Chapter 43
Creak, creak, creak.
Her head creaked as if it were broken.
Eeeeeek.
A ringing sounded in her ears.
The staff in her hand trembled.
No, her hand was shaking.
Azazel couldn't fully process the situation unfolding before her.
It was beyond her capacity.
Her brain had overloaded.
“That's Ashtein's sword.”
-Didn't I tell you? I took it by force.
Ashtein wasn't the sort of man to quietly accept having his weapon stolen by someone else.
And yet, why was that black knight unharmed?
The implications were clear.
He had incapacitated Ashtein.
Azazel couldn't help losing her composure.
“Where is Ashtein?”
The black knight responded leisurely.
-The hero?
“I won't ask twice.”
-Where do you think?
His tone was malicious.
The nuance suggested Ashtein had met a terrible fate.
She got goosebumps.
Thump, thump, thump.
Her heart pounded as if someone were pounding a desk with their fist.
Her breathing grew ragged.
She'd finally decided to be honest.
Finally, she was going to tell him how she felt.
Was she not even allowed that much?
Seriously.
This is too cruel.
The mana around them stirred into a frenzy.
Aria instinctively moved away from Azazel.
The mana in the air roiled violently, as if reflecting Azazel's feelings.
Her cold red eyes fixed on the black knight.
“I told you, I won't ask twice.”
You'll regret it.
Giving up on talking.
Azazel stamped her right foot.
A vast amount of mana poured from her foot and seeped into the ground.
Then a huge, cone-shaped spike shot up from beneath the black knight's feet.
She had reshaped the terrain with mana.
The black knight murmured in admiration.
Not bad. Fairly sharp.
He moved nimbly, stepping back from his original position.
Azazel's magic didn't end there.
The conical spike changed shape like a living creature, trying to ensnare the black knight.
Slash!
Azazel's attempt to bind him came to nothing.
The mound of earth was brutally cut apart by the holy sword in the black knight's hand.
-Using force without warning? You're a rather heavy-handed mage, young lady.
Azazel silently raised her staff.
A pure white light gathered at its tip.
It was ‘lightning.’
The black knight watched in amazement.
-Have you grasped the principles of thunder?
“Die.”
Then thunder roared across the ground.
KRA-KOOOOM!
The world flashed white.
It was too fast for the eye to follow.
A force impossible to withstand.
An ordinary person wouldn't merely be unable to react; their body would be roasted in an instant.
An ordinary person, that is.
The black knight was different.
As if to counter Azazel's magic, he raised the holy sword upright.
Then he swung it vertically.
What did he cut?
The answer was obvious.
He cut the lightning.
KWA-BOOOOM!
Another tremendous roar rang out.
It wasn't a response born of luck.
The black knight had read Azazel's movements and the path of the mana, predicting where the lightning would strike.
Azazel scoffed.
‘Right, so he read its trajectory.’
If he'd defeated Ashtein, this level of skill was only to be expected.
As if she'd anticipated it, she stamped her left foot.
This time, the ground undulated like a surging tidal wave and crashed over the black knight.
It was easily over four or five meters high.
It covered a vast area, too.
Predict it?
Even if he did, there was nowhere to dodge.
No matter how formidable he was, he couldn't possibly resist that enormous mass of earth.
Defying her expectations, he cleaved the avalanche of snow and earth in two with the holy sword.
That wasn't an exaggeration. He really split it in two.
A feat like slicing apart a small hill.
It was a sight too unbelievable to trust, even with her own eyes.
But Azazel had anticipated this, too.
“This is gonna be hot, tin can.”
Azazel had apparently finished casting in that brief time; she sent five fireballs at the black knight.
Each was a pinnacle of fire magic, capable of causing a massive explosion.
They were certainly not to be underestimated, but the black knight only gave a sardonic smile as he faced them.
KWA-BOOOOOM!
Explosions and blasts of wind struck one after another.
The mountainside, dark just moments ago, was suddenly lit up like broad daylight.
Even the snow whipping fiercely through the air seemed to stop for a moment in the wake of the explosions.
The trees, rocks, snow, earth—everything in sight melted away.
Only vivid flames remained, greedily licking their tongues.
Whoever had been there would have been reduced to nothing, not even a trace left behind.
The magic was that powerful, but Azazel quietly watched the center of the storm.
‘It'd be asking too much to hope he fell to something like this.’
Clank, clank.
An ominous metallic sound rang out.
-First playing in the dirt, and now playing with fire?
As Azazel had expected, the black knight hadn't fallen.
He emerged from the smoke and flames unscathed.
His iron armor must have conducted heat well, yet he showed no sign of discomfort from the fireballs' heat.
Then again, he was wearing armor even in this bitter cold.
He probably wasn't a being bound by common sense.
The black knight remained relaxed.
His attitude of go ahead and try it grated on Azazel.
“You seem pretty confident.”
-I've fought mages like you so many times I'm sick of it, young lady. I suppose that might make me seem that way.
His calm demeanor was too composed to dismiss as bluster or exaggeration.
But that wasn't reason enough for Azazel to tuck tail and run.
“I hope that's not a bluff, you son of a bitch.”
A chill gathered around Azazel.
It was beyond simply being cold.
A temperature that would freeze everything in existence.
The extreme.
Extreme cold.
The air glittered.
The moisture in it had probably frozen, too.
A low temperature that brought everything to a standstill.
At its center, Azazel looked at the black knight, burning with an intensity of emotion few could match.
-My, what an interesting trick, young lady.
The black knight remained composed.
As if telling her to show him every trick she had.
That composure, that arrogance, would drive him into a corner.
“You'll wipe that smile right off your face.”
She formed a fist-sized sphere out of the cold.
It was called a Core of Cold.
An ultra-low-temperature spell that froze everything around it the moment it was activated.
It was the strongest ice spell Azazel could cast.
But she thought it wasn't enough.
So she gave it a variation.
She raised the difficulty a little.
What she was making now wasn't simply a Core of Cold.
It was ice infused with the nature of fire.
She knew they were opposing properties.
She knew it was a contradiction.
But whether it was possible or impossible didn't matter to Azazel.
She would do it.
She would do it and kill that bastard, no matter what.
The distorted laws made her head feel like it would split.
Her mana was draining rapidly, and her whole body felt weak.
The calculations were complicated, too.
It was hard.
It was hard, but.
‘I'll do it.’
Resentment.
Hatred.
Revenge.
That obsession, that fixation, that stubbornness created an incomprehensible spell.
The forming Core of Cold flickered and rippled like a flame.
It looked like burning ice.
This could no longer be called a Core of Cold.
It was a new realm.
A new spell.
The ‘Essence of Icefire’ she'd imagined for so long had fully manifested.
The air around Azazel no longer held a harsh chill.
It couldn't.
All the cold was contained in this spell.
It was, quite literally, a tiny sphere containing winter.
After finishing the spell, Azazel beckoned to Aria, who was standing far away.
“Get close, Aria. This is dangerous even for me.”
The black knight made no move until Aria came to Azazel.
At this point, it was suspicious.
Why was he waiting?
To show off his overwhelming superiority?
For something so bothersome?
‘Whatever.’
Azazel grimaced and snapped her fingers.
The Core of Cold floating in midair—no.
The ‘Essence of Icefire’ turned toward its enemy.
At a moderate speed—not too fast or too slow.
The moment the round sphere touched the ground.
Everything stopped, as if space itself had frozen.
The air, objects, flames, trees—everything froze solid.
Ice surged upward like a wildfire.
The manifestation of a calamity.
It would be no surprise to call it that.
Azazel swiftly shaped ice just like that around herself in the form of an igloo.
It was a reasonable measure.
After all, the same property couldn't encroach upon itself.
Unlike her, the black knight had no barrier.
So he had no choice but to be exposed to that overwhelming cold.
Azazel smiled smugly.
‘Let's see you withstand that.’
The black knight admired it.
Even for him, it had been a long time since he'd faced magic of this caliber.
Ice that burned like flame.
-Excellent. Beautiful as a work of art.
Beneath the black helmet, blue eyes glinted.
-But it is incomplete.
Light gathered around the holy sword.
Just as Ashtein had, the black knight gathered blue light into one place.
A mass of light, concentrated and compressed.
The holy sword shone.
When he swung his sword, a blue glow raced forth.
It smashed through layer upon layer of ice and advanced.
The burning ice tried to freeze even the light that was shattering it, but to no avail.
The black knight's blue light was denser than Azazel's icefire.
The blue radiance shattered the ice engulfing the surroundings and reached the very Essence of Icefire.
The light destroyed the Essence outright, then shattered the ice wall Azazel had made.
“……What the hell.”
Azazel, revealed by the shattered ice wall, wore a dazed expression.
She hadn't expected even this to be countered.
-Is your little performance over?
The black knight walked toward her, brushing the frost clinging to his holy sword off with his chainmail gauntlet.
Azazel bit her lip.
Not yet.
She hadn't lost yet.
-I'm growing tired of letting you have your fun.
The black knight's form vanished.
He was right in front of Azazel.
When did he—
When had he gotten here?
-Now it's the young lady's turn to take a beating.
His holy sword rose.
Azazel blankly etched the sight into her memory.
She had to react.
She had to do something.
Ashtein.
She had to finish your revenge.
The holy sword came down.
Its arc was slow and smooth.
Everything seemed to move slowly to Azazel.
“Ah.”
She fell on her backside.
She'd been shoved.
By whom?
Aria.
She'd taken the blow in her place.
Why?
This made no sense.
You didn't have to take the hit.
Her dazed gaze turned toward her.
Aria smiled and said,
“Heh, hhk, heh, I made a good meat shield, right?”
She thought Aria had said something like that before coming.
That she thought she could be a meat shield.
What kind of idiot stubbornly follows through on something said as a joke?
She'd said she didn't want her to.
Azazel approached Aria, who lay face-down.
She examined her.
Blood seeped thickly through the slash in her dress.
The wound was deep.
It ran diagonally from her left shoulder to her right hip.
It was fatal.
“……Ah.”
What are you doing?
Why would you do something so foolish?
“A-Azazel, are you okay?”
Who's worrying about whom?
Look at yourself.
You're in bad shape.
Her complaints couldn't get past her lips.
“……I'm okay.”
“Ah, that's a relief…….”
“What's, what's a relief!”
Azazel's eyes reddened.
What was this?
You should've just stayed still.
-A scene that's hard to watch without tears.
A mocking voice came from above.
She bit her lip.
Because of me, Aria…
“Aaaah!”
Azazel gripped her staff and charged at the black knight.
It was an emotional act, devoid of reason.
Thud.
The black knight's holy sword easily knocked her staff away.
He kicked Azazel in the stomach.
Thud. Kicked by a leg as hard as steel, she fell face-down and clutched her stomach.
“Guh, hngh.”
-Young lady mage. Courage and recklessness are different things. Didn't your poor judgment get your companion killed? If you had no hope of winning, you should have run from the start, instead of charging at me like this.
Tears spilled from Azazel's eyes.
It was helplessness.
Helplessness at herself, for being unable to protect anything.
Her five fingers scraped the ground, a mix of snow and dirt.
She scraped so hard that her fingertips began to bleed.
“She isn't dead.”
-She will be soon.
“No, no.”
-How stubborn. But don't worry. I'll send you to her side.
The black knight raised his sword.
Azazel was angry not so much from fear as from the unfairness, the absurdity of it all.
She was going to die without accomplishing anything?
She was going to die without protecting anything?
The sword approached.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
And then she heard a sound.
Clang.
It was the sound of metal.
-You're late.
The black knight spoke in a satisfied tone.
“Thanks to someone.”
-It's not good to blame others for your own shortcomings.
“Is that so, former Hero?”
The voice was low.
The voice was filled with rage.
The voice was familiar.
Azazel opened her eyes.
There stood the man she'd been longing to see, Ashtein, his face twisted with anger.
Aria had suffered such a serious wound; of course he was angry.
Azazel wanted to hide in a molehill.
Because of me, Aria had ended up like that.
Because I was worthless, because I was weak.
“I can't forgive you for laying a hand on our girls.”
Our girls?
Azazel was stunned by his words.
KABOOM!
Ashtein kicked the black knight in the torso with his heel, opening some distance between them.
He looked at Azazel and smiled as softly as spring.
It was the smile that carried the warmth she'd longed for so desperately.
“You did well to hold out.”
The hero had arrived.
A little late.