[V5C3] High-Speed Piro-Piro
Translated by Jodas 5: The Magic BattleA special barrier was set up for the magic battle, covering part of the forest to the East of the Wedge Tower where the battle would take place.
By the time the three participants from the Extermination Office, Frederik, Rikard, and Helena, approached the entrance to the forest, all twelve Apprentice Mages had already arrived and lined themselves up neatly.
Looking at them now, it really was an eclectic mix. While some were dressed like proper mages, just as many wore more mobile ordinary clothes.
Worth noting was what they were carrying. About half of the twelve Apprentices were carrying some sort of board under their arms.
The boards weren’t very large, and they had a string tied around the top — could those be drawing boards, like you would bring if you were painting outside?
On top of that, they had loads of tubes hanging from their belts.
Each one was only as long as a finger, and not quite as wide as the circle you would make by putting your index finger and thumb together. They were simple tubes, made by cutting a thin slice of wood, wrapping it around, and sealing it in place.
(Those… don’t look like magical devices.)
Frederik had tried to memorize at least some information about all of them, so he recognized their names, faces, and roughly what magic each of them could use.
The only ones with real talents were Roswitha and Julius.
The one with the curved sword hanging from her waist was Sevil, the Emperor’s sister.
The six kitted out with drawing boards and tubes were Wren, Gerald, Finn, Ella, Sophie, and Rukiye.
The one with the magical flying device and its metal wings strapped to her back was Tia.
Finally, the ones who came empty-handed were Rose and Oliver.
— Taking note of that, Frederik furrowed his brow.
(…Oliver’s not bringing his spear?)
Oliver’s fighting style was fundamentally the same as Frederik’s, combining flight magic and spear techniques.
Yet the fact that he left his spear behind likely indicated that he had failed to learn the magic sword technique in time. Unless he imbued his spear with mana like it was a magic sword, it would be no use to him in a magic battle.
Perhaps he at least learned how to send out arrows of wind? Although, it was hard to imagine him attaining enough precision in such a short time to make it of any use in an actual fight.
As he thought about such things, he heard a golden-haired boy out of the Apprentices — if he remembered correctly, this boy’s name was Wren — whispering to Tia.
“Hey, Tia. This is the time to rile up our opponent!”
“Rile up? How?”
“Um… Why don’t you, like, do that ‘piro-piro~’ tweeting thing you do? You’re pretty good at that, right?”
Tia’s eyebrows shot up to Wren’s words.
She shouted in a deeply offended voice.
“Wren, you don’t understand piro-piro at all!”
“Huh?”
“A real piro-piro sounds like this!”
Tia’s lips began to vibrate with precise movements, and the sound of “piropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiropiro…” filled the air.
How was she making that noise? How did she catch her breath while doing that? Whatever the answers were, she executed her piro-piro with astounding precision and speed.
Wren’s face contorted in a certain degree of fear.
“What the hell, I’ve never heard a piro-piro that fast…”
As Wren muttered in shock, Sevil started to make a piro-piro noise as well.
The piro-piro belted out by the tall, beautiful woman in the military uniform layered on top of Tia’s piro-piro and echoed throughout the silent forest.
…He was sure he’d heard that she was an Imperial Princess, but Frederik supposed he must have been misremembering that.
“Piropiropiropiro… Hm. This is quite difficult, I must say. Is the secret learning how to vibrate your lips?”
“Hm~? Piropiropiropiro… Ah, you’re right. This is kinda hard!”
Hearing Wren and Sevil attempt to mimic her piro-piro, Tia proudly laughed “Pefufun!” before continuing her piro-piro.
(What a lively bunch of kids, huh.)
Tia was probably tasked with acting as a decoy or diversion.
Looking at Tia, belting out her high-speed piro-piro, and spoke gently.
“If you’re looking to rile me up, you should just tie Oliver up and hang him from a tree. I’ll head right there to beat him to a pulp.”
“Pevu!?”
“…Brother.”
Oliver stepped forward.
Just like Frederik, he was tall and thin, with long arms and legs — his young brother had also grown into a fitting body type for a Lange. It disgusted him.
“I… No, we will defeat you, Brother.”
At the very least, his little brother had grown enough as a person that he now understands he can’t defeat his older brother on his own.
However, no matter how much he grows, a foolish little brother will always be a foolish little brother.
There was no way he would accept him joining the Extermination Office.
“… I don’t want to be too rough on Apprentices, but for you alone, I will make sure to properly crush your dreams. Enough that you’ll never be able to step onto another battlefield again.”
The Apprentices’ faces darkened in response to Frederik’s statement.
Tia and Wren whispered to each other in hushed voices.
“What do we do, Wren? Oliver is gonna get crushed? Is he gonna snap in two?”
“Looks like he’s gonna focus on Oliver no matter what we do. I guess we didn’t need to try riling him up, then…”
“Pyoehhh….”
Next, Tia jumped out in front of Oliver, spread her arms wide, and shouted.
“I don’t want Oliver to snap in two! …I’ll rile you up as hard as I can! Piropiropiropiropiropiro!”
The scene inside the magic battle barrier could be displayed on a white curtain set up in a remote location.
On this occasion, the largest meeting room in the First Spire: White Smoke was set aside as a venue to watch the battle. Leaders of the Wedge Tower took their seats alongside mages of the Guidance Office.
The third-rate con man Smoke Fox, which was to say Hütter, took a seat in the back row and took stock of the faces in attendance.
(For an Apprentices’ magic battle, this is quite the lineup we’ve got here.)
From the First Spire: White Smoke, Spiremaster Abel and Guidance Office Director Hegelich.
From the Second Spire: Golden Needle, Extermination Office Director Haydn.
From the Third Spire: Water Bubble, Management Office Director Kappel and Library Office Director Linke.
(One Spiremaster and four Directors… they’ve already gathered that much attention, huh?)
The reason for that attention went without saying.
Their two big problems: Sevil and Julius.
Sevil was the Emperor’s sister and in a precarious political situation. Julius, on the other hand, was the son of Samuel Löwenich, who had once been kicked out of the Wedge Tower.
The upper echelons of the Wedge Tower were at a loss when it came to these two.
In short, the attention given to the Apprentices was more along the lines of ‘we hope don’t screw anything up for us,’ rather than any actual hope for their futures.
(Although I would love to see those guys get in a good blow and put some mud in these condescending bastards’ faces… Wait, but it might be better if they don’t stand out too much today. Sevil’s already got enough eyes on her as it is. Yeah, it’s fine if they don’t stand out. It’s totally fine~)
Regardless, now was a perfect time for information gathering.
The more he could put together about the relationships between the upper echelons, the better. It would be great if he could hear some stories about Samuel Löwenich while he was at it.
The mission assigned to the third-rate con man Smoke Fox was to investigate the reason why the Wedge Tower cut off contact with the previous Emperor.
He was certain that it had something to do with Samuel Löwenich.
“Man, am I pumped to see what happens! How about you, Mr. Hütter!?”
The man talking to Hütter in a jovial voice was a blond, handsome man seated to Hütter’s right — his fellow Instructor, the smiley bastard Sombart.
Then, to his left, a middle-aged man with frizzy brown hair — Armster — couldn’t keep his restlessly shaking leg under control.
(Why do I have to be sandwiched between these two….!? You’re making my job so much harderrrrrr!!)
He had a reasonable guess as to why Armster couldn’t settle down.
And while he couldn’t tell what Sombart was thinking, he couldn’t shake away the feeling that Sombart deliberately sat there because he knew it would be a bother to Hütter.
If their fellow instructor, Röhm were here, the atmosphere would be a lot less suffocating, but she was currently in the forest, responsible for administering the magic battle.
Then, the white curtain faintly began to glow. The magic battle barrier had been deployed.
Apparently, the scene inside the barrier would be broadcasted to this white curtain…
(I don’t know how precise it is, but if you could control the area of effect, this could be considerably useful… militarily, at least.)
The magic battle barrier that nullifies physical attacks was a relatively new technology. It was invented in the neighboring Ridill Kingdom, so it hadn’t been long since it entered use in the Empire.
Hütter had heard of magic battles in passing, but this was his first time ever seeing one himself.
(Oh, there it is. I can see it. Hm… That’s fascinating. Turns out you can see really clearly, huh~)
They could only see what was going on; they couldn’t hear the sounds.
However, it just show happened to show, in clear view, the three students from Hütter’s class — Tia, Wren, and Sevil — moving their mouths.
Hütter read the movements of his students’ lips. He wasn’t good enough at lipreading to tell exactly what people were saying, but these three were moving their mouths an extremely simple and easy-to-read manner.
That was to say:
—Piropiropiropiropiropiropiropiro.
The students from Hütter’s class were tweeting piro-piro at high speed.
(I guess my students are going to stand out no matter what I do….)
Then, he heard the door opening behind him.
A man’s low, weighty voice echoed throughout the room.
“Excuse us.”
At the sound of that voice, all conversation came to an abrupt halt. Even Armster’s leg stopped shaking.
You could hear a pin drop in the room as two individuals entered. A tall, silver-haired man, and a pale-blonde woman in a nun’s habit.
Both of them looked to be in about their mid-forties. The woman appeared a little younger on the surface, but his conman’s intuition told him they were about the same age.
The silver-haired man was as masculine as a man could be. His sharp eyes held not a hint of warmth, yet he surely must have been quite the catch when he was younger.
The woman in the nun’s habit was slender, tall, and had a cold demeanor. She was pretty, but she wasn’t smiling.
Both of them came across as exceedingly cold and stern.
The moment these two stepped into the room, the whole room came under an oppressive spell of tension. As if their humorless nature had infected everyone else.
The silver-haired man cloaked his toned body with a thick robe, and bore a sword hanging from his hip.
Hütter had never met that man. That said, he instantly knew who he was.
The silver-haired man sat next to White Smoke Spiremaster Abel.
Abel, who was significantly older than the man, spoke deferentially towards him.
“A pleasure to have you here, Headmaster Möbius, Assistant Headmaster Miriam.”