[V8C16] The Most Effective Threat

“M-Me, in a magical battle… I understand what they are, from a theoretical standpoint… but to think I would actually be participating in one…”

Sophocles began mumbling from his position on Cyril’s hand, so Cyril turned to the ring with an expression of slight surprise.

“So this is your first time seeing a magical battle?”

“Magical battles themselves are a relatively new technology. Moreover, no previous contractors were foolish enough to put me in such danger! I am an ancient artifact, you know?! An irreplaceable treasure!”

Sophocles continued grumbling with dissatisfaction, though Cyril simply replied, “I see.” Obviously, Cyril understood the artifact’s value. It’s just that his beloved prince had advised him to fight with the ring on.

(In other words, His Highness believed that I could win without harming the Key of Knowledge.)

In which case, Cyril was determined to meet those expectations with all his might.

“*Well, er, you’ve proven your bravery by challenging the Thorn Witch. I am willing to recognize that by accepting…”

“Of course, I’ll prove my strength as well.”

“O-Oh, okay…”

Ignoring Sophocles’s continued mumbling, Cyril shifted his focus to his opponent.

Cyril was up against Raul Roseberg, the Fifth Thorn Witch and one of the Seven Sages. He was a descendant of the legendary Thorn Witch, as well as the man with the highest mana capacity in the country.

If Cyril had been forced to fight Raul without any prior knowledge, he might have fallen to his knees at the sheer impossibility of it. However, he had some knowledge of Raul’s tactics, making it possible to devise a strategy.

“I-I will hereby, um, start the magical battle!”

From her position in front of the magic circle, Monica made the declaration in an anxious tone. Following this, the mana-infused circle emitted a faint glow, enveloping Cyril, Raul, and their surroundings in a barrier.

The size of the barrier was not particularly large. After all, the larger the barrier, the more mana it would consume, and the longer the battle would drag on.

“——Barrier Range: Class 4. Durability: Class 1 Equivalent. Time Limit: one hour. The first to run out of mana or the one with less remaining mana loses.”

The hesitant expression disappeared from Monica’s face; a sign that she had begun concentrating on her spell.

“Barrier deployment… fixed. Sections 1 to 68, all activated without any problems. Ike, please assist.”

“Understood.”

Isaac knelt down and touched the outer edge of the glowing magic circle with his fingertips.

Having confirmed Isaac’s assistance, Monica shouted as loud as she could.

“B-Begin!”

Immediately after the starting signal, Raul began his chant. Meanwhile, Cyril took a few steps back and completed a shortened chant.

The activation of their spells was practically simultaneous.

Raul threw a few rose seeds forward, which, upon hitting the ground, rapidly grew and intertwined, forming a wall. In addition, several of the vine-like tendrils slithered toward Cyril like snakes.

In response, Cyril protected himself by deploying an ice wall. Any vines unfortunate enough to touch the wall froze and became motionless.

“Not bad, Cyril!”

Raul commented with a cheerful smile, but Cyril did not have the composure for any retorts or banter.

While maintaining the ice wall, Cyril voiced another shortened chant to create a set of ice arrows, which he sent flying at Raul.

The arrows flew over the wall of vines to rain down on Raul, but he casually defended himself infusing the vines with additional mana. That was all it took to expand the wall into a dome that protected him from all angles.

“What now?! Your spells are completely ineffective! At this rate, your disadvantage will only grow!”

Sophocles was speaking the truth.

Once Raul is allowed to summon his vines, then he can manipulate them as an extension of his limbs for as long as he has mana… and his mana practically never runs out.

As such, the vines would continue growing indefinitely as time went on, giving Raul more tendrils to use for offense, as well as a thicker wall for defense.

“Sorry, but please stay silent from here on. It could interfere with my plan.”

While hiding behind the ice wall, Cyril observed the wall of vines.

When it came to spells for defense, most mages would first think to cast a defensive barrier. That said, defensive barriers were by no means simple spells.

The nearly unanimous opinion of novice mages was that barrier spells seemed simple at first glance, but they turned out to be incredibly challenging once you started learning them.

Creating the most basic defensive barrier required a deep understanding of complex magical symbols, advanced mana manipulation skills, and a decent amount of mana. As such, many mages lacked the ability to deploy defensive barriers.

While Cyril could make barriers to some extent, the truth was that, in a pinch, he found it easier to maintain a wall of ice.

(And most likely… Raul lacks the ability to cast defensive barriers.)

During the incident with the peas, Raul did not cast any barriers.

Moreover, his vines boasted high regenerative capabilities, making them useful for both offense and defense. Raul had never needed a defensive barrier.

That said, his fortress of rose vines had a flaw. The same could be said of Cyril’s ice wall, but unlike a transparent defensive barrier, the presence of ice or vines hindered the caster’s visibility. In simpler terms: you can’t hit something that you can’t see.

Casting detection or reconnaissance magic could overturn this weakness, but scanning for your enemies in the middle of a fight was an advanced technique only employed by veterans of magical battles——something Cyril didn’t think Raul could do.

(As the density of the vines increases, it becomes harder for Raul to locate me.)

Leaving the ice wall behind, Cyril darted behind the shadows of the trees.

Meanwhile, he continued whispering his chants to create additional ice arrows… via remote magic to make it seem like he was shooting from behind the ice wall.

This way, Cyril created the illusion that he was still taking cover behind the wall, allowing him the opportunity to secretly circle around to Raul’s rear. This was the plan Cyril had devised. He had silenced Sophocles earlier to avoid having his location exposed.

Cyril tiptoed his way forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. Also, he covered his mouth with one hand to further silence his whispered chants.

Casting a remote spell while on the move proved to be more challenging than Cyril imagined. Even a few seconds of movement caused a subtle deviation in the calculation of positional coordinates.

Thus, Cyril paused for a few seconds every time he had to cast a spell, before restarting his advance. By repeating this process several times, he eventually circled around the rear of Raul’s right side.

Cyril squinted his eyes and observed the wall of vines. Raul had made sure to cover his back, but even Cyril’s not particularly good eyesight could make out several gaps.

This was the second weakness——unlike a defensive barrier, a wall of vines inevitably had many gaps.

(——Now is my chance!)

Cyril knelt down, touched the ground with his fingers, and began chanting.

Icy tendrils extended forward from Cyril’s fingertips. Raul, who had been distracted by the ice arrows raining down from above, failed to notice the ice creeping towards him from below. The tendrils had weaved their way through the gaps in the vines, eventually reaching Raul’s boots.

(Activate!)

Cyril infused mana into the thin tendrils of ice, causing them to crawl up Raul’s legs.

Raul finally noticed and let out a scream, but it was already too late. Everything below his knees had been frozen solid.

“S-So cold!? Oh, I guess it’s better than getting shot with ice arrows! But still, brr!”

Raul shouted in dismay, waving his staff around aimlessly.

Ignoring Raul’s trivial comments, Cyril infused even more mana.

Once Raul’s entire body was frozen, he would be considered immobilized, automatically ending the magical battle with Cyril’s victory. Perhaps he might catch a cold tomorrow, but that’s preferable to the alternative: the pain of getting hit by ice arrows or spears.

“Oh no, this is taking a ton of my mana! Is getting frozen considered damage!? Wah, I’m getting drained! Cyril, you must have used a bunch of mana!”

In a real battle, low powered spells can bring down an opponent if they hit vital points like the neck or heart. However, within the magical battle barrier, victory is decided by mana depletion.

The more mana infused into an offensive spell, the more of your opponent’s mana gets depleted once it hits. Thus, Cyril had poured a considerable amount of mana into this attack.

A considerable amount to him, at least.

“There we go.”

Once the encroaching ice reached his abdomen, Raul gave it a light tap with his staff. The next moment, all of the ice covering his lower body shattered into pieces.

“Impossible…!”

Cyril found himself gasping in disbelief.

Raul lacked the ability to use fire attribute magic. The battle should have been over the moment he was frozen.

And yet, Raul had managed to interfere with and destroy Cyril’s magecraft by simply touching it.

Cyril had no way of knowing this, but in reality, Monica could do something similar. With her extremely high computational abilities, Monica could decipher the enemy’s magical formula, allowing her to seize control of it.

On the other hand, Raul had crushed Cyril’s spell with the sheer pressure of his immense mana.

“There might be a few exceptions, but these types of prolonged restraint spells don’t work well on me. I can generally break them by overpowering them with my mana.”

Raul turned his head to look back at Cyril. His location was exposed.

Cyril made a hasty attempt to defend himself with an ice wall, but Raul’s vines were faster, entwining around Cyril’s left wrist.

Cyril felt a sharp pain as the thorns pierced his wrist, followed by a significant loss of mana.

(Just how much mana do these vines have…!)

With a shortened incantation, Cyril invoked ice arrows to sever the vines binding him.

The rose vines that fell to the ground were still squirming, meaning, they contained enough mana to move after getting cut off from the source.

Once again, Cyril realized the overwhelming power difference between him and Raul.

All of his clever techniques and strategies could be crushed to a pulp by sheer mana capacity. This was the true power of the Fifth Thorn Witch, Raul Roseberg.

As Cyril clenched his teeth in frustration, Sophocles wailed in a scream-like voice.

“You imbecile! Hurry up and launch the next attack! This is your only chance to defeat him before he gets serious!”

Hearing those words, Raul grew somewhat displeased.

“Huh!? I’m fighting pretty seriously, you know!?”

“Hah, as if! Where is your Man-Eating Rose Fortress?!”

Raul groaned and flinched back, as if he had been struck in the stomach.

The Man-Eating Rose Fortress was a spell said to have been employed by the First Thorn Witch, though Cyril knew little about it.

What he did know, however, was that Raul was going easy on him. The visible flinching was obvious enough.

“…You were going easy on me?”

Cyril spoke in a tone chillier than any of the spells he had cast today, causing Raul to break into a cold sweat.

“Uh, w-well… Cyril, do you even realize that you’re in a tight spot?”

“You mean to say that I am unworthy to see your full strength.”

“No, it’s just, that spell… it’s something I don’t like using…”

“No more excuses! You better not hold anything back…” Cyril shouted, his blue eyes gleaming. “Or else… I’m breaking ties with you!!”

“Ehhhh!?”

＊　＊　＊

“Here comes Cyril’s bad habit again.”

Isaac chuckled to himself as he maintained the barrier. Meanwhile, Claudia seemed thoroughly exasperated.

“…Let’s just be blunt and call him an idiot. I’ll say it… He’s stupid. Right, Monica?”

“W-Well, you see, Cyril-sama is, um, always very serious…”

After a glance at Monica’s swimming eyes, Claudia grinned as if her statement had just been confirmed.

“Right, seriously stupid.”

“No, that’s not what I think! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorryyyyy!”

Fortunately or not, the voices from the audience apparently didn’t reach Cyril or Raul.

Raul seemed extremely hesitant, holding his head in both arms.

“I don’t want to lose a friend… Ugh… But I can’t control that… Well, I guess it should be fine since Monica is here.”

Raul suddenly lifted his face and waved a hand at Monica.

“Hey Monica! Stop me if things get dangerous, okay!”

“Huh?”

Had she just been casually entrusted with something terrifying?

Facing Cyril again, Raul thrust his staff into the ground with his left hand. The ornaments of the staff jangled together, producing an oddly ominous echo.

Raul lowered his head and began chanting. With his left hand still on the staff, he brushed up his bangs with his right.

The carefree smile had vanished from his usually cheerful face, and his bright emerald eyes glowed eerily beneath his long eyelashes.

The lips of his expressionless face slowly curled up, but not into his usual smile. This was the condescending smirk of a witch, one who regarded everyone else as beneath her.

“——Young men are fertilizer for my flowers, young women are my cosmetics, and everything else is dog food.”

“…Raul?”

Cyril called out to Raul, but the man said to be a living replica of the First Thorn Witch simply continued the cruel speech without giving him any regard.

“I detest hearing people beg for their lives because it’s grating on the ears. Screams are much more preferable… So by all means, scream to your heart’s content.”

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