Chapter 10

“But you don’t strike the instant the heat rises, do you?”

“Which means it’s time to cash in the foreshadowing about you staring at people’s intestines.”

“I never set that up. Whatever, moving on.”

Watch Belle’s skin. The moment the muscles underneath contract—

“—that’s when?”

—ignite her sword. She still doesn’t know you can cast Enhancement Magic. A split-second flinch is all we need.

“I’m not sure I can read that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it timing.”

Kinjo. Remember what we drilled in the Capital. We rehearsed this choreography countless times for exactly this moment.

And now—

Kinjo nailed it.

“Now!”

He shouted and wrapped her wooden blade in fire.

Belle’s pupils flickered.

For the briefest instant.

“Dodge!”

The distraction didn’t last.

She snapped back, planted both feet, and burst toward us like a spring released.

She slipped between Kinjo and me.

A blink, and she was through.

If Kinjo hadn’t forced her off-line, she would have cut us both instead of just passing between.

Heat-shimmer hung in the air where her sword had been.

A thunder-crack rolled through the forest.

The rippling haze splitting in two looked like a tear in space itself.

“Hrrgh.”

Belle toppled forward.

“I dodged. Kinjo, you—”

Kinjo, who’d been right beside me, was gone.

“Kinjo?”

I looked lower, beside the fallen Belle.

“Kinjo.”

He was clutching his left leg.

“Ngh, Belle... trying to kill me...?”

He glared up at her, wounded and indignant.

“You saw it coming—why’d you still let it hit you!”

“Shut up! Seeing it doesn’t mean I could dodge it! You think everyone’s as fast as you?”

“Damn... can you stand?”

“Wait, first—”

He started rifling through Belle’s clothes.

“No way, no way...”

His hands moved faster.

“It’s not here... the map... Amon has it...!”

His face went white.

“Using Belle as a stalling tactic? Bold move for Amon. Whoever we met, he planned to keep us here with Belle as bait.”

“Mago. Now’s not the time for admiration.”

“I know.”

A quick thought.

“Kinjo, listen. You’ll only get in my way now.”

“I figured that much. Still stings how cold you’re being.”

“You said you memorized the map.”

“I also said it was a bit of a gamble.”

It wasn’t a gamble—it was the right answer.

But I couldn’t tell him I’d come from the future, so trust me.

Instead I gave him something he could believe.

“Still, you’ll run into the Instructor on the route. How long to the first point? When do you meet him?”

“About two hours downhill.”

“Then go.”

“Mago, you serious?”

“If your memory’s wrong, just come back up.”

“How will you hold them alone?”

“I’ll buy the time.”

* * *

Six hours later.

Checkpoint.

“If you want past, you’ll have to go through me.”

I leveled my wooden sword at the gathered trainees.

“If you can.”

Ahead: one versus ninety-eight.

I was the one.

Self-appointed gatekeeper of the checkpoint.

Kinjo had said two hours, but with that leg it might take three.

I’d give him three.

No one could pass before then.

“Mago! What are you doing?”

Amon shouted.

“No discussion. I’m holding this line.”

I scanned the clearing.

About twenty trainees had reached the checkpoint—Belle, Amon, and me among them.

More B-Team trainees wore blue cloth.

“Where’s Kinjo?” Amon demanded, louder.

“Dunno. Still climbing, maybe. Heading back down, maybe. Or he quit halfway.”

Every trainee carried a wooden sword—literally wood, tip blunt.

No risk of panic, no risk of exposure.

Even outnumbered, I didn’t expect to lose.

Here. Now.

I had nothing to fear.

“Then I’ll break through you...!” Veins bulged in Amon’s neck.

“You sure you’ve got the nerve?”

“What?”

“You’re alone, Amon. I’m not your only enemy.”

“What are you—”

A wooden sword whistled for the back of his head. He flung himself aside, rolled once, came up crouched.

“No clue why, but Belle’s down! Amon’s solo!”

“Target Amon!”

A-Team trainees charged him.

The checkpoint wasn’t meant for fighting me; it was built for A and B to tear each other apart.

With Belle out, lone Amon looked like easy prey.

“Fine—come at me together...!” He drew his wooden blade with a snarl.

Four A-Team faces in front of him.

“Raaah!”

The rest of the trainees jumped in, red cloth and blue swirling together.

“Why are you all so desperate to fight lousy? Just trade...!”

“Hand over your map!”

“I’m done... already stolen...”

Each met a different opponent—stealing, stolen from.

I tracked Amon battling four at once.

A prestigious swordsman, he read their moves, then—clean, economical steel—calmly, one by one—dropped all four and rifled their pockets.

From an A-Team trainee he pulled a map tied with a blue string.

“Got it!”

With the map, he could rejoin the race.

“Belle...!”

But his partner lay unconscious; sending her ahead had cost him her strength.

He hoisted her onto his back and withdrew.

Fresh trainees poured onto the slope and fought in turn.

I counted slowly.

Total hundred; minus Kinjo and me, ninety-eight should appear.

Ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six.

Two missing.

“Louise shows up late, same as last life.”

Her two-person team was nowhere.

“Move, Mago!”

Two A-Team trainees, red cloths round their forearms, maps in hand—successfully swiped from B.

If I let them pass, they’d chase Kinjo.

“I said no one gets through.”

“Quit babbling and step aside!”

They rushed together.

I sidestepped the first, hooked his leg, sent him spinning to the dirt.

The second aimed low at my ribs; I slipped inside, jabbed the sword hilt into his waist and repaid the rib shot.

He collapsed with a grunt, map rolling free.

I scooped up the scroll and stuffed it in my pocket.

“Try taking it back.”

“Ngh... Mago...”

The sun slid westward.

A and B kept fighting.

Four more trainees came for me; four against wooden swords were barely a threat.

A few swings of my wooden sword, and they all knelt at my feet.

Their maps were mine again.

“What the—... Mago was this strong?”

“Mago, I’ll do what you said and stay out of it. Happy?”

“It’s even more annoying when you go easy on us...!”

“Relax, I’m not trying for the Special Task Force or the knights. Scores don’t matter to me.”

Voices drifted in from every side.

I didn’t answer them one by one.

While I was scanning the clearing, something shot toward my shoulder.

I snatched it a finger-length from impact: a long sliver of wood, whittled from a branch—

A spear.

Blunted on purpose, meant to bruise, not kill.

I traced its flight back through the air.

Up in a tree stood Louise, something in each hand.

In her right, a J-shaped support device; in her left, a straight wooden spear.

Five more spears jutted from the quiver on her back.

She slid the butt of the spear into the curved hook, whipped the J like a sling, and sent the next shot faster and straighter than any arm could throw.

No instructor would dream a trainee would build her own weapon.

Only I knew Louise could throw like that.

“Got you...?”

I couldn’t hear the words, but her lips shaped them clearly.

She scowled, then vanished deeper into the branches.

“So you’ve been watching the whole time.”

A spear from the trees was inside my expectations.

I tightened my grip on the one I’d caught.

“Still just a pointy stick, though.”

Louise, where next?

Back into the canopy?

“Louise! Hold up a second!”

A voice cut through my thoughts.

I recognized the owner before I saw her.

“Belle, you’re alive!” Amon shouted gladly.

“I never died!” Belle snapped, climbing to her feet and snatching a wooden sword.

The reason she was trouble wasn’t her Unique Magic.

It was that she knew why I’d taken the gatekeeper’s post—and that Kinjo had already fallen to her.

She would stall me long enough to keep me from buying time.

“Belle, you take the left,” Amon said, pointing.

Belle nodded and veered off.

Amon, right.

Belle, left.

Louise—still unknown.

A rustle in the grass behind me.

Close.

I had Amon and Belle charging from both sides; no seconds to spare for Louise.

But I could still deal with a spear from the rear.

“All at once! Three of us can take him!” Belle yelled.

The lake, twice a day.

Five minutes, fifty meters.

I closed my eyes.

“First round today.”

A droplet struck the ground at my feet.

Silence unfurled like a carpet.

A blue ripple swept out in a perfect circle, brushing every dark corner of the field into sudden clarity.

I saw it all.

Belle, exhaling smoke like the Demon King Castle shaped as a wolf.

Amon, both hands locked around his sword grip.

And Louise, behind me, already mid-throw.

“Mago!”

Her voice and her spear arrived together.

The blunt tip brushed my shoulder—

I reached back and caught it.

She’d just handed me a weapon.

I spun half a turn, flipping the spear so its point faced me, and hurled it back.

I sent it straight back along the same path it had flown.

"Does that bastard have eyes in the back of his head...?"

Amon muttered through clenched molars.

I focused again.

Another ripple spread out.

Belle and Amon.

Right and left—blades came at me together.

The faster, stronger strike was clearly Belle’s on the left.

I flattened myself and let the sword pass over.

While I was low, I charged Amon.

Like a bull, I rammed upward from below and flipped him backward.

I fed his body straight into the arc of Belle’s incoming blade.

Her sword swept through.

Its signature noise rang out.

I opened my eyes then.

Every color rushed back in.

The blast of noise from Belle’s strike rolled out even louder.

The moment I opened my eyes, everything happened at once.

"Ugh...!"

Louise, speared in the leg by the weapon I’d returned, crumpled.

"Kh...!"

Belle pitched forward.

"Gaaah...! Belle...!"

Amon screamed, clutching his waist with his own hand.

When the flurry ended, I looked ahead.

Eighty still remained.

"Kinjo, you’d better be making it down safely. Please, let that be true."

I scooped up the map that had fallen from one of them.

I was already out of pouches to stuff things into.

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