Chapter 157: Dealing with Trap Masters
“Your fight against John was just a bad matchup,” Adelina said simply, to the four who were so close, the closest yet, but still had not won. The four students were understandably disgruntled, and slightly more resistant to criticisms, as it is harder to say they did anything wrong when the match had been so close. They were still beaten, however, and obediently sat and listened to Adelina’s debrief.
“But we had an affliction specialist!” A student protested, although she could not argue with the results.
“Ordinarily,” Adelina lectured, “an affliction specialist is ideal for targets above your rank. Against a healer, the story changes. It’s not true for all healers, but it was the case for John, who had two full cleanses, and multiple lesser cleansing abilities. You would have had a better chance of success with traditional attackers.”
Adelina continued, her gaze shifting over the dejected students, “There will always be cases of a bad matchup. Sometimes, there will be no choice but to fight, but if you see no hope of success and have the option to do so run. John does not specialize in speed. Outrunning him is an option.” She smiled gently. “I know this was a match, so running was not an option. Well done all of you.”
They were the first to receive such glowing praise, and the four previously dejected students, brightened up, shining with blatant and bashful smiles.
John’s opponents made the least number of mistakes but were victims of poor luck. Even if it was a battle between more ordinary frontlines, like Sen, John may have still been able to win.
*****
Aliyah’s fight was the next, fighting five. The stage was a blank arena, like Nara’s. Nara didn’t know if that was beneficial or detrimental to her fighting style. But Aliyah had also slaughtered wind and water elementals in the air and above the sea, so location seemed to matter little for her style of trap casting.
They started the same as her, a decent distance apart. The students were cautious, eying Aliyah for her next move. She stooped down, and chanted.
“Emplace a mark of power.”
She placed a Rune Trap, then stood and waited. The students didn’t move, turning the arena into a silent standoff. Another minute passed, Aliyah stepped back a few steps, stooped down again, and placed another Rune Trap.
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Ability: [Rune Trap]
Spell
Incantation: “Emplace the mark of power.”
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: 1 minute
Effect (Iron): Create an explosive rune that will disappear after a short period. The rune can be set to trigger by proximity, caster trigger, or both.
Effect (Bronze): Enemies affected by the rune trap will be the source of a secondary explosion after a brief period.
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She looked at them, unperturbed.
The second Rune Trap acted as some sort of signal. The students realized they could no longer delay their advance, nor expect any further revelation.
The students dashed forward. The two vanguards split around the Rune Traps, and students followed behind in a lane, like a divided freeway. With a surge of magic and another incantation, Aliyah cast Wrath of the Magister down one lane, but it didn’t kill any students.
At low ranks, physical damage had the advantage. Non-physical damage, like that of magical spells, was spread over a larger surface area, save for pinpoint shots like Eufemia’s Light Ray. This meant that getting an instantaneous kill was more difficult for Aliyah, though a well-placed Rune Trap would do the trick with its overwhelming explosive damage.
Thus began a game with cat and mouse, with Aliyah as the singular mouse and five cats. Mana Rebirth’s attribute enhancing effect maintained a speed advantage, but Aliyah was not inexhaustible like Nara or Sen, and speed increasing powers were popular—of which, the students had some.
“Hm?” Nara observed that every minute, Aliyah would quietly chant, tap her foot, and place a Rune Trap.
Aliyah had intentionally stooped the first two times to engrave the image of using her hand to place the Rune Traps. Other students may have that ability; it was a common spell, but the power of repetitive suggestion and patterns in tense encounters overwrote their better logic.
“How tricky,” Adelina said knowingly, head tilted into her palm and with a sly expression. “I wonder if they can remember all those positions after running around? Especially with no other visual indicators, in a blank arena?”
Aliyah was tired, visibly panting; she had high mana regeneration, but her stamina regeneration was ordinary. The students were similar, but they had the advantage of teammates helping with their recovery. Aliyah conjured her Force Tether in front of her, but the students nimbly dodged back. It was a common trap ability, and it fooled no one at this stage of the battle.
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Ability: [Force Tether]
Essence: Gathering
Awakening Stone: Trap
Conjuration (trap)
Cost: Low mana-per-second
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjures a crystal rod, from which a tether of shimmering force connects to all nearby enemies within a moderate range. Tethered enemies are dragged toward the rod, which is protected by a force field that inflicts moderate resonating force-damage to anyone in contact with it. If the force-field is ruptured, it explodes in a wave of resonating-force damage. If the rod is destroyed or removed from its location, then it explodes in a wave of disruptive-force damage. Dimensional displacement, such as teleportation, severs the tether. Untethered enemies who enter within range of the rod become tethered. Only one force tether rod may exist at a time.
Effect (Bronze): Strength and pulling force of the tether is increased.
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Ensi, Aliyah’s dragon familiar, had remained high above the entire match, flinging down blades of wind from above from a safe distance. She may be a dragon familiar, but she did not compare to a real dragon in hardiness. The students largely ignored the dragon, adeptly handling the bronze rank wind blades in the midst of Aliyah’s carpet bombing Mana Bursts.
Aliyah faltered from a strike, frozen momentarily in place with an ability, and her Force Tether had been destroyed. The students saw their chance, advancing in. They would be the once to secure the first win for the students. Victory was within grasp, and their muscles flexed in desire of it.
Ensi swooped in from behind, a blitz of speed thanks to her wind elemental enhancements, and unleashed a wind breath attack, blasting the students forward with a tearing vortex.
Aliyah conjured her Force Vortex, the suction plus pulling force trapping the students inside. They could resist the pull of one perhaps, but the combination of both effects overwhelmed their defenses. A student still managed to smash the vortex core like a golfer with the strength of a body builder, and a team member’s resistance and power spell prevented them from being blown in different directions, maintaining their formation.
Aliyah instantly negated the destruction of the conjuration, re-trapping the students that had denied the original force eruption.
Both sides were focused, fighting what both instinctually felt was the impetus of the match, what victory and defeat hinged upon. If the students could hold out here, they may yet finish their bronze ranker and secure the first win for the student side.
With the students temporarily fixed in place, Aliyah drew a circle in the air of magic light, activating and summoning her Arcane Constructs. She wouldn’t be able to modify then, but even as their basketball-sized steampunk quidditch ball forms, they still had use to her.
“Emplace a mark of power,” she chanted, tapping the surface of one of her constructs, again, with a hand. The six constructs swirled, mixing the one with the rune up. The students didn’t know which one was which, but they prepared themselves for the blast, weapons and shields ready as the constructs zipped towards them at varying starting distances and speeds.
Mana, burst forth. Aliyah silently chanted Mana Burst. All spells had to be chanted, but silent chants were possible, although they greatly raised the difficulty of casting the spell. They still required the gathering of mana, so silent chanting wouldn’t skip the incantation, just eliminate the noise. Most didn’t bother to learn to silent chant unless they were a dedicated caster or a healer, and even then, situations were rare where it made a difference. At silver rank, after all, cutting the throat did not impede breathing nor speaking.
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Ability: [Mana Burst]
Essence: Gathering
Awakening Stone: Magus
Spell
Incantation: “Mana, burst forth.” / “Burst.”
Cost: Moderate mana / High mana / Very high mana / Extreme mana
Cooldown: 30 seconds / 20 seconds / 10 seconds / None
Effect (Iron): Briefly gather mana at a location, the detonate it, dealing large disruptive-force and explosive damage in an area.
Effect (Bronze): Enemies affected by the burst are the source of secondary, delayed explosions.
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The blast caught the students off guard; they had been expecting a drone flown explosive delivery, but Aliyah’s Mana Burst detonated her own Force Tether before the Arcane Constructs made contact. The students were blown apart, sent flying by the massive resulting explosion. One instantly died, the combined explosive and resonating-force damage smashing through armor, flesh, and bone.
Another one died to the kamikaze construct, which detonated right next to a student who couldn’t find their footing in time.
Three remained.
Aliyah restored her mana with Arcane Orb, then used Juxtapose to swap herself with another student. The moment they swapped places, the Rune Trap Aliyah had been standing on detonated, killing another.
The two remaining students scrambled to their feet, terrified, back-to-back, as if they’d stave off Aliyah’s ranged explosive magic by watching each other’s sixes. The entire battlefield was a mine field, and they didn’t have sniffer dogs or photographic memories.
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They were dead men standing.
“Oh,” Adelina said softly, with a commiserating smile, “Those two can’t remember.”
*****
“Now students,” Adelina said, cheery in contrast to the turbid mood, “What did we learn from this?”
The students, ever studious, still responded. Which Nara’s match had been a demonstration of precision skill, Aliyah’s battle had been a masterclass in strategy and intelligence, which hit differently. It reminded them that they were stupid.
“Remember the position of traps?” One surly responded.
“Don’t get turned around running around?” One, with a little bit more energy and humor, offered up.
“Those are both correct answers,” Adelina clapped approvingly. “The plain arena made it easy to forget where Miss Sahar placed her traps, didn’t it? But if you had fought in a town or forest, do you think it would have been better or worse?”
The students were animated—both those being debriefed and those who had watched. Aliyah was a no-name adventurer, not famous in any way (only known by those like Lawrence, in the magic research community), but her fight had been visually spectacular—of dragons, flying constructs, explosions, and rainbow spells—a combination of both overwhelming power in magic and a strategic mind. Casters usually didn’t fare so well out in the open, without allies to distract or protect them, but Aliyah had sauntered through her own traps, creating her own protection and obstacles in open space. Her fighting style was decisive, not as a result of sneak attacks like Nara, but of intelligence and judgement. The many scholarship students of the De Luca Academy, similarly non-noble in name, found her as a sparkling role model and attainable goal.
Sen had managed to shape Aliyah into somebody that would fare well in such combat, and the students saw as much, wanting to emulate her.
John held his head in his hands, slumped over and muttering something about, “scarring children for life” and “a fresh emotional scar during formative years”.
Nara pat his back reassuringly.
*****
Vera sat across from an imposingly beautiful celestine, whose crossed legs and haughty posture sent a chill down her spine. Her pale skin evoked the terrifying beauty of annihilation and ashes, with matching violet-red hair and eyes richer than fresh blood.
She couldn’t understand why a mimicry specialist would chose to reveal her abilities. Eufemia Teresina could copy the abilities of any ally, as long as she knew the ability. With Enciodes Aciano on her team, they had to watch for the distinct possibility that she had copied his signature attacks.
The celestine grinned; Vera must have imagined the sharpened canines. She was a celestine not a leonid.
“Since it seems you all have an unmistakable attraction to open spaces and inevitable defeat, why don’t we fight there too?” she grinned, her tone the unassuming purr of a lioness toying with her prey.
“No, definitely not an open field,” Vera said, holding her calm, careful not to reveal to much of her own emotions with verbal haste. The open field was Encio’s hunting grounds. They’d be fish in a barrel.
“Oh? You’re looking to become Enciodes Aciano Part II?” she said. Her voice wasn’t taunting, yet Vera felt like it was, pinpointing their sensitivities. “A forest then?” She said with an enchantingly attractive tone, leaning forward and gazing into Vera’s eyes, who flinched backwards.
She felt like a mouse pressed beneath the paws of a nonchalant cat. Would she be killed, or released?
“Not a forest,” she said hurriedly, and chastised herself for losing her cool, aware that she was losing the match before the match. But…she had seen how Enciodes annihilated his opposition of eight. And this was a transformation and mimicry specialist; she’d surpass the young duke Aciano in stealth.
“Well,” Eufemia scoffed, leaning back, her claws releasing to allow Vera to breathe. “You have to choose something. Make up your mind.”
Vera wracked her mind for something neutral, not open space, but not a forest. The team against the healer had done well, “—a town. We chose a town as our battlefield. Do you agree?”
She pursed her lips, thinking. “I don’t think it really makes a difference to me, now does it? I’m letting you chose,” she said tapping Vera lightly on the nose like she was bopping the nose of an animal. “Are you sure you want a town? Maybe…” she paused, mockingly contemplative, “We could do the school grounds of the De Luca Academy. Is that advantage enough?”
“We fight in a town,” Vera said, wanting to snap back at the celestine but not quite having the nerve, nor wanting to show such obvious weakness. As the leader of the team, she needed to be confident. Yes, a town would be best. The school grounds would be too shameful of an advantage.
“Very well,” she purred, her perpetual smirk not belying of whether Vera’s choice had been a mistake. “I assent.”
*****
The town was low and flat; buildings were two stories tall at best, yet still squat in construction, unlike the grandiose domed structures of Saggia. Sunlight bled through sparse trees, bleaching the town of color. It was empty; Vera hadn’t intended it to be so eerie.
They awoke across from each other, the celestine a few hundred feet away on the main street running through the center of the town. She winked, then relaxedly sauntered off while the rest stood agape at her.
“…she’s gone,” Diego said, “Now what?”
“We wait,” Vera said. “If we try to go into that town now, we’re going to get ambushed. Identify cover, and split if she tries to launch God-Sundering Slash or Vorpal Slash. The streets are wide, and there’s elevation. We have enough room to dodge.”
Diego nodded.
They didn’t have to wait long for the first attack. Light Rays shot from rooftops tracing an arc downwards as Eufemia landed in the center of town. She conjured a familiar black sheath.
“It’s coming!” Vera shouted, “Vorpal Slash!”
She unleashed it early instead of charging it, catching the iron rankers off guard. They managed to dash, teleport, or dive out of the way; without Encio’s increased projectile speed, the attack was more forgiving.
Vera’s eyes widened when Iker’s body was split in two by an attack coming from a perpendicular direction. It was God-Sundering Slash.
His body was bisected next to her, his upper torso dropping into the alleyway, unsupported by his separated lower half. His blood pooled from his body, surprising her hand with it’s warmth, and she stifled a scream.
The attack had come from within a building, Vera realized. God-Sundering Slash bypassed physical obstructions. They were so focused on the Vorpal Slash—most likely her familiar—that they missed the true threat. They had expended their movement abilities getting out of the way, and Eufemia seized that chance.
Vera peeked back around the alleyway; the familiar was gone from the center of the main road. They were back to square one—no, they were worse off than they had started. Vera had the sinking realization that they were inevitable prey, no matter how hard she’d fought to avoid this fate before. Her earlier instinct was accurate, and that realization coursed through her blood with a permafrost chill.
She steadied her breathing, and regrouped with her remaining team. They still had four members.
“What do we do?” Chisa asked with a quiet dread. “How do we stop her from doing that again?”
“We need an open field,” Vera said.
“Is that really the best plan?”
“She can’t hide in an open field.”
“But what about…that ability?”
Vera shook her head, “It’s better than not knowing where she is.”
She shouldn’t have been so wary of the open arena. She should have chosen that. What was she thinking?
Thankfully, the town they had chosen for a battlefield was small. If they continued down the main street, they’d make it out and into some emptier landscape, space between the town and the surrounding forest.
They moved carefully, familiars watching their backs as they advanced forward. Another of her teammates had Rune Trap, so they couldn’t be too careful. Diego was casting a detection spell periodically and using his sharper senses to scout the battlefield. They hadn’t seen her place any…but would they notice a bronze rank disguise specialist?
Vera felt she was moving at the same pace as the sweat that crawled down her back. They stepped cautiously forward, auras and abilities straining to detect anything at all.
“Wait,” Diego whispered, “I sense something. A Rune Trap, I think. Up ahead, on the side of that building.”
“Right in our way,” Vera said. “Can we walk on the far side of the street an avoid the blast?”
Diego nodded and checked the street for its size. “The street is wide enough. We’ll avoid the blast.”
She glanced around for other options. If the trap was nearby, so was Eufemia—jumping upwards to scale the buildings would leave them too open to God-Sundering Slash, and other alleyways off the side of the street were even more narrow, with no guarantee of clear passage. This street was their best bet.
“We’re almost there,” Vera said tightly. “Persevere for a little while longer. She’ll make another move while the trap goes off. Stay focused.”
Her team nodded.
As predicted, once they moved perpendicular to the trap, it went off. A cloud of dust and debris spilled out across the street, temporarily obscuring their vision. Vera made out a figure in the dust between coughs.
“It’s coming! I don’t know which! Chisa, magical defenses up!”
“I got it!”
Chisa’s most powerful shield manifested. The slash split through the dust, breaking the shield in a hair-raising smash, but otherwise dealing no damage, entirely negated.
“Emplace a mark of power.”
Vera heard a chant. Shortly afterwards, another Rune Trap exploded, exacerbating the dust. The vision was obscured, the thick beige dust making teleportation difficult as they couldn’t see their destinations.
She heard another chant, but the words were indistinct in the chaos. Suddenly, she was teleported.
“Chisa!? Diego!? Gael?” Vera called out.
“I’m here!” Chisa shouted.
“Chisa,” Vera said warily, fingers tight on her weapon, ready to strike. “The password?”
“Four sandwiches and a smoothie,” Chisa whispered back.
“Good, good,” Vera said, releasing a shaky breath, and some of her tension.
“Vera?”
Vera’s blood froze when she heard another Chisa calling out to her from the dust. She looked at Chisa beside her, and she nodded.
“Chisa,” Vera whispered, “We need to go hard and fast. Before she catches on that I’ve already found you. I’m going to pretend I don’t know who’s who, but on my signal, we attack.”
Chisa nodded, gripping her staff.
“Vera!” the other Chisa exclaimed, “I was worried I wouldn’t find…you.” The other Chisa froze when she saw the Chisa beside Vera. “Vera,” she said slowly, “That’s not me.”
Vera stepped away from the Chisa at her side, the Real Chisa. “We can sort this out.”
“Vera, come this way. I’m serious,” Other Chisa said, palm outwards as if that ward away an attack.
“Okay, I’m going to stand between the two of you. I’m going to need the password from both of you.”
“Vera,” the other Chisa said with a warning tone, “I’m the real one, you need to let me say the password first, otherwise she’s going to know it.”
Eufemia was a bronze ranker; she likely heard Chisa when she whispered the password in the dust. She was trying to seize the initiative by offering up the password first to confuse her, Vera thought.
She held out her arm behind her back, signaling.
3…2…1!
Vera leapt forwards, her fists and legs powered like they had jet boosters strapped to them. Her punch met Chisa’s face, warping her look of surprise like a surrealist portrait. When she felt bone crunch, she knew something was wrong. She shouldn’t be able to fracture the bones of a bronze ranker with one hit.
“Thanks,” a voice crawled up her skin like a horror crystal projection show, “You are all sooo predictable.”
A dagger shoved up through her back avoiding the bone of her spine and rib cage, and punctured her heart.
“How did…you know?” Vera gasped, mind whirring through the pain.
“The battle doesn’t start on the battlefield, sweetie,” Eufemia whispered, sweet and cruel. “Not for my kind. You knew my abilities, and this was the best you could do?”
Her face was right next to hers, the red stark burning her eyes like fire through dust.
“Did you even scratch my clothes?”
*****
Eufemia walked to the seats, sitting down with an exhausted sigh. She rolled her eyes at the students that trailed after her like zombified chicks.
“Oh please, that’s all it takes to get you down?” she scoffed. “You’ve never been insulted and taunted before? Such precious little princes and princesses. Grow up.”
Not only had Eufemia defeated them, but she had also crushed their spirits, hopefully temporarily. Adelina had said to crush their opponents, and Eufemia had been the one to do so thoroughly, taking care to defeat both mind and body.
“How did you know?” Vera repeated, still distraught.
Eufemia snorted, “Sage?”
“I am at your service, miss Teresina.” A robe of silver unfurled as if it had coalesced from dust in the air.
“I had Sage spy on you all while you were discussing you’re little ‘secret password’.”
“That’s cheating!” Iker protested, indignant. “The match hadn’t even started yet!”
“The match started the moment you saw Eufemia’s abilities,” Adelina chastised. “Why do you think she, a disguise and mimicry specialist, even let you see them? Did you not think it was odd?”
“It was odd,” Vera admitted. “I-I didn’t think much of it. Maybe, that she was overconfident? She…seemed the type.”
It was part of Eufemia’s mask to play up her pride and confidence. Part of that was the real her—she was confident and prideful, but those were aspects of herself she removed as easily as changing clothes.
“Eufemia, could you explain?”
“I know you all had prince Aciano on your minds. He’s pretty I know. You shouldn’t let his appearance distract you,” she tutted.
“Young duke Aciano,” someone absently corrected.
“Whatever. You had prince-y on your minds, and you just couldn’t forget. So I made use of that. You saw his overwhelming victory in the forest and got it in your minds that a forest would be a bad choice.”
“It is a bad choice,” Vera defended.
“It is,” Eufemia acknowledged smoothly, “but you also thought an open arena was a bad choice too, because of Encio’s abilities. You went for the middle ground—a town.”
“It has open spaces and nearby cover.”
“Stop trying to justify the decisions that led to your loss,” Eufemia countered.
Vera bowed her head and quieted.
“An open field would have been the better choice,” Eufemia said. “You still wouldn’t have won—that’s the point. You’re supposed to lose.”
Adelina arched up an eyebrow.
“I’m not your student,” Eufemia taunted, eyes flashing with challenge, “and you didn’t tell us to keep it a secret.”
“I suppose I can learn a lesson today too,” Adelina mused.
Eufemia jabbed a finger at Vera, “It doesn’t change the fact that you lost badly. Worse than you would have lost in an open arena. Look at John—his match was even. His opponents fought well, even in a bad match up. They had a good tactic, and they had no idea what they were facing.” She scrunched her face, “Well, they got lucky. If they had to face Nara or Sen, they would’ve been annihilated. So, I used prince-y’s notoriety to force out the option of an open field. I suggested the open field first, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Vera said, obediently answering when Eufemia posed her question.
“If it comes from me, it sounds worse, doesn’t it? That’s manipulation. You’d best teach some to your students sometime. In fact, whoever taught Encio should teach them.”
Adelina chuckled. “Wisteria then? I’ll have to see if she’s willing to be a guest professor.”
“Bribe her with snacks or something or win a bet. If you can win,” Nara suggested helpfully.
“If you were so confident in winning,” Iker challenged, “Why didn’t you just let us choose the open field?”
“Are you stupid? I did let you choose.”
Iker clamped his mouth shut.
“But I know what you mean. I’m not an oblivious airhead.” She sighed dramatically, ever the actress, then jabbed an accusing finger out. “You are adventurers in training. When do you choose the plan with a lower chance of success? For fun? Let the enemy fight back a little? Play with your food?”
“…No,” he admitted. “You choose the best plan.”
“So you do know. Good for you, we can salvage your education yet.”
Adelina raised a bit of an eyebrow at that, but Eufemia held the stare, unintimidated. Adelina snorted, finding Eufemia’s insult amusing. Their education could always improve, after all. She’d not allow for stagnation.
Adelina clapped her hands together once, dispelling the tension. “There’s a lot to learn from this match. We’ll go over it in class. For now, why don’t we all take a break before the final match?”