[160] Clay Marsha (4)
Now the students were serious. All of them stared at Shirone as if trying to pierce him with their eyes.
"But for that person to die, they'd have to spend a night with me."
The boys' faces flushed.
"Te-teacher, that example is a bit…."
"You needn't be embarrassed. I would never do such a thing. I gain powerful abilities by wagering something I never want to lose. It's equivalent exchange. Revealing the cost can itself be a cost, but the important thing is that a Regulation Outlier truly believes it. They inject a very personal mental writ into another using omnipotent power."
The students finally understood.
A Regulation Outlier was a kind of person whose way of thinking was completely twisted compared to ordinary people.
"You can't learn it just by studying. It's a peculiarity of the mind manifested through obsession and bias. Regulation Outliers are what mages fear most."
That was all Shirone had known about Regulation Outliers. He had thought he understood it, but facing one was utter confusion.
Above all, he couldn't figure out why the Spirit Zone had suddenly vanished. Since when? Even if it triggers with constraints and costs, Shirone had never done anything to her.
"No… wait. I did—"
Shirone snapped back to the moments before.
-Kill me if you want.
It had been that instant, the spell only he and Marsha knew.
The moment those words left his mouth, Marsha's omnipotence had pierced his mind and activated the rule.
His heart raced. He'd been caught by a Regulation Outlier. What would happen to him now? He couldn't predict a thing.
"Calm down. Only the Spirit Zone disappeared. If I keep my wits about me, I can get out of this."
Regulation Outliers weighed the value of possible and impossible. So the price one had to pay matched the strangeness of the ability.
If he'd said "kill me if you want," Marsha would likely have had to endure a long period of vulnerability. If Shirone had attacked then, Marsha would have died.
So why hadn't he attacked? Because of Yuna? No—Yuna was fine.
His thoughts wouldn't connect. What in the world was happening to him?
"From the start. The moment I met Marsha, I was already trapped."
When Shirone realized all the events had been orchestrated by Marsha, a chill crawled over him.
Taking him to the tavern, provoking him using Yuna, refraining from touching Yuna—
"All of it for this moment?"
Marsha laughed with relish as if reading Shirone's thoughts. Seeing him flustered gave him almost maddening pleasure.
"Hohoho! Of course. Ah, meeting you was coincidence, naturally. I'm someone who turns coincidence into inevitability. It never hurts to lay groundwork. This meticulousness is part of my charm, you know?"
Shirone had to admit it.
He hadn't been targeted specifically; Marsha set schemes for everyone he met, always working off the small assumption they might cross paths again someday.
That meticulousness explained how Marsha had slipped through the Magic Association's net.
"Shall we begin? I don't know what you can do, but—"
Marsha smiled confidently and approached Shirone. Shirone shrank back. He tried to cast teleportation, but it still wouldn't activate.
Surely this state wouldn't last forever. Still, the idea that someone could steal another's mental energy was utterly alien to Shirone.
"This is impossible. What kind of magic is this?"
Shirone felt he was facing the worst crisis of his life. Marsha's Regulation Outlier ability was dangerous—he could even block the Immortal Function, the last bastion.
"Hoho! I'll take it. Your mental energy, please."
The mental energy Shirone had tried to use for teleportation flowed into Marsha. Using that power, he fired the sonic cannon again.
"Ugh!"
Shirone turned and ran. It was a shocking sight to see a mage run on foot, but if he were hit by a sonic cannon in a state where he couldn't use magic, he might die.
"Heh. I'll praise you for abandoning your pride. But the fight is already over. Once you're under my Deprivation, there's no coming back."
Regulation Outlier Deprivation.
He could deprive others of ownership and steal it. The spell he used on Shirone was called Plunder—the ability to steal the Spirit Zone's mental energy.
Shirone put as much distance between them as he could. He had to buy time somehow.
If he lost his mental energy just because he hadn't followed "kill me if you want," then under equivalent exchange the effect had to have a time limit.
"It's working!"
As expected, the Plunder released and his mental energy returned. Unable to see what was happening behind him, Shirone immediately cast Gwangpok as he turned.
Light flashed like thunder striking in rapid succession.
The Gwangpok Shirone cast in the open field had an effect beyond imagination.
"Wow, that's cool. Really amazing."
Shirone glared at Marsha. He didn't even try to close the distance—Marsha must be looking down on him.
In any case, if there was a time constraint, he no longer needed to fear Plunder. No fool would fall for the same trick twice.
"Now!"
Shirone teleported and charged at Marsha. But Marsha remained unruffled, and the moment Shirone entered his Spirit Zone he reached out and murmured.
"Regulation Outlier. Seizure."
At the same time, Shirone's teleportation was undone. He slid several meters along the ground as inertia carried him.
"Gah! What the—?"
His magic had been released again. Had his mental power been stolen once more? But the Spirit Zone was still present.
"Huh? Huh?"
Shirone couldn't believe it. There was no way a magic like this could exist. What had happened to him felt unreal.
Watching Shirone flustered, Tess looked back at Amy and asked.
"What's going on? Did something happen to Shirone?"
"I don't know. The Spirit Zone didn't vanish. But the teleportation being undone means—"
At that moment Amy suddenly realized and trembled all over.
No, it couldn't be. It absolutely couldn't. It was too cruel. How much had Shirone worked to reach this level?
Amy's ominous feeling turned into reality. Shirone, checking his body as if he couldn't believe it, muttered.
"I can't cast magic."
"Heh, exactly. Seizure by a Regulation Outlier is only possible when the target is under Plunder. And, of course, there's the constraint that you have to see the enemy's magic with your own eyes."
Marsha smiled and explained in a mockingly helpful tone—of course he revealed no more than that, enjoying their distress.
Shirone shook his head. It made no sense. Even if those constraints existed, forcibly stealing another's magic outright violated the principle of equivalent exchange.
"Wow, I'm so happy such a cool magic exists. Sound magic was annoying. Thank you, Shirone. You really are a good little brother."
Light orbs gathered before Marsha. He invoked a spell that gave mass to light—the Photon Cannon.
Shirone leaped aside at the last second. A heavy flash struck where he had been.
Fragments of ground stung his face. It was a horrible feeling, being hit by his own magic.
"Phew, this drains mental energy like crazy. How did you handle that long? Really impressive, Shirone."
Shirone sprang up and glared at Marsha.
This time he couldn't suppress his anger. No—he felt wronged. The outrage of having all his magic stolen made his body shake.
"But it's so cool. The ability of an Unlocker."
Marsha beamed and, to taunt him further, displayed a laser as he advanced across the ground.
Even as a laser scraped toward them, Shirone couldn't react. Teleportation had been stolen from him.
At that moment Amy ran up, grabbed Shirone, and teleported them away. She was also drained, so she couldn't go far. Rian and Tess rushed over and blocked them.
Marsha watched them with a mocking air.
The swordsmen were humiliated, Amy struggled just to teleport, and worse—the only remaining hope, Shirone, had been stripped of magic and turned into an ordinary boy.
"Told you so. You can't beat me in a fight."
It was indeed a miserable situation. Shirone had suffered tremendous mental shock. An ordinary person would have cursed Marsha, screamed, and fainted from the ordeal.
"Shirone, pull yourself together. The fight isn't over."
"But my magic—my magic is gone."
Shirone's voice trembled.
Amy understood. If she had been the one, she might have collapsed from heartbreak.
Magic was everything to a mage. To imagine having it taken wholesale by someone else was chilling.
"Shirone! Get up! We can't stop fighting!"
Staggering, Shirone forced himself to his feet.
His resilient mindset instinctively told him not to give up. But the wound in his heart was deep.
"How? How am I supposed to fight?"
"Think rationally! What mage's magic can be so easily stolen? According to equivalent exchange, there has to be some enormous risk."
Shirone snapped back to clarity. She was right. He'd been so consumed by the fact his magic had been stolen that he hadn't noticed Plunder and Seizure couldn't operate arbitrarily.
First, you had to be under Plunder. And you had to see the magic you intended to steal with your own eyes. Though troublesome, these two conditions made Marsha's Regulation Outlier powers feel overpowered.
Amy desperately tried to persuade him.
"If it was taken easily, you can get it back easily. No, you should be able to recover it far more easily than it was stolen. That's equivalent exchange. So never give up."
"All right. I'll try."
Shirone regained his courage. He still didn't have a concrete plan, but he couldn't just sit and cry.
"I'm not sure I get it, but…"
Rian, who had been listening until now, spoke up.
"If she steals what she directly sees with her eyes, then magic she hasn't seen can still be used, right? Like the Wind Cutter you showed at home."
"Oh, right."
A piercing thought entered Shirone's mind. Indeed. From the victim's perspective, Seizure was better than Plunder. At least the Spirit Zone could still be used.
"Yeah. We have to clash physically. Thanks, Rian."
Amy wrapped her arms around Shirone's waist and whispered.
"I'll teleport us in. From there, try to make Wind Cutter work somehow."
Amy poured all her strength into teleportation. As the two of them flashed light and sliced the air, Marsha teleported too and put distance between them.
Magic taken by Seizure merely replicates the other's writ, so without knowing how it activates you can't improvise.
That's why, even though Marsha had stolen Shirone's teleportation, he couldn't attempt the Patrol technique or Rainbow Drop.
Amy exploited that. With dazzling movement she closed in and threw Shirone at Marsha.
Shirone reached for Marsha and cast Wind Cutter. As a spell not from his specialty, it was difficult to land without getting close.
But that weakness became an advantage. Marsha had distanced himself far more than expected.
'What's going on?'
Marsha's movement was strange. Even if he wasn't familiar with Wind Cutter, he could have countered it with Photon Cannon or Gwangpok.
But he chose to retreat. Far away.
"Could the constraints on Seizure possibly be—?"
One possibility flashed through Shirone's head.