[V5C12] Spiraling Wind, Charging Lion
Translated by Jodas 5: The Magic Battle“UOOGHHH! BROTHERRR!!”
As he approached his screaming little brother in midair with flight magic, Frederik Lange briefly pondered.
Does his little brother, who knew no fear, also have no fear of hurting the girl on his back?
(You’re a fool, Oliver.)
It was no laughing matter for a man who’d lost his fear to involve his teammate in his acts of self-destruction.
Frederik let loose a blade of wind from the tip of his spear. Invisible blades of wind were incredibly difficult to dodge, yet Oliver spun around and avoided it.
He’d read the wind currents. Or more likely, Tia, on his back, did.
The Management Office’s Winston Barrett had said that Tia’s ability to read the wind was better than Frederik’s. It seemed he wasn’t lying about that.
(When those two fly together, Oliver is making the major adjustments, while that kid is handling everything else…)
Meaning that they’d be done for if either of them were missing.
On top of that, the Magical Flying Device had intense mana consumption for a magical device. In all likelihood, they wouldn’t last more than ten minutes.
If he just kept them flying around for the next ten minutes, they’d be rendered powerless without him having to do anything else. But that wouldn’t do.
He needed to hand his brother a definitive defeat.
Frederik gripped his spear and chanted.
This was a highly fatal magecraft. Even if they avoid a direct hit, it could easily slice a person’s arm clean off.
Thanks to the magic battle’s barrier, no one would be losing their limbs today.
Frederik found that fact unfortunate.
After all, maybe Oliver might learn to behave if he lost a limb or two.
The moment Frederik began his incantation, the hairs on Tia’s neck stood up.
She could feel the wind and mana gathering around Frederik’s spear.
“Oliver, something scary is coming!”
“Should we drop our altitude, then pull into a climb to dodge it?”
“Pirorororo… Yeah. Let’s do that.”
By combining their efforts, Tia and Oliver were able to fly reasonably well.
However, there was nothing ‘reasonable’ about Frederik.
Tia generally would not ignore the flow of the wind. She preferred to fly with the wind.
In contrast, Frederik’s flight magic did not care where the wind blew — it was like he flew by cutting straight through the wind.
They wouldn’t be able to dodge him forever just by doing a barrel roll along with the wind currents. Frederik would surely get ahead of them.
Just as Oliver suggested, they dropped their altitude. However, Frederik remained unmoved — hovering exactly in place with his spear at the ready. Fierce, howling winds formed a vortex around him.
(The wind is going round and round… This isn’t good!)
The tingling on the back of her neck reached a crescendo.
What they were doing wouldn’t be enough. They wouldn’t be able to dodge this.
The moment her Harpy’s instincts told her that, Frederik was already on the move.
Frederik lunged at terrifying speed from an oblique angle above Oliver.
Oliver tried to dodge by pulling into a sudden climb. However, Frederik pulled from his dive at an impossible angle to catch up with Oliver’s climb.
The second the spear’s tip grazed Oliver’s side, Tia felt something twisting.
Frederik’s spear was covered in a spiral of wind. Even without coming into contact with it, the wind around Oliver began to twirl.
Her vision started to spin. Oliver’s body had started to tumble in midair.
“Ngh!?”
Oliver grunted as he tried to regain his balance. However, he was unused to tumbling in midair, and quickly lost his bearings.
Tia stretched her arms out as wide as they would go. Even if Oliver couldn’t, Tia could.
“LLLLUUUAAAAHH!!”
Puffing her chest out, Tia regained their balance.
However, she couldn’t ride the wind currents. As a consequence of Frederik’s spiraling winds, the wind around them was thrown into chaos.
While Oliver and Tia desperately tried to regain their balance, Frederik mercilessly swung his spear.
The tip hit Oliver in the abdomen. Even though he wouldn’t be wounded by this attack during the magic battle, he would feel the pain. Oliver let out a painful, incomprehensible scream.
Frederik hissed under his breath.
“If this wasn’t a magic battle, your torso would’ve been sliced in half.”
He attacked again. His spear hit Oliver in the knees.
“Now your legs would be pulverized.”
Each time he suffered an attack, Oliver’s body leaned over.
Tia desperately tried to keep their balance, somehow keeping them in the air.
“Did you really think you could win against me just by borrowing your friends’ strength? …A bug like you?”
His restrained voice dripped with genuine rage.
Frederik truly, from the bottom of his heart, was infuriated by Oliver’s presence.
That rage spoke through the swinging of his spear.
“If this was a real fight, you’d have been long since dead.”
So give up, Frederik wordlessly communicated.
Tia warbled Piroro with her throat.
“…That’s not gonna work, Frederik.”
“Hm?”
Frederik was probably trying to drive his brother away from the Wedge Tower by hammering him with rage.
Whether that was out of kindness or hatred, she couldn’t tell.
Regardless, she had to say this one thing.
“I mean, look! Oliver isn’t shaking one bit!”
Riding on his back, Tia couldn’t see Oliver’s face.
Nevertheless, she was confident that Oliver’s expression was not warped in fear.
As if responding to Tia’s mutterings, Oliver shouted proudly.
“You really are a strong one, Brother!”
“I see… It’s a waste of time to talk any more… Fall, my foolish little brother.”
Frederik brandished his spear and lunged once more.
At the exact same time, Röhm’s voice could be heard.
“Oliver Lange, knocked out! Immediately disable your flight magic and leave the arena at once! I will permit no further attacks!”
It seemed that the last attack took a heavy toll on Oliver’s mana. Not to mention how much his mana reserves had already been drained maintaining his flight magic for so long.
However, Frederik did not halt his attack. The tip of his spear still aimed for Oliver.
“Pefu!!”
Tia grabbed the lever on the Magical Flying Device and brought it to an abrupt stop. At the same time, Oliver disengaged his flight magic.
As they dropped headfirst to the ground, Oliver spoke to Tia.
“Tia, I’m sorry… I leave the rest to you.”
“Piyopp! Yep, leave it to me!”
As Tia and Oliver both brought their flight magic to an emergency stop, Frederik’s attack passed through empty air.
Then, a massive fireball flew up from the ground.
That was Julius’ attack magic. And it wasn’t like the suppressing fire he’d been shooting earlier. This was a high-power double-reinforced fireball.
Tia tried to listen closely.
(…..I can hear them.)
The sensitivity of Tia’s ears was a key aspect to their coordinated strategy.
It was harder for her to hear voices from below during their midair battle, but Tia’s good ears could catch Julius’ incantation as well as Wren and Sevil’s orders.
So she knew when Julius was about to finish his incantation, and could hear Wren’s signal clearly.
—Tia, come to your pretty boy!
Above Tia as she fell from the sky, Julius’ fireball detonated.
The fireball was caught by swirling winds, and scattered into the breeze. Frederik’s spear had dispersed the flames.
On the other side of the emerging flames, Frederik glared towards them with his spear at the ready.
“Pevuvu, Oliver, can you hear me!?”
He responded with a weak groan. His consciousness was fading.
Frederik’s attack must have hurt him tremendously. Those attacks were clearly on a different level compared to what he directed towards the other Apprentices.
It wasn’t a simple bullet of wind, but a vortex. Even a Harpy wouldn’t come out unscathed after receiving one of those.
“Oliver, keep it together just a little more, okay! A pretty boy is ready for you!”
Tia once again pulled the lever on her Magical Flying Device.
A wind emerged, and her falling body once more glided on the wind currents.
If Tia was alone, she would have been blown away like a cannonball, but thanks to Oliver’s weight, she could glide deftly through the air as she found a place to land.
From above, Frederik mercilessly bore down on Tia and Oliver with his spear once again.
Only Oliver had been knocked out, while Tia was still in the fight. Therefore, this must have been a follow-up attack directed at Tia.
— That had precisely been Tia’s objective.
First, she was buying time for Wren and the others to move to their objective.
Then, once they’d finished moving, she was to draw Frederik down towards the ground.
Before Frederik could catch up with Tia, something came running across the ground.
With speed that would be impossible for human legs, like a red wind, a massive lion with crimson fur — Julius’ contracted spirit, Agniol.
Riding on her back was Sevil, swinging a curved sword.
When Frederik realized, he twisted half of his body in an attempt to dodge the ambush.
However, Agniol kept her momentum and charged with her massive body. Then, on her back, Sevil’s curved sword cut into Frederik’s upper arms.
While no blood came out, it must have dealt a fair amount of damage. Sevil’s curved sword let off the distinctive pale glow of a magic sword.
“Behold! I am unmatched in mounted combat!”
With Sevil on her back, Agniol also raised a joyous voice.
“I’m gonna run real fast, little one! Hold on tight so you don’t fall off!”
“Hah! …Just who do you think I am?”
Mounted atop a crimson lion, the Empire’s Barbarian Sword Princess laughed as she tossed back her black hair.
“There is no horse I cannot ride!”
“I’m a lion right now, little one!”
“I am no ‘little one.’ I am Sevil! Remember it well: I am the grandest human you will ever meet!”