beat me, I'll do things however you want.”
“Ha... That sounds fun...?”
At those words, Prince Valerius's eyes glistened like a snake's.
“If I win, you will be mine.”
“...”
“It has to be something like this for me to feel like accepting.”
Lunaris grimaced in disgust, but Valerius paid no attention and gave her a crooked smile.
“What, if you don't like it, then forget—”
“Well, I suppose I don't mind.”
Lunaris nodded as though it were a nuisance.
In truth, she didn't care what condition he set.
It was simply the Second Prince's attitude that she disliked.
“Instead, if I win, you'll accept all the conditions I mentioned and become a good student. Understood?”
“Hahahah... Good! Very good!”
Prince Valerius ran his tongue over his lips.
Thinking about what he would do first after obtaining the archmage of unparalleled arrogance and pride made his brain feel as though it would burst with dopamine.
The chill wrapping around his entire body transformed into ecstasy, as though he had already crossed the wall.
“This includes not only this spar, but all our future spars as well, right!!”
-Boom!!
With a thunderous explosion, the chunks of ice spread throughout the area shattered into pieces.
For this moment—for the decisive blow.
Prince Valerius shaved away his own life force and drew out every last bit of his potential.
Mana surged explosively from Prince Valerius's body.
Within the swirling vortex of mana wrapping around him,
the Second Prince gripped his greatsword with both hands and charged at Lunaris with all his strength.
Even Prince Valerius had not yet unleashed his full power in the truest sense of the word.
If he had truly resolved to use any means necessary,
then for the Second Prince, who was willing to throw away his life like a blade of grass, burning the rest of his years and converting them into mana was nothing at all.
This time, I'll reach her.
I'll get to see that arrogant magic bastard's expression twist.
She never would have expected me to have this much power hidden away!
Just as the confident sword strike was about to cut Lunaris's throat,
“...?”
time stopped around Prince Valerius.
More precisely, space stopped.
It felt as though some enormous thing were pressing down on him from above.
The Second Prince's body trembled, and he rolled his eyes toward Lunaris.
The archmage's delicate hand had already closed tightly around the staff floating behind her.
Arke.
“I told you.”
Lunaris's voice, though she stood plainly within sight, seemed to echo from somewhere far away.
“If I held this, it would end too quickly to be interesting.”
At the same time, five magic circles of different sizes unfolded in succession over Valerius's body.
The movement of his muscles, the flow of mana, even his breathing—
it was absolute restraint, forcibly halting every biological function.
Valerius screamed inwardly and tried to make all the mana in his body explode.
His suppressed muscles twisted and his veins burst, yet his body did not move even an inch.
Blood flowed from his eyes, his nose, and between his lips.
He could feel the overwhelming gap between them.
When he had watched the magic of someone who had crossed the wall from a distance, he had still thought he could cross it by lifting his heel just a little higher.
Now he saw that the wall rose impossibly high, all the way into the heavens.
“I'll try to control my strength as much as possible.”
Lunaris drew a large circle in the air with the tip of Arke.
“Roughly half a year... No, let's make it a full year, just to be safe. Cool your head while you spend some time in bed.”
Soon, a huge magic circle appeared above her head, in the middle of the night sky.
“Once you're all healed and come to the academy, I might even spar with you once more.”
Lunaris brought Arke down.
A mage who hated drawing magic circles had drawn one for the first time in ages,
and a mage who never recited spells had, in a rare occurrence, spoken an incantation aloud.
[Star Caller.]
-Rumbleeeee!!
A colossal meteor, burning red, tore through the starry sky and slowly descended.
The overwhelming spell drained the madness from Prince Valerius's eyes, turning them deathly white.
“Ghk... Hak...!”
Today's memory looked likely to remain a trauma for a very long time.