Chapter 31

I had a few minutes to myself before Gabriella and Hiroto revealed themselves, which was long enough to decide that sniping wasn’t my forte. Even knowing that Mariko and the rest weren’t in real danger, it felt wrong to hang back while they met the enemy head on.

It was tempting to spy on them with Mimic Sight the whole time, but I restricted myself to quick glances. Since Mimic Sight only let me see magical signatures, I’d know where Gabriella and Hiroto were, but I couldn’t easily tell when they’d broken through the tree line. Plus, I almost didn’t want to know when the others got into a proper fracas with Yukiko and Kowalski.

Bloody Hell, what a difference a year had made. I’d always been happy to let the other chap rush into enemy fire to soften them up first. Here I was, fretting about my friends in a damn training exercise.

That was another unfair part of the competition; Yukiko’s team had gotten a broad hint about our roles, but we weren’t sure who was performing what job.

I could make an educated guess, at least. Yukiko and Kowalski weren’t likely to be the shooter, or else they wouldn’t be working their way through the densest part of the forest. It would also make sense that Yukiko would be assigned to be a duelist, since her short stature impeded her reach and upper body strength. She usually favored a naginata polearm to make up for that, but Hiro or I could usually best her. At least, unless she used Gravity Shift to make the duel pointless.

Even without her gravity magic, Mariko was completely doomed if Yukiko took her seriously. The best-case scenario was that she could slow them down a bit and give Hiro and Kiyo a chance to get off a spell or two.

That meant, playing the odds, I was likely facing a caster and a shooter. My first shot would have to count, since I wasn’t confident I could chamber another round and dodge their fire.

If I hadn’t been periodically peeking on them with Mimic Sight, I wouldn’t have noticed when they finally hit the tree line at the far end of the clearing. The white and green cadet uniforms made for decent camouflage, and they were careful with their movements. Hiroto had a longbow and a quiver strapped to his back, which made him my prime target.

Before I could line up the shot, Gabriella cast a Slow Barrier over the two of them while they discussed their course of action. I cursed the Enemy’s eyes again; I hadn’t been issued any fabricata bullets, meaning I had no way of affecting them on the other end of the shimmering patch of air. I didn’t even have many spells that could reach them and beat the defense. Perhaps Bloody Lance, but I wasn’t out to blow holes in them.

I zoomed in on their faces with my scope and couldn’t read their lips at all. They were likely speaking in Japanese, and the Slow Barrier had distorted them, anyway. I’d have to guess at their thoughts. They seemed most interested in the tracks Hiro and crew had left, which meant they hadn’t figured out my hiding spot.

Were I in their shoes, I’d be suspicious about the complete lack of defenses on the flag. Would they take the bait and go straight for the prize, or skirt along the tree line?

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I decided to make the choice for them. An off-balance enemy was likely to be a sloppy enemy, and I had a few guesses about how they’d respond to a sudden attack.

Firearms are so bloody loud. Even with my ear protection in, Bernadette’s report rattled me. I hadn’t aimed at them; instead I’d gone high. The safety round bounced off the pine tree above them, the sudden impact dislodging all of the snow on the tree’s branches. Some of falling frost got stuck in the Slow Barrier, obscuring their fate from view.

“Svalinn’s Mercy!” I made sure to just about shout as I cast the familiar spell, twisting my fingers about to create the floating, red shield a good ten feet away from me and low to the ground in front of another thick brush. I’d done everything I could to make it especially vibrant, since I wanted them to see it and think that was my hiding spot.

I couldn’t look down my scope while I reloaded, which I managed despite Kiyo’s earlier doubt, but I could see the blunted arrow struck the shield. I dutifully snapped the fingers of my left hand to dispel it, since I didn’t want anybody to accuse me of cheating. A toothless Magic Bolt followed shortly after, tracking the path of Hiroto’s arrow perfectly. If I’d really been there, they’d have had me.

I had to suppress a chuckle as I lined up my shot on Hiroto. He was in the middle of nocking another arrow while talking excitedly with Gabriella on the wrong side of the snow-covered Slow Barrier. The plan had gone off without a hitch. The smart move would have been to stay behind the barrier and fling some arcing magic in my general direction to pin me down. Instead, they had abandoned their cover and gone for a straightforward attack, exactly as expected. It was time to punish them for their lack of tactical sense.

The gimmicked bullet slammed into Hiroto’s right shoulder, the impact hardening the fabricata wool in a flash of orange light. He looked down at the glowing fabric for a moment before letting out a long sigh. His shoulders slumped and he tossed aside his bow and arrows. He dutifully knelt down in the snow, cast a St. Bernard’s Charm on himself to fight off the chill, and placed his hands behind his head.

Gabriella leapt back behind the Slow Barrier before I could reload again. A quick glance through Mimic Sight showed that she was casting something big, so I abandoned my hiding spot and dashed further into the woods.

It seemed that Ms. Hernandez was a sore loser, as an indiscriminate barrage of spells rained down on my end of the clearing. She’d learned her lesson, since the Proxy Spells were an arcing, spreading variant of Magic Bolt, Magic Mortar.

My mental estimation of Gabriella went up a notch. That wasn’t an easy spell to pull off, much less to successfully use in Proxy form. It was another spell we hadn’t learned in the remedial courses, but I’d seen it my share of times during the fighting in England. Where a normal Magic Bolt would range from the size of a baseball to a basketball (depending on how big a hole the caster wanted to punch in the enemy), Magic Mortar would fragment towards the end of its arc, spraying an area with golf ball sized ‘submunitions’. These were easier to block with defensive magic or armor, but if there was a gap one of the fragments could exploit… well, it had taken me weeks to get the smell of orc gore off my favorite jacket.

If I hadn’t fallen back, she’d have had me dead to rights. A pity I hadn’t been able to watch her cast it, so I didn’t mimic it.

“Did that get you or not?” she shouted. “Don’t go quiet again or I’ll say you cheated!”

“Missed me by a mile,” I called out in return.

“Mierda!” Then it was her turn to go quiet.

Too quiet. A glance through Mimic Sight showed me she was bleeding magic and dashing straight towards the flagpole. She was moving awfully fast through the deep snow that had accumulated in the valley, making me wonder if she had an affinity that was helping her somehow.

At that pace, I’d never beat her to the flagpole, especially with her lead!

I cursed, tossing aside the empty Bernadette. I’d never load it in time to make a difference. She’d done her job, anyway. It was time to do mine.