Please, Just Read It

Please, just read this!

Chapter 40

Reverse Progression (3)

The gray-haired woman opened her mouth with a relaxed smile.

“Looks like you’ve made up your mind?”

“………”

“Come on, little one. Make your choice. Are you going to fight us, or just give up and surrender?”

Riley glared silently at the woman.

She sent me a telepathic message in a quiet voice.

‘Magician.’

[Why?]

‘I told you I read the fairy tale Uncle Robert wrote when I was little.’

[Oh.]

I remembered.

‘One of the fairy tales that left a deep impression on me was called [The Scam Artist Amy], you know?’

Riley continued with a faint smile.

‘Shall I tell you how Amy pulled off her scams?’

[Sure.]

I was curious.

Just how trashy could that damn waste of a fairy tale have been?

“Phew…”

As soon as Riley finished her words, she put on an expression.

With a deep sigh, she mumbled as if she had given up on everything.

“……Take it away.”

“What?”

“I’m saying you can take this Golden Golem. It doesn’t seem we’ll need it anymore for our team.”

Not needing the Golden Golem essentially declared that they were giving up on this second trial.

“Oh.”

The woman looked surprised to hear that. It was as if she hadn’t expected such a turn of events at all.

“Unexpected, huh? Old man Theobalt warned me that you would fight back no matter what.”

“………”

“Well…”

The gray-haired woman glanced back at the scene unfolding behind her.

“If you say you’ll fight after seeing this, then you must be a lunatic.”

Hundreds of colorful carnivorous flowers.

And the shadows looming beneath them.

It seemed Riley had been overwhelmed by the summoned creatures’ momentum.

“Fine. We don’t mind having an extra core, anyway.”

“………”

“Now, hand over the Golden Golem.”

“Eeek, eeek…”

The Golden Golem began to whimper, as if it understood the conversation we had just had.

“Stop that. Just go over there.”

“Eeek…”

It hesitated for a moment but eventually lumbered over to Riley’s command.

The gray-haired woman welcomed the Golden Golem with a bright smile.

“Ooh, what a cute little thing! Don’t worry! Come here! I’ll take good care of you!”

Watching from the sidelines, I asked Riley a question.

[Hey, Riley.]

‘Yes?’

[So what’s this scam method of yours?]

Riley answered.

‘People don’t pay attention to beings weaker than themselves. I’m going to use that psychology.’

[……Huh?]

‘Just watch closely.’

After finishing her words, Riley turned her gaze to the Golden Golem.

In a quiet but firm voice, she murmured.

“Mr. Toby.”

“Grok.”

“Go and bite hard.”

And in the very next moment.

Crunch─!

The Golden Golem, having walked towards the gray-haired woman, suddenly jumped up and bit her finger as if it had been waiting for this cue.

“AAAAH! AHHH!”

Caught by unexpected pain, the gray-haired woman began to scream and panic.

A gap.

A very small gap appeared.

It was but a fleeting moment, but that was all the time Riley needed.

Seizing the opportunity, she charged in.

Magic surged within her grip.

At the same moment, a proper Magic Missile was formed.

Swoosh─!

A faster-than-usual spell attack.

The highly condensed magical projectile flew off towards the gray-haired woman in a bizarre trajectory.

“……Wait, Dorothy!”

The green-haired man, only just realizing the attack, immediately cast a defensive spell.

Whoosh──!

Perhaps it was due to surprise?

Or maybe he underestimated the simple attack known as “Magic Missile”?

He only created one “Mana Shield.”

It was a basic, unmodified defensive barrier with no additional applications or alterations.

[He’s being careless again.]

Well, that’s excellent news for us.

The more simplistic the barrier, the less time it takes to dispel.

Riley pushed her magic energy into her brain.

Time slowed down.

Everything appeared slower.

The result of her monstrous reflexes combined with “Thought Acceleration” made Riley’s world feel as though it was flowing in slow motion.

Within that slowed down reality.

Riley secretly cast Dispel.

Zap─.

Just as the Magic Missile was about to collide with the opponent’s barrier.

“……!”

The barrier that the man thought had defended against the attack vanished.

The eyes of the man widened in shock.

He hadn’t at all expected that a mere low-tier Novice magician would successfully dispel in such a brief moment.

“……Damn it!”

Thud─!

But was it true that a veteran was still a veteran?

Despite the lack of time to react, the man threw himself forward to push the woman out of harm’s way.

[Oh.]

Considering objectively, that was commendable improvisation.

Once the barrier disappeared, the Magic Missile narrowly grazed the side of the gray-haired woman.

Had he not pushed her, she would have received a fatal injury to her abdomen.

Looking pale, the woman, barely surviving, turned her gaze towards Riley.

“What the hell…!”

Rolling in the dirt, she looked up at Riley.

“Hey, you crazy woman! How could you ambush like this so unfairly!”

“Why?”

Riley replied nonchalantly.

“Aren’t we knights? Are we pursuing some kind of fair duel here?”

“………”

“Or has a law appeared saying that a magician must not ambush?”

“……What, what?”

The gray-haired woman’s face turned red with indignation as she received the same words she had just spoken moments ago.

Without a care, Riley continued with a relaxed smile.

“You asked us to choose whether to surrender or fight, right?”

We had already made our choice long ago.

In fact, perhaps our decision was made the moment we received that question.

“I will fight.”

“………”

“And I will win.”

Riley paused to catch her breath before glaring at her opponent.

“So come at me, you pathetic weaklings.”

“Th-this, this…”

As I’ve said countless times, magicians had extremely strong pride.

No magician could remain silent after being called a pathetic weakling right in front of them.

Especially if the one saying it was a magician of a lower tier than them.

“Th-this…”

The gray-haired woman’s face flushed red.

Hmm, let’s see.

From her expression, it seemed that she would let out some really colorful curses, much more nuanced than the ones Becky exhibited last time…

“You bastard! Come on! Show me what you’ve got! You think just because you succeeded in an ambush against a low-tierer that you can look down on us!”

Bingo.

That was it.

Almost dying, the gray-haired woman fell right into Riley’s primal provocation.

Soon after, having lost control over her rationality, she began to unleash an onslaught of attacks.

Boom, boom, boom──!

“Damn it, Dorothy! Just stay calm for once!”

Caught in the torrent of attacks, the green-haired man reluctantly unleashed his poorly prepared counter-attacks.

I couldn’t help but scoff at the messy assault.

Maintaining composure was a magician’s fundamental virtue.

Magic infused with emotion made their attack patterns far too obvious.

As I watched the plants hurling themselves at Riley, I was internally convinced.

[We won.]

*

“Hey, Arfel! Try to do better! Why on earth can’t that damn thorn vine hit anything!”

“W-well…”

If.

If, for real.

If during those 300 years I was asleep, Chrome Bell Stingwood’s vision magic advanced, what would have happened?

I’m sure the flow of the battle would have been a tough one.

The power of the vision magic achieved by the archmage was immensely formidable, after all.

But thinking inversely, what if vision magic had made no advancements during those 300 years?

“…I-I’m frustrated too!”

The enemies could never defeat us.

Just to prove that thought of mine, Riley was evading each and every attack with dazzling movements.

“Ugh, seriously…!”

Attacks that couldn’t even graze her.

“…Can’t you just hit something for once!”

The gray-haired woman was already low on mana from using “Shadow Travel” even before the battle began.

Moreover, the injuries she sustained from Riley’s ambush were causing her to bleed continuously.

Both physically and mentally, her concentration was depleted.

The shadow plants were becoming increasingly sluggish in their movements.

The gray-haired woman was no longer a significant threat to us.

In fact, the only enemy we needed to pay attention to was the man with the green hair over there.

[……]

Yeah.

At this rate, we were in a favorable position.

Positioning ourselves against veteran magicians of the middle tier.

I could truly feel that Riley had made an incredible amount of progress over the past six months.

But…

‘It’s dangerous.’

As I mentioned before, this was not a typical battle.

‘We’re short on time.’

Time attack.

We needed to break through those two as quickly as possible.

Even if we broke through, if we failed to join Becky before she lost her life, we’d lose.

As Riley said, time was running out.

So right now.

We had to make a decisive move here.

Boom─!

I watched as flower stems flew toward Riley.

Most were from the rose family, and those stems were lined with sharp thorns.

[Riley.]

I spoke to Riley, who was narrowly avoiding the plants.

[There’s only one way to sever the link between a magician and their summoned creature at once. You know what that is, right?]

Riley nodded.

As expected, being from Lutemis, she knew well how to break the link of summoned creatures.

‘You must deal a direct blow to the magician controlling the summon. To incapacitate them.’

[Correct.]

As usual, her answer was accurate.

SWISH, SWISH─!

I dodged the blades flying like a knife.

Any unavoidable path, I pierced through using magic.

I pushed forward.

Further.

More and more forward.

“What, what’s going on! No way this is possible!”

The plants whisked past her body by mere inches.

“Magi—The magician can use movements like that?!”

As the gray-haired woman said, this was definitely not the kind of motion a mere magician could pull off.

But was Riley a typical magician?

No.

Decades of experience gained from the Thieves’ Guild.

And dodging movements honed through grappling with Death Knights in the Lich’s hideout for half a year.

All those experiences converged here at this moment.

WHOOM─!

It wasn’t just Riley’s extraordinary physical abilities that came into play.

Pathfinding.

Literally, it means finding a path.

But what we were after now wasn’t a tangible ‘path’ but the ‘flow’ of magical energy.

Reading the flow of energy.

From that reading.

We would anticipate where the next attack would come from.

SWISH─!

A flower vine made of shadows barely grazed Riley’s body.

“No! I clearly aimed for a blind spot…!”

Vision is merely one tool among many to perceive the world.

Thus, we trust our entire bodies to the sense of the mana.

SWISH, SWISH─.

Riley closed her eyes.

Her vision darkened.

But for some reason, even within that pitch-black world, the trajectories of the attacks heading toward us remained clear as day.

SWISH──.

She dodged.

Approached.

Slowly.

But never stopped.

Consistently.

Zap─.

Closer and closer, aimed at the man controlling the plants.

Flash─!

Riley opened her closed eyes.

“What, what…!”

Right in front of her.

Green eyes were visible.

The shock was evident in his gaze.

He was too focused on controlling the plants—he hadn’t noticed our approach at all.

Carelessness.

A gap.

An opening.

And Riley would never miss an opportunity like this.

WHOOM─!

A single strike.

That one was enough.

BOOM───!

Riley’s mana-infused fist struck the man’s face.

*

HUH─!

Dust surged up from all around.

Within that chaos, Riley was breathing heavily.

[Are you okay?]

“………”

My brief question.

Riley nodded weakly instead of answering.

Based on her gasping breaths, it seemed that her momentary super-concentration had really worn her out.

“………”

Covered in dust, Riley silently surveyed her surroundings.

The massive flowers had all lost their power and wilted.

Surely the shadow plants that had lost their master had also vanished into the ground long ago.

Swish─.

Riley turned her head.

Over there, the silhouettes of two magicians could be seen.

The green-haired man.

And the gray-haired woman.

They were all unconscious, and from their looks, it seemed they wouldn’t be returning to sanity for a while.

Swish─.

Turning her gaze again.

Behind the wilted flowers stood Olivia.

She was still curled up, mumbling something to herself and trembling.

She showed minor injuries, but that was all.

It seemed she managed to keep herself safe in that chaotic battle.

“Eeek…”

Beside Olivia lay the fallen Golden Golem.

Its heart was pierced.

From the shape of the wound, it seemed it had been attacked by the shadow plants.

Squish─.

Riley silently inserted her hand into the wound and pulled out the core.

Soon after, the whimpering sounds ceased.

[……]

Yes.

The battle was over.

We had won, and our opponent had lost.

“Phew…”

But Riley wasn’t satisfied and forced her weary body to move. Her heavy footsteps dragged in the dirt.

Though the battle was over, our tasks were far from finished.

It was still not too late.

We needed to help Becky, who was still fighting Garon Theobalt.

Having already established her location through Pathfinding, Riley hurriedly moved towards the combat zone when, all of a sudden…

“……!”

She stood stock-still.

At that moment.

Her eyes widened in shock.

[What’s wrong?]

“……”

Riley couldn’t put her thoughts into words.

And I soon learned the reason why.

WHOOM─.

[……Ah.]

Becky’s energy had been extinguished.

She could no longer be sensed by Riley’s Pathfinding.

Just a moment ago, she must have still had a faint presence…

“Let’s end this here.”

In the very next moment, a low voice echoed.

It was a familiar voice.

We instantly recognized who the voice belonged to.

Swish.

Riley slowly lifted her head.

Garon Edward von Theobalt looked down at us with a sorrowful expression and spoke.

“Rebecca Duncan is dead.”

“………”

“So your trial ends here.”