「『Windbolt』!」

The robed man exclaims, and a fist-sized blur shoots towards Greaves. He leaps out of the way, and the spell splashes against a warehouse wall.

Krrrrrrsh!

The powerful blast of wind gouges out smaller, finer stones out of the wall and violently scatters them around. Recovering from his leap, Greaves rolls on the ground and jumps up to his feet. He points his sword at the robed mage, gasping for air as exhaustion is setting in from dodging his previous attacks.

「What’s the matter, child? Growing weary already? If you thought you can take on a mage with a sword, you must be either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid.」

The robed man comments, and the distance between him and Greaves only grew since they have begun fighting.

「Shut up! I’m holding back to give you a chance to give up!」

Greaves shouts back, and the man is mumbling some inaudible words, though it is clear enough from the steady muttering that he is casting another spell.

「Again!? Not gonna let you!」

Greaves charges in, holding his sword ready for a horizontal slash. The robed man places his palm on his chest.

「『Ironflesh』.」

The man declares, and looks up at Greaves. Nothing seems to have happened or changed, causing Greaves’s eyes to dart warily all over the man’s robes.

「Last chance to surrender! Drop your hood and put your hands up! Three! Two!…」

Greaves shouts and counts down, getting nearly within his sword’s range.

《Enough of this!》

「Time’s up!」

Greaves exclaims and leaps in with his sword swinging. The man lifts his arm, placing it between his neck and the blade’s path.

Swish-Clang!

「Metal!?-」

Greaves’s eyes widen when it hits the man’s forearm, and the feedback Greaves can feel in his hilt is nothing like when the sword cuts through flesh.

《Wh-!?》

Twang!

The man smashes Greaves’s face with his fist, with a faint flapping noise of his robes. The dull sound of metal on flesh echoes out in the alleyways, and Greaves is sent flying back through the air with a trail of blood splattering on the cobblestones.

「The so-called adventurers… Meddlers, pesterers, children who desperately want to change the world with no power to do so…」

The mage grumbles, taking his time to approach Greaves on the floor as he’s still reeling from the hit with his ears ringing and sense of balance thrown off. The robed man follows the trail of blood on the ground with a leisurely, unhurried step while looking over the damage to his robes.

《Huh? Why is the ground leaving?…》

Greaves tries to jump up to his feet, but can’t tell where down is, and falls over onto his side nearly immediately. The mage approaches, holding onto his sleeve and feeling for the slash Greaves left. He holds the sleeve up towards the moon to get a good look at the gap in the fabric, then lets go of it with a click of his tongue, shaking his head very faintly beneath his shadowy hood.

「Was it worth it, child? You could have kept your nose out of affairs that do not concern you. Was running around with a sword and playing a hero worth dying over?」

Though the man’s face is wrapped in shadows, his gray beard is plainly visible to Greaves through his blurry, unfocused vision.

《…Hero? That’s right… I’m the legendary hero, I have this sword after all…》

Greaves slumps to the ground out of combined effects of exhaustion and concussion ringing in his ears. Blood flows freely from his nose down onto the cobblestones, while he grips his sword’s hilt tighter.

「There is very little more distasteful, than the weak who are not aware of their place.」

The mage says as he steps up to Greaves, glaring down at him. His form becomes a black silhouette on the backdrop of a large, pale-blue moon.

「Your illusion of strength, combined with your lack of humility brought you this end. Die. Vortex, vortices, swirling winds…」

The man points his palm at Greaves, who stares back at him with unevenly dilated pupils in confusion.

《Huh? Who is this guy anyway? What is he even saying?… He’s talking too fast, my head hurts… Can’t Alicia heal me already? Where is she?》

Greaves swivels his head around, looking for Alicia in the dark streets as the bearded man continues his incantation.

《Ah, that’s right… I told her to wait…》

Greaves aborts his search, his eyes drift down to the bloodied cobblestones and the flowing blood. Fatigue weighs heavily on Greaves’s eyes, all the remaining strength he has is dedicated to keeping them open. A great sadness bites at his heart, for one reason or another, the thought of Alicia conjures images in his head of her child self from the village.

《Where was it?…》

He thinks, and the man continues casting. Alicia’s pouting, teary-eyed face, with angry young Will stomping in behind her after Greaves threw her scarf up a tree. Her concerned and troubled face, when she just learned how to heal the hand he broke to make up for Will’s leg.

《Ah, right, the inn… I told her to wait until I come back…》

The sadness doesn’t subside, and only grows when Greaves recalls Alicia’s troubled, frowning face he left in the inn. He looks up at the man again with his brows furrowed. The man keeps his palm pointed at Greaves, and continues casting.

《This isn’t right, I won’t be able to come back like this… But why? Can’t I just get up and?… Right, this guy is in the way… Wait, didn’t we fight? Wasn’t he trying to kill me?》

He looks up in confusion at the blurred air forming in front of the mage’s palm. A flash of clarity comes over Greaves.

《She’ll be waiting- Alicia!》

His eyes snap open in shock when he realizes he is under attack. For one reason or another, his childhood friend’s troubled face from the inn appears before his eyes faster than his mind can come up with an idea what to do next.

「『Windbolt』.」

The mage declares with contempt in his voice, his palm pointed at Greaves’s face.

CLANG!

Orange sparks scatter into the air when a black-blue blur swoops in, Lian grunts and recoils a little when the spear thrust into the mage’s chest gives her much different feedback than expected. The mage is sent flying backwards, tumbling through the air, and a stray spell impacts a warehouse window and sends shards of glass flying inwards.

「Armor?… No, something else…」

Lian’s almond-shaped eyes glare with bitter chill at the mage barreling through the air. She places herself between him, and Greaves on the ground.

Clang! Clang… Thud!

The mage impacts against the cobblestones, rolling across them with a bizarre sound of metal impacts as his arms flap against the ground with each ragdoll-like roll.

「Argh! Urgh… Arrrrrrgh! An adventurer party, huh!? I figured you’d be stupid enough to try this alone, but it was a trap after all…」

As he stands up seemingly uninjured, the mage groans in anger and rubs his aching torso through his torn and shredded robes, his skin returns to a normal color after a long, jagged strip of dark, nearly matte color shrinks and disappears from his chest. His long, gray beard appears to have received a small and uneven trim as well.

「Greaves!」 「Greaves!」

Will and Alicia call out, running to catch up to Lian’s blazing-fast dash. Will runs in to stand just behind Lian, and slightly off to the side, as is their usual formation when Greaves takes the lead.

「Greaves! Are you okay!?」

Alicia kneels down in the pool of blood Greaves left on the cobblestones, and starts quietly casting the incantation for the healing spell.

「Alicia…」

Greaves mumbles out, the sadness is replaced with relief, and he falls asleep on his forearm.

「Alicia, how is he?」

Will takes a peek over his shoulder at Greaves as the green light from healing magic lights up his blood-coated face.

「He needs healing, but he’ll be fine for a while…」

Alicia looks up at Greaves with a serious face full of concern, but also relief.

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「Will, he’s a mage. I’m not experienced fighting those.」

Lian says, not taking her glaring eyes off her enemy.

「I will take over then-」

「No. Focus on protecting Alicia. Be ready to step in if something goes wrong.」

Lian shakes her head, jiggling her silky ponytail behind it as she assumes an offensive posture. The enemy mage begins casting a spell, and Will wastes no time in his attempt to counter it.

Fwwooop!

Lian lunges forward with her spear out, tearing through the air and space between her and the mage. A violent current fills the space she crossed in the blink of an eye.

Clang!

「Agh!-」

The mage cries out in pain. Lian’s spear strikes him square in his chest again, right where it would pierce his heart, but as the last shreds of his robes fall off his upper body, his bare, discolored chest is revealed. The mage is propelled backwards even further, but remains standing on his feet.

His torso has a large blotch of a metallic, dark blue in the center of his torso, right where the speartip had impacted. It shrinks rapidly, returning the skin back to its natural color. He grits his teeth, grimacing in pain, his spell aborted due to lack of concentration.

「What a troublesome spell… But you can’t win if you can’t cast, can you?」

Lian says, glaring at the mage. His hood has long fallen off, remaining attached to the rest of his torn robes by only a narrow strip of fabric, finally showing his elderly, wrinkled, and bearded face. Will throws his hand aside and wiggles his fingers, dispersing the unusable flavored mana into the air as he cancels his spell as well.

The mage scowls at Lian, Will, and Alicia beside the unconscious Greaves. Cornered, he keeps his hands at the ready to cast another spell, or fight hand-to-hand if the need arises.

「You can’t win with that fancy expensive spear of yours either, no?」

His scowl twists into a snide grin, as he warily eyes Lian’s weapon. The spear in question gives off an impression of being particularly valuable, a gold-like metal, likely brass, stretches in a spiral along its shaft from its black tip’s mounting point to the very bottom of the scarlet shaft.

「Expensive? Please, I picked the cheapest one that looked nice and sturdy.」

The mage’s wrong assumption makes Lian scoff with amusement. She returns a smug grin without losing a tiniest portion of the cold in her glaring black eyes. There is a momentary lull in the nearly imperceptibly quick action as both Lian and the mage consider their options.

《I need to do something. I need to help her somehow… I need to at least get rid that defensive spell!》

Will adjusts his glasses and points his staff at the enemy mage with a determined gaze. The mage notices Will is casting a spell, and shifts himself so Lian is entirely in the way.

「…Right the wrongs and silence false songs!」

Will speaks with his voice raised and his eyes sharply focused on the slivers of the mage behind Lian’s form.

「Huh?… Heh.」

For a moment, the mage appears surprised by Will’s words, then lets out a singular amused chuckle with an amused grin.

「『Disrupt Mana』!」

Will calls forth the spell name, and the air in front of his staff shimmers. The shimmering extends forward and engulfs both Lian and the elderly mage. Nothing happens.

「What?」

Will blinks and adjusts his glasses. There was no tell-tale ejection of the flavored mana, at least none that he could see.

「Kheheh… Some allies you’ve got there.」

The mage chuckles, and Lian quickly peeks at Will over her shoulder. The old man takes a step sideways and looks at the young mage opposing him with a disdainful, amused grin.

「Paid no attention in the Academy, haven’t you?」

The mage mockingly asks, wary of Lian still.

「I haven’t-!」

Will almost shouts out, but stops himself and clenches his fist in anger.

《I haven’t been to the academy. I have no idea what he is even referring to, but he’s making a wrong assumption… He’s convinced I’m an Academy-taught mage.》

Will remains silent, he adjusts his glasses and glares at the mage.

「Of course you haven’t. Khahaha!」

The elderly mage mocks Will further, outright cackling now.

Swoosh-Cling!

「Kha-!?」

The mage’s laughter is cut short when Lian’s spear comes speeding for his face. He barely deflects it off its path with his hands, and the speartip bounces off his cheek. Still uninjured, the mage’s face and palms are discolored as well for a few moments.

「The way you laugh is obnoxious. That alone makes me want to kill you.」

Lian says with a serious expression on her face, her eyes piercing the mage better than her spear.

《…Protecting my pride is not worth it. I’ll let him assume the wrong thing, the less he knows, the better.》

Will sighs, and glances at Greaves once more. Alicia returns a quick glance, and her eyes are much calmer than when they arrived, but heavy concern is still very clear in them. Will’s eyes return to his opponent, and he begins tapping the side of his head in deep thought.

《Think. Think. Mana disruption doesn’t work. The why doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t work. But if it doesn’t work, how do we beat him? He’s not immortal, that alone is sure. I would have heard of it at least in passing if a spell made you invulnerable, meanwhile I have never seen this guy…》

Will looks at the mage once again, this time with no discernible emotions in his eyes. He sizes up the cornered mage like an animal in a zoo, or a bird up on a tree, carefully looking him over head to toe with his brows lightly furrowed.

《Nearly all the spellbooks hammer it into you… Nothing is ever for free. Every spell has a cost. Mana, life, souls, some other exotic energy… But you can’t escape the cost. This guy took multiple stabs, and he didn’t need to cast anything else, so…》

Will lowers his head as he thinks further. Suddenly his brows rise, and his eyes open wider.

《…That would suggest conditional activation spell. Very mana-effecient if done right, but nothing is ever for free…》

Will’s eyes dart left and right across the surroundings. The moonlit city streets are entirely vacant aside from Will’s party and the mage. There is nothing remarkable around, aside from the raging battle.

《This place isn’t special at all. It’s not a mana spring, there’s nowhere he could possibly draw mana from, meaning…》

Will looks at Lian and the mage holding each other in an uneasy draw. As neither of them can feasibly deal damage to each other, neither can win. Will takes a huge breath.

「Lian! He can’t keep this up forever! Keep pummeling him, and he’ll run out of mana!」

Will shouts towards Lian as loud and clear as he can, causing her to momentarily turn her gaze towards him. As soon as it returns to her enemy, her face gains an amused, malicious smirk.

「I thought as much…」

She says, and the mage immediately shifts his hands towards her.

SWOOSH-CLANG!

With an uncannily swift overhead strike, Lian smashes the mage over the top of his head with her spear’s shaft. The impact noise strongly resembles a muted sound of a bell being struck. The old mage’s attempt to block the impact failed completely, and he is left reeling with his entire head coated in the dark metallic layer.

Swish-CLANG!

Lian doesn’t wait for her enemy to recover, nor gives him any respite. Digging her foot into the ground for good balance, she drives her spear into the old man’s chest again, almost sending him flying in an arc.

Swish-CLANGGG!

While his feet are still off the ground ever-so-slightly, Lian delivers another mortal blow to the man’s chest. Sparks fly and scatter through the air, and he is sent flying backwards.

「Guh!-」

He gasps out, still uninjured after impacts that would kill a large beast with ease. His eyes are bloodshot and wide-open from either the force, or the pain inflicted upon him. Before he even has a chance to crash into the ground, Lian is already lunging in to deliver more hits.

CLANG! Clangclangclangclangclang!

She thrusts her spear up to down at the man, forcing him down into the cobblestones with lethal speed. As soon as he’s not rolling away or otherwise being thrown around, and like a piledriver she jabs his spear at him while he’s down on the ground.

「Gargh!」

The mage writhes around, helplessly trying to shield himself from Lian. Despite the blows dealing no injuries, they appear to be incredibly painful, and their severity only increases with each blow. Slowly but surely, the speed at which the discoloration shrinks slows.

「Die already, this is getting tiresome.」

Lian says, still stabbing away at the mage on the ground. Though she is clearly taunting him, some fatigue is indeed showing itself in her labored breathing.

「Lian, we want that guy alive so we can question him…」

Will meekly comments on the spearwoman’s off-hand taunt, adjusting his glasses.

「…I know. I’m doing what I can.」

She replies, and pauses just short of stabbing the man’s throat when she notices one dark blot on his skin is taking far tonger than normal to shrink.

「On your last legs, aren’t you? It doesn’t matter how smart you are. If you can’t attack, you’re no better than a fish on a spear.」

Lian allows the man to catch his breath and collect himself, pausing her flurry of blows. He scrambles to all-fours, and hastily stands up, backing away from Lian as fast as he can with his wobbly feet.

「If I were to fight Will, I’m not quite sure I would have won… You are simply pathetic.」

Lian steps in and smashes the old man in the face with the blunt end of her spear, with significantly less force than before.

「Oof!」

He gasps out, spinning around as he recoils from the blow. His lip begins bleeding, and the protective magic doesn’t seem to activate.

「As I thought… Then!」

Lian exclaims, and smashes the man straight in the face with her spear’s shaft, sending him flying into an alleyway. He noisily crashes into crates, shattering some of them, and Will flinches when he witnesses the vicious hit.

「Is… Is he even alive?」

Will adjusts his glasses and hesitantly asks, pointing at the dark alleyway the mage was just launched into.

「He should be. If he’s not, my bad.」

Lian says as she looks over her shoulder at Will, breathing heavily after the brief but strenuous battle. Relief washes over Will when he sees Lian’s usual smug expression…