“Surely you don’t think you can restrain me so easily, youngling. In my younger days, I was nothing to scoff at on the battlefield. My war record is no less than that of Bordeaux himself!”
The fighting spirit emanating from Leip as he roared was proof that this wasn’t a bluff.
The short tube the old man held was a ‘meteor’. It’s effect was most likely raising the power of the user’s magic – a simple effect, but because of that, there was no countermeasure.
Comparing that to his own fighting strength, Al quickly judged that he was at a disadvantage. In other words,
“The conditions are met. …No need to hesitate in playing my trump card.”
“You idiot……”
“I won’t deny that. It’s nothing personal. Your luck was bad. ……Nah,”
Halting his words there, Al continued with the echo of a cynical smile in his voice.
“…Your stars were bad.”
“……!”
Right after he finished speaking, Leip threw away all pretenses and raised the short tube, unleashing his magic.
Conveyed from Leip’s palm, the mana passing through the tube gained overwhelming power. The strength of the magic emerging from the end of the ‘meteor’ had swollen to over five times it’s normal level.
That magic landed a direct hit on the torso of the iron helmet that had been speaking nonsense, bending his body backwards and exploding in the center of it. The shelves were covered with the awful stench of a human body being burned by the intense heat, and the flesh, blood, and organs that had been blown apart.
The bodiless helmet and sword clattered to the floor, and Leip looked over the terrible scene with an air of boredom.
“What sort of trump card was that? What nonsense. Honestly, all of it, nonsense.”
Cutting across the blood-soaked study, Leip began to leave the room. There was only a tiny chance, but if the boy that ran away managed to meet up with Priscilla, it would mean trouble. He needed to find him right away, and finish him.
Thinking that, he extended his hand towards the study’s door knob.
“…Your stars were bad.”
“……!?”
Leip was speechless for a moment, then looked behind him.
When he did, he saw a man standing there with his back to Leip. He was a one-armed man wearing a steel helmet, and gripping a sword in his hand…
“Huh? Where’d……”
“Go~a!!”
With no interest in listening to the fool’s voice, Leip cast his magic through the short tube and burned him to death once more.
The unleashed flames scorched the man, and the speechless steel helmet once again shattered.
The floor of the study was once more stained with disaster, and Leip backed away, unable to grasp the meaning of the situation.
“Wha… what was that? What just happened……”
Realizing that he was shaking, Leip took a deep breath. His forehead was covered with cold sweat. While roughly wiping it away with his sleeve, the old man looked up and tried to make sense of it.
“…Your stars were bad.”
Once again, the man’s voice was heard.
.....
“…Your stars were bad.”
He heard it. That voice struck his ears again.
“Huh? Where’d you go?”
Before his eyes, the man who had lost sight of his enemy looked left and right. Then the man turned about, and when he noticed the man seated behind him, he quickly readied his sword again. However,
“Oh, hey. You’ve run out of steam. From the way it looks… I’m the attacker now. Ah, I see. You’re pretty unlucky, too.”
Speaking as though with sympathy, the man squatted in front of the disheartened old man.
The drooling old man didn’t so much as look up at the man’s face.
“You were so energetic until just a second ago, but you’ve started looking your age all of a sudden. I don’t know how many times we’ve done this, but ya haven’t given up after a few dozen, have ya? Well, there’s no way to know, o’course.”
“…ll me.”
“Huh?”
The voice was like a whisper, and the helmeted man tilted his head.
So that the man would hear it, the old man shakily raised his head.
“Please… kill me.”
As though it might be his only salvation, the old man earnestly sought it.
At that appeal, the man’s shoulders dropped as though he had recalled something unfortunate.
“That’s too bad. Just because someone can’t grasp sexy cuteness, people can’t come to understand each other, after all.”
Standing, the helmeted man lightly shouldered his sword, aiming for the old man’s neck.
Then, the blade swung in a deadly arc, and the old man’s head sprayed blood as it flew through the air.
At last, the old man’s nightmare…
“…Your stars were bad.”
did not end.
.....
Leip’s hair was in complete disarray, and his eyes were sunken, as Al brought him out of the study.
Speaking deliriously and drooling, the old man had entirely lost his mind.
“Still, even I feel kinda bad about this, what’s up with that?”
As he dragged the old man’s heavy body along, Al was mildly repulsed at what he’d done.
Rendering him powerless without killing him, and while it could be said that, taking the long view, rendering him powerless truly was the best option, exactly how did this differ from Leip’s own plot, in terms of cruelty?
“Well, the sense of guilt is different between a crappy old guy and a young beauty. When you look at it that way, it feels better.”
.
