Chapter 96 - An Unwelcome Guest (3)

Noel was flying through the air.

By the time she came to her senses, she was already airborne.

"...?"

Of course, she had not suddenly awakened the ability to fly. This had happened the instant she blocked the shock wave from Magnus striking the ground.

"..."

... Even to her, that sounded a little absurd.

Magnus had not attacked her directly. All he had done was bring his greatsword down on the ground. Yet merely blocking the resulting shock wave had sent her flying this high?

With that thought, she looked down.

"...?!"

An enormous crater had formed in the ground.

This was the result of a single human swinging a sword.

'What in the world...!'

Those who wielded supernatural powers were often called superhumans—a name steeped in awe for those whose strength exceeded human limits.

But even those granted that name had limits of their own.

Noel herself was a monster who could slice through buildings with a single sword, but that was more of a feat made possible by her precise control over supernatural power, the authority of a god.

What could one call this sort of violence, produced through physical ability alone?

Strength to uproot mountains, spirit to overshadow the world.

Might that could wrench mountains from the earth. Strength enough to horrify even a fellow superhuman.

This bastard wasn't even something you could call a superhuman. He was practically a natural disaster!

"I've been waiting for this moment!"

Someone was following her up through the air, as though to snatch her out of it.

The very man who had sent her flying.

Magnus let out a hearty laugh. As though his earlier docility had all been a sham, every note of his voice brimmed with a hunger for battle that made even Noel's hair stand on end.

"Her Holiness took the one I really wanted, but the Empire's greatest knight isn't bad either! This won't be boring!"

"You—what are you after—!"

"After?"

His face was hidden beneath his visor, but anyone could have guessed that Magnus was grinning.

"That's for Her Holiness to think about. I just fight strong opponents! That's what I enjoy most!"

Indeed, his very next action was perfectly in keeping with that declaration.

No rational person would strip off their heavy armor in the middle of a fight.

His intentions were plain. He meant to feel everything—the exhilaration of battle, the tension—as if to take it all in, raw and vivid, with his bare body.

Rocklike muscles visibly pulsed and writhed. Beneath them seethed divinity so hot that it vaporized every bead of sweat forming on his skin.

"Dance with me, Lionhearted! Don't disappoint me!"

"..."

Noel's gaze grew somber as well.

To be honest, this wasn't the first time she had encountered someone of his kind.

Battle maniacs. People who valued the process more than the act of killing or being killed.

Frankly...

"... You're not really my type."

With that sneer, Noel aimed her sword straight at him even in midair.

"I prefer a more gentlemanly man."

As if in answer, Magnus burst into wild laughter and swung his drawn greatsword at her like a roaring thunderbolt.

▣

Inside the half-destroyed, crumbling building, Aiden steadied his breathing and looked at the Pontiff.

"Your Holiness."

"Yes?"

"This seems a little excessive for a recruitment pitch."

Even Aiden couldn't tolerate someone barging into his residence and wreaking this much havoc.

"How many times do I have to tell you? Your side started it."

The very person responsible for the situation was saying things that grated on his nerves.

But rather than immediately fly into a rage in response, a switch clicked into place inside Aiden's head.

His gaze settled somewhere deeper.

Seeing that, the Pontiff smiled inwardly, keeping it off her face.

'This fellow...'

He was just like last time.

He refused to let the situation before him dictate his response. Despite their immense strength, Noel and Katya had taken the eminently sensible course of immediately resisting her tyranny.

But this man did not.

He analyzed why she was doing this, as if determined not to be manipulated, not to play along with his opponent's intentions under any circumstances.

He looked farther, wider, deeper.

"There really are a lot of people in this world who can't communicate."

"What?"

"I had enough trouble yesterday with one of them becoming my secretary, and now you're here doing the same thing."

He even went so far as to say:

"Is it that hard to just admit you want to test whether I can do the job you have in mind, and ask me? Are all you rulers this twisted inside?"

"... What?"

"You're deliberately getting under my skin because you want to know what I can do if I come at you with the genuine intent to kill, aren't you? That's the sort of person you are."

"..."

"Are you that curious about how much I've grown since last time?"

He had retraced her reasoning in an instant and hit upon exactly why she was doing this.

'This fellow, honestly!'

Abigail III roared with laughter inwardly, regarding Aiden intently.

He was remarkable. Truly exceptional.

The value of an ability like this could not be measured simply in strength or fighting prowess.

People like him would eventually find a way to defeat an opponent, no matter how skilled that opponent was in combat.

Usually, they were the ones left standing as victors at the very end.

"..."

The smile was gradually escaping onto the Pontiff's face, no longer possible to hide.

She even deliberately glanced away, afraid that her eyes would sparkle as she looked at him.

'Just as I thought.'

Choosing to bet on him seemed to have been the right decision.

"So I'll play along this once."

And even after seeing through all of it, he was still going to show her what she wanted. How could she not adore that?

Watching Aiden bring out Aether and shape it with a scowl, the Pontiff cleared her throat and turned away again.

... Well, in any case.

She was supposed to be provoking him. It would be rather odd if the person picking a fight looked at him with undisguised affection...

"You don't mind taking one hit, do you? It's not as though you die easily."

"I won't move, but I won't just sit here and take it without defending myself, either."

"That's fine. It'll make for a better demonstration."

As he spoke, supernatural power rose from his body. The Pontiff narrowed her eyes at the flames that flared up around him, enveloping him from head to toe.

He had scored a perfect ten until now. That was about to cost him a few points.

"Are you an idiot? Who in the world challenges the Pontiff with divinity?"

She had only just subdued Katya, a top-tier divinity wielder, without even rising from her seat. Challenging someone like her in her own specialty was sheer recklessness, even viewed charitably.

"No."

Cutting off the Pontiff before she could voice her disappointment, Aiden nonchalantly raised Aether, now solidified into a spear.

"It's simply the best option."

In fact, he already had a combination in mind.

Morrigan had made that insane suggestion that he experiment on her, but he didn't need to do that to know what would be effective against someone like this.

Aether Shaping: lance form.

Divinity coated the outside, with dharmic power mixed into it. Purifier, which nullified all of his opponent's supernatural power, spread over Aether's surface.

He thrust it straight forward.

The Pontiff reacted at once, creating a barrier of divinity.

The lance promptly punched through it like cardboard.

"...?!"

Her expression twisted.

Well, even someone like her could hardly have expected a technique that erased every supernatural power it touched.

Having passed through the barrier, the spear reached the space right in front of her.

"—"

Taking a deep breath, Aiden loaded a second supernatural power inside it.

Guardian’s Flame filled a separate chamber he had formed within the lance. The power would serve in place of a bullet.

-System Message

▶ ‘Equipment: Aether’ is imbued with supernatural power. The weapon's power increases.

▶ The effect of ‘Equipment: Aether’ amplifies the imbued supernatural power.

▶ The effect of ‘Equipment: Aether’ amplifies the power of the released supernatural power.

Well.

As the messages appearing one after another made clear, this technique Morrigan had refined for him ranked among his most powerful single attacks, even without pouring everything he had into it.

Come to think of it, when he had poured all his strength into a cheap pistol to take down Rad, hadn't the resulting attack been 128 times its normal power?

And from his tests in the Mindscape, this blow was practically a cheat code. Even using just a few skills that combined two supernatural powers, it regularly produced power exceeding that.

After seeing it, his kindly senior had even given the technique a name, declaring it worthy of the honor.

Its name:

Explosive Strike.

Supernatural power resembling a stream of plasma burst explosively from the tip of the lance.

BOOOOOOM!

It was less like a bullet being fired than a cannon exploding.

Leaving an immense afterimage in its wake, the power shot over the Pontiff's head.

The blow was so intense that even with the lance braced firmly against his body and both feet planted, Aiden's entire frame shook violently as he fired.

"Hmm."

Of course, the strike was worth all that trouble. Aiden exhaled through his nose in satisfaction.

He turned slightly to check on the Pontiff and found her expression frozen solid.

From his perspective, it wasn't difficult to work out why.

She must have been quite shocked. Because...

"Your Holiness."

Aiden grinned as he spoke.

"If that had hit you squarely, you'd be dead."

The very reason he had gone out of his way to change its trajectory before firing was his certainty that a direct hit really would have killed her.

"..."

The silence that answered him meant that the Pontiff herself could hardly dispute it.

If she responded as casually as she had just now, sitting in place and trusting herself to withstand a blow...

... She really could die.

After all, she could imitate Katya's immortality through her immense divinity, but she was not a true immortal like her daughter.

Naturally, an attack beyond what she could withstand would kill her.

The catch was that even among the upper ranks of superhumans, few could deliver such a blow.

Yet Aiden's attack, made without even using his full strength, had possessed more than enough power to meet that condition.

In that brief span of time, Aiden Kellermain had grown that much. The strike had been meant to demonstrate it.

"You'll have to move next time, won't you?"

He received no particular answer, but he did see the Pontiff prop her chin on her hand at the table, looking displeased.

"I don't know whether to be happy or angry."

"Why not think of it as your blue-chip investment paying off spectacularly?"

"I don't like that blue-chip investment. It's insufferable."

"..."

"It's irritating. You won't let me win even once."

... It occurred to him that Katya's tendency to sulk might be hereditary.

'Still, isn't she kind of cute?'

... The fact that this thought came along with it made him realize just how long he had been spending time with Katya.