[V11C36] Star Arrow

A few minutes after finishing the blueberry pie, Silas stood up from his seat.

“Well then, I’ll be heading back to the Mage Association.”

Silas grabbed his coat off the hanger and uttered a short incantation. This was a low-powered composite spell using both fire and wind.

His magic created a warm breeze that fluttered his coat despite being indoors, drying it off.

The sight reminded Monica of how Silas dried a wet stone for use as a makeshift chair.

These sorts of spells required delicate control over mana, so while convenient, they were actually surprisingly difficult to use.

Monica’s foster mother, Hilda Everett, sometimes attempted a similar approach, only to end up ruining her clothes and causing a few house fires. The number of lab coats sacrificed in her attempts to perform household chores easily reached double digits.

Silas put on the dried coat and opened the front door. The rain had just come to a stop.

Clouds covered the sky, but there were a few patches of blue peaking out. Since it was still before noon, the cloud cover would likely clear up later today.

“Thanks for having me, Nee-san. See you later, Ike.”

Monica saw Isaac’s slight smile from hearing the words “see you later”.

“…Yeah, see you,” Isaac replied.

Those words were clearly precious to Isaac. He was happy just to have someone he could say “see you later” to. Perhaps this was just a small happiness, but Monica wanted him to enjoy more of such moments.

Once Silas invoked flight magic and disappeared from view, Monica closed the front door.

Isaac got to cleaning up the tea set and dishes. It was then that Monica brought up the next subject.

“Ike, um… Earlier, I heard from Silas-san about a message from the capital.”

“Yeah?”

Isaac paused his cleanup and turned to Monica.

Monica continued, making great efforts to maintain her usual tone.

“They’ve finished verifying the shadow removal spell. I’ll get rid of your shadow now.”

“That’s unusually quick of them. I guess your spell was perfect to begin with; I should have expected as much.”

Isaac smiled while placing the dishes onto the tray.

“Got it. I’ll take care of this first, so wait just a moment.”

“Okay, I’ll prepare the spell in the meantime.”

Monica gripped the magical tool hidden in her skirt pocket, recalculating the formulas she would be using in her head.

Failure was absolutely not an option.

＊　＊　＊

They decided to perform the operation in the living room of the first floor.

Isaac took off his shirt and sat in a chair, facing away from Monica.

Monica frowned at the multitude of scars on his back, before quickly pursing her lips.

Right now, she needed to focus everything on the task of peeling away the shadows.

After repeating the spell calculations multiple times in her mind, Monica touched the shadow clinging to the back of Isaac’s neck with the fingertips of her right hand.

(…Activating spell.)

White light overflowed from Monica’s fingertips, enveloping the black shadow.

This light infiltrated the gap between the shadow and Isaac’s skin, gradually peeling it off. The stripped shadow fluttered in the air for a while, before scattering like ashes in the wind and disappearing.

Once the shadow was removed, the skin on the back of Isaac’s neck regained its original color. However, the area underneath the shadow still looked slightly red.

“Done… Does it hurt anywhere?”

“A little tingly, I guess? Not much pain though.”

“I’ll do the right eye next.”

“Okay.”

Isaac put on his shirt and took off the eyepatch covering his right eye. Beneath his long golden lashes was an eye colored jet-black, as if it had lost all light.

Monica placed her finger in front of his eye, then deployed the spell.

The sight of the shadow peeling away within the spell’s white glow looked as though Isaac was shedding black tears.

Eyes were delicate organs, so Monica performed the shadow removal with even more care than before.

“…!”

Once the shadow was removed, Isaac groaned softly and covered his right eye with his hand. His face seemed tense, as if enduring pain.

“Ike!?”

Monica panicked upon seeing this reaction, as Isaac slowly opened his right eye.

His eye had been freed from the shadows, regaining its original blue color. However, the whites of his eyes were red with inflammation.

Isaac blinked a few times before deciding to put on the eyepatch again.

“…It seems like my right eye has become a bit sensitive to light. I’ll let it rest for a while.”

Perhaps his eye simply needed to get used to light after being covered in darkness for so long, or maybe there was another reason. Monica couldn’t tell.

If his discomfort continued, they would need to have an actual doctor look at him.

Monica glanced at Isaac with worry, but Isaac stood up and spoke with surprising calmness.

“Will you be returning to the Mage Association now? I’ve wrapped up some nonperishable snacks for you, so take them along with a change of clothes. Also, I made jam from the blueberries earlier, so that’s wrapped too. Should go well with cookies.”

“Y-You made jam too…!?”

“Out of what was leftover from the pie, yeah. Blueberries cook quickly, you see.”

As always, Isaac’s efficiency was absolutely astonishing.

Monica secretly clenched her fists, feeling a bit apologetic that Isaac was doing so much for her.

“Ike, I’m sorry, but there’s something else I heard from Silas-san… The Fourth Thorn Witch and some representatives from the Mage Association will be visiting my house to retrieve some materials.”

“I see. Should I head out just in case?”

“Yes, please. And also…”

Monica revealed two purple gemstones from her pocket. These were the newly crafted magical tools for nullifying dragon detection. One was for Nero, and the other was for Thule.

She handed both to Isaac.

“You’re more likely to encounter Nero than me, so… can you give this to him? The other one is for Cyril-sama’s white dragon, just in case he comes…”

“Got it. I’ll hold onto them. As for how to put it on Nero… Well, I can think about that later.”

Isaac slipped the gemstones into his pocket, put on his jacket, and prepared to leave.

“Sorry Ike, I really wanted to let you rest at home…”

“Don’t worry about it. More importantly, please be careful. Theodore Maxwell and Gluttonous Zoe are currently lurking somewhere in this town.”

“…Right.”

Monica gave a proper nod, or so she thought, but her voice was a bit stiff.

Meanwhile, Isaac placed his hand on the front door.

“Well then, I’m off, Master.”

“Take care, Ike.”

The rain had completely stopped, and the blue patches in the gray clouds were expanding.

Monica stared at the closed door and took a deep breath.

She would do what she can, so that Isaac can open this door and say, “I’m home.”

＊　＊　＊

Theodore, who was lurking in the back alleys of Sazandol, pressed the jeweled box against his forehead, closed his eyes, and synchronized with Gluttonous Zoe.

The act of synchronization allowed him to see the flow of mana.

“One of the supply sources disappeared? …Why?”

The shadows attached by Gluttonous Zoe would not peel off unless Theodore commanded them to. Perhaps the death of the target would cause a similar phenomenon, but according to the artifact, that was not the case here.

——”REMOVED! REMOVED!”

The warning from Gluttonous Zoe caused the blood to drain from Theodore’s face. This was a setback they could not ignore.

If someone removed all the shadows, then they would be unable to gather additional mana, significantly impeding their plan.

To think there was someone capable of countering the ancient artifact’s power!

“This is bad, very bad…! Who could have done it?!”

As long as they remained within Sazandol, Theodore had a vague grasp over the position of the victims with shadows attached. He synchronized with Gluttonous Zoe and, with half-closed eyes, glared toward the northeast.

Four supply sources were in the northeast. Unknown to Theodore, they were Anthony and his brothers who had been brought to the Mage Association.

Meanwhile, the source that disappeared was even further north, in the direction of the residential district.

“Let’s go. We have to do something about this…”

If possible, Theodore wanted to send his servant Throth to take care of this.

The reason Theodore had come all the way to Sazandol and turned Throth into his servant was because Throth could do many things in his place, making it easier to hide himself from pursuers.

However, Throth was currently waiting in another location for a different plan. In addition, his entire body had been corroded by shadows, making him very conspicuous. He would have difficulty walking through the streets of Sazandol.

(I have to handle this myself…)

Theodore ran in the direction indicated by Gluttonous Zoe, eventually arriving at a well-maintained residential district.

Theodore had been sent to various parts of Sazandol as Throth’s lackey, but this was one neighborhood he never visited. After all, it was an upscale housing district where relatively affluent people lived. There was little reason for Theodore to enter.

(So the person who removed my shadows is here…?)

To get a more accurate position, Theodore took out Gluttonous Zoe and pressed it against his forehead.

Once synchronized, each of Gluttonous Zoe’s shadows felt like his own limbs. Having so many additional limbs felt a bit weird.

(Oh yeah, there was that creature with a lot of legs in the sea… Those squishy things…)

As he casually pondered that, something flashed behind Theodore diagonally to the left.

Both of Theodore’s eyes were pointed forward, so he had no way of seeing the light behind him. However, the mana he detected through Gluttonous Zoe allowed him to sense it coming.

In response, the lid of Gluttonous Zoe opened.

Black shadows spread around Theodore, forming a wall. Something collided with the wall, making a crackling sound. These were arrows made out of lightning, ten in total.

“Uweh!? What!? What’s going on!?”

Theodore anxiously scanned the surroundings, as the second wave of lightning arrows came.

That said, these were not simple projectiles anymore. The arrows had suddenly appeared from within the black wall that Gluttonous Zoe deployed for defense.

“Gywaaah!?”

This was remote magecraft, the act of casting a spell at a distance from the caster.

The arrows had been created from an extremely advanced spell, as bypassing a wall required a vast number of calculations and long incantations. However, Theodore knew nothing about that.

While Theodore was thoroughly confused by the sudden appearance of lightning arrows, Gluttonous Zoe generated additional shadows to block the second wave. This depleted a considerable amount of the mana they had accumulated.

“Waaah! Where’s the enemy…!?”

Theodore turned toward the houses behind him, where the first wave of arrows had come from. That was why he failed to notice.

The initial attack was a diversion to mislead the target about the attacker’s position.

Their actual location was not diagonally behind Theodore, but rather, on the roof of the house immediately to his right.

Atop the rain-soaked roof, a small witch wearing the robe of the Seven Sages pointed her staff at Theodore and cast a spell.

“…Fly true, Star Arrow.”

A shooting star sparkled white against the background of the dim blue sky.

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