[394] Taking the High Ground (3)
From the third round, the Screamer team abandoned spear-to-spear tactics and shifted to a more advanced strategy. Winger Pony crossed to the center line and ran alongside Suabi.
"They used Shift. Not so easy after all."
With three people on the center line, the left line was effectively abandoned.
As expected, Ruman had fully fallen back to the hill and was covering all three lanes.
The moment Suabi stepped into the radius of the Death Rhapsody, his concentration wavered. At that instant Pony cast a spell.
Refresh.
A clean, cooling clarity swept through Suabi's mind and the Death Rhapsody's effect vanished.
It gave no physical defense, but Refresh was the rare, top-tier magic that negated most crowd-control effects.
Saying one Refresh alone justified including a hydromancy mage in a party was no exaggeration.
"Hahaha! How's that? Can you block this now?"
Equipped with her combat package, the Screamer switched back to arms and tore across the battlefield.
Maya held her spell to the end. She couldn't cut Suabi off, but binding Pony's presence with a single Refresh did more than play the guard's role.
'Suabi really is the key. Same as last year… that kid's incredible.'
The twenty buffs from the combat package each had different durations: the vision buff lasted 1.13 seconds, the muscular endurance buff 1.78 seconds.
At first they were applied in order, but after about twenty cycles the shorter buffs would get extra cycles and slip into the rotation.
And you had to account for the time lost switching, so this branch of magic truly demanded the highest concentration among mages.
"tick-tock-tik-tak. tok. tak-tik-tik. tak-tik-tik."
For that reason, utility mages used a distinctive technique unlike ordinary Force spells: the Cross Force.
They set a cross-shaped intersection, place a central charge, then launch reserved charges from four directions to collide at the center.
The reason they could cycle twenty buffs at exact timings was an innate rhythm—the "tick-tock-tik."
A vertical hit was "tick," a horizontal hit "tock," and a rebound from the same direction "tak," so the mage sensed fractions of a second's deviation as rhythm.
"tik-tik tak-tik-tok tik-kak-tok tik-tik tak-tik-tok."
Paf. Pop-pop. Pop-pop. Puf-puf-paf.
Iruki watched the distinctive pattern of effects bursting above the Screamer's head.
"0.11 seconds. 0.23 seconds. 0.38 seconds. 0.49 seconds…"
A cycle as precise as a machine. The speed of charge-swapping deserved applause.
"I'll cut it here."
But even that was only something happening inside Iruki's servant's calculations.
Cancellation.
The Screamer's strength buff was canceled, and Suabi—who had been keeping the tick-tock-tik rhythm—knitted his brow.
Then the vision and flexibility buffs vanished and the Cross Force's rhythm began to fumble.
'Even for a servant, this fast is cheating.'
Cancellation is difficult because you must perfectly invert a spell's vector.
But that's a separate problem from reading charges flying by four times a second.
In short, while Iruki was analyzing the vectors of the charges and the field with no margin for error, his thought process still outpaced Suabi's.
"What the—Suabi!"
The Screamer spun and shouted. She'd made no mistakes with Force so far; this was intolerable.
"Watch the duel!"
The Screamer snapped her head back. Nade's hands surged forward and Lightning Shock detonated.
"Ugh! You bastard!"
The Screamer's body went rigid with stun.
"What? Are you bleating like a pig?"
Nade raised his fist in Shirone's place.
"Try bleating like a pig yourself!"
The Screamer took a clean hit to the jaw; her head snapped so violently it looked like it might twist off.
Meanwhile, within the Screamer team's formation, Ruman was throwing everything into stopping Shirone and Amy.
He bought time with Blind, Slow Trap, Air Press and other crowd-control spells, but this forward-link combination was maddening.
"Damn! That damned crimson-eyed brat!"
Amy's Crimson Eyes were a bane to crowd control.
No matter what control they tried, her self-memory would reset her mind and make control impossible.
'I can't help it. Cut Shirone off.'
Shirone's durability wasn't trivial, but he was at least more likely to be affected by crowd control than someone with Crimson Eyes.
'Uglier than me, and yet more popular.'
Ruman was motivated by personal pride. He believed himself the best.
To a man convinced he'd be handsome if he only lost some weight, Shirone was a rival worth removing.
"You probably even kissed Amy on the lips!"
"What are you talking about, you idiot!"
Ruman's Mountain Range erupted and a colossal wall ten meters high split the two apart.
"Amy's neutralized—Air Press now!"
A violent pressure pinned Shirone's movements. Ruman seized the opening, pushed off the ground and launched himself.
Amy, who had bypassed the wall, widened her eyes.
Ruman arched like a bow and his belly popped out; his navel showed. He grit his molars and contorted his face with everything he had.
"Shirone! Move!"
It was clearly Ruman's specialty, Spirit Hammer.
A non-elemental anti-magic crowd-control that stunned by colliding Spirit Zones.
Often likened to a headbutt, Spirit Hammer works because the struck party absorbs the impact energy.
'Shirone or no, I'll smash him!'
Ruman meant to strike down with everything he had.
As proven in the survival test, Shirone's durability could be called the strongest in the graduating class. But the harder you slammed Spirit Hammer, the more shock the target absorbed.
Burning the pride of a crowd-control mage and the vanity of the class' best-looking senior, he planned to destroy Shirone in one blow.
"Here I gooooooo!"
Seeing Ruman's threatening posture, Shirone instinctively assumed a defensive mindset. As his Spirit Zone shifted to defense, Ruman snapped his belly and swung his forehead.
Screeeetch!
"Krrrgh!"
Shirone grimaced and stumbled back.
He hadn't actually been struck in the skull, but a shock like being hit with a hammer rolled through him.
"Shirone! Are you okay?"
Amy rushed over. From a distance it looked like the Spirit Hammer had landed clean.
'Then why was there no follow-up?'
When Amy glanced back, Ruman was standing dazed. Suddenly his nose bled with a pop; his heavy body staggered and he landed hard on his butt.
Ruman sat with his palms on the ground; his pupils were completely unfocused.
Anti-magic is a seesaw by nature, but Spirit Hammer is a spell that normally favors the attacker.
Yet this time the blow had been so jarring the attacker was left stunned.
Would it feel like smashing your head against a diamond?
"Damn…! What do we do if it's this solid?"
He'd been counter-stunned and didn't even have the strength to stand. His mind wouldn't begin to recover until near the end of the third round.
"Now! Go!"
Shirone ran past Ruman toward the hill.
Amy checked their side and, seeing the Screamer's jaw crooked from Nade's blow, followed.
Aider fired his air gun and fought hard, but Shirone's frenzy forced them to retreat out of range.
In the meantime Amy pulled the flag.
-Round 3 ends. Round 4 will begin in 5 minutes.
Everyone froze and tension eased.
But killing intent still shimmered in the Screamer's eyes.
He'd become much tamer since entering the academy, but the shame of being struck by a mage was unbearable.
"Are you crazy? How dare you hit me?"
Nade scoffed.
"Why? You think you're somebody? If you deserved a hit, you get hit. Don't get mad about it."
The Screamer suddenly closed the gap and shoved her face into his.
"Is that so? Then take it outside. If you're a mage, use magic properly. Don't go swinging your fists in front of me."
Nade shut his mouth.
A fight with winners and losers didn't excite him. If it were a fight where one person had to die, would she still provoke so easily?
"Hah! Coward!"
As the Screamer turned away, Nade looked back at his friends with a bright smile, as if nothing had happened.
"All right! It's a comeback! Keep it up!"
Shirone asked, "What happened? What did the Screamer say?"
"Huh? Dunno, I forgot. Anyway, Maya! How'd I look?"
Maya understood why Nade had hit the Screamer. As someone dragged into the duel, he'd landed a blow on her behalf.
"It felt great! Thanks, Nade."
She still felt guilty about keeping her distance recently.
In truth she'd been cold because of Shirone, but knowing they'd thought of her made her feel both sorry and grateful.
"I'm glad you were there, Maya. Even as a guard you applied debuffs, and the enemies were flustered."
"Hehe! I'll do my best next round too!"
Maya's face flushed; Nade and Iruki glanced at each other. Their expressions were a complete 180 from a few days ago.
'Shirone praised me…'
Maya no longer wanted to hide her feelings.
There had been a chance to back out. But she'd gladly jumped into hell. If that was the case, wasn't she entitled to at least this small joy?
Meanwhile, the Screamer frowned at the sight of Ruman sitting like a casualty.
He'd tried to Spirit Hammer Shirone and ended up like this. No matter how arrogant he was, it was an absurd miscalculation.
"Why'd you do that? You know Shirone's durability."
"Then take on Crimson Eyes? It'd be like pouring water into a bottomless jar. At least with Shirone you could wake him up. God, that guy's thick-headed. My skull aches."
The Screamer sighed.
"So? Will he recover?"
Pony asked.
"I've got Refresh up. But he'll have to take it easy until the next round."
Ruman looked at Pony.
"Don't just say that—rub my head. It still throbs."
A vein popped at Pony's temple.
To dare order a massage from someone of royal blood.
And aside from Fermi's group, Ruman was the one guy the graduating class disliked most.
'I can't let this wreck team cohesion. I don't want to hear we lost because of me.'
Biting back as if to restrain the urge to kill him three times over, Pony massaged Ruman's head from behind.
Each poke of her thin fingers drew a thick groan from him.
"Ah, that's nice. By the way, Screamer—you're really going to introduce me to that pretty girl after this match, right?"
Pony pressed harder. Ruman's habit of using life-or-death evaluations for personal favors was incomprehensible.
But that was the world of magic.
Ruman knew his own nature. Mages were the sort who got recognition for skill, no matter how cranky.
"To be precise, only if you win. So recover as fast as you can. Don't embarrass yourself by losing."
"Hmph! I'll charge this round. Then I'll go straight for five points."
For now Ruman's plan was the most realistic. Besides, Shirone's team would likely be cautious this round because of Maya.
Guards had little to do beyond defense, but Maya had been casting nonstop for three rounds to disrupt Suabi.
'With that workload, she's probably exhausted.'
The Screamer made a decision.
"All right, let's stall for time. But that doesn't mean we're forfeiting the round. If an opportunity comes, we hit and run immediately."