30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue - Chapter 34

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 34: A Night of Counting Stars (8)

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* * *

A line of fire flashed. Onest immediately turned his head and dodged the bullet.

It had been aimed squarely between his brows. Damn it. Biting his lip, Onest staggered back.

“Damn it, are you serious? You intend to kill a captain aboard a Kallion warship? Know your limits, soldier!”

“Am I the one who has to deal with the consequences?”

Ivan spun his axe as he approached. He did not close the distance recklessly.

He slowly assessed the man’s condition. A mage, trained in swordsmanship.

Elves rarely carried swords, especially officers.

Every field-grade officer in the elven military was a high-ranking noble, and elven nobles considered any work that made them sweat beneath their dignity.

Yet some of them carried swords. That made things more complicated.

Learning swordsmanship despite the contempt of others, combined with the long lives unique to their kind, meant they possessed tremendous potential.

Most elves despised close-quarters combat, but paradoxically, the finest sword wielder in the world was an elf. She had once been known as the Hero’s master.

In other words, the fact that Onest was an elven officer, a mage with a sword, was what kept Ivan cautious, even after he had shattered one of the man’s legs in the first attack.

“Elizaveta sent quite the hunting hound. What is your name, soldier?”

“Do you think stalling will help you?”

Onest frowned at Ivan’s words. At least the man was quick on the uptake.

He clicked his tongue.

He could not weave a spell carelessly. Against people classified as “superhumans,” less than a single step separated him from Ivan.

They were both within each other’s striking range.

After a brief standoff, the elf sighed and let his shoulders sag.

“I surrender. I will call off the soldiers.”

“Throw away your sword.”

“Why not ask me to sign a surrender document while you are at it? There is no guarantee you will not cut off my head the moment I do.”

That was not wrong. Still, Ivan narrowed his eyes.

An elf surrendering this quickly? Without even properly fighting? A field-grade noble, no less?

It was impossible.

Without a word, Ivan raised his axe. The man could surrender after Ivan had neutralized him.

Watching him, Onest clicked his tongue.

“Damn it. Fine. Catch.”

Then he hurled his sword at Ivan with all his strength.

-Clang!

As Ivan knocked away the flying blade, Onest was already leaping backward with one hand inside his uniform.

Ivan lowered his stance and sprang toward him. Beneath the tightly fastened uniform, there was no silhouette of military equipment.

That meant it could only be a pistol, a dagger, or an explosive magical weapon.

The last was the most likely, and the most troublesome.

“Sir Beolgreen!!”

“…?”

Why was that old man’s name coming up all of a sudden...?

Ivan shook off his sudden confusion. This was not the time to think about that.

Calling out a technique’s name, or the name of an influential person, was an incredibly stupid tactic.

Ivan kicked off the floor and swung his axe. There was no time for a delicate blow with the flat. He brought the blade straight down at Onest’s forearm.

He could not afford to let his guard down against a mage’s suspicious magical artifact.

-Click.

As expected, Onest had pulled a small metal orb from inside his uniform. It was covered in densely packed purple incantations and looked profoundly ominous.

As Ivan’s axe came down on Onest’s forearm, the man pressed his thumb firmly against the top of the artifact.

Then a wave burst forth.

-Kwaaaaaang!!

As the violent shockwave hurled him away, Ivan thought:

Mission failed. He was self-destructing.

Elizaveta’s mission had been to secure proof of the captain of the warship meeting with Alexander.

Who could have expected the captain to press a self-destruct switch without warning? How was Ivan supposed to prepare for that?

His ears rang as the shockwave flung him into the corner of the corridor.

“Urgh.”

The impact squeezed his lungs and forced out a groan. His expression, however, remained calm.

He immediately checked the condition of his limbs, tested whether his fingers and toes moved normally, then steadied himself.

It was an equipment check honed through long training. A trained agent’s body was a form of equipment.

‘For getting caught in a close-range antipersonnel explosion, I’m in surprisingly good shape.’

Ivan rose as aftershocks ran through his body. The blast had left his vision slightly unsteady. As the ringing in his ears gradually faded, he heard the siren echoing through the corridor again.

That was a good sign. His hearing was normal too.

“This is unexpected.”

Ivan went rigid at the voice that followed.

It was far too familiar, and it was not a voice that should have been heard here.

It had been four years since Ivan had heard it. For an instant, he wondered whether someone was imitating the voice. But no. He had not heard wrong.

Distinctive dark green flames flickered through his blurred vision.

Ghostly fire burned up from the depths of both eyes.

Even the arrangement of mana was painfully familiar.

“The real... Beolgreen?”

“That is right. Why are you here? So you were alive?”

The uniform was a mess from the explosion, and the body shape, height, even the face beneath it, all belonged to Onest...

Ivan realized it instinctively. This man’s soul had changed.

“Possession...?”

“An amusing choice of word. This is called the [Soul Transfer Art].”

The Hero Party’s mage. Beolgreen, the Fortress Destroyer.

With familiar mana, a familiar voice, and arrogance Ivan knew all too well, one of the greatest mages alive spoke.

“Where is Alexander, and why are you here?”

“....”

Beolgreen appearing here was unexpected. It was something Ivan could not possibly have anticipated.

Before anything else, though, Ivan recalled the nature of this mission.

‘Confirm and document the connection between Crown Prince Alexander and the elven captain.’

‘The elven captain... no, this air warship is likely suffering from a malfunction.’

‘Elizaveta designed matters so that the captain’s only possible option would be Crown Prince Alexander.’

‘And what Beolgreen just said.’

Where is Alexander, and why are you here? Ivan frowned at the heavy implication behind that casual question.

Beolgreen had given the captain a magical artifact containing the [Soul Transfer Art] from the start.

Why?

To meet Alexander.

And why would he do that?

Because he had joined hands with Alexander.

“Was this your plan from the beginning?”

“Of course. A Kallion air warship is the culmination of the archipelago’s technology. How could it suddenly malfunction after barely a fortnight of travel?”

The reason this warship had set sail in the first place was to escort Beolgreen’s daughter, Elphihara, safely.

She was the daughter of Beolgreen, one of the strongest elves and the Hero Party’s mage. Among the many high-ranking nobles of the Kalion Archipelago, she held an unrivaled position.

A ship dispatched to protect someone like that would not suffer a malfunction after only two weeks.

Not unless someone had caused it deliberately.

A chill crawled down Ivan’s spine.

“That is right. It was meant to provoke Princess Elizaveta from the start. If that little girl got angry, Alexander was bound to make contact.”

“Why? Why did you do this?”

“Well.”

Beolgreen gave a faint smile. He wove mana around his fingertips, then suddenly asked:

“Where does your loyalty lie?”

“With His Late Majesty, the great king.”

“Always the same. It is good to see. You might have at least sent word that you were alive. I thought our friendship deserved that much.”

Ivan let Beolgreen’s words pass by as he readjusted his grip on the axe.

Fortunately, his body was functioning normally. The shockwave that had thrown him back had not been an attack spell in the first place.

Could he face Beolgreen head-on and win?

The moment the thought arose, Ivan knew the answer. Impossible.

But could Beolgreen truly wield all the strength of his original body?

Probably not. The amount of mana Ivan sensed was no more than the captain’s.

“Oh, you intend to fight. Then again... you were always like that, Little Ivan.”

“Is there another choice?”

“Of course. But I do not think you would choose it. Come, then. Let me see how much you have improved.”

The captain’s mana reserves vastly exceeded a human’s, but the gap was not so hopeless that it could not be overcome.

That meant it was worth attempting.

But even if Beolgreen possessed only that much mana, could Ivan truly stand a chance against him when Beolgreen himself controlled the body?

‘No.’

Ivan knew his own limits clearly. That was the most important virtue of a trained agent.

He had to view himself as a tool for accomplishing the mission, which meant knowing his own specifications exactly.

So Ivan knew he had no chance. Even with only half that level of mana, Beolgreen would carve him apart with ease.

But that did not matter.

“Let me learn a thing or two.”

Ivan tightened his grip on the axe, his eyes dark and still.

His chances did not matter.

Could he do it or not? He had never considered things like that important.

Did it need to be done? If it did, then somehow, no matter the circumstances, he would do his best.

A trained agent feared not failure, but giving up.

* * *

Make the decision in the shortest possible moment, then act as quickly as possible.

The instant Ivan decided to attack, he threw himself forward. Straight ahead, directly at Beolgreen.

The sensation of peeling apart time, measured in seconds.

The feeling of air resistance against his body slowly breaking apart the flow of time itself.

This was the sensation of a “superhuman,” entering the fray after driving mana into every strand of his nerves and forcibly activating them.

A fleeting instant that diagrammed the moment. This was the Battlefield of Superhumans.

In this time where even breaths were divided into fragments, Ivan’s axe glided through the air.

Smoothly, sharply, yet powerfully.

-Whoooong!!

He aimed for the exact instant dark green mana formed.

An axe wrapped in mana possessed the power to dispel magic in itself. The moment magic was woven, it could split apart the structure and prevent the spell from being completed.

A warrior at close range was a mage’s natural enemy. It had always been that way.

-Kwaaaang!!

The impact arrived first, the sound a beat later. The closer something came to the speed of sound, the wider the gap between reaction and noise became.

He tore away a layer of magic.

He reached him. Beolgreen.

Ivan said it with his eyes as he prepared his next move.

Having stripped away a spell just before it was completed, his axe would clearly be faster than the time Beolgreen needed to chant another.

He had reached it. The place where the giants of those days had once walked ahead of him.

“Excellent.”

A voice laced with amusement rang out softly.

-Thoom!!

A light resistance blocked his path. Ivan reacted at once and twisted his waist. Five sharp ice spikes thrust through the space he had just vacated.

It had surpassed even line-of-fire detection. The spell had been completed the instant Beolgreen conceived of it.

The time it took Ivan to regain his stance and raise his axe was still only a moment, sliced into fragments.

Yet at the end of that brief clash...