[586] The Hidden Mastermind (1)
"Damn it!"
Dorothy turned with a startled look at the curse that slipped from Iruki's mouth.
'She gets angry too.'
"As expected, Hersh knew. Cards ruined by a concession don't get shuffled."
Unless you could manipulate time like Shirone or had a servant's calculation ability, there was no way to deduce that rule in seven days.
"They're both trying to count the deck to force favorable hands. If this keeps going, we'll all die together."
"Who wins? You can calculate it, can't you?"
There were twenty-eight scrambles left that hadn't yet been turned into cards.
So, by calculating everyone's cards and the patterns they'd choose, the outcome could be predicted.
Iruki clicked his tongue. "Forty-one percent. That's our chance of winning."
"Is the gap that big?"
"Win rate doesn't mean everything. Hersh has a lot of possible choices. If he slips even once, it'll swing in our favor."
"Will he slip?"
"...You can't know."
He was none other than Fermy's aide.
"We have to choose now. If we keep fighting only through card combinations, our win rate is forty percent. But if we factor in other variables—"
A spark flashed in Iruki's eyes.
"I can make a draw happen with eighty percent probability."
Forty percent to win, and an eighty percent chance of forcing a draw.
As the one responsible for the card matchups, Iruki naturally leaned toward pursuing the win.
'Forty percent isn't a low chance. I have to do it.'
If Amy could dodge Caden, if Shirone failed to break Eden's shield—
'I have to plan for every negative scenario. If I manipulate the white cards...'
"—Iruki!"
"Hm?"
Snapped out of his thoughts, Iruki looked at Dorothy.
"Don't overthink it. I trust your head."
"But if we fall behind in the combinations..."
"You know what matters. We're a team. Right?"
It wasn't just his personal probability.
"That's right."
It was everyone's probability.
"Let's start. Hit them."
Dorothy nodded stoutly.
* * *
"Haah! Haah!"
The mountain burned.
The duration of the fire mark had ended, but wherever the Ifrit had swept, flames still roared, lighting the midnight darkness.
'Continuous casting is impossible after all.'
Amy hurled herself through a pain like being roasted alive and a shock wave erupted.
Caked in dust, Caden appeared.
"Amy!!"
He wasn't in a normal state either.
'Sniper mode!'
Even as the cross-shaped Spirit Zone spun three hundred times a minute, the Fire Strike flew straight at Caden.
'Air tunnel. Definitely tricky.'
Flames propelled by oxygen moved at a speed no one could track without schema-level body sight.
'So fast. Should I put distance between us?'
Caden shook his head.
Giving distance to a sniper would be the most foolish choice.
'I have to close in.'
That was the orthodox move, yet Amy activated the fire mark against Caden again.
The Ifrit, reborn seven times, exhaled and a wave of flame turned everything to ash.
Magic Sword Unit—Shadow Barrier.
From the blackened cinders, Caden cast dark magic, tore the veil, and plunged through.
'There! Show off!'
Gritting her teeth, Amy charged.
The mingling of fire and darkness produced a grotesque, hellish color.
'Fine, show off all you want!'
As the fight repeated, Amy understood why her chest boiled.
'If Maya likes you, go after Maya!'
Caden did nothing.
'Does he think romance is easy? Why did I give up my graduation exam to be stuck here...'
Amy's flames roared higher.
"Do you think I'm fighting you?!"
"Woooooo!"
Magic Sword Unit—Megatornado.
A gale whirled around Caden, and Amy's flames were whipped into it.
'Frozen Buster!'
The endless whirl of fire froze and then detonated.
'After all you can do everything...talk about art and whatever!'
Caden truly did nothing.
"How did I even climb up here!"
Amy felt the weight of destiny that demanded she be the best.
'Do you think you can just live doing what you want?'
She had wandered once. If she hadn't met Shirone, her talent might never have bloomed.
'At the Magic Academy...!'
She'd faced countless rivals. Behind sneers that said she only had a pretty face was a desperate hunger to gain even a sliver of ability.
'You're from the Cross family! Born with the best talent!'
She became a mage because she understood that bitterness. She couldn't accept being gifted and doing nothing.
"Quit whining!"
"Die!"
Magic Sword Unit—Thunder Cross.
When Caden slammed the ground, lightning shaped like a cross detonated outward.
"What have you even done?!"
In the explosion, Amy's crimson eye began to flicker at an unprecedented speed.
Samadhi exaltation.
An extreme human concentration beyond mere memory backup.
As the Ifrit, suddenly vast, grabbed the Cross Sword, the blade glowed blood-red.
'I have to hold on! Just a little longer!'
Driving consciousness back into a samadhi state demanded unimaginable nerves. Even the chirp of insects sounded like thunder; a single hair stirred by wind could snap your focus.
"Look at you!"
Caden grimaced through the burning agony in his hands and gripped the red-hot Cross Sword.
"I'm just the sacrifice of fate!"
The blade emitted a pale white light.
Magic Sword Unit—Flash Slash.
At the speed of a literal flash, the blade sliced Amy's throat.
"Uuuuurgh!"
Even before a blinding horizon of light, Amy's crimson eye did not fade.
'Did she dodge?'
Impossible at Amy's schema level.
'No—did he fail to cut?'
Frozen in his swing, Caden looked down at the Cross Sword.
Only the black hilt remained; molten metal dripped from it.
'The alloy...'
The heat had liquefied part of it in an instant.
Boosting her firepower at that moment, Amy charged, smoke rising from her body.
She could no longer cast the fire mark, and Caden, swinging a blade while photonized, was staggered by the backlash and could barely move.
"Kruuuuh!"
As he strained to move, Amy dove deep into Caden's arms.
"Whether it's Maya or you—!"
A fist filled with everything she had crashed into the rib Caden had had broken by Shirone days before.
"Shirone isn't getting away!"
Crunch!
Hearing ribs snap, Caden coughed up blood.
"Gak!"
At the same time, Amy felt pain in her wrist and winced.
"Ouch!"
A ligament had clearly torn.
"Shirone is—"
Caden's face twisted and he glared at Amy as his body trembled.
But his iron-like body only held a moment longer before collapsing backward.
* * *
"Ugh! Gross!"
Sabina slashed at the swarming insects with air cuts.
They were only magic, which made their grotesqueness worse—each carried different toxins, paralytics, and psychotropic effects.
'Screw this!'
Sabina cast Cutting Flower and the wind of blades shredded the six-legged swarm.
With both speed and precision, hundreds of insects spat slime and collapsed to the ground.
"Phew! Is it over now?"
Pisho had already disappeared.
Having exhausted his scrambles, his only role was harassment; he wouldn't be foolish enough to charge a battle mage head-on.
'Just like Iruki said.'
After Pisho vanished, Sabina waited a moment, checked the time, and looked to the sky.
Rocket Punch (→→↘↘←←).
Dorothy's magical construct Hickory's Rocket Punch delivered the scramble to her.
* * *
"It's over."
Hersh and Iruki glared at each other.
After a fierce battle of combinations, Iruki ended with ○●○○●○ (Amplify), and Hersh had ●●●●●ⓡ.
If the random card were black, Hersh could wreck Iruki's hand; if white, Iruki would be screwed.
'A gamble worth trying.'
By counting, the remaining random cards were four white and six black.
"Sixty percent chance I win."
Hersh's brain was sharp enough that simply following Iruki's predicted win rate spoke to his skill.
"No. Eighty percent chance it's a draw."
At that moment Dorothy made a play on Iruki.
Her ●○●●○● (Annihilation) ruined one of Iruki's cards, shifting the white-black ratio to eight to eight.
That made it fifty–fifty.
"You discarded a card? What a ridiculous gamble."
"Is it truly ridiculous?"
Iruki pointed at Hickory's empty arm. Hersh noticed something and checked the master cards.
Sabina's ○○○○ (Pope) had been ruined, and ●●●● (Mine) had appeared.
Now there were sixteen white cards and four black.
In other words, an eighty percent chance of drawing white.
"...You're determined to at least catch me, huh?"
It was a strategy you'd only attempt if you weren't certain Shirone would force Eden out.
"Well. This is a team game."
Hersh took the random card, perhaps hoping for that twenty percent black.
"Open."
When ●●●●●○ (Total Loss) appeared, Hersh clicked his tongue and tossed a white card onto the ground.
'So four scrambles emptied out.'
They'd never intended to use scrambles on Shirone, so that left room.
'I sent exactly four to Sabina.'
One question remained for Hersh.
"How did you time dozens of those moments? Did you just leave it to luck?"
Counting was one thing, but predicting real-time changes was impossible for a normal mind.
"Because she's a servant."
Iruki's answer was simple.
"Servants don't forget time. And...she's five minutes slower than Dorothy's clock."
Dorothy shrugged and smiled.
* * *
Separated by an uncrossable bridge, Shirone and Eden flew through the sky in a chase.
The offense and defense were one-sided, yet neither made progress—a strange duel.
'As expected, ordinary magic can't hurt her.'
Every application of magic thrown at Eden through the Temporal Anomaly Barrage slammed into her and did nothing; not a single hair was harmed.
'I have to be ready to kill.'
Shining Chain bound Eden a second earlier, but her expression remained confident.
"You can't hurt me with that."
'Athalaxia!'
The moment Athalaxia unfolded, Eden's sneer froze into astonishment.
'What is that?'
Athalaxia, distorting the surrounding scenery as it concentrated, was completely different from yesterday.
"A sphere?"
A four-dimensional Athalaxia—time added to three-dimensional space.
Only Shirone, who could perceive past, present, and future at once, could produce such a wonder.
'Faster! Faster!'
Gathering information into a sphere was on a different order than a two-dimensional magic circle. Shirone had raised a hundred quintillion Temporal Anomaly Barrages.
As countless streams of informational light slammed into the Athalaxia sphere and the world seemed to compress into points, Eden realized the gravity of the situation.
"Hrrgggh!"
She expanded her barrier, snapped the Shining Chain, and distanced herself from Shirone. At that moment the four-dimensional Athalaxia completed.
'Elysion!'
As the direct realm opened, the center point of the Spirit Zone vanished.
'I don't know what kind of magic this is, but I don't need to oppose it. I can just dodge.'
The instant Eden's thought ended, Shirone's mind combined the photon cannon's energy cell with omnipotence.
"This is..."
Eden shuddered at the sight before her.
From every direction a human could perceive, enormous flares surged toward her.
"Ugh!"
They condensed like a sun and trapped Eden, leaving her immobile.
The enormous mass transmitted through the Absolute Barrier concentrated into a point with a terrifying sense of compression.
"Ughhhh...!"
Is this holiness?
Or the universe's most violent enemy?
'Please hold on! Eden!'
Combining Athalaxia, the Temporal Anomaly Barrage, and Elysion produced an ultra-dense concentration of stars coming from all times and spaces.
Shirone's extinction magic—Quasar—had arrived.