Episode Eight

As the sun finished setting, the four of us gathered at the village entrance, and Selene began to speak.

“The abandoned settlement isn’t far. There don’t appear to be any monsters in the area, but stay alert as we move.”

We set out with Selene beside me, the two of us at the front. Kiaran, who had been loud all day, walked quietly behind us with Uno.

Selene’s magic kept the area around us lit, but with the sun fully down visibility was poor. I kept one hand on the dagger at my hip and moved with my guard up.

We walked in silence for a while before a handful of small structures came into view. Every one of them was crumbling — nothing fit for habitation.

“Is this… the place?”

Selene murmured, looking around.

Too small to properly call a settlement, the buildings sparse. It looked more like an empty lot than anything else. As a battlefield, it was actually workable — space to move, sightlines that could be managed.

“…Witch ladies — over there.”

Uno pointed toward a watchtower looming at the far end of the settlement.

In the dark I couldn’t be certain, but on top of the roof a human-shaped silhouette was visible, lit by moonlight.

“Oh! Uno always catches everything. I can see something like a staff too — is that the Shaman?”

A humanoid figure, large staff in hand. I couldn’t make out the mask that was supposed to be its most distinctive feature, but that had to be it. It was not the kind of shape a lost traveller made.

“Selene — what do you think? It doesn’t seem to have noticed us yet.”

Selene dimmed the light surrounding us and thought for a moment. Then, as though the answer had come to her almost at once, she murmured without taking her eyes off the tower.

“The fact that it hasn’t noticed us yet is to our advantage. I’ll snipe it from here and end this.”

“Confident! But it’s quite far — you’ll hit it?”

Kiaran leaned in and peered at Selene’s face with a teasing smile.

“She won’t miss. Not Selene.”

The White Witch’s reputation wasn’t built on looking good and nothing else. I know that better than anyone — I’ve been beside her long enough.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught Kiaran’s expression sharpening with interest. I leaned in and murmured where only Selene could hear.

“If it doesn’t work, give us the next move straight away.”

“I won’t miss. Sion, be quiet and watch.”

Selene set both hands on her staff — nearly as tall as she was — and let out one slow breath.

On that exhale, white light began to gather around her. No matter how many times I watched it, the sight of her mid-incantation was something that stopped the eye.

——Celestial Ray.

A single thread of light left the staff in the same moment as her clear voice, and the force of it threw her silhouette into black relief against the brightness.

It was over in an instant — I couldn’t track what happened. But in the moment the light was released, the tower that had been swallowed by darkness flared white, and I understood: it had hit.

“What—!! What was that just now?! Too fast, I couldn’t see anything!!”

“Selene — how did it go?”

I called to the figure still holding the staff. She’d be turning around with that look she wore when something was finished. I was already trying to think of what to say.

But she didn’t move. Didn’t turn. Her gaze stayed fixed on the tower, and something about her had gone wrong.

“…Selene?”

“…That shouldn’t be possible. That can’t—”

Not the voice full of conviction. Not the clear, composed voice. Not even the flat, at-home voice. A voice with the end of each word dissolving, trembling.

I had never heard Selene sound like this.

“What happened — the tower’s dark, I can’t see if—”

She wasn’t listening. She kept talking.

“There was no question it was on course… and yet…”

“White Witch? Your colour’s gone…”

Kiaran took Selene’s hand, her voice edged with worry.

“…It dodged. Like — tilting its head to one side.”

Dodged…?

The magic she had fired was not something that could be dodged at that speed. It shouldn’t have been possible.

I was about to press her with questions when a chill ran through my whole body. A dissonant sound like a summons — something calling out to something — rang through the entire settlement.

“…Forgive me. I lost my composure.”

Selene struck her own thigh hard, then called to us in a clear, steady voice.

“The snipe has failed. The undead will be summoned any moment now. Prepare yourselves.”

The moment she finished speaking, a vast magic circle blazed into existence over the entire settlement, flooding it with light. Somewhere in that light, the humanoid figure atop the tower seemed to be looking down at us — almost as though it was smiling.

An instant later, from the magic circle, hundreds of rotting bodies poured forth.

“Okay, hang on — that is far, far too many…”

“Ah… yeah… this is something.”

Even Kiaran was scratching her cheek, eyes moving across the horde filling the dark.

One rough count and there were hundreds. The cold sweat came before I could stop it.

“I will open the path.”

Selene said it with force and turned to Kiaran.

“Kiaran — when I give the signal, run straight for the target and think of nothing except taking it down. Don’t concern yourself with the undead. Only the target.”

“Sure, but — there’s a lot of them. You going to be all right?”

Kiaran drove her spear into the ground and asked it with a grin. That she could find enjoyment in a situation like this was probably a kind of strength.

“What happened before was an accident. Next time, I will not miss.”

“Fair enough. Got it. I’ll go charging through and drive the lightning straight into it!!”

As she said it, lightning crackled and sparked across Kiaran’s whole body.

These two I could trust. They were far stronger than me.

“So Uno and I protect Selene and take down the undead close to us?”

I infused mana into the dagger, watching it gleam dully. One word and I was ready to run.

“Yes. The moment you sense anything wrong, come straight back to my side. And — Kiaran.”

Selene’s voice went sharp, aimed at Kiaran who looked ready to bolt at any second.

“That individual is not normal. Do not let your guard down. Not for a moment.”

Selene fixed her gaze on the tower.

“I know. I don’t think you missed, White Witch. Not for a second.”

The voice of the lightning-wrapped girl had no trace of its usual noise or cheer. Serious. Centred. A tone with a core to it.

“If things really go wrong — can I use the big one?”

The thunderclap that could reduce a whole forest to scorched earth crossed my mind.

“Yes. I would ask you to hold off for as long as possible, but the judgement is yours.”

The dark was moving — a black wave, slow and massive, pressing toward us. There was no more time for words.

“Sion.”

Selene met my eyes for a moment, then looked away immediately.

“Don’t push yourself. Whatever happens.”

A voice unlike her. Small, unguarded. What it meant — I didn’t have the space to think about it.

Selene drove her staff into the ground like a signal of war, and mana surged through her entire body. With the white-light-clad figure of her in the corner of my eye, I broke into a run.

——Ice Dance.

Figures of ice shaped just like Uno glided across the ground and swept through the darkness in a dance. Each undead they touched froze solid and shattered, scattering in moonlit fragments.

——Burst!

I swept my left hand and sent a cluster of monsters flying on a wave of black flame. These were rotting bodies, nothing more. Many in number, but no match for us one on one.

“Out of my way—!”

Without pause, the next wave was on me, and I brought the dagger through in a wide arc. Aim for the throat. If the head leaves the body, it stops moving — I knew that already.

——Albas Sphere…!

The moment I felt a surge of light at my back, I glimpsed a radiant sphere hurtling toward the tower. In its wake, fallen monsters lay heaped across the lit ground.

“As expected of the White Witch…”

Kiaran’s magic had been extraordinary — but Selene was no less beyond any normal scale. A single incantation clearing that many monsters — mages you could count on one hand could manage that.

I pulled my eyes from the incanting figure and kept moving — slitting the throats of the undead pressing toward me with both hands.

Black magic, with almost no wide-area spells, could do little in a fight like this. And with my mana constrained on top of that, I was close to dead weight. All I could do was keep my blade moving to protect Selene and Uno while they incanted.

“Kiaran — now!!”

Selene’s shout came from behind me.

No room to look back. Even so, the white flash streaking from behind caught the edge of my vision.

“Uno!! The usual!!”

——Aqua Drive.

The ice figures that had been dancing around me vanished, and a new incantation reached my ears. Kiaran must have been ready to plunge into the Shaman.

——Burst.

The second spell. When I shifted my gaze to the tower, a yellow bolt was driving straight and true. Running alongside the bolt, countless spears of white light pierced through the surrounding monsters, and the bodies piled across the illuminated earth.

Then, in a blaze of light that seemed to set the whole settlement glowing — lightning struck the tower.

Not the brute, uncontrolled force of that time in the forest. This was controlled. Beautiful. A radiance of mana that held power and precision together. The thunderclap that had split my ears before felt almost welcome now.

When the master that called them was gone, the monsters’ strength would fail all at once. Listening to the tower come apart and fall, I caught my mouth slowly loosening, and tightened it again firmly.

The regret of being almost no use at all sat in me. Even so — I couldn’t help but feel proud of the people who had just brought that situation to its knees.