[V11C6] As Your Rival
Translated by Jodas 11: Envoy of the AbyssAnneliese Röhm, the ‘Hundred-Eyes Witch,’ called forth the Spirit King of Wind.
Hegelich, Director of the Guidance Office, called forth the Spirit King of Fire.
Through the gate, Spirit King Summoning allowed the caster to borrow a small fraction of a Spirit King’s power, although what form that power took was up to the mage’s discretion.
It could be used to simply unleash a powerful attack at one’s opponent, or it could be used as part of a complex large-scale spell.
The ‘Hundred-Eyes Witch’ employed her Spirit King Summoning as a part of her ‘Hundred Eyes.’ Upon detecting any enemy mana signatures, she would unleash a high-speed high-power arrow of wind to intercept it.
Meanwhile, Hegelich divided the flames from his Spirit King Summoning into fine pieces, targeting the Monsters under Röhm’s protection.
Since the Monsters generally lacked discipline and leadership, the area around Röhm was mired in a maelstrom of chaotic battles. Both humans and Monsters were mixed among the fray, making it difficult to provide any support to either side.
Magic sword-wielding mages clashed and grappled with beast-type Monsters. One wrong move, and Hegelich risked catching his allies in the crossfire in his attempts to support them.
However, the fireballs Hegelich unleashed did little more than lightly rustle the humans’ hair as they burnt Monsters to a crisp.
“Perfect control of fire magic means burning only the targets you intend to. Keep that in mind.”
(Wow, he’s good. I expected nothing less from Director Hegelich.)
Röhm’s blood was pumping with excitement at the prospect of fighting her rival, but she was still able to assess the situation calmly.
The winds swirling around Röhm struck down Hegelich’s fireballs one after another.
Explosions rang out, sending embers and Monster viscera flying across the early morning sky. Röhm adjusted her ‘Hundred Eyes’ to leave some of the wind around her. If she fired all of it off at Hegelich, she wouldn’t be able to use it against her main target.
A hail of lightning arrows rained down above her.
Röhm smiled confidently and chanted the incantation for flight magic. Then, she lifted off the ground, dodging the attack.
Looking down on her from above, Haydn grumbled.
“Spirit King Summoning, Hundred Eyes, and flight magic … You’ve found a way to use them all at once, have you?”
“I won’t tell you it was hard work. It’s all thanks to the Crystal Rivets.”
Typically, a mage could never use more than two spells at any given time.
That meant that if Röhm used Spirit King Summoning for one of them, and used her other spell to convert that into her Hundred Eyes, she would not be able to use flight magic on top of that.
Even then, the Hundred Eyes was an incredibly demanding work of magecraft. It would be difficult to use it alongside any other magic even in the best of circumstances.
However, the Crystal Rivets embedded into her palms helped her with that.
In the most basic sense, the Crystal Rivets served to plug up the holes in Röhm’s mana vessels and strengthen the mana circuits that carried mana throughout her body. Thanks to them, her mana was stronger than ever, while simultaneously enabling her to control it with greater precision than before.
Precise mana control was essential to Röhm’s Hundred Eyes, and the Crystal Rivets were perfectly suited to assist her with that. Ultimately, it led her to achieve the miracle that was combining Spirit King Summoning and the Hundred Eyes into a single spell. Thus, it was no issue for her to use flight magic in tandem with that.
If anyone were to tell her that using the Crystal Rivet to do this was cheating, Röhm would not dispute it.
(Yes, I am cheating.)
So, she did not mind if it wasn’t a one-on-one fight. No matter how many opponents she faced, she would gladly take them on.
So long as she had the chance to face off against Haydn, whatever form that battle took, Röhm would be happy.
Haydn swung at Röhm with his greatsword. Röhm gently leant her body to the side to dodge it.
Röhm may not have been all that much of an athlete, but with her flight magic she could more than keep up with Haydn. Back when she was in the Extermination Office, she had plenty of experience chasing down flying Monsters, after all.
So she knew all about how to dodge attacks in midair.
“I’ll be using weapons of my own. Make sure not to die right away, Fritz.”
The Crystal Rivet in Röhm’s palm crackled as it grew in size, taking the shape of a blade. It wasn’t quite a longsword, but her crystal blade was longer than your average knife.
That alone wasn’t enough to shake Haydn’s composure. He deftly opened up some distance as he fended off Röhm’s attacks. He understood very well that his greatsword would put him at a disadvantage if she managed to close to grappling distance.
“Liese… I…”
“Don’t say it.”
Haydn was making a terrible face, looking on the verge of tears. Röhm’s actions had made him make that face.
She did feel a little guilty about that. Röhm’s intentions were never truly to make Haydn cry.
Even now, Haydn wanted to face Röhm with tender, gentle love. Had such feelings ever sprouted within Röhm, perhaps she might have not minded so much when she lost the ability to use magic.
(…No. I’m sure that I would never give up that obsession — that passion — that I have for my rival. Not until the moment I die.)
Haydn didn’t mind if they were something other than rivals.
Röhm could not accept it if they were anything but.
Back when her mana organs were damaged, leaving her unable to use magecraft, she very well could have given up and chosen some other avenue to direct her passion, yet such a thing would be impossible for Röhm. She could never let go of her obsession. That had led her to sell her soul to a devil. That had led her here.
She felt a biting pain in the bones in both of her arms.
Blood also slowly dripped down her face from where the crystal was planted in her forehead.
Arrows came flying up from the surface. Böll and her squad had their sights on her. They were doing an expert job mixing their projectiles with the flurry of attack magic to put pressure on Röhm and the Monsters.
To add to that, Director Hegelich sent a wave of powerful flame attacks up towards Röhm as well. Even while controlling his flames delicately to avoid burning anything but Monsters, his attacks were incredibly effective.
As expected of the Wedge Tower’s most skilled mages.
In the time Röhm spent dodging these attacks with her flight magic, Haydn started an incantation. The words of that incantation caused Röhm’s eyes to shoot wide open.
(No way… I thought Fritz couldn’t use that spell…!)
“O golden lord who beats the drums of thunder, heed my call and demonstrate a fragment of your might.”
At the end of a long, long incantation came the offertory chant.
Hearing those words dedicated to a great presence soon to appear, Röhm was shocked, but her heart danced in anticipation.
Röhm was not the only one who continually worked hard to train her skills.
After all, this was the Director of the Extermination Office, Fritz Haydn we were talking about!
“In the name of Fritz Haydn, open the gate. Emerge, with your grandeur on full display, O Spirit King of Lightning, Volgang!”
Golden particles assembled to form a gate that glowed with a luster more radiant than any gold.
Following Röhm’s Spirit King of Wind and Hegelich’s Spirit King of Fire, now the Spirit King of Lightning had taken the stage too!
Overwhelmingly powerful lighting arrows poured down on Röhm like rain. Röhm fended them off with wind from her Hundred Eyes.
Weaving through the minuscule gaps between the howling winds and crackling bolts of lighting, Haydn and Röhm’s weapons clashed against each other.
Even a second’s mistake could mean the difference between life and death in this battle. She could not be happier. If only she could make this intoxicating moment last forever.
Haydn had the upper hand in their midair melee.
However, Röhm had the speed and quantity advantage when it came to the exchange of magic.
Haydn swung his greatsword, and Röhm moved to block it with her crystal blade. Yet the force of his blow continued unimpeded, shattering the crystal blade and slicing her right arm clean off from the elbow down.
A shower of blood and crystal fragments splattered them both.
Even though it was Röhm who had just suffered the mortal wound, it was Haydn whose face trembled in anguish.
“Don’t make that face.”
Röhm smiled at him, like a close friend.
Blood dripped from her right arm… but the stump was soon caked over in crystals.
“This isn’t going to kill me, you know?”
The crystals covering her stump grew ferociously, forming a sort of makeshift prosthetic. At the end was not a human hand, but a blade.
The more time passed, the more the crystals grew around Röhm’s body. The Crystal Rivet embedded in her forehead now covered half of her face, while the one in her left hand now coated the left half of her body in a strange armor-like shell.
Her form, covered in these crystals, was that of a Monster.
“…Liese… Is there really no going back?”
Haydn whispered, sadness in his voice.
If she could go back to those days. If she could laugh with him like she did back then… It wasn’t like such thoughts had never occurred to her.
Regardless, nice sentiments could never satisfy her heart.
Even if a devil whispered to her, offering to bring her back to those days, Röhm would probably shake her head.
“I can’t. The present is all we have, you know?”
Fritz Haydn would never stop improving. For him, the ‘present’ was always the best he had ever been.
She wanted that ‘present’ of Haydn’s. She wanted him to throw everything he had at her, without holding anything back.
“So why don’t you give me your present, Fritz? All of it.”
In time, the gate of her Spirit King Summoning closed.
With the rest of her remaining strength, Röhm met Haydn’s attacks.
Haydn was sliced all over by her blades of wind, but he continued to charge at her with flight magic regardless.
Simultaneously, Haydn fired bolts of lightning with high tracking capabilities that broke off some crystals encrusting Röhm’s body.
Then, a single arrow came to pierce that patch of now-exposed skin. An arrow fired up from the surface by Böll.
Röhm’s movements came to an abrupt halt. Blood and crystal fragments scattered across the surroundings. Amidst the spray, Haydn brought his sword down in a mighty swing. A deep slash from the blade rended through flesh and bone across her body from her shoulder down to her abdomen.
Feeling the impact of an attack made with the intent to finish her off for good, Röhm rejoiced from the bottom of her heart. It was a selfish joy unlike anything she had felt before.
“Fritz…”
In her last moments, the wicked witch smiled. More genuinely than ever before.
“Thank you… For killing me… as your rival.”
Before Haydn’s eyes, Röhm’s body succumbed to the crystals covering her.
Then, she fell limply from the sky, hitting the ground and shattering into a million pieces.
—With a crack like glass shattering, what was left was not the body of the girl he liked, but a lifeless dust.
This was the fate that awaited one who sold her soul to a devil. As if to punctuate that point, the Eyeball Birds cawed cacophonously. It sounded to him like mocking laughter.
Haydn shot down the offending Eyeball Birds, then dropped all remaining lightning bolts onto the walls.
Part of the wall he destroyed absorbed the crystals from Röhm’s remains and swallowed them.
“…Liese, did you know?”
As far as Haydn was concerned, ‘rivalry’ and ‘love’ shared equal billing as the highest forms of human relationships.
It was never a matter of whether his competitiveness towards his rival or his affection towards the girl he loved won out. Both were special emotions to him, only ever reserved for one person.
“…To me, you were always my only rival, and the only girl I loved.”