A Certain Magical Index Vol. 18 Read online

  Copyright

  A CERTAIN MAGICAL INDEX, Volume 18

  KAZUMA KAMACHI

  Translation by Andrew Prowse

  Cover art by Kiyotaka Haimura

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  TOARU MAJYUTSU NO INDEX Vol.18

  ©KAZUMA KAMACHI 2009

  First published in Japan in 2009 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2019 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Yen On

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at yenpress.com

  facebook.com/yenpress

  twitter.com/yenpress

  yenpress.tumblr.com

  instagram.com/yenpress

  First Yen On Edition: February 2019

  Yen On is an imprint of Yen Press, LLC.

  The Yen On name and logo are trademarks of Yen Press, LLC.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kamachi, Kazuma, author. | Haimura, Kiyotaka, 1973– illustrator. | Prowse, Andrew (Andrew R.), translator. | Hinton, Yoshito, translator.

  Title: A certain magical index / Kazuma Kamachi ; illustration by Kiyotaka Haimura.

  Other titles: To aru majyutsu no index. (Light novel). English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York : Yen On, 2014–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2014031047 (print) | ISBN 9780316339124 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316259422 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340540 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340564 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340595 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340601 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316272230 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316359924 (v. 8 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316359962 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316359986 (v. 10 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316360005 (v. 11 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316360029 (v. 12 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442671 (v. 13 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442701 (v. 14 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442725 (v. 15 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442749 (v. 16 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316474542 (v. 17 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316474566 (v. 18 : pbk.)

  Subjects: CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Ability—Fiction. | Nuns—Fiction. | Japan—Fiction. | Science fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / General. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mercenary and Knight: Encounter and Clash

  Another_Hero.

  1

  October 18, 12:30 AM

  On a mountain trail outside Folkestone, in southern England.

  Spread out before him were three knights and their commander, the Knight Leader. As well as the wielder of the Curtana Original, the mastermind behind the coup d’état: Second Princess Carissa.

  Here and elsewhere, the blades targeting Third Princess Vilian’s life were innumerable. But there was one man who blocked their path.

  William Orwell.

  A ruffian mercenary who, at one time, was in a position to be knighted.

  In his hand was the Ascalon: The product of a certain author, it was a legend embellished to the extreme. Everything about it was calculated to realize the effects of a sword that had never existed, a Soul Arm said to have the ability to theoretically slay a fifty-foot-long evil dragon.

  And the action he took with it was an extraordinarily simple one.

  He didn’t plunge into the enemy lines, cutting down knight after knight like a man possessed.

  He also didn’t use some sort of trap or trick to make fools out of the entire group at once.

  He simply swung the Ascalon from high to low.

  To cause the ground at his own feet to explode.

  A dull boom and a shock wave burst.

  An immense wall of dust rippled through the air, a curtain drawing over the knights’ vision in an instant. The rumblings that shook the ground were earthquake-like, and even the brawny warhorses whinnied in fear.

  “Damn!!” cursed the Knight Leader.

  Several of his knights fired off arrows at ground zero, but it was all in vain.

  As the evening breeze blew the dust away…

  It was empty. All that was left was the ground where the Ascalon had hit and the eerie cracks in it.

  “I see. You’re thinking of Vilian’s safety first and foremost. If the battle here gets chaotic, you could all just die,” muttered the second princess to herself, soothing the steed she rode with a light touch. “…It may look like you’re dealing with things calmly, but you’re also exposing your weakness. In your prime, you would’ve been able to fight us and protect that unsatisfactory sister of mine.”

  “How shall we proceed, ma’am?” asked the Knight Leader.

  Carissa exhaled, seeming to find this dull. “Bring me two heads.” She reaffirmed her grip on the sword, which lacked a blade. “I’ll make sure the Curtana Original is working and get used to wielding it. I want results by the time I’m finished.”

  “Understood, ma’am.”

  “Your enemy will be an old friend. Don’t pull any punches.”

  “I assure you, I have no acquaintances within the enemy ranks.”

  With only that, the Knight Leader walked into the darkness, without even so much as getting onto his horse.

  The enemy was close.

  At this distance, his own two legs would get him there faster.

  2

  Third Princess Vilian was in the arm of a certain mercenary.

  Said mercenary carried her in one arm and a sword larger than her in the other, but his movements weren’t weighed down. As a matter of fact, William Orwell’s voyage was not that of a normal human at all.

  You couldn’t say he was running. Much like a thrown ball, each step arced over twenty meters at a bound. He used not only the ground but tree trunks and branches as footholds, leaping and leaping.

  The blue moonlight was striking.

  The biting cold was comforting.

  The unique feeling of weightlessness seemed like a release from the clinging sense of entrapment.

  The mercenary and the princess moving under the night sky were like two characters in a picture book.

  It wasn’t a real throne room, where she was toyed with as a pawn in worthless political games. It was a scene out of a children’s story, of a king’s lands, where anything could happen.

  “Hee-hee…”

  A smile formed on the princess’s lips.

  She didn’t know why she had laughed. Maybe it was her relief at escaping a direct crisis. Maybe it was her joy at finally outdoing her sister Carissa, who had always seemed like an unscalable wall. Maybe it was the fact that even one person was willing to stand up for her. Or maybe the scenery before her eyes simply struck her as beautiful.

  Whatever the reason, she laughed.

  She opened her mouth wide and laughed for the first time in a long time. A defenseless laugh, having cast off all her fetters as princess of a kingdom—a laugh like any other girl would have.

  “Ah-ha-h
a!! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

  Her arms and legs swung; she laughed so hard she thought she might slip out of William’s hand, but the mercenary didn’t particularly stop her.

  Instead, William Orwell eventually descended onto a dark mountain path.

  He let the princess down gently. Vilian asked him with a conspiratory giggle, “Well, what will we do now?”

  “Run, Your Highness. Somewhere safe.”

  As he answered, William proceeded into a thicket a short distance from the trail. There was a small hill there about a meter high, probably made out of dirt, with a rag resting on top. William removed it to reveal a horse made of metal, its four legs folded up.

  Vilian looked at the letters engraved on the silver horse’s surface, then made a dubious face. “Bayard…?”

  “It doesn’t have effects like the ones the sixteenth-century author dreamed of, but it has camouflage to escape magical searches. As long as nobody sees you with their naked eye, the Knights will not find you.”

  “I—I see.”

  “Bayard has been programmed with the location of a Necessarius hideout. Unlike those old fools in Canterbury, no sorcerer who knows real combat would forsake you.”

  The third princess let out a very slight sigh.

  The mercenary continued to inspect Bayard, completely unaware. “I will follow you anon, so please get onto Bayard, ma’am. I will take care of the Knights. I will be sure to keep any pursuit to a minimum, so you may rest assured—”

  William’s words stopped midsentence.

  The reason had to do with Vilian’s fingertips.

  The third princess’s face was downcast, and she’d reached out to softly grip his clothes.

  “Please stop,” she said abruptly, smiling a little. “What would you have me do after fleeing from here? My life would be saved, but what then? My sister will have control of all Britain within moments, and as I hide, alone and afraid, they will drag me out to the gallows. Either I will be killed now or killed shortly after. Isn’t that the only difference here?”

  Her smile had no life in it. William Orwell watched her in silence.

  “And there is no guarantee the Necessarius hideout Bayard will bring me to will take me in. Even if I am of the royal family. They have no need to take the risk of protecting me, the third princess, who has no real strength or authority to begin with.”

  The princess’s eyes wavered as though she was looking for him to refute her.

  “So please, stay your efforts. I’ve given up trusting anyone. Yes, that’s right—even the Knight Leader, who was always there to offer a helping hand, tried to kill me during a coup d’état. And you’re the same, aren’t you? Once something compelling occurs, you’ll betray me in the end, won’t you? So stop this, please. I do not trust you. I choose not to.”

  Vilian’s words continued alone, carefully controlled to avoid faltering.

  “I am sure I will go to my death hating this country and the world. You have no need to fight any further, either. You may try your hardest and wield your sword for someone who doesn’t trust you, but it would all be empty, wouldn’t it?”

  This, in other words, was what the third princess, Vilian, was saying:

  Abandon me.

  No matter how strong the mercenary, he was but one man. If Carissa’s forces, having taken control of the nation itself, were to clash with him, it was obvious that William Orwell would not escape unscathed.

  That was why she spoke thusly.

  Vilian was ordering him to be disgusted with her and leave this place.

  “…”

  William released the Ascalon to the ground beside him—

  —to move both of his now-free hands.

  “Hya?!”

  The unintentional yelp came from Vilian. The mercenary put his hands underneath the princess’s arms, then picked her up as though she were a small child.

  “U-um, I…”

  Ignoring Vilian, who was terribly surprised, William placed her on Bayard’s saddle. After that, he lightly stroked the metal horse’s neck area. As though this had sent some kind of signal, Bayard’s legs slowly unfolded and it rose.

  Now that Vilian was looking down at William, he took her hand and wrapped it firmly around the reins before he spoke.

  “Please rest assured.”

  He did not smile.

  He did not know how to set others at ease, so he displayed it through his actions.

  “Even if you don’t trust me, my reason to fight for you will not change at all.”

  “Wait—”

  Before Vilian could finish, William Orwell lightly rapped the back of his hand on Bayard’s body.

  In response, the metal horse began to move.

  The sudden burst of motion threw the third princess backward, and she unintentionally tightened her grip on the reins. Bayard had fully automatic controls, so she wouldn’t be able to figure out how to disengage it quickly. In the meantime, the distance between them simply opened wider and wider.

  “You fool…”

  Unable to jump down, either, Vilian gripped the reins with her small hands tightly enough to crush them.

  She’d said all that to get that mercenary away from the jaws of death, and all it had done was isolate him even more. The fact made her clench her teeth in frustration.

  “Those weren’t the words I wanted to hear, you blasted fool!!”

  3

  William Orwell stared into the darkness until Bayard had vanished from view.

  Eventually, he relaxed his shoulders, then picked Ascalon up off the ground.

  Feeling a person’s presence, he slowly turned around.

  “The third princess is that way, then?”

  The familiar voice belonged to his old friend and chief of the Knights.

  “But why do you stand in my way now? Acqua of the Back is a member of the Roman Orthodox Church’s God’s Right Seat. He should have no reason to risk his life for our nation’s third princess.”

  The mercenary replied not with words but with action.

  The lump of steel was over eleven feet long and weighed over four hundred and forty pounds. He swung it sideways.

  The sound of air splitting.

  A flash of light.

  Not many would have been able to notice that he’d flipped the huge sword over, then used the sharp, thick spike near the base of the back to launch a giant nearby boulder.

  The mountainside near them exploded into pieces. Earth and sand flowed across the path, completely blocking off the thin trail continuing behind William. It functioned both to prevent anyone from pursuing the third princess and to block William’s own escape route.

  While the knights around them were surprised and set their guards, only their leader, his old friend, nodded quietly. “I see. No matter what your attachment, it doesn’t change what you need to do. That way of thinking is so truly like you.”

  “…” William, holding the heavy Ascalon in one hand parallel to the ground, glanced about at their surroundings.

  A semicircle with an approximately thirty-meter radius, with the mercenary at its center. That was the encirclement the silver-armored knights had created. Swords, spears, axes, bows, maces, and many other weapons glinted in the moonlight.

  They numbered a bit under forty.

  As he watched the Knight Leader, who stood at the center of them, William’s lips moved slightly.

  “…More men to die.”

  His few words caused the atmosphere near the knights surrounding him to become highly charged, but once again, the Knight Leader alone nodded frankly.

  “We may be bolstered to a degree by the Curtana’s power, but even now, not many would be able to keep up with you,” he admitted, sticking his thumb to his chest. “I will duel you.”

  “This is a battlefield,” spat William. “I’ve no interest in your courtly chivalry. If you want me, then all of you come at me. If you would prefer not to die needlessly, then remove yourselves posthast
e.”

  “Don’t worry,” said the Knight Leader, shaking an arm.

  Suddenly, there was a longsword in his hand with a blade about an inch wide.

  The two-and-a-half-foot sword was optimized for knights to use while riding their horses. However, the silver-colored surface of this particular sword was covered in something dark red and coarse.

  “I meant it in the old sense—a duel to the death.”

  Pok! The surface of the Knight Leader’s dark-red longsword bubbled.

  It wasn’t a mere chemical reaction. Each one of the bubbles was the size of a basketball. They were giant, clearly bigger than the sword’s thickness, and in the blink of an eye, they multiplied into dozens, even hundreds. Then, all at once, the entire shape crumbled.

  A new blade began to form.

  A ten-foot-long sword, much like the Ascalon William wielded.

  “Hrunting?”

  The name appeared in an old legend. Tempered in the blood spatters of enemies it slayed, the mythical magic sword was said to grow sharper with each strong opponent it killed.

  “…The decade since you left—it’s right here. I am no longer the one who fell to you at Dover.”

  The Knight Leader, holding a Soul Arm of the same name as the legendary sword, spoke quietly and simply.

  “Allow me to use my decade to test the fruit your decade has borne.”

  That was the signal.

  Each wielding his weapon in order to kill a superhuman monster, the clash between mercenary and knight began.

  Sound vanished.

  Light scattered.

  William and the Knight Leader had simply jumped directly at each other, hitting the Ascalon and Hrunting together. Despite the simple act, the aftereffects that flew all around them were enormous.

  A few moments later, the blast of wind came.

  With a thundering boom, a dome-shaped shock wave expanded out from the two. The blast winds reached one hundred meters out, mowing down the fully armed knights encircling them. Trees were ripped out, the mountainside was chipped away, and the asphalt trail shattered like glass.

  By the time the shock wave passed, neither of the two combatants was where he had been before.

  They had jumped into the night sky.