The Magic Academy's Physicist

Chapter 59: Black Death (6)

Chapter 59: Black Death (6)

Klais returned to the army.

It was the return of a legend. The news of that alone would turn the tides. After the welcoming ceremony, the morale of the troops pierced through the roof.

“The iron tower at the first line of defense is gone.”

“They must have demolished it.”

When Klais finished inspecting the front, she was assigned an army the size of a regiment.

There were 326 combatants in total, each mage beyond high-class. The remaining positions were filled by medics, signallers, aides, and supply units.

A large army capable of firing over 300 Flares at once. The strategy was for this army to charge through to the third line under the escort of the other divisions. They also didn’t forget to leave an escape route just in case.

The fully-prepared troops headed north with an unstoppable force. They climbed over one of the smaller mountains of Elankaya and crossed the highlands covered with snow.

And within only a few hours, they broke through the first barricade.

Then they reached the second line. As the number of high-level beasts diminished, that many more Calamities appeared. But even Calamities fell to Flare like leaves to autumn winds.

They were going to win. They could do it.

Perhaps they’d finally bring this war of hundreds of years to an end.

The second line collapsed four days after deploying this tactic. Six Gargantuans were guarding the gate but all of them crumbled pathetically to Aether’s Flare.

“Should we go further?”

“Make sure to secure our supply lines and brace yourselves. Cataclysms can appear frequently from this point on.”

Like that, they marched onwards to the third line of defense. Now the only beasts trying to stop Klais’ troops were Calamities. There were no more high-levels.

Nonetheless, they were no match. As long as they had Flare, there would be no human casualties.

They were moving forward without any breaks. It was an unusually fast pace compared to normal operational doctrines.

By the time Klais’ unit found the massive tower, it was about a week since initiating the plan.

“Isn’t this the tower that had been near the first line?”

“It must have been originally from here.”

“What should we do?”

There was nothing to hesitate on.

That tower was going down.

The first shot–fifty Flares were loaded. Bright beams of red launched at the tower.

The tower rocked after being battered by all Flares at once. It looked as if it was desperately struggling to maintain balance.

Immediately after the second fire, a Golden-Eyed girl appeared in front of the tower.

“Is that... a Golden-Eyed? What do we do?”

Klais knew who she was.

The girl who had come to her a while ago and told her not to cross the third line of defense.

A mysterious figure who simultaneously looked like Aether but had the opposite hair. Her presence here meant something bad was coming. That was what Klais’ gut told her based on her long-time experience on the battlefield.

But it was too fleeting a moment to make a call. The adjutant shouted.

“That’s a human mimicry! Every one of them here are beasts! Ready your fires?!!”

They prepared the next scrolls. Flare was loaded, then fired. Numerous clusters of light flew altogether at the white-haired, gold-eyed girl.

It was a crossfire that couldn’t be avoided. Stop it or change its course. If the girl didn’t do either one of those, she was going to die.

The Golden-Eyed chose the third option. With one hand gesture, all the Flares that had been ferociously flying her way vanished at once.

“What...!”

There was no time to react.

In the next moment, the heads of fellow soldiers nearby exploded.

“What in the world...!!”

“What is it! What just happened...!”

They didn’t know what had occurred, only vaguely realized that some kind of mass had pierced through the skulls of their comrades. Sparks strong enough to be visible could be seen around their bodies.

“Do not panic! There’s only one enemy!”

“Request backup from headquarters and line up for battle!!

The girl before them smirked. There were a few bullets made of iron in her hand. Playing with them, the girl poised with her arm wound back.

“I told you already.”

Pap pap pap pap! The marksmen readying the next spell all collapsed. Some lost their heads, and others’ torsos were severed from their lower bodies. Small sparks crackled around the place where they fell.

“Not to come crawling over here.”

“I thought so... you’re the Golden-Eyed from that time. No, is it better to say beast?”

Clenching her teeth, Klais moved forward. A flame sparked from the staff held in both hands.

“A beast? Me?”

The girl chuckled as she patted herself on the chest. As her cheekbone lifted, black blood dripped from her cheek. Klais furrowed her brows when she blatantly caught sight of it.

A chill ran down her spine. Really, the Golden-Eyed, were they truly?

No. It couldn’t possibly be.

Magic Beasts were violent in nature and abhorred all other species different from themselves. If the Golden-Eyed were beasts, that would mean Aether was also one. Had her former assistant been a beast, she’d have had no reason to listen to her for the past three years.

“Alright. I’ll let you know specially since you’ll die soon anyway.”

The girl put the remaining bullets in her robe pocket, then deeply inhaled a large smoke of mana grass.

“You’re half right and half wrong.”

The girl lifted her arm. It was the action of preparing to summon a staff.

“Colonel, they say reinforcements will arrive in fifteen minutes.”

“... We hold out until then. If we turn our backs to the enemy here, then we’re bowing in defeat.”

[Manifest : Staff]

Shuuun. A thin metal rod appeared from subspace.

It was a staff of a silver-tint variant. The end had a pointed tip like a spear in the middle with three nails embedded inversely around it. The blade in the center formed a ‘Y’ with each nail.

“Mages in line, prepare for close combat!”

There was only one enemy. No other beasts were coming out of the tower in the back. Now would be the time to subdue the white-haired girl.

And then.

Stab!

As the girl kicked the ground in a sprint, she speared the eyes of a young mage pulling forth their staff.

With a final cry, that mage returned to the arms of the Goddess.

“M-Marko...!”

“You bastaaard?!!”

“Halt! Don’t lose your head!”

Then in the next moment, two middle mages were impaled through their stomachs and jaws.

Craaack, there was the sound of cartilage being crushed. It was a speed that human eyes couldn’t follow. At that high speed, three, five, ten, twenty.... flesh and bone clung to the spear-tipped staff. The white-haired Golden-Eyed gathered the human heads in one place and made them into a meatball.

Klais, who had been dragged to the back lines at the insistence of a subordinate, shoved the other adjutants aside and came back to the front. No, she sprang forth with the intent to kill the girl, veins popping in her eyes.

She took a low stance and threw a flame towards the girl who blocked it easily.

Claaang! The clash rippled through the earth. Klais pulled a scroll from her inner pocket and slammed it in the girl’s face.

She tried to.

[Intermediate Elec Magic ? Capacitance]

Misfire. The scroll stopped working. Without panicking, Klais gathered mana into her left hand.

[Ultimate Fire Magic ? Corona]

Crackle, an ember reaching 6000 degrees celsius descended upon the girl.

“Ah, isn’t that an interesting one up your sleeve?”

[Intermediate Elec Magic ? Corona]

“But oops, I use the same one.”

“Th-this is...!”

High-temperature, high-pressure plasma rose up in reverse. Klais twisted away almost to the point of dislocating her shoulder. It was a close call. She managed to dodge but the top of her field robe was scorched.

“It’s a technique that’s thousands of years old but it’s rather effective, no? Were you looking for something retro like this?”

Veins popped in Klais’ eyes.

“This magic was developed by our family! How do you know...!”

“Corona takes a while to develop if approached using the theories of Fire. I suppose you stupidly went the long way around? How unfortunate, this was an already-existing magic.”

“You, you......!!”

Whomp. While her guard was down, she was kicked in the ribs. Once, twice, three times. Klais lost her grip on the staff and rolled over the snowy field.

Wheezing, Klais pushed herself up from the ground. Before she knew it, the girl was standing in front of her.

Klais instinctively realized.

This was no Calamity.

Monster.

A monster that couldn’t be compared to ‘mere’ Calamities she had fought on the way here.

Something flashed through her mind. The enormous fortress in the sky that had stood in their way when she and Meriga had first crossed the first line of defense approximately five years ago. It was like seeing that fortress in proximity.

Her sympathetic nerve system started to run wild. Apprehension, fear, agitation. The feeling of death wavered before her eyes. Klais squeezed out her voice.

“Everyone retreat?!!”

A commander’s orders on the field were absolute. The survivors all bit their lips and pulled back.

Klais commanded a retreat as per the code. At least one more person needed to return alive. They had to go back and report this.

But the order lost its meaning as soon as it was heard by the enemy.

“You’re not getting away.”

The girl slammed her staff down and started a chant. It was similar to how Meriga stood when she casted an Ultimate magic.

“It’s been a while so I want you to take a look behind you, Duchess Hasfeldt. I’ll show you something fun.”

Klais had no intentions to take her eyes off the girl, but she kicked her over and forced her to turn.

The girl’s composed voice turned cold.

“I’ll teach you what happens when you don’t heed my words.”

Mages were running without a sound. They hurried their feet toward the vanishing point far off on the horizon. Not a single scream. At the indescribable sense of terror, they even forgot to shout as they retreated.

Then a cloud hung over their heads.

It was currently night. Although it was on the bright side with this being the polar regions, it was still night.

The point at which the sun was at its lowest altitude. As the girl spoke of paying the consequences, the sun sank and hid itself below the snowy mountains. And just about when complete darkness had come.

The girl chanted.

[Legendary Innate Magic ? White Night]

Various colored bands formed in the sky. Those bands went from one end of the sky to the other, flowed from high to low latitude and created a massive substorm.

Then electrical discharges occurred in between the layers of the ionosphere. Hundreds and thousands of lightning–one, two, three–struck down on the heads of the fleeing mages.

There was a sound like the sky was being torn. It was indeed a bolt out of the blue.

The soldiers who were struck by the lightning collapsed on the spot vomiting blood. Flesh charred, then regenerated. That same lightning struck the same place over and over like that, causing an endless cycle of pain.

With each strike, the body decayed more and more, and their forms gradually became like coal. Klais had to take in everything happening before her eyes.

“Ah, ahhh.......”

She couldn’t speak. A memory she had buried deep felt like it was being dug out with a shovel.

A minute? It didn’t even take that long.

The 250 mages who tried to retreat, none were left.

They were all dead.

Like that day five years ago when the giant armored battleship had appeared in the sky. Everyone became a corpse. Leaving only Klais behind, the rest of the unit had disappeared from this continent. Utter debilitation washed over her.

“You, you, you.... What did you........”

Grimacing, Klais tried to tense her legs but her body couldn’t move as it was buried in the snow. She had no idea what face she was making, how things suddenly got here, or what was going to happen.

Only that she was now terrified of the girl with the same face as Aether. And so her words wouldn’t come out properly.

“Did you think just because you cut down the Calamities with a magic made by another that you could easily defeat a Cataclysm?”

“You’re, could it be.......”

“I was very generous. But not only did you mess with someone most dear to me, you came tearing through our home ground and crossed the line hard.”

“You.... then that person dear to you is.......”

“Mm, what should I do, now? Since I’ve told you my true identity, your life won’t be so pleasant. You;ll either die or live with us until the end. It’s normally one or the other.”

The white-haired girl hummed thoughtfully.

She didn’t ponder for long. Thwack! Klais lost consciousness.

“Huuup.”

The white-haired, gold-eyed girl hoisted up Klais, then headed somewhere.

Thunk.

And that was when the tower’s door closed shut.