bookworm

“That’s huge.”
I knew we needed to keep a low profile, but the words fell right out of my mouth. But I wasn’t alone: everyone in the city with a view of the skies was sure to be reacting the same way.
Exquisitely slender—that is, relative to its length—the tip seemed as sharp as the pointed end of a diamond, and it grew fatter near the rear, assuming I was looking at it head-on. Its point was as acute as a spear and flew through the air with equal aerodynamic grace. Two three-wing clusters stretched out from each flank...fueled by spells so intense that I could see the formulae.
Hold on a second. Just how massive is this thing? Perspective told me it was at a considerable altitude, but it was so big that my sense of scale was sputtering out. It couldn’t cover the whole of Berylin or anything, but it was definitely as big as one of its major districts.
I knew it was amazing, but...this was not it. I’d been looking forward to something straight out of the realm of fantasia. What the hell was this?! It was practically a weapon of mass destruction—the thing was knocking on the door to sci-fi.
This isn’t what I expected! Where’s the GM?!
After gaping in shock for a moment, revelation struck: everyone’s attention was turned toward the sky. I looked over at the spire and found that the siren had jumped to their feet, staring at the heavens in perplexity; the other guards were much the same.
They were possibly—nay, almost assuredly—just as shocked as me. While they’d certainly been given prior notice of the vessel’s arrival, no normal person would think to expect that from the description of “a ship that sails through the sky.”
...Isn’t this a perfect chance to slip away?
The guards had their eyes fixed skyward, and everyone was too bewildered for a passing noise to catch their attention. As the behemoth sailed on, I shook the awestruck lady beside me by the shoulder to snap her out of its hypnotic shock; it was time to go.

[Tips] Mystic circles are one of many auxiliary avenues for mages to supplement their spellcasting, and are generally written with ink on flooring or with arcane strands of visible light. Magia of the Trialist Empire consider them as showy and unstylish as chants, but those who prefer function over form may even tattoo themselves with hexes of their most commonly used spells.

Forcibly quieting the stubborn voice crying, Why? in the back of her mind, Agrippina du Stahl handily cleared a sociability check to put on a graceful smile. Her long, silver hair wove into a braid that embellished her crown far better than any artisanal coronet. Wearing a thin red gown that exposed much of the shoulders and arms was a bold statement only those endowed with natural comeliness could pull off; she needed no action to bolster her allure, which proudly proclaimed to the world that such threads were fit for her and her alone.
With a wine glass in one hand and a pretty smile tinged with melancholy, the methuselah was the shimmering flower at the center of the party. Marriageable men of every kind found themselves instantly besotted with the lovely blossom that rarely bloomed at these sorts of events—knowing not the poison at the roots—and flocked around her like bees seeking nectar.
Agrippina hated social gatherings, but not because she lacked the skill in etiquette or insight to navigate them smoothly. As a Seinian noble, the century or so she’d spent meeting other socialites with her father had been enough to perfect the craft, and another half century away was hardly enough for her to have lost her touch.
No, the methuselah simply found the roundabout conversations to be a fucking chore, and being invited to pleasure cruises or garden walks that she had no interest in made her want to hurl. She’d spent all her days keeping to the bare minimum of contact with others she could get away with, and the sole purpose of this godforsaken place was for her to make new connections with others whom she would otherwise have avoided. Frankly, she wanted to burn the terrace down and be done with it.
Only the surviving shreds of her pragmatic mind kept her base urges in check—that a failure to do so could spell the end of the world was just a part of the methuselah condition.
Painting over her gloomy soul with a perfectly set smile, the scoundrel participated in nauseating conversations and gingerly kicked aside any invitation to dance while filling her internal monologue with the sort of hateful speech that cannot be reproduced in text. The object of her venom was none other than Duke Martin, who had dragged her here saying, “There is something I simply must show you before writing your referral to professorship!”
To think, Agrippina had been so elated when he had disappointedly opened his retainer’s letter while grumbling about the time. At long last, she’d thought, the torturous nightmare would end. The cascading problems that had arisen as a result of their discussion remained very real, but she was happy enough to have a chance to rest her fatigued consciousness for the first time in months.
Yet by the time she’d gotten her bearings, the methuselah found herself dolled up and planted in a balcony banquet. As a final kick in the gut, the source of all her suffering, who had so excitedly dragged her out to show her something he considered interesting, had vanished on account of a “sudden emergency.” Had only the duke been at her side, she could have used him as an umbrella to stymie the torrential rain of idiotic suitors.
Agrippina wanted to throw a fit.
Why? Why was she out on the northern terrace of the imperial palace—so impressively famed as the Astral Garden—participating in a social gathering with the Emperor present?
Sick and tired of it all, Agrippina still continued to throw the names of every man coming her way into some corner of her brain, next to the tiresome topics she’d solved in her childhood that they merrily discussed. An outing of this sort would last hours at most; was there any reason a woman who’d lived as long as she couldn’t tough out a few more hours?
No. Absolutely not.
In the throes of despair, she gulped down the extravagant wines provided by the crown and wasted yet more time with conversations that carried no stimulation—not even negative. As the setting sun seared the skies for one last hurrah before deep navy reclaimed the heavens, those gazing toward the invisible stars began to stir.
Following their eyes, Agrippina looked up—only for her mystic eye to burn in pain. Overburdened by the task of witnessing too many magic formulae at once, her retinas were screaming to be relieved.
“Hngh...”
The vessel splitting the crimson sky in two was, in no uncertain terms, a mass of pure thaumaturgy. Mystic circles were plastered over every inch at every which angle, assaulting her eye with the glimmer of innumerable spells.
Too gargantuan for physical stability, the craft was held together by binding spells that covered the entirety of the surface; hardening magic had been layered on top as if to fully conceal the first arcane coating. The ship had been built to be so unrealistically large that to forgo such overdone measures would lead to its immediate destruction.
The mystic circles had been etched in so densely that six layers were plainly exposed. Each of the spells in use was a paragon of virtuosity: antigravity magic, physical repulsion barriers, and a convoluted system to funnel small amounts of air through gaps in its force fields to turn drag into propulsion. Built on a ludicrous jury-rigging of the most advanced magical tech one could imagine, the airship’s engraved spells could be seen as a blurry glow to even the most mystically illiterate—that was how great a violation it was of the laws of the universe.
I see, Agrippina thought. I can see why this might deserve the praise of the neophilic, magecraft-obsessed duke.
Glancing at the rabble, Agrippina saw that most had either frozen in dumbfounded wonder or spat the wine right out of their mouths. A few even dropped their cups, mumbling in fear about how the end had arrived—likely the product of some foreign pantheon’s prophecies.
Come to think of it, the methuselah realized a good number of foreign diplomats were in attendance; this showy display had clearly served its purpose. Judging from the sorry state of those around her, the airship was responsible for so much shock that those writing to their motherlands would probably be doubted for their outlandish exaggerations.
“My word. They certainly have equipped it with quite the arsenal.”
Having regained her composure, Agrippina plucked a wine glass off the tray of a waiter who’d frozen in astonishment, only to see dragon knights drop out from the bottom of the hull and take to the air. Truly, how many surprises did the Empire intend on delivering before it was satisfied?
Calmer now, Agrippina agreed that this was an impressive showpiece. It was conspicuous beyond belief, and entertained the eyes for as long as one cared to watch. The dragon knights pouring out had begun to fly in theatrical formation while leaving trails of smoke behind them, only adding to the artistic flair.
However, the appearance of something so wonderful begged the question: where had the duke who’d been so enthused about it gone?

[Tips] The imperial palace is home to three minor dance halls and one major. There are seven banquet halls, six smaller dining rooms, and twenty-five total meeting places—the palace is a castle designed in every way with social events in mind. The four balconies facing each cardinal direction are primarily used for parties held in the late evening. They are specially kept with magic to retain a comfortable temperature throughout the year, and the scenic overlook of the capital makes them popular with domestic and foreign politicians alike.

Although the mammoth ship’s ripping tailwind howled well into the heart of the capital, the keen siren staring up at it did not let the distraction dull his senses: the faint sound of a creaking window hinge rang clearly in his ears.
At His Majesty’s personal request, the Church of the Night Goddess had subjected itself to martial law. Anyone trying to get in or out could only do so under the supervision of the city guards posted inside, and the priests had been given strict orders to report to them if they so much as wished to let in some fresh air.
Ordinarily, the highly independent religious associations of Rhine would never accept such humiliation. The fanatics were willing to face even the crown with swords and horseshoes in hand if it meant their faith and agency were on the line. In particular, the Head Abbess of the Night led what may have been the most rabid of the countless radical sects that made up the Empire’s pantheon: those of the Circle Immaculate were complete lunatics only rivaled by the Circle Austere of Her husband’s flock.
Chaste to the point of insanity, they welcomed daily hardship as a blessing akin to laying on of hands; they were freaks, even by clerical standards. For an organization such as theirs to resign themselves to indignation at the hand of a secular crown was nigh unthinkable under usual circumstances.
Unfortunately, they had carried the burden of responsibility and now faced the consequences of failing to fulfill it. Though the custody of their charge had been a titular affair, her disappearance demanded retribution despite their lack of involvement with the escape—such was the woe of society.
To swallow terms normally vehemently opposed was the plainest sort of remorse. Truth be told, the Abbess had counted her blessings: a scandal of this sort could be grounds for ordained bishops—to say nothing of lower priests—to lose their heads. Cooperation with the state was a meager price to avoid that fate, though she had admittedly gritted her teeth and dug her nails into her palm as she spat in indignation, “Can our good Sister not go one year without incident?”
As such, the interior of the temple was under lockdown. The creaking sound, then, was almost certainly the result of outside interference.
The multicultural capital was home to countless peoples who could climb into buildings. Reptilians could stick to vertical surfaces, and insectoids like arachne could scale walls with ease. There was no end to the troubled citizens who flippantly ignored doors for convenience’s sake alone, and one being shouted down by a city guard was a common sight.
The man took flight: one powerful flap of his wing-arms ignited a magical reaction that shook off the jealous chains of gravity. Deftly making the most of his mensch-like frame, he curled up to turn on a dime as he jumped off the spire, turning to rocket down the roof mere inches from the tower. To write his movements off as mere acrobatics would be a disservice; yet those who partook in the dizzying life-or-death dance of aerial combat considered this mastery of motion no more than a necessity for survival.
Nearly grazing his magnificent beak across the shingles as he descended, the imperial jager spotted a lone intruder trying to break in and shouted.
“You there! What are you doing?! Freeze and take off your hood!”
Judging from the suspect’s build, it was a young male mensch. For a siren like himself, mensch were the easiest race to handle; for reasons unknown, every last one of the fools mistakenly believed raptors were as blind in the dark as domesticated fowl. So prevalent was the misconception that the poets had immortalized it in a limerick: Let your handicap be light for light gives sirens no handicap.

[Tips] Many popular preconceptions about other races arise from the Empire’s large swaths of differing groups: merfolk must soak in water half of each day or die, vampires melt under sunlight, stuarts eat nuts only to file their teeth, sirens cannot see in the dark, etc.
Despite their pervasiveness, the common mensch are no exception. Understood by others for their rugged adaptability, they often get puzzled looks when they complain about being hot or cold.

No matter what stat is being checked, every tabletop game has situations where the players are asked to make a dice roll that doesn’t really matter. Sometimes this is because failure is practically impossible, and other times it’s just that the official rules necessitate it as a formality, but every player has haphazardly thrown a compulsory die or two not caring what the result may be...
And it was at times like these that I encountered catastrophic displays of fortune.
In all likelihood, I’d succeeded on the action itself. Miss Celia and I had climbed an invisible staircase of Unseen Hands to a second-story window of the monastery (though secretly, I’d been hoping she would sprout bat wings and flutter in on her own), and she’d just managed to tumble inside. But as soon as I tried to follow after her...
“You there! What are you doing?! Freeze and take off your hood!”
For a moment, I couldn’t process the man’s order. Not because I was stunned by my own idiocy at being caught or anything, but simply because the speaker’s vocal cords were that unfit for human speech; his voice was more shrill than rubbing glass.
I’d broken stealth and failed my reaction to boot. Had he forgone the courtesy of clearly announcing my discovery and just gone for the kill, I doubted I would’ve had time to fit in another response.
Guards were principally bound to declare their presence before acting; they always called out to suspects before resorting to physical means. Whether they were an everyday patrolman or His Majesty’s secret service, the policy remained the same.
After all, they could afford it. A few seconds of preparation wasn’t enough for the average criminal to avoid being pounded into the dirt, so it was better by far to give the warning and dodge the ire of the populace. However, in spite of the guard’s orders to identify myself, he was already moving in for an attack.
Naturally, anyone stupid enough to sneak into a building under jager supervision was up to no good. Now that he’d done his formal duty, slapping me around was the next thing on his to-do list. I couldn’t tell whether that made him sloppy or deliberate, but whatever the case, he was barreling down at me with his legs primed for a kick—his hawkish outline made it clear to see.
Imperial culture dictated that people were to wear shoes regardless of what claws and nails were present on one’s feet, but the siren’s sandal-boot hybrid left his talons perilously exposed. Those razors were sharp enough to slice me like a rare steak, and perhaps even score me to my bone.
Basically, it boiled down to a counter-or-die situation. The last vestiges of sunlight gleamed off his imposing talons in a way that made it clear a clean hit would skip past applying concussion and land me in a death saving throw.
At once, I dismissed the Hand that I’d been using to support my torso while trying to get in the window and went into a relaxed free fall; by keeping my foothold present for another beat, I fell in an unnatural way that would duck under the attack. My thanks were split between the honorable jager for his warning and my Lightning Reflexes for letting me capitalize on the split second it offered.
The tips of his claws whizzed by my nose and— My gods, that’s scary! I’d been using another Hand to keep my hood over my face, but he tore up the mystic force field as he passed; I would have lost my nose had he so much as gotten a scratch!
Narrowly avoiding a promising future as mincemeat, I curled up like a cat and caught my fall with my hands. Cushioning the impact by bending my arms, I rolled onto my left shoulder to finish the landing; what momentum remained dissipated after a few somersaults. Those impulse buys I’d made after losing at foxes-and-geese weren’t anything to scoff at—rolling off the damage was orders of magnitude less taxing than breaking my fall with magic.
I didn’t have any time to spare, so I used inertia to propel me to my feet and into an alleyway. Everything would come crashing down if they caught me for questioning; considering the context, they might even resort to psychosorcery.
“Wha— Hey! Hold it, punk! Argh, dammit!”
The realm of flight was one we mensch would never surpass a siren in, but the reverse was true on the ground. While there were a few oddball tribes who were faster on foot than in the air, the jager’s wingspan gave him a hard time flying in the cramped backstreets. Now that I’d dodged his first strike, I was in a good spot to get away.
“Oh, you’re nimble aren’t you, you damn earth-crawler?!” he shouted, blowing into a whistle.
...Yeah, I figured. He was on lookout, so he was obviously equipped with some way to alert his fellow patrolmen, though I admit I was puzzled at how he’d blown the thing with his beak.
There were already patrolmen posted in the alley I’d ducked into, and the piercing hiss of the whistle snapped them out of the airship’s spell.
“Whoa there, who are—”
“Excuse me!” I shouted, tackling a young mensch man with my shoulder. As he slammed into the wall, I took the liberty of relieving him of his baton; this region had low rates of crime, and the local guards didn’t carry bladed spears if they were armed at all.
“Argh?!”
Squished between me and the wall, his grunt sounded thoroughly painful, but I left him to it. Snatching his staff—which was nearly as long as I was tall—I twirled it around to fasten it in my armpit.
Okay, next up is...huh. What is my next move?
I’d left Miss Celia with a final token of aid before making my getaway, so she would need to clear the rest of the path forward on her own; as capricious as this may be coming from the guy who got himself caught, committing two of my most valuable assets to her should have been enough to say I did my due diligence—or at least, I hoped it was. Honestly, I should and would have seen her journey through to the end, but that was a vain hope at this point.
Worrying about Miss Celia’s future was well and good, but my future was the more pressing matter. I wonder what they’ll do if they catch me...
With how out of hand this whole debacle had gotten, I doubted I could get away with the old, “Spare this poor street urchin for trying to steal a loaf of bread!” routine. They weren’t going to just call up my guardian—I supposed Lady Agrippina counted—to have her scold me and call it a day like some child who got in trouble at school.
Whoa, two ahead! The whistle had put them on high alert; with sneak attacks out the window, I had no choice but to face them head-on.
Although the guards of Berylin carefully selected elites who diligently trained even after taking up their daily duties, they didn’t exactly make for difficult opponents for me. Still far from the pinnacle of swordplay as I was, I’d trained up to the cusp of Divine Favor.
But above all else, the capital was simply too peaceful.
“Grah?!”
I bolted forward without readying my baton, just begging them to swing at my unprotected head; the first guard bravely and dutifully obliged. Nothing was easier to manipulate than an attack baited out, and his swing had clearly been made of my volition. I pivoted to my left side, dodging the overhead strike and whipping him with my own staff in the same motion. By levering the long rod at my armpit, I swung right up into his jaw and knocked him out cold.
“What the hell?!”
Baffled at his fallen comrade, the second guard panicked—that wouldn’t do. A guard from one of the bloodier cities in the Empire would have pushed his friend’s limp body to the wayside and thrown himself at me by now. Capital guards may have been famed as the cream of the crop, handpicked from every reach in the land, but as a swordsman trained in dirty rural tactics and the no-holds-barred setting of real combat, I found them much too naive.
Their skill, of course, was respectable. I’d heard that the selection exams included a one-on-one spar with an instructor on equal terms, so I had no doubt they were competent with swords, spears, and anything in between. Yet their posts as city guards in Berylin left them wanting for experience.
The capital was a hub of foreign exchange, and the soldiers guarding it were selected accordingly: they required brawn and brains to get the job. But by and large, they lacked the dogged determination to pry victory out of the jaws of defeat no matter the cost. While they were proud of their sublime mission to protect the peace and would do everything in their power to perform it at full capacity, they lacked the desperation of a canton watchman who knew that his death would be the death of his family.
For protectors of rural towns, defeat spelled the end of everything they knew. As unpolished as their technique was, they would sooner eat a clean stab to the gut in order to deprive an enemy of their weapon than see a bandit swing at their loved ones. Frankly, the fair-and-square strength of the capital’s guards was far easier to deal with.
My personal grading was that these men were skilled but ultimately lacking; I would liken them to a whiskey not yet aged.
To top things off, they seemed unaccustomed to wielding weapons in close quarters. The second guard wound up for a swing and bumped his staff into the walls of the alley, causing his attack to stray off its intended course; a minor tilt of my neck was all it took to avoid it. Such was the result of practicing many-on-one chases where the culprit never dared to advance toward them.
As my baton bounced off the first man’s jaw, I let recoil bring it downward unabated, simply redirecting it slightly. The second guard had preoccupied himself with not stepping on his tumbling ally, leaving his legs wide open for a sweep.
“Whoa— Augh?!”
Thinking it would be a waste of kinetic energy to simply let him fall normally, I placed the tip of my baton right where his head would land, and then kicked it into his chin. Call me savage if you must, but it did the job of concussing him.
...Whew, they’re alive. They wouldn’t be eating solids anytime soon, but it looked like I’d even managed to avoid breaking their teeth. All right, how many more of these do I have to get through?
“I heard voices this way!”
“Cage ’em in! Make sure to circle wide!”
“Remember, backup’s on the way! Top priority is to get the suspect’s location!”
It was time to roll up my sleeves for a round of foxes-and-geese. I’d be fine: surely it couldn’t be as hard as trying to outmaneuver Margit, and my life was on the line in either scenario. Stepping across the comatose duo, my earring jingled, wishing me the best of luck.

[Tips] The main work of guards in the capital is to stop and search for crime, which manifests itself as marching around town in armor. Officially considered reserve forces in the army, they boast great martial prowess; tested on all sorts of intellectual metrics, they make for bright seekers during searches.
Alas, the long drought of instability in modern years meant the most violent criminal an average patrolman faced was a drunkard at a pub. Only aging veterans decades into their careers and immortals too accustomed to the job to quit have anything that can be considered significant experience.

Thrust through an open window, Cecilia planted her noble bottom on the floor for nearly a whole minute in a daze. Outside, shouting voices and loud crashes mingled with a chorus of police whistles. Her large eyes blinked in confusion; she tried to chew on the situation but found it harder than a rock, and it developed without pause as she tried to digest it all. By the time she realized that Erich had been found, the whistles were sounding from far away.
“No!” Cecilia tried to scream. She opened her mouth, moved her tongue, and huffed out a puff of air, but the gift of language she regularly employed without thought refused to produce any noise.
Quizzically looking around, she found a pair of flickering lights fluttering around her: the same ones that belonged to the “helpers” that were present when Erich had been making magical decoys.
As a Goddess-fearing believer, Cecilia had never tried to use the mystic eyes she’d inherited from her father. Though she could catch faint glimpses of the arcane, her natural talents were only enough to see their true forms if they chose to appear before her; if they chose to remain hidden, she had no hope of spotting them.
The glows of differing hues danced about her midair. When speaking to these lights, the boy had seemed equal parts weary and affectionate, and the vampire had then asked what they were. He’d stated simply that they were alfar. He hadn’t given their names—those were a secret for him alone.
Seeing the flittering phosphorescent bodies urge her to her feet, Cecilia realized that the fairies were here. Despite being backed into a corner himself, the boy had left the alfar with her.
The priestess wanted to tear the window open and announce her presence, to shout out that he was not to be hurt. No matter how sheltered she was, she knew his capture would be anything but amicable. While he would likely not be killed to facilitate further questioning, they would beat him into submission; perhaps they might even break his bones and cut his tendons.
Yet the fact that he had left these alfar with her was proof that he hadn’t given up...and that he believed in her. It was a statement: “I swear I’ll escape, so make it to Lipzi safe and sound.”
Cecilia held herself for a moment, trembling. Finally steeling herself, she wound her fists tight and shook the dust off her borrowed robes as she rose to her feet. Even knowing that her voice would not ring out, she looked at the green and black bulbs orbiting her and spoke.
“Will you please help me?”
Not in a million years had the alfar expected her to speak to them. They stopped revolving around her as if they were mortals taking in a surprise.
Eventually, the hidden fairies resumed their dance, spiraling in a helix toward the door. The message was as clear as it was silent: Follow us, and we’ll show you the way.
Despite the clamorous whistles tugging at the corner of Cecilia’s mind, she chose to interpret the continued noise as proof of the boy’s continued safety.
Now it was her turn to play a game she’d enjoyed in her childhood. Even the sheltered princess had a memory or two of getting into trouble, and sneaking into someone’s luggage during a game of hide-and-go-seek happened to be one of them.

[Tips] Most people cannot see alfar, as fey perceptibility is dictated by their own whims and desires. As such, the parents of children whisked away to their twilit hill cannot so much as find the culprit. Only those graced with powers of mystic observation greater than an alf’s ability to hide can dig out a hidden fairy.

In battles between the few and the many, it is routinely the latter that has the edge; such is the reason we tell and retell the rare tales that document the former’s victory. The ultimate result is that legends of people beating the odds stick fast to our memories, and what was meant to be miraculous becomes merely commonplace, finally descending into the realm of hackneyed tropes. And no matter how grueling the true battle is, the poets always paint the scenes with simple and concise language to accentuate how powerful the hero is.
Basically, what I’m trying to get at is that the one-line victories seen in sagas were horribly callous.
“Gods, why can’t I hit him?!”
As I squatted down, a dazzling ray of light blasted just above my head. Dissipating just before it reached the wall behind me, the attack was, in simple terms, a laser beam. Instantly singing the part of my hood that made contact, the magical version of concentrated high-power light was alarmingly destructive.
This was a real head-scratcher. How in the world had I found myself facing yet another man in jet-black uniform—a member of His Majesty’s imperial mage corps? Seriously, when I’d first spotted him mixed into the crowd of city guards with personal bodyguards in tow, my heart nearly stopped altogether.
The hexenkrieger were not quite magia, but they were the resident experts who protected the Emperor in all things mystic. Less scholarly than those I’d encountered in the College, they couldn’t fine-tune complex spells with perfect precision, however, their intuitive understanding of practical sorcery was nothing to scoff at.
Much like how jagers were traditionally selected from our nation’s huntsmen, the hexenkrieger were composed of talented spellcasters who’d made their name in the private sector, or College students who’d abandoned the path of academia. Waiting at His Majesty’s side, they were combat-oriented specialists who prioritized practical defenses against hexes and attack magic, and sometimes even dipped into counterspells for poisons or traps.
For some ungodly reason—probably one as stupid as close proximity, knowing my luck—a monster like him had shown up out of nowhere to blast me with a barrage of spells. This was ridiculous; today was an awful day, even by my standards. Though this world lacked the morning news horoscopes that young girls enjoyed in my past life, I could safely say that mine would have been rock bottom.
Juking around beams of pure energy that would melt through steel given a few seconds—which, by the way, literally traveled at the speed of light—I jabbed my baton into a nearby guard’s gut, swinging the tip to launch him into one of his compatriots. Fighting while sidestepping suppressing fire was tough, but any pause to catch my breath would make me a sitting duck; difficulty was no excuse to give up.
I doubt this needs to be said, but my Agility—or rather, anyone’s Agility—was not enough to avoid a laser after it was let loose. My Lightning Reflexes were fast, but they abided by the laws of physics.
My method of dodging was one commonly seen in shonen manga: I paid close attention to the caster’s eyes and movements to read his next move, positioning myself away from his probable lines of fire.
Spellcasting invariably required mental processing; there were a few seconds of lag before mana could turn into reality-defying effect. While absolute freaks like Lady Agrippina ignored such restraints with sheer hardware, the power balance that held this world together would crumble at light speed if monstrosities of her make could be found on every corner. Not even I was unlucky enough for that.
What that meant for me was that I simply had to do my best to fake him out while abusing his kindness: he wouldn’t want to hit an innocent guard, would he? My brain was working at full throttle—I may have been no more than a musclehead, but I’d be damned if the organ between my ears wasn’t swole.
After all, I couldn’t afford to rely on magic unless I absolutely needed it to survive. Any lingering mana could give my identity away, so I could only use it as a last resort. That’s why this wasn’t me sandbagging, per se. I was just deathly serious about following the restrictions on this level.
“Shit! Open up a line for me! I can’t hit him like this!”
“Can’t you tweak your spell or something?! He’ll tear straight through us if we break formation!”
“Do I look like a god to you?! This beam has the power to pierce dragon scales—it’s hard enough to handle as is! You know light travels in a straight line, right?!”
Sorry, I must be hearing things. It can pierce what? Hold on. When did I become wanted, dead or alive? What happened to bringing me in for questioning?!
As cold sweat dampened my entire back, I shifted my focus to dealing with the imperial guard first. There was a marked difference between being able to dodge and actually managing to keep it up; if worse came to worst, he could give up and hit me with an unavoidable area-of-effect.
“You’re coming with me!” I shouted.
“Wait, sto— Hrgh?!”
After slamming the two city guards with my battlestaff, I unhanded the weapon and grabbed them both by the lapels, taking off in a sprint with their heavy bodies on my back.
My destination? The imperial mage and his two bodyguards, of course.
“What?!” he cried. “You—you coward!”
“Appreciate the compliment!” My words of thanks landed simultaneously with the guards I’d thrown, toppling everyone in the collision.
Imperial guardsmen were still human, it seemed. Had he fired with no regard for the men I’d used as meat shields, I would have been down and out.
Looking back, I supposed the mage’s kindness had been visible from the very start: he’d chosen to employ light from the visible spectrum so the front line could see his shots. A serious magus in his shoes would never have taken the onus of others’ safety on themselves; they’d use a superheated infrared death ray to plow through me, their allies, and the wall while they were at it. Wasting mana on precautionary measures like ending the beam early to preserve the architecture proved that this man was a saint.
Hmm... My patterns of thought were beginning to take after the depraved scoundrels of the College. I’d need to set aside some time to reorient my values to be closer to those of common people or I’d run into problems later down the line.
But the matter at hand left me with no time for these silly thoughts, so I ran up to the fallen mage and put in a solid kick to the jaw to knock him out. His bodyguards tried to untangle themselves and rise to their feet, but I put them to sleep before they could.
“You... You’ve gotta be kidding me...”
I didn’t know who uttered these words, but let it be known that that was my line. Not only had I been jumped by nearly twenty city guards, but they’d brought along a mage more competent in arcane combat than I was—a very comical joke indeed.
Having tossed my weapon to pull this trick off, I kicked a baton rolling around at my feet into the air and caught it to rearm myself. As an aside, this made for the sixth weapon I’d picked up today.
I scanned the remaining crowd. Although some were clearly shaken, not a single one dared besmirch their post by turning tail. Their loyalty was heartwarming; I only hoped that they would continue their service going forward for purposes other than apprehending me.
Tired of running, I raised my left hand and signaled them to bring it on. With a hearty cry meant more to rally themselves than to intimidate me, they pressed in.
“Ugh... Haah... Gods,” I heaved. “That totals...twenty-two? You’ve gotta be fucking with me...”
Yet in the realm of storytelling, the author does a disservice to us both: both their valorous charge and my courageous defense amounted to less than a single line of prose. All that remained was an endless torrent of sweat that spilled forth without reserve no matter how many times I wiped my brow. By the time I caught my breath, I was surrounded by a mountain of wounded soldiers.
They had truly been exemplary. They’d fanned out to cast a wide net, with each group of two to four buying time as they blew their whistles. Once the trap had been successfully laid, they moved in at once to overwhelm me with their numbers. Their tactics had been so methodical that I’d felt like the meat of a dumpling, smothered in dough with no hope of escape. Foolishly letting them stall had netted me the ridiculous odds of a one-versus-twenty-two melee.
These wardens of the capital had polished their craft to become the masters of urban roundup, and I had nothing but praise for their patriotic dedication. Had I not exploited the Bodhisattva’s blessing to its fullest, I would have been collared and chained at the nearest police outpost ages ago.
Unfortunately, the baton had cracked from excessive use, so I tossed it for a hand spear I found abandoned nearby. While Hybrid Sword Arts allowed me to use polearms with some competence, I would have preferred to find a longsword to make full use of my add-ons.
That said, swords were difficult to hold back with unless the blade was deliberately blunted. Once they went home, these hardworking guards were good sons and daughters, or mothers and fathers; I didn’t want to leave any lasting injuries, let alone kill them.
If only this had been a comic book where I could blast through them with a kapow! and kerblam!, subduing them into a starry-eyed state: had they been as invincible as the delinquents who shrugged off certain death with no more than a few sketched-on scratches, I could have saved a ton of energy by going all out. Whoever had built this world had made it so inconvenient.
I checked my grip on my newest partner and swung the spear to make sure I had a handle on its weight. Nice and straight. I’ll be borrowing this—can’t make any promises about returning it, though.
“Hurry up! I can’t hear them anymore!”
“Did our men lose?! That can’t be possible!”
Apparently, they wouldn’t even give me a moment to rest. The shouts and whistles in the narrowing distance got me moving. Their raised voices both helped them communicate and robbed me of any reprieve; they really knew what they were doing.
I hooked the butt of my spear onto one of the fallen men’s canteens as I began running down the alley. After a single sip, I splashed the rest over my covered head to cool off my overheating body.
The streets were beginning to look like a lost cause...but the rooftops offered only another graveyard. Glancing upward, the final moments of sunset had dyed the heavens a dark violet, and I caught a glimpse of a shadow cutting across the sky at terrific speeds. Irritably zipping to and fro in the sky beyond narrow cracks between buildings, the siren jager that had begun this whole chase continued to tail me. He remained relentless despite the darkened skies, and he’d shadowed me this entire time. Worse still, he swooped down to ground level any time I chose a path that even remotely looked like he could fit into, constantly keeping me on my toes.
With his mobility, the rooftops were clearly his domain. Any attempt at climbing for vantage would make me an easier mark, and I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if more sirens appeared. No matter how much the altitude facilitated my escape, it meant nothing if it benefited my enemies more. Plus, it wasn’t like this was a stealth game where I could knock out the guards of this area to conveniently lower the alert levels in the whole city.
I was sort of repeating myself, but the life of a have-not was full of sorrow. A normal person in my shoes would have been completely hopeless: I couldn’t kill them, I couldn’t debilitate them beyond repair, I couldn’t give away my identity, and worst of all, I couldn’t so much as sit still and hide because I needed to be the one drawing attention away from Miss Celia.
Might be a bit late to say this, but wow, is this bad.
I wanted to spit out a curse and a loogie to dispel my foul mood, but a terrible premonition sent shivers along my back; all my hairs stood on end as if someone had pressed ice against my neck. And despite running at full speed, the pink seashell jingled clearly in my ear.
I’d grown all too used to this sensation as of late: someone was going for the kill.
Ceding full control to my instincts, I leapt, knowing that attempting to block with an unfamiliar spear was ill advised. Though my somersault was highly committal, it was better to guarantee the dodge than to greedily position for more actionability.
Immediately afterward, an arrow sank into the cobblestone where my right foot had been—one that the College’s oikodomurges had enchanted with protective magic, mind you. As I crumpled up and rolled forward, I saw that it had lodged itself nearly a third of the way into the masoned pavement without so much as cracking the stone. The power was stupefying and the accuracy was monstrous; the shot was so unbelievable that I could feel my gonads shrivel in fear.
Had I eaten the hit, it would have torn my ankle straight off. Wait a second. Why the hell don’t I sense any mana on this thing?!
I’d had quite enough of the GM’s pranks. Upon completing my roll, I steeled myself for both aerial attacks and snipers with tears welling in my eyes.