Chapter 190 - Say You Want to Live - 6

Wolfen resolved to kill me with strength and energy arts alone, rather than playing mind games.

Damn it. He'd seen through my weakness for straightforward physical contests. How cowardly.

Sigh. So much for having it easy.

Now I really, truly had no option but to stall. I had to buy time using every means at my disposal.

"Finishing move!"

The revolver had held five bullets. All that remained was an empty gun.

I had no use for a gun without bullets. Without hesitation, I hurled it.

"Gun Throw!"

CLANG!

His short sword intercepted the flying gun. Having wrung an opening out of even my empty firearm, I immediately rolled across the ground and disappeared between two buildings.

A narrow passage ran between the buildings. So narrow that two people meeting from opposite directions would find themselves in an awkwardly intimate situation.

I sprinted down the alley and drew my next card.

The eight of diamonds. All things long and thin.

Chains, wire, thread, iron strips, rubber. Mana cables.

Of the many varieties of knots contained in the card, I chose wire. I hooked a pre-knotted wire onto a railing on one side.

CLANK!

The loop passed magically through the railing and caught fast.

After setting three wire traps in an instant, I deliberately plucked one to announce its presence.

TWANG!

Following me into the alley, Wolfen spotted the taut wires and hesitated to charge.

'... Traps? Troublesome. Forcing my way through would be risky.'

Haha. How do you like that? Since ancient times, traps have been the best way to catch beasts. Now that you've committed to brute strength, can you really enter this alley?

'I'll kick off the walls and jump over them.'

That's cheating!

TAP! TAP!

Wolfen kicked lightly off the walls on either side, soaring ten meters into the air. Then, keeping his feet against one wall, he slid down as easily as if descending a slope.

I had no time to stand and watch. With my prized trap rendered useless, I immediately hurled myself out of the alley. Wolfen closed in behind me in an instant.

'Got you. You won't escape now.'

I had just rounded the corner, and Wolfen was drawing his short sword to strike at my back. He leaped off the end of his downward course, landing on the ground to change direction.

The ground gave way beneath him. Still holding his magnificent landing pose, he plunged straight down.

For one brief moment, the loss of his footing threw Wolfen into utter confusion.

'A trap? When did he set it?'

Peel back a single layer of road, and all you find is soil. With all the earth beneath it cleared away, a landing as heavy as Wolfen's made the road vanish as though sucked underground.

A sinkhole trap made with earth arts. Reading Wolfen's bewilderment, I immediately drew a card I'd been saving very, very carefully.

The ten of diamonds. Sword and shield.

A small buckler appeared in my left hand, and a straight sword about the length of a forearm in my right. Leading with the buckler, I thrust it into Wolfen's head while simultaneously stabbing the sword into his blind spot.

I threw my entire body into a picture-perfect strike aimed squarely at his opening.

THWACK!

The buckler struck Wolfen squarely in the face. At the same time, my straight sword slashed his shoulder. His collar split open, and blood spattered over it.

'He got me.'

But there was no time to feel accomplished. Even in his confusion, a clear intent to attack was directed at me.

'But the blow is light. I can take it.'

His head, knocked back by the buckler, swung forward again, his eyes gleaming ominously. At the same moment, a pitch-black blade shot up from the left. The murky energy arts that swallowed even light sought my life with exquisite precision.

Reading his murderous intent, I gritted my teeth and twisted my arm and waist hard to pull the buckler back. Without holding anything in reserve, I poured out my paltry handful of energy and wrapped it around the shield.

SCREEECH!

The sturdy buckler caught the darkness-cloaked sword at an angle. Sword against shield—common sense said the shield clearly had the advantage.

But when an energy-clad sword met an energy-clad shield, the stronger energy arts won.

CRACK!

After holding out for a moment, the buckler split pitifully apart. Like frozen bread dropped on the ground, it broke into pieces, bringing its service as a shield to an end. The short sword smashed and tore through it in one stroke, leaving a long gash in my left arm.

"Ow, ow, ow!"

That hurt like hell!

I didn't even have time to groan. To stop his attack, I needed a sword, not a shield. I pulled back the straight sword that had cut his shoulder, trying to slice through his arm.

But.

"You're... weaker than I thought."

Wolfen caught my straight sword with his empty hand. The blade. With his bare hand.

That was all he did, yet the sword wouldn't budge, as if embedded in solid rock.

"Tch!"

If he caught me like this, I'd die. I let go of the sword and immediately rolled backward. Blood poured from my left arm as I crushed it beneath me, but I had no time to tend to it.

Meanwhile, Wolfen walked out as though the wound on his shoulder meant nothing, murmuring,

"All of it was sleight of hand. From the alchemy to all those pranks—tricks to conceal your weakness."

So he'd exposed everything.

Well, after I couldn't even block his sword with a shield and let him slash my left arm, he'd have to be blind not to notice.

Still, I couldn't afford to lose my composure. I had to buy even a little more time.

Still feigning nonchalance, I raised my bleeding left arm.

"Ta-da. Well? Wasn't that fun?"

"Quite. Magician, you may possess the makings of an assassin even greater than myself."

He pressed a hand to the shoulder wound my sword had left. Rippling energy seeped into the cut, and the blood congealed black, quickly stopping the bleeding.

Having casually undone even my carefully timed strike, Wolfen removed his hand and murmured,

"But this world is power. In the end, those without power inevitably break, while those who possess it rule. That is the way of the world."

"I understand your revelation. So what?"

Wolfen looked down on me with utter contempt, as though regarding a foolish child.

"If you wanted to live, you should not have stood in my way. You were foolish, magician. You dreamed far beyond your station."

"Haha. And were your own dreams so modest that you devised a plan to have the Military State clean out the backstreets, then claim the vacant territory?"

"Surrounding yourself with those weaker than you is precisely how you reign supreme."

"How petty bourgeois of you."

"I know my place. Unlike you."

He meant it. Wolfen really was a typical relic of the Kingdom's days, bullying the weak and bowing to the strong.

Ah. How boring.

For all his power, he acted like a petty bourgeois. He was simply a little stronger, more rational, and luckier than an ordinary person.

"Boring. You really are the type who survived through luck."

With a sigh, I turned my hand over. One of my few remaining diamond cards settled into my grasp.

The seven of diamonds. A magic cane.

The card instantly became a long cane with a curved handle. Regardless, Wolfen now trudged toward me without any particular caution.

"I've seen through everything. Your petty tricks will deceive me no longer. I shall walk straight up to you and take your life. Not even your magnificent deceptions will save you."

Ah, seriously. Was this the end?

My left arm throbbed. A magician's hands and arms were his livelihood. After suffering this much damage, did it have to end like this?

Just then, something fell from the sky, accompanied by an urgent voice.

It was a golem.

『Get out of the way!』

With those words, the golem interposed itself in front of me. Unlike a stationary surveillance golem, this was a synchronized type capable of moving on its own.

Well, now. It had been a while. I was almost glad to see it.

Swallowing the urge to cry from the throbbing pain in my left arm, I asked,

"Captain. Have I bought enough time?"

The synchronized-type magic golem stood protectively in front of me and shouted,

『Affirmative! Please hold on just a little lon—』

The captain had no time to finish speaking. Wolfen's dagger buried itself in the golem's torso, and its voice faded as though the connection were breaking. Then it creaked and crumpled helplessly.

I screamed at the captain, who had shut down without lasting even a second.

"Captaaaaaain!!"

You should've held out a little longer! What's the point of making a grand entrance only to exit so pathetically? It's demoralizing!

"I've wasted too much time."

Now that you'd told him, Wolfen was getting impatient to kill me!

'No more dragging this out. Die.'

Wolfen kicked off the ground in a single burst and raised his short sword. No longer wasting any energy, he kept it entirely within his body and blade. He came straight at me to kill.

Clear murderous intent, and the power to carry it out. Faced with that, powerless as I was, I could only helplessly offer him my neck...

But overcoming a situation like this was the pinnacle of magic.

Only someone capable of escaping an apparently inescapable, life-or-death crisis in a way no one could even imagine... deserved to call himself a magician.

"Surely you didn't think my cards..."

I flicked my right arm. A new card appeared at its tip, and I deftly caught it between two fingers.

One single card I'd prepared in advance for the Shadow.

The weapons fashioned from diamonds had merely been groundwork for this card.

"...held nothing but weapons?"

The card I turned over was the ace of clubs.

Unlike the sharply angled red diamonds, the rounded shape of a tree growing rooted in the earth appeared before Wolfen.

'Another petty trick. I won't fall for it. Whatever comes out, I'll keep my eyes wide open and respond.'

I'm the boy who cried wolf.

Repeated lies breed deep distrust, forcing the other person into an unwavering stance.

Thank you. For watching my final trick so closely.

I turned the club-marked card over and released the mana held within. The compressed mana rushed into the single club, making it glow white-hot.

Wolfen frowned at the shining card.

'Blinding me with light? What on earth has he hidden?'

Wrong.

I wasn't using light to hide something. The light was what I'd hidden.

As he watched the club grow steadily brighter, an ominous possibility belatedly flashed through Wolfen's mind.

'... Could it be magic? Impossible!'

Too late to realize it. The magic had already taken effect.

Let there be light.

"Fiat Lux."

Because he'd drawn in all his energy, the darkness that cloaked his body had disappeared as well. With no energy scattered around him, his options for responding were limited.

In other words, Wolfen was completely defenseless.

The light condensed in the center of the club exploded.

Every shadow in the street disappeared. In an instant, incandescent white light began pouring from the face of the card.

An overwhelming radiance, as though a window had been opened directly in front of the sun.

Even closed eyelids couldn't filter out the light. It felt as though the shadows of bones and veins were visible through transparent skin.

Light banished shadows. Struck head-on by his polar opposite, Wolfen hurriedly covered his eyes, but the light robbed him of his sight for a time.

"Good thing your energy arts have a dark nature. It doesn't look like you've gone blind. Though you'll have trouble even moving for a while."

"You bastard...! Magician!"

Darkness obscured the eyes, but light blinded them. This spell was your absolute superior.

Deprived of his sight, Wolfen leaped backward, lashing his sword in every direction. Dark energy once again poured from his entire body. He was warding off any attack that might exploit his inability to respond.

But it was pointless.

I was better off than you, who'd taken the blast head-on, but I couldn't see very well either. I couldn't attack you anyway.

"Ghh...!"

"Thank you for watching to the end, Wolfen Fenstein. You were a boring man, but a fairly good audience. Still, whoever defeats a man who follows the law of might should be stronger than him. In that sense, I'm not qualified."

"I'll kill you. On the honor of the Shadow, you and everyone around you! I'll kill you all!"

"Ah, yes, of course. Goodbye, then."

With that farewell, I fled along the escape route I'd scouted in advance. The light-engulfed street concealed everything even more thoroughly than darkness. No one saw me run.

Granted, I couldn't see where I was going either, so I did bang my head on the way. But, well, anyway. I managed to escape into a building.

My part ended here. It had been dangerous, but somehow things had worked out.

The rest was up to the Military State.