Chapter 25
-Fzzzt…!
The two tomahawks, wreathed in a faint electric current, flew toward the log, tracing shining arcs through the air.
-Thwack!!
The two axe blades that embedded themselves in the log almost simultaneously had each landed a handspan away from the target point marked by the white lines.
“Tch.”
Following Kariya’s advice that throwing practice was the best way to get used to tomahawks as quickly as possible, Charlotte was testing out tomahawk-throwing practice.
Though they shared only the name axe, they were entirely different weapons from the enormous battle axe, with a different tempo and feel. The fact that they fit her hand even better than the battle axe she had used for years left Charlotte feeling slightly conflicted.
Had Miriam and Instructor Haru really been right? Had she been an idiot struggling to force herself into clothes that did not fit her?
Charlotte let out a deep sigh. Then, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead, she casually reached a hand toward the log.
Sparks crackled from her fingertips, and the two tomahawks were pulled free from the log with a clatter before flying back toward her hand.
-Click.
After strapping the two tomahawks around her waist, Charlotte drew another tomahawk she wore at her lower back.
Charlotte was now lightly armed with four tomahawks in total. That had been Kariya’s recommendation as well. To guard against mishaps, she was to carry at least two.
Charlotte opened her eyes wide and threw her tomahawks at the log bearing the two axe marks.
Just before the axes flew, a thin streak of lightning shot toward the log. Wrapped in crackling electricity, the tomahawks changed course through the air along the trajectory she had laid out beforehand and flew toward the log.
-Thwack!!
This time, both tomahawks struck the white line marking the target exactly. Charlotte sighed in relief and called the tomahawks back into her hands.
“Indeed.”
A low voice came from behind her.
“It’s fascinating that you can apply lightning-element magic in that way. The obvious drawback is that it appears to consume a great deal of mana, but it could prove useful at a decisive moment.”
“…I believe I told you to mind your own business.”
Charlotte clicked her tongue sharply, making her displeasure obvious.
Charlotte whipped her head around and snapped at Ayla, who stood leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.
“Besides, did you even listen to my advice? I told you Roxanna would be coming here soon.”
“I submitted a request to use the facility.”
“So did Roxanna!”
Charlotte muttered resentfully that she would not have come if she had known Ayla would be there.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
“You really have to ask?!”
Charlotte raised her voice sharply at Ayla, who calmly tilted her head.
“You humiliated Roxanna in front of the other students less than a day ago…!”
“Why is that humiliating?”
Ayla asked in return, genuinely unable to understand.
“Miss Roxanna showed no enthusiasm for a proper spar from the beginning. Rather than thoroughly overpowering someone like that, I merely thought it would be better to bring the spar to a suitable conclusion.”
“…Are you being serious?”
Charlotte furrowed her brow and glared at Ayla. Ayla silently turned her head away, and just as Charlotte was about to walk toward her,
“Shar, I’m here!”
“R-Roxy?!”
Flustered, Charlotte looked back and forth between Ayla and Roxanna, then hurried over to Ayla, thrust her face close, and whispered,
‘Watch your mouth, or you’ll regret it.’
“….”
Ayla did not answer. Charlotte clicked her tongue and hurried back toward Roxanna.
“S-sorry. Somehow….”
“I-I’m okay.”
But Roxanna shook her head.
“Yesterday… I wasn’t good enough. So I suppose it couldn’t be helped.”
Roxanna lowered her head and murmured with a forced smile. Charlotte turned her gaze away with a bitter expression.
“Ah!”
Roxanna suddenly cried out, as though she had belatedly remembered something.
“Come to think of it, there was a girl who was a fan of Miss Ayla… Somehow, she ended up coming with me.”
“A fan?”
Charlotte glanced at Ayla and whispered softly,
‘Of a woman with that awful personality?’
‘That’s rude, Charlotte.’
Roxanna shook her head and whispered back, then gestured toward the door.
“Um, over there….”
Along with a shy voice, a girl cautiously peeked her head through the door of the indoor training hall.
Ayla, who had merely been listening until then, approached Roxanna as though she had finally taken an interest and asked,
“My fan?”
“Y-yes!”
Ayla quietly observed the girl, who nodded nervously, and asked without changing her expression,
“May I ask your name?”
“M-my name is Kate…!”
=
“If it wouldn’t be rude, could you cross swords with me just once…?”
“A sword?”
At Kate’s unexpected request, Ayla tilted her head.
To cross swords meant to ask someone to spar. A sudden sparring request from someone she had just met was somewhat bewildering, but Ayla soon nodded.
She was not the sort to refuse a challenge to a spar. If anything…
“…If that’s all, sure.”
“Th-thank you!”
Kate was delighted and repeatedly bowed her head.
“And Miss Roxanna… Miss Charlotte?”
“You actually remember us.”
Ayla calmly replied to Charlotte’s blunt response.
“Could I ask you two to serve as judges for the spar?”
“Why should we?”
“S-Shar….”
Roxanna, looking close to tears, tugged at Charlotte’s collar and shook her head repeatedly.
“It doesn’t really mean anything. I just… want to experience what a proper spar feels like, even if only a little.”
“You mean yesterday wasn’t a proper spar?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Ayla gave a brief reply, then walked past Kate, who was manipulating the barrier stone at the opposite end of the sparring ground, and took her position on the other side.
“Whew….”
Beside Charlotte, who was stomping her feet in frustration, Roxanna spoke in a tiny voice.
“…I want to watch.”
“Roxy?”
“So that I can work harder and become stronger from now on… I want to watch Miss Ayla fight.”
At Roxanna’s small but resolute words, Charlotte scratched the back of her head, feeling awkward about complaining any further.
“…All right. Let’s.”
“I-I’m ready! Senior!”
Meanwhile, Kate finished activating the barrier stone and shouted in a loud voice that trembled with nerves.
“Very well.”
Ayla nodded and slowly raised her mana as she answered.
“I’ll let you have the first move.”
“P-please be gentle!”
Kate replied stiffly in a thoroughly tense voice, then drew her sword and condensed mana at its tip.
‘Formal water-element magic. And at a considerably high level.’
Ayla thought to herself. At the same time, she felt disappointed.
If her opponent used water-element magic, Ayla was confident she could win even against someone of a higher rank.
To say nothing of the fact that this was a student who had only enrolled this year.
‘It’s good that she’s enthusiastic, and having her rather over-the-top claim to be my fan… isn’t exactly unpleasant.’
The fact that she was a fan did not strike Ayla as particularly strange. Ayla was already an outstanding student and a celebrity ranked second in the entire school. It was not entirely unheard of for a freshman to hear rumors about her and call herself a fan.
However….
‘I’m sorry, Miss Kate.’
She intended to thoroughly crush Kate from this moment on.
Even as she felt a little disgusted with herself for having no choice but to do this, Ayla gathered the mana in both hands and created a pair of ice swords.
‘So this is the greatest restriction I can place on myself.’
At the very least, she would fight her opponent using only these twin ice swords, without any other magic.
Having made that decision, Ayla opened her eyes wide and stared at Kate as the girl prepared to fire her magic at her.
“W-Water Spear!!”
A stream of water in the shape of a long spear shot from the tip of her outstretched sword.
Ayla swung the sword in her left hand directly at the spear.
-Clang!!
The instant Ayla’s blade touched it, Kate’s spear froze in midair and shattered.
Immediately afterward, Ayla kicked off the ground and charged toward Kate.
“Eek…!”
Even as Kate let out a shrill scream, she steadily raised her mana and caused a wall of water to surge up in front of her.
Ayla thrust the sword in her right hand through it.
The wall of water froze and shattered at the same time. The ceiling lights and sunlight streaming through the windows refracted chaotically, creating a scene beautiful enough to take one’s breath away for an instant.
“…Pretty.”
Even Kate, who was facing it, was momentarily entranced enough to murmur.
“You shouldn’t be letting yourself get distracted.”
-Clang!!
Murmuring softly, Ayla brought both swords down in a slash. Kate hurriedly raised her sword horizontally, but Ayla bore down on her without mercy, overwhelming her with the weight of the blow.
“Nngh…!!”
Kate’s face flushed bright red as she gritted her teeth.
-Crunch.
A small sound echoed through the hall.
‘What was that sound?’
Ayla looked at Kate in search of its source. But she could find nothing unusual. Kate was still straining with all her might, her face bright red as she tried to push Ayla upward….
‘Red?’
No, it was not only Kate’s face that was bright red. The hand gripping her sword and the forearm exposed below her elbow were bright red as well.
Just as Ayla sensed something strange and tried to create some distance,
“Aaaaaah!!!”
Letting out a shrill scream, Kate forcefully knocked her straight sword upward.
-Crack…!
At the same time, the sound of something breaking echoed from somewhere. It was the clear, ringing sound of crystal shattering.
“The barrier…!”
Charlotte leaped to her feet in alarm and shouted. The barrier surrounding the sparring ground was warping erratically and beginning to collapse slowly.
“S-Shar!”
Roxanna shouted while pointing somewhere.
The barrier stone behind Kate was split with cracks, and a bizarre light shone through them.
“Kate! Ayla! Stop sparring! The barrier…!!”
Charlotte shouted frantically. But her voice was drowned out by the successive sounds of swords clashing.
‘Has she lost her mind?!’
Ayla gritted her teeth and muttered inwardly. She tried to raise her mana, but strangely, it had not been responding as she wished for some time now.
It was already difficult enough just to maintain the mana circulating through her body. It felt as though something were siphoning it away.
-Shatter!!
Then, the straight sword Kate brought down cleaved the sword in Ayla’s left hand in half.
‘Damn it…!’
Ayla was left-handed. In other words, she had lost the sword she primarily used.
Even if she tried to switch the sword to her other hand, it was not easy to find an opening to do so under Kate’s furious assault.
On top of that, she could not raise her mana as she wished.
‘But…!’
Ayla took a deep breath and slowly, steadily drew out her mana. As though filtering out a single thin thread from the mana circulating through her body, she refined it and infused it into the tip of her sword.
‘Now!’
-Crack!!
The mana condensed at the tip of the sword in her right hand transformed into thick ice buckshot.
‘To subdue her while causing as little harm as possible…!’
Of course, Kate would have to spend several days in the hospital, but there was no other choice. This magic was the best option available to her now.
With the barrier gone, firing something like ice stakes would surely put Kate’s life in danger.
Ayla apologized to Kate inwardly and fired the buckshot toward the exposed area of her torso.
-Krrrrsh!!!
The ice shards shot out mercilessly and struck Kate’s abdomen.
“…Huh?”
But Kate was not pushed back.
-Sizzle…!
By then, armor of bubbling water was wrapped around her abdomen.
‘Boiling water…?’
Water-element magic capable of generating high-temperature water. Its purpose was different, but in its ability to control even the temperature of water, its fundamental nature was the same as Ayla’s cold magic.
‘Could this be…? But how…?’
While Ayla hesitated in confusion, Kate seized the opening and swung her straight sword upward from below.
-Kaang!!
Ayla’s sword in her right hand collided with the red-hot straight sword and shattered into pieces, sending out white steam. Having completely lost her means of resistance, Ayla stared blankly at Kate’s straight sword as it rose again, aimed at her.
“Why aren’t you using magic?!”
Roxanna shouted in horror.
“That’s not all. Kate’s been acting strangely since earlier.”
“What do you mean?!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but we have to subdue Kate first…!”
Charlotte bit down hard on her lip and drew a tomahawk from her waist.
-Zzt…!
Lightning flashed and coiled around the tomahawk she had drawn.
Her practice was still insufficient, but she had no choice. Charlotte took a throwing stance and thought, Even if it meant accepting some collateral damage…!
“Put it away.”
At that moment, Haru said softly to Charlotte.
“…Instructor?”
Before Charlotte could even wonder what had brought Haru here, Haru’s figure, which had been whispering behind her, vanished again in an instant.
-KWAANG!!
Immediately afterward, Haru appeared in front of Ayla and seized Kate’s straight sword with her bare hand.