[155] Second Encounter (3)
When Marsha fired the Acoustic Cannon again, Sirone clamped both palms over his ears. In this moment, no magic was more effective than simply blocking his ears.
"Aaaargh!"
But Sirone's expectation missed badly.
An Acoustic Cannon on a whole different level from before bored through the backs of his hands. If he hadn't covered his ears, his eardrums would have burst.
"Hoo… you really underestimate noona. I didn't go to school, but I can handle sequences."
By the magic world's classification, Marsha wasn't school-trained—but she was also a veteran who had taken down countless mages. It wasn't an exaggeration to say she'd mastered the field-critical theory by experience.
"Banshee's Scream."
As Marsha vibrated her Spirit Zone, a bizarre, drawling sound filled the room.
Sirone jolted to his feet, frightened by the sudden phenomenon. He couldn't see. As if ink had been smeared across his retinas, the world went dark.
'What is this? What kind of magic?'
Sound mages travel the world collecting all manner of sounds. Among them, the banshee is a winged, humanoid monster of the high mountains, notable for having a woman's upper body.
It emits a distinctive high frequency to blind prey and devour it; Marsha had used sound magic to mimic that very range.
Sirone grew anxious. He couldn't pinpoint her position with the Spirit Zone.
In the tight space, echoes of the sound waves caused confusion, and Marsha, being the source of those waves, could only be sensed as sound.
While Sirone's senses were being numbed, Marsha was already at his side—and she thrust her palm toward his ear. A direct hit from an Acoustic Cannon at this distance would shut down his brain function.
'Goodbye, Sirone.'
At that instant, Sirone's Zone thrashed violently. With Sona's sensitivity, Marsha caught the danger and sprang back. At the same time, Light Frenzy detonated, shoving the room's furnishings aside.
Eyes squeezed shut, Sirone ringed himself with lasers on all sides.
Whipping lasers around rapidly doesn't pack much shock, but since Marsha had already witnessed their power at the first gate, she ducked under the desk.
From behind cover, she couldn't check the front with her eyes—but with Sona's detection, she could read clearly what Sirone was doing.
'Huh?'
Marsha's heart lurched. Sirone had precisely faced this way and was concentrating a Photon Cannon right before his eyes.
How? In a small room like this, the banshee's echo doesn't die down easily.
She remembered the way the lasers had swept the room.
'No way—he cut the sound?'
Sound-wave vibrations aren't easily disrupted by ordinary magic. But with lasers—as a high-efficiency energy amplifier—it was possible to slice the wave.
Marsha didn't know the principles of lasers, but Sirone knew the principles of sound. The difference in response born here—that was why magic school taught a multitude of disciplines beyond one's specialty.
"Damn…!"
Eyes snapping clear and sharp, Sirone hurled the Photon Cannon where Marsha was. At the same time, Marsha sprang like a flying squirrel and rolled aside.
KWA-AAAAANG!
The hefty sphere of light punched through the building wall and tunneled on.
The fight in the forest was like a war.
Freeman's men clearly had the wrong idea about the price of magistone rounds. Firing their guns with no sense of thrift, they'd utterly devastated the surrounding landscape.
But the ones being cornered were, ironically, them. From twenty, their number had dwindled to seven. Yet they still couldn't locate Amy.
"Damn it! Where is she?"
"There! She just passed that way!"
From deep in the woods, a burning stone came arcing in. It slammed into the back of a Gunner's head before he could even turn; even with Schema active, he blacked out.
"Damn—she's deliberately using a ballistic-type spell."
"She's a ghost. Even moving that fast, her accuracy's insane."
For Gunners, mobility and accuracy are everything—and Amy overwhelmed them on both counts.
She could operate Fly stably, and her targeting was near perfect—because she bore the Crimson Eyes.
"Hoo… six left now? No—seven with Freeman."
Amy levitated the nearby stones again. They reddened and then whoom—caught fire like lava.
If the photon line has Photonization Theory, then the flame line has Ignition Theory. Called Ignite, it's the foundation of the flame line.
The kinds of flame you can produce with Ignite divide into five:
Heat that generates temperature; Flare that kindles flame; Burn that sets objects alight; Blaze that sears wide areas; and Buster that causes explosions.
Heating stones with Burn-type flame is a spell called Fire Call—turning rock molten and hurling it like lava.
For a flame mage, the Burn type matters. It compensates for fire's weakness—its lightness. Which is why it was perfect for opposing Schema-wielding Gunners.
"Shall we go again?"
Soaring into the air, Amy rained down Fire Call mercilessly.
Compared to Meteor—a meteor bombardment—it's child's play, but for those on the receiving end, it was terrifying.
"Up there! Pour everything on her!"
The Gunners raised their guns skyward and spat magistone rounds. But with Amy using self-image memory to correct error, she toyed with them in both evasion and accuracy.
Anyone can learn Fly, but holding balance in air that shifts moment to moment is no simple task.
Even so, Amy seemed to hang motionless in the sky; her pupils blazed a rapid crimson as she backed up her self-image at tremendous speed.
Each time volleys crossed, the enemy count dropped by one.
When only two of Freeman's men remained, Amy dumped the rest of her Fire Call.
No precise aim was needed now. The flaming stones thunked into the heads and backs of enemies who had turned to flee.
Only then did Amy cancel Fly and touch down in the clearing.
Twenty Gunners annihilated in a blink. Only Freeman remained.
"Your men are down and you don't even change expression. A bit too cold, aren't you? Or are you a coward?"
"If hating to fight makes me a coward… perhaps."
At Freeman's words, Amy knit her brows. If this was psychological warfare, his technique was refined.
But Freeman didn't care what she thought.
—Freeman's coming. Coward Freeman is coming.
—Make Freeman cry and Marsha will show up. A fool who needs help from a woman.
Summoning memories of the past, Freeman said something unexpected.
"Let's stop."
"…What did you just say?"
Amy was dumbfounded. With victory right in front of her, he suddenly wanted to stop? Besides, talk like that wasn't respectful to subordinates who'd staked their lives.
"I'm worried about the commander. I think I need to go. I don't want to see her fall."
"Hmph. No one wants to lose. That's why you should've lived right from the start."
"That's not what I mean. She must not lose. Even if it means dying."
"What are you talking about?"
Freeman didn't answer Amy's question. He just kept speaking, almost to himself.
"The commander is strong. Your friends might die."
"Hmph. Sirone is stronger. He'll never lose to a woman like her."
"Loyal to the core. It's good to believe in your man, but you'll regret it."
Amy, clearly displeased at being mistaken for the heroine of a pure love tale, raised her fist and shouted,
"Don't make me laugh. And I'm stronger than Sirone, you jerk. You're not going anywhere—so drop here and now."
"I see."
Realizing negotiations had failed, Freeman gripped two guns—one in each hand—and activated Schema.
His figure, staring at Amy, blurred like an afterimage and vanished.
Amy didn't even have time to react. But sensing presence behind her through the Zone, she twisted in a rush.
Freeman's kick skimmed her chin. Amy clenched her molars in chagrin.
'Damn… I misread him!'
Because he was a Gunner, she'd assumed he'd fight at range—but he'd closed to attempt melee. His mindset was certainly different from his subordinates, who'd relied only on magistone.
"Hmph! I'll take you seriously, then!"
As Amy reset her posture, Freeman leapt into the air and rapid-fired magistone rounds. Fireballs leveraging explosive force fell toward her like dotted lines.
But Amy rapid-fired Flame Strikes and neutralized them all.
In infinitely vast coordinates, making point and line meet is extremely difficult. Their precision was neck and neck.
Clashing again on the ground, they traded firepower at knife range. As expected, the Gunner held the advantage up close.
"In that case…!"
Amy unfolded the defensive Fire Mist. A hot wind blasted as reddish smoke billowed around her like a clump of gas.
When Freeman slipped out beyond the boundary, Amy rapid-fired Flame Strikes to end it here. A dozen spears of flame charged in, burning the air.
PUH-PUH-PUH-PUH-PUH—BOOM!
But that wasn't the end. Repeating teleportation, she circled around Freeman and poured out magic without end.
As dozens of Flame Strikes converged on a single point, Freeman's eyes widened—he opened a Schema of the eyes.
One of the eye techniques: Compound Eye.
The scene before Freeman shattered into facets like the view through an insect's eyes.
As separately analyzed data arrived, his waist swayed this way and that like a willow switch.
The chain of Flame Strikes, each snapping at the last, didn't even brush his lapel, crossing past him in temporal order.
Amy sensed it wasn't an ordinary technique. Not on the level of Crimson Eyes, but clearly an eye art specialized for Gunners.
She changed tactics and slipped into the woods. Against a top-tier Gunner, she had no chance in close quarters.
But Amy had another specialty: sniping. Drawing back to a point three hundred meters away, she studied Freeman. Calmly, he cracked his cylinders and swapped magistone rounds.
'Hmph. Let's see how long you can stay that relaxed.'
Amy reshaped her target-mode Spirit Zone into Sniper Mode. The Zone stretched out in a cone, sighting in on Freeman's face.
By the nature of Flame Strike, the farther the distance, the greater the power—because an air tunnel forms, a trait it shares with wind magic.
By leveraging air pressure, the farther a projectile flies, the more its speed can accelerate. A Flame Strike launched from three hundred meters would deliver nearly four times the force of one at close range.
As she cast, the spear of flame was sucked into the air tunnel and barreled toward Freeman.
At the two-hundred-meter mark, Amy thought it done. At the current acceleration, the speed over the remaining hundred meters would exceed four times that of the first two hundred.
There was no way Freeman could react.
As expected, he didn't move. But Amy was aghast when the Flame Strike smashed into the ground far, far short of Freeman.
'I… made an error?'
In that instant, she realized it—the strange sensation that had snuck into her mind.
"Anti-Magic…"
It had to be that Freeman's guns were imbued with Anti-Magic.
By her feel, it was only about three percent—but at three hundred meters, the error margin would balloon astronomically.
Anti-Magic was dangerous for her. Because it acted directly on the Zone, even the Crimson Eyes couldn't counter it.