Chapter 86
Generally speaking, earth-element magic is said to be ill-suited for combat.
This is because, assuming you create arrows of the same size with mana, earth requires overwhelmingly more mana than the other elements.
On top of that, a fire arrow is inevitably lighter than an earthen arrow, so the latter's launch speed is lower.
Thus, earth was mocked as "difficult to handle and unsuited for combat."
Melissa normally did not favor earth-element magic, either. It was far easier and took far less mana to control thorns than to go out of her way to manipulate dirt and rocks.
But holding back in a situation like this would be ridiculous.
Melissa spared neither effort nor mana when it came to crushing someone who had made a fool of her.
"Don't underestimate the Roseberg family, beloved by the Earth Spirits."
When Melissa raised a hand to the sky, orange particles of light spilled from the gate and seeped into the earth, making the ground shake violently. The mana that had soaked into the earth was shaking the mountain.
With the power of a Spirit King, pulverizing an entire mountain or splitting the ground would be child's play... but if she did that here, she would bury herself alive.
So Melissa limited herself to shaking the mountain.
Karug Mountain was a snow-covered mountain. Needless to say, that would have consequences.
"...! An avalanche!"
Veronica clicked her tongue and spun around, but it was already too late.
The avalanche swept away and buried only Veronica, as though it possessed a will of its own. The earth beneath the accumulated snow was moving according to Melissa's will.
As a spirit, Veronica did not need to breathe or worry about broken bones.
Even so, once buried in snow, she could not move.
"You..."
Veronica interfered with the avalanche's snow using mana. She must have been trying to control the snow that way.
Melissa directed a mocking laugh at Veronica.
"You think a lowly third-rate spirit like you can stand against a Spirit King's mana?"
Melissa waited until Veronica had somehow crawled out of the snow, then waved one hand.
The avalanche's snow dispersed like bursting bubbles, then transformed into countless spears the next instant.
Veronica could control snow. That was why Melissa had struck first and mixed earth into it.
Spears mottled with the brown of earth and the white of snow rained down on Veronica.
Veronica tried to escape by gliding over the snow, but there were too many spears for her to outrun.
Earthen spears, more merciless than a landslide, rained down and pierced Veronica's entire body.
Veronica was a spirit. No blood spilled, but the flow of mana that made up her body was thrown into disorder, causing her form to flicker.
At this rate, Veronica would be unable to maintain her body and would eventually disappear.
"Now, it's time for you to beg for your life. If you grovel and plead, saying, 'Great Witch Melissa-sama, please forgive me,' I might let you live."
"...That gate."
Still pinned to the ground by the earthen spears, Veronica indicated the gate of light above Melissa's head with her eyes.
"How long can you keep it open?"
Melissa's cheek twitched slightly.
This spirit had realized it. The Spirit King's gate could not be maintained for very long.
"I've decided to bury you after all."
Melissa glared coldly at Veronica and waved her hand.
The earth mixed with snow surged like a wave, swelled up, and rained down on Veronica.
Veronica violently tore free the limbs pinned in place by the earthen spears. Apparently, a spirit could move across snow even without the limbs modeled after a human body.
Almost simultaneously, the gate above Melissa disappeared.
The earthen spears, deprived of the Spirit King's mana, turned back into ordinary clumps of dirt and fell onto the snowfield.
"Raul!"
"Sure thing."
Raul spread man-eating roses around Melissa and the others.
Even so, Veronica charged at them valiantly—or rather, with such desperate force that it looked like sheer self-destruction.
Light particles scattered like snow from her nearly severed limbs. Mana was spilling out of her.
Raul's rose thorns pierced Veronica and drained away her mana.
Veronica's body was on the verge of vanishing. Even so, Veronica slipped through the fortress of roses—and reached out toward Toure, the silver-haired young man standing there in a daze.
"Toure!"
At some point, Toure had moved several steps away from Melissa and Raul.
Veronica plunged toward him, scattering gleaming particles of mana.
(What can she possibly accomplish by making contact with that dazed idiot now?!)
Whatever Veronica tried to do, Raul's roses would devour her within seconds.
In the midst of it all, Veronica dove into Toure's chest... then reached for both his cheeks and kissed him.
A final kiss for a beloved at the moment of death—that would make a fine romance.
But that was not merely a kiss.
Veronica's mana flowed into Toure from the place where she had kissed him.
Before long, Veronica, having lost almost all her strength, crumpled to the ground. More than half her body had become transparent and was fading away.
And Toure...
"...Ah... aah..."
His drowsy, unfocused eyelids lifted, and his golden eyes opened wide. His pupils were long and vertical like a reptile's, unlike a human's.
〈Ice Spirits' Snow Lanterns〉 gathered around Toure in a swirling vortex, casting their pale blue-white light over the young man.
"Ah... ah..."
White mist leaked from his lips as he let meaningless sounds spill out.
That was not breath fogged white by the cold—the ice particles mixed into his breath and glittered brightly, proving it.
"Aaaaaaaaaah!"
A piercing voice burst from the young man's mouth, and his entire body was wrapped in white light.
Melissa instinctively raised an arm to shield her eyes.
"Hey, what the hell is that?!"
Beside Melissa, who was cursing, Raul extended the rose vines.
The vines writhed like snakes and tried to seize Toure... but the instant they attempted to touch him, they froze solid and fell to the ground.
"Sis, that looks really bad!"
"No kidding. Run, run!"
Shouting, Melissa scurried away from Toure. Raul followed a moment later.
Behind the two of them, the white light enveloping Toure continued to swell dramatically.
Eventually, when the white light grew larger than the surrounding trees, its silhouette began to change.
A pair of enormous outspread wings, a body with an elegant silhouette, and limbs ending in sharp claws.
As the white light receded, beautiful white scales like jewels appeared beneath it... along with golden eyes.
The legendary White Dragon that dwelled on this mountain threw back its head and roared.
As if answering the roar, the 〈Ice Spirits' Snow Lanterns〉 danced through the sky.
The 〈Ice Spirits' Snow Lanterns〉 were drawn to things with large amounts of mana. Melissa had secretly wondered why they had swarmed around that young man, who possessed so little mana, but seeing this scene, she understood the answer.
(The ice spirits were swarming around the master of this mountain...!)
Accompanied by the 〈Ice Spirits' Snow Lanterns〉, the White Dragon raced through the night sky.
Ahead lay the White Dragon's shrine—the direction Monica had gone.
＊ ＊ ＊
Monica sprinted up the snowy mountain with every last bit of her remaining strength.
The mountain was normally impossible to navigate once the sun had fully set and visibility deteriorated, but thanks to the surrounding 〈Ice Spirits' Snow Lanterns〉, even the light from a single lantern in her hand was enough to see all around her.
Amid the pale blue-white particles swaying gently around her, Monica spotted something ahead that looked like a building. That was probably the shrine dedicated to the White Dragon.
Though it was called a shrine, it was merely a simple hut built by stacking stones. It was much smaller than the mountain hut where Monica had once lived.
When Monica reached the shrine entrance, she noticed something lying at her feet.
It was a brooch set with a blue stone—the magical tool Cyril always wore against his skin.
...!
Monica picked up the brooch and pushed open the shrine's heavy door.
Through the narrow gap as the door opened, the 〈Ice Spirits' Snow Lanterns〉 swept inside and illuminated the shrine's interior with a pale blue-white glow.
At the back of the crude stone shrine stood a single simple altar. Someone was lying on it.
Silver hair, a slender body, and eyes hidden by closed lids—but there was no mistaking him.
"Cyril-sama!"
Monica rushed to the altar and touched Cyril's hand as though in prayer.
Cyril's hand was terribly cold and devoid of any sign of life. Even so, when she cautiously placed her fingers against his wrist, she felt a faint pulse.
(Cyril-sama... he's alive.)
Tears of relief welling in her eyes, Monica shook Cyril.
"Cyril-sama, please wake up. Cyril-sama..."
He did not respond to her calls, and his white eyelids did not so much as twitch.
A dreadful premonition seized Monica. She activated detection magic and examined Cyril. Then she realized it.
(Is ice mana covering Cyril-sama's entire body?)
Monica had once read about it in a book.
A technique for covering a human body in cold-aspected mana and placing it in a low-temperature state, putting the person into a long sleep while keeping them alive.
But that technique had not yet been perfected, and using it as magic was supposed to be treated as forbidden.
Cold sweat trickled down Monica's cheek as she increased the precision of her detection magic.
Monica understood and could decipher nearly every existing magic formula. But...
(This isn't magic...!)
Humans assemble magic formulas and wield mana in the form of magic.
And when it was magic, Monica could decipher the formula composing it and dispel the spell.
But what had been cast on Cyril was not "magic." It was a spirit's "sorcery."
Spirits skilled at handling mana did not need magic formulas. Since there was no formula, Monica could neither decipher nor dispel it.
The reality that she had finally found Cyril only to reach a dead end crushed Monica.
Her slender throat quivered, and hitching sobs mingled with the breath escaping her.
"...Uuuuuuuuuuu!"
Monica bit down hard on her lips, then slapped both cheeks.
(Cyril-sama wouldn't cry at a time like this. I have to think about what I can do.)
Think. Think. Don't stop thinking. Repeating this to herself, Monica marshaled all the knowledge she possessed and searched for a way to save Cyril.
(The most reliable option is to have the spirit who cast this sorcery on Cyril dispel it. If that isn't possible, then what? ...What kind of formula would be needed to safely strip away the ice mana covering Cyril? If he had simply been wrapped in cold air and frozen, all the water in his body should have expanded from freezing, killing his cells. Since that hasn't happened, his body must be protected by mana...)
Monica built the formulas needed to save Cyril in her mind, calculated their effects, rebuilt them, and calculated them again.
She was going to use magic no one had ever tried before on Cyril. Failure was not an option.
Just as Monica finished the thirty-eighth calculation in her mind, the shrine shook violently. It was not just the shrine. The ground itself was shaking.
The shaking was so strong that Monica could not remain standing, and she fell hard on her backside.
(What on earth is happening outside...?)
Though shaken, Monica placed a hand on the altar and stood up, then continued repeating her calculations.
By choosing the necessary formulas and discarding the unnecessary ones, she would eventually complete the formula needed to strip away the cold mana surrounding Cyril.
Just as Monica was about to finish her final calculation, a tremendous roar sounded outside.
Monica had heard a cry very much like it before.
(Was that... a dragon's cry?)
Just as Monica turned her gaze toward the shrine's exterior, the shrine roof vanished with a thunderous crash.
Rubble from the remains of the roof fell right beside her, and Monica involuntarily fell on her backside.
"Eek...?!"
Cold air blew into the now open shrine and brushed Monica's cheek.
A white-scaled dragon looked down at her against the night sky, wreathed in the 〈Ice Spirits' Snow Lanterns〉.
Its enormous body was nothing like that of the lower-ranked dragons around here. It rivaled the largest dragon Monica knew—the Black Dragon of Worgan.
The White Dragon was a fragile dragon whose weak points could lie anywhere, not just between the eyes. But it was by no means weak. A single sweep of its claws possessed enough force to destroy the shrine roof.
The White Dragon turned its gaze toward Cyril sleeping on the altar. Its golden eyes gleamed fiercely upon finding its prey.
"No!"
Monica created a fire spear without chanting and aimed it at the White Dragon's brow.
The magic she had woven from precise calculations should have pierced the White Dragon squarely between the eyes.
But just before the fire spear pierced the White Dragon's brow, an ice blade flew in from the side and canceled it out.
When Monica looked toward the direction from which the ice blade had flown, she saw Veronica, half-transparent and missing her left arm.
Veronica was so weak that she looked ready to disappear at any moment, yet her violet eyes held a fierce determination as she glared at Monica.
"I won't let you get in Toure's way."
Monica silently fired another fire spear. But Veronica immediately canceled it out.
In that opening, the White Dragon hooked Cyril's body with a sharp claw and lifted him.
"Cyril-sama, wake up! Cyril-sama!"
"No. If he wakes up, Toure won't be able to absorb him."
Monica screamed and kept desperately aiming at the White Dragon's brow, but Veronica's ice blocked every attack. Not one got through.
Meanwhile, the White Dragon's arm rose, and Cyril's body, caught on its claw, drew closer to the dragon's mouth.
"Stop! Stop! Stoppppp!"
A long red tongue dragged Cyril's body into the dragon's mouth.
Then, just as the mouth bristling with sharp fangs snapped shut, everything before Monica's eyes turned white.
The 〈Silent Witch〉 was once a legendary witch who annihilated a flock of wyverns without uttering a single word.
That witch fell to her knees before the White Dragon, shedding tears and letting out a cry of anguish.
"Nooooooooooooooooo! Cyril-sama! Cyril-samaaaaa!"