Gooooo—
A solemn bass note, like the blast of a ship’s horn, swept through the heart of the city.
The barrier formula inscribed on the reverse side of Hikarious detected the foreign object and, at the same time, wrapped the surrounding area in magical power. It was a measure to ensure that even if the city were destroyed later, it could be restored with ease.
Under ordinary circumstances, preparations would have ended there: evacuate the people nearby and wait for the magical girls to arrive.
But this time was different. What the Ivory Tower had brought out was no adorable little aberrant, but the remains of an old era that lingered on as a nightmare.
A relic in both senses: something harmful, and something that was a corpse.
Grrrrrrk.
The old-era magical power released from the magic crystal warped the surroundings in an uncanny fashion. First, empty space distorted; then, along the kaleidoscopic, dizzying plane of distortion, something like tentacles crawled out of the magic crystal.
It began to take form by indiscriminately absorbing the objects around it.
Sargasso called that an erosion body wrought by old-era magical power.
“…It looks kind of like that Shadow Mage bastard, doesn’t it?”
Salamandine frowned and jabbed Sargasso in the ribs with her elbow. Sargasso gave a huffing cough, then answered with the solemnity of a physician delivering a diagnosis.
“Strictly speaking, the Luncheoner resembles erosion bodies. It is the result of steadily devouring things like that.”
“Blech. It looks nasty at a glance.”
“Naturally, it tastes nasty. Remember that.”
“…You’ve eaten one of those, old man?!”
“It was during the arduous pilgrimage I undertook with the great Lord Avon. We needed magical power.”
Salamandine felt that Sargasso’s eyes were sparkling more than usual. It seemed even an old general regained his vigor when reminiscing about the good old days.
‘Or maybe it’s just because his body’s made of water, so it refracts light well.’
In fact, illusions created through mist and the diffuse reflection of light were Sargasso’s specialty. Salamandine nodded to herself, pleased by her outstanding powers of deduction. She was not the sentimental type.
‘There she goes again.’
Shaking his head at Salamandine as she smiled to herself, Sargasso waited for the Luncheoner to arrive.
If it truly belonged to the clan of the Luncheon, it would not be able to stand by and watch an erosion body reappear in this era. Now, then—where and in what manner would it begin its assault?
“Old man. What if it doesn’t come?”
“Then it is merely an abomination that looks similar. We need only lecture Dunamis on why he made such a fuss over something like this, then prepare to hunt it down.”
Salamandine clasped both hands behind her neck and looked around. There was no sign of the monster stitched together from pieces of flesh. Instead…
“The magical girls are coming?”
“Hmph. An obvious outcome. The guardian fairies have never understood the greatness of this power, and have always rejected it. Fools who do not know that even poison becomes medicine if one knows how to govern it.”
With a curious expression, Salamandine turned her head toward the direction from which magical power was approaching.
Their aura was already far from ordinary. During their usual scuffles, the magical girls would only enter their serious mode after being pushed somewhat on the defensive, in the flow of things like, “Kyahaha! Take this!” “Kuh, to think you brought an aberrant with such an ability!” But it seemed they had entered it from the start this time.
“Why are they all so on edge? Not that I mind.”
“The fairies must have incited them. Those creatures are fastidious in their rejection of the old era.”
“If they come and purify it, doesn’t that end our Luncheoner bait?”
“Of course it does. That is why, unlike usual, the two of us came.”
Normally, among the Four Heavenly Kings, only one person went out on external operations at a time. The “Ivory Tower,” which was both the name of their organization and their headquarters, was a high-dimensional barrier that operated with each of the Four Heavenly Kings as its core.
If a core was absent, it went without saying that the balance of the barrier would waver.
By leaving a portion of the Four Heavenly Kings’ power within the barrier before setting out, they could at least serve as a minimal counterweight. But for the barrier to function fully, at least two—and preferably three or more—of them had to remain inside it.
Unless it was a situation of grave importance, like the previous ritual to resurrect Avon or the recent Shadow Mage assault, it was rare for two or more of the Four Heavenly Kings to sortie at the same time.
“I shall buy time. You watch for the Shadow Mage’s approach.”
Sargasso’s body spread wide. His form, which for an instant looked like a blue cloth, expanded from a blue fence into a blue wall, and then further into a blue tidal wave.
A gigantic wave rushed toward the magical girls.
***
[Sargasso! So you finally brought out a cursed relic of the old era, mofu!]
“You are old and infirm. It is time for you to yield your place to Lord Avon’s new era!”
With a bored expression, Salamandine observed the battle between the magical girls and Sargasso. Sargasso’s attribute was water; no matter how much he was smashed apart, he quickly came back together, and he could freely transform into any shape, making him known as the most defensive of the Four Heavenly Kings.
And from behind Sargasso, who already boasted outstanding defense, she occasionally fired flames to keep them in check. Even for magical girls hardened by battle, it was an excessively difficult situation to approach.
“Hmph,” Salamandine muttered primly, then looked back at the erosion body.
The distortion and erosion had stopped. The tentacles that had continued to expand had woven together materials like paving blocks and streetlights into something like a chimera, and were slowly beginning to mutate.
‘It secures the necessary amount of mass, then processes the acquired materials to construct the form most suitable for combat, was it?’
That was the explanation Sargasso had given before they set out. He had added that if the Shadow Mage did not appear before the erosion body’s construction was complete, then the bastard was not the Luncheoner, so she should immediately erase the erosion body and prepare to retreat.
“Tch. That Dunamis. I knew he was all talk.”
She could not sense any approaching magical power. Even taking into account the amount of magical power he had expended in battle against the magical girls, the Shadow Mage should possess magical power at least comparable to that of an aberrant. If magical power on that level approached, there was no way she would fail to notice.
The only somewhat unusual thing was that the density of magical power had increased, but when the Four Heavenly Kings and the magical girls started fighting, residual magical power spread through the area, so that was only natural—
“Huh?”
No. It was not natural.
Sargasso was using himself as a barrier to block the magical girls’ approach. Under ordinary circumstances, the density of magical power should have risen above normal around the outskirts of the open space where Sargasso and the magical girls were clashing.
But right now, from the center of the open space where the erosion body stood all the way to the outskirts where Sargasso was blocking the magical girls, the density had surged equally.
Salamandine shouted by instinct.
“Damn it! Sargasso! It’s here! No, dodge!”
“What?”
Ruuuuuumble!
The ground shook.
Sprouts burst forth.
Bundles of blood-red veins reminiscent of cordyceps lifted their heads throughout the entire open space. Soon, they bloomed as though they would pierce the sky.
Salamandine hastily hurled flames. But Sargasso’s body was made of water, and so the veins growing beneath his feet were able to slip past the edge of the fire.
“Kuh-heok!”
A forest of veins grew in thousands of bundles as it drank in Sargasso’s body. Sargasso hastily withdrew the body he had spread out, but he was swallowed by the rising bundles of veins and vanished from sight.
‘I can still feel his magical power! He’s alive!’
“Damn it, old man! Keep your head on straight!”
Salamandine’s flames incinerated the masses of veins that had seized Sargasso. A blank space opened in the red wave. Through it, black-and-white uninvited guests approached.
‘Did I end up saving the magical girls too…? No. They have to settle things with me, so saving them here is the right call.’
Though the flames made them flinch for a moment, the red host did not stop its advance. The densely clustered bundles of veins continued to swell. Thick and towering, enough to call to mind a bamboo grove.
The veins grew all the way to Salamandine’s feet where she stood atop a streetlight. As she continued stopping the veins from reaching Sargasso and the magical girls, Salamandine screamed.
“Damn it!”
While protecting them, she had failed to pay attention to the erosion body!
The moment she turned her head, Salamandine saw something like a ball.
A ball of knitting yarn. The kind cats liked to play with.
Something the size of a red ball of yarn magnified several hundred times over…?
“Salamandine! Burn the erosion body! The Luncheoner is trying to devour the erosion body’s magical power!”
That ball of yarn was the erosion body. Countless veins were wrapping around the erosion body, melting it down, and drinking it in.
“Got it, old man!”
Flames blazed up from both her hands and legs.
***
‘Ah, they caught me.’
Raban regretted the failure of Plan A. The reason he had broken his familiars down to the level of veins was to secretly move a massive force, just like now.
Because the magical power dwelling in each one was insignificant, it was a method well suited to acting unnoticed by ordinary mages, who mainly detected “individual entities.”
‘That little fire brat has better instincts than I thought.’
He had assumed she simply enjoyed punching, burning, and fighting, but perhaps she had something like the instincts of a wild child; she noticed the moment his familiars gathered.
With no other choice, he shifted to Plan B: send the familiars berserk, blind their eyes, and rely on sheer numbers to gulp down only the negative thoughts. Even if he lost the majority of his familiars, the harvest he could obtain now would still make it profitable.
It was at the very moment Raban’s veins clung to the erosion body and began trying to chew it slowly and thoroughly before digesting it.
***
“Are you listening, Shadow Mage?”
Magi White stepped forward.
“The curse you placed on me kept tempting me and throwing me into confusion…”
‘Curse?’
What on earth was she talking about? Raban began calculating how expensive the catalyst and how enormous the amount of magical power would have to be to place a curse on someone with such powerful magical power, but eventually stopped thinking about it.
Because it was certain, at least right now, that he could not do it.
“I was almost swayed by your words, telling me to keep doubting my friends and to bring down those who might one day become my friends. But…”
Magi White recalled a certain magic formula the voice in her head had told her. A sinister art it had whispered to her, claiming it was a means to punish that defenseless villain, the fallen Sargasso.
The instant Schnee tried to reach toward Sargasso’s magic core, Salamandine’s flames blocked her path.
It was not an attack meant to defeat the magical girls trapped within the forest of veins, but flames scattered in order to protect even the magical girls.
In that moment, Schnee once again remembered her dream—her wish to someday speak with even the Four Heavenly Kings and become friends with them. As though burned away by Salamandine’s flames, the voice in her head could no longer be heard.
She spread both hands wide with confidence and shouted.
“Amid your honeyed words and temptations, I found a way to defeat you!”
Geometric magic circles formed around the centers of Magi White’s palms. From the center of the magic circles, a powerful attractive force emanated, seizing control of the area around her.
An attractive force that absorbed not objects, but miasma. Following the motion of Magi White’s outstretched hands, the forest of veins withered and crumbled away.
“I won’t fall for your temptations. This is my answer…!”
***
Raban was bewildered. Mental erosion magic?
‘I never did anything like that…?’
I don’t even have the magical power to use something like that!