A Certain Magical Index Vol. 18 Read online

  As Florice busily muttered, Kamijou grabbed her ankle restraint with his right hand.

  With a snap, the shackle fell to pieces.

  “See? Should’ve just done this from the start.”

  “Uh…Ah…”

  Kamijou then went around behind her and destroyed the shackles binding her hands, too. “And there we go. Ha-ha. This means you’ll have a life debt to pay, my Florice—”

  “Wait, gwaaah?! If you break them without thinking, you’ll—”

  Bfweeee.

  Naturally, an alarm went off in the freight train.

  He sensed people rustling about in the cars in front of them and behind them, and then he began to hear the physical clanking of armored footsteps.

  Florice turned a bloodshot death glare on Kamijou. “N-now what?! The game’s only ten minutes in, and it’s already over!!”

  “N-no, it’s too early to give up!!” said Kamijou offhandedly, heading for the iron door.

  Since it was a freight train, there was a large sliding door on the side wall of the car, in addition to the doors in the front and back, used for loading and unloading freight. Kamijou unlatched it, then used both hands to nudge it open a little.

  A gust of wind blew into the car.

  “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know—probably close to Folkestone by now?”

  As he listened, Kamijou glanced outside the door again to where the train was headed.

  Spread out before him was a flat green plain. But as far as he could tell from how fast the ground was zooming by behind him, it was painfully obvious what would happen if he jumped out carelessly.

  So he said, “We’ll just have to jump.”

  “Are you stupid or something? If you want to kill yourself, then leave me out of it!!”

  “No, not that. We’re coming up on a river! If we want to escape, that’s our only chance!!”

  “What? We can’t do that. It’d take a miracle to survive diving from a high place using water as a cushion. It happens all the time in Hollywood but never in real li—”

  “Let’s go. If we hold hands, there’s nothing to be scared of!!”

  “Huh? Huh? Wait—we’re actually going to die, you moron!!”

  The freight train passed over an old stone bridge.

  Florice was still going on and on, so Kamijou grabbed her arm and leaped out of the open sliding door.

  The surface of the water was about ten meters or so down.

  Florice, as though terrified of the drop, clung to his torso and, with the blood vessels in her temples bulging, shouted, “It’s all over!!”

  “No, we’re fine! If we use the water’s surface as a cushion—!!”

  “That river?! That river is only three feet deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!”

  “…………………………………………………………………!!”

  Kamijou’s eyes became points.

  He swung his neck around to look overhead. Several knights holding longbows were on the freight train as it passed over the stone bridge, but the way their shoulders had relaxed made it look like they were completely astonished. Yes, sort of in the Well, it’s our job, so we could fire, but it would definitely be a complete waste of taxpayer money kind of way.

  “Gah, damn it!!” shouted Florice when suddenly a light came out of both of her shoulders.

  There were some kind of metal pieces attached to them. Ignoring the law of conservation of mass, two slim metal rods, akin to umbrella handles, snapped and stretched out to the left and right.

  “Grab hold!! I’ll try to cancel our speed with my wings!!”

  With a bshhh noise, a film of light spurted out, connecting the two umbrella handles together. It was like a cockroach spreading its wings. When Kamijou saw it, his face drew back slightly.

  This was what he was thinking:

  Um. Did you hear me explain what my right hand does?

  You’re going to slow us down using magic?

  …I’ve got a really, really bad feeling about this.

  7

  Ascalon, shining in a rainbow of colored lights.

  The Knight Leader’s longsword, entirely the bloody, dark-red color of rust.

  Thirty feet, separating sword and sword.

  “Here I come,” announced William Orwell quietly.

  “Come on, then,” answered the Knight Leader softly.

  Roar!!

  The Knight Leader’s long-range slashing attacks flew at William from every direction.

  He’d analyzed the spells and Soul Arms appearing in the stories of knights from various cultural spheres and joined them together. As a result of his compression, like a distended star collapsing into a black hole, he’d created a single firing-range attack as an evolution of his references. On top of being a thorough investigation of several attacks that could land a one-sided strike at an enemy from impossible distances, the slender, rust-like sword shards joined together to fire, making the Knight Leader’s slashing attacks come from all sides.

  Meanwhile, William used only his right hand to swing his big eleven-foot sword upward, then turned his wrist to brandish its back surface.

  The sword glowed crimson.

  Like this, it represented an ax.

  The mercenary unleashed a straight vertical strike, but not to beat back the attacks coming at him from every direction.

  He aimed at the ground.

  Boom!! The very earth itself shook.

  The earth sank deep around William in a radius of about twenty yards. It reached where the Knight Leader stood as well, and in an instant, countless slashing attacks carved through the air over the mercenary’s head, which was now ten feet lower.

  “Wha—?”

  Whether because his certain-kill strike had missed or because his footing had become unstable, the Knight Leader’s movements became ever so slightly imbalanced.

  In terms of time, it was only a moment.

  But by swinging his blade straight down, William Orwell could use his crouched posture to its fullest, explosively straining his muscles to rush right up to his foe.

  Ga-boom!! The violent sound of his footstep followed a moment later.

  The ground, already sliding away, began to completely fall apart.

  Ascalon’s glow shifted from red to blue. He turned his wrist and flipped the double-edge sword over once again, then reset his stance, this time aiming the thin, razor-like edge forward, before swinging it in a horizontal arc to cleave through the Knight Leader’s torso—

  All as if to say how long or short his attack range was didn’t matter in the slightest.

  As if silently implying it would be impossible to disrupt their fight’s outcome with such petty tricks.

  However…

  “I don’t remember saying my attack range was the only pattern I could control, you wannabe mercenary.”

  Sound disappeared.

  Then the Knight Leader simply vanished from before William’s eyes. Even with his kinetic vision, he couldn’t follow the enemy’s motions.

  “‘Movement speed.’”

  A voice from behind him—

  Without turning around, William thrust his sword behind him at the approaching wind pressure.

  Kreeeee!!

  Steel clanged together.

  A dull pain came back to William’s wrist from the contrived position. Resolutely ignoring it, the mercenary pivoted, body and all.

  The blade’s color went from blue to green. He turned his wrist over and put Ascalon’s blade spine forward. The can opener–like spike attached about midway up shot for the Knight Leader, who had taken his back.

  “‘Armament weight.’”

  But then came an unexpected impact.

  An even more powerful recoil than the earlier strike he’d parried from an unstable position assailed him. It was like someone bashing a shovel into a boulder, and William’s body almost careened in the other direction.

  The mercenary’s feet slid, inch by inch, over
the black soil.

  A preparatory movement of only one inch.

  During it, the Knight Leader raised his dark-red longsword aloft.

  “‘Severing power.’”

  “?!”

  The eeriness in those words made William give up his parry.

  He immediately jumped back to create distance instead. He dodged the Knight Leader’s blade by millimeters, and it struck the black soil with a clatter.

  Kaboom!!

  The earth split.

  William hastily jumped farther to the side, lest the crevice swallow him whole.

  And as he did—

  “‘Attack range.’”

  —dj-bah!! rang an unpleasant sound.

  A shallow cut opened in William Orwell’s side.

  It seemed the man could walk the walk, too, he thought.

  Attack range wasn’t the only thing he could control. “Severing power” to slice through anything, “armament weight” to create immense destructive force, “movement speed” that nobody could catch up with…and—though he hadn’t seen them yet—in all likelihood, “durability” to absolutely prevent destruction, a “specialty usage” needed to kill a specific monster, and “precision” to make it aim for vital spots on its own.

  As a result of performing compression upon compression upon the mythical Soul Arms and spells that appeared in warrior cultures from across western Europe and elsewhere, he’d arrived at simplified attack patterns…and he had obtained them, now using them freely as his method of attack.

  “You’ll die,” the man holding the dark-red “weapon” said quietly, looking at the blood flowing from William.

  The Knight Leader’s weapon was no longer Hrunting.

  It wasn’t even a sword.

  “I’ve seen your all. As you are now, you cannot overcome my blade.”

  Just a weapon.

  It would annihilate all its foes, human and monster alike…A tool that never should have been made.

  A single strike from it was overwhelmingly sharp, overwhelmingly heavy, overwhelmingly fast, overwhelmingly hard, overwhelmingly long, possessing exclusivity to cleave through monsters that blades could not cut, and accurately guiding their destruction through the most efficient weak points.

  Earlier, the Knight Leader had compared his attacks with a stellar explosion. In contrast to those stars that never accumulated enough mass and changed into neutron stars or interstellar clouds, one should call his current attack an “ultimate black hole” created at the end of a star’s overexpansion.

  One could try to dodge, if not for its “attack range” and “movement speed.” One could try to block, if not for its “severing power” and “armament weight.” One could try to break it, if not for its “durability.”

  If the Knight Leader used all his power, he’d end this with his next attack.

  If he cut William Orwell in two, the battle would be decided.

  Why hadn’t he done so before now?

  Was it sentiment?

  “Will you throw down your sword and leave the United Kingdom?”

  The Knight Leader slowly moved the “weapon” gripped in his hands.

  “Or will you and your sword become part of its soil?”

  The longsword’s tip pointed at William in the distance.

  “I’ll let you choose. Which would you like?”

  The result was plain to see.

  William Orwell was not unharmed. Thanks to the gash in his left shoulder, he’d lost feeling in one hand. Because his side had been cut, he’d been losing even more blood. And more importantly, because he’d lost his battle in Academy City, he couldn’t even display his true potential.

  If the Knight Leader’s strongest-class attack was as he’d advertised, then no matter how much the mercenary struggled, he would never have a chance at winning.

  Which made it obvious what he should do here.

  “…Before I choose, I will ask this,” said William, still holding Ascalon. The Knight Leader frowned, and William continued, “Do you believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you support the second princess and kill the third princess, this nation will be saved?”

  Mercenaries didn’t normally speak much.

  Which meant there was a reason he had to deliver these words.

  “The first princess’s intelligence, the second princess’s military prowess, and the third princess’s virtue…Can you state for certain that the one you choose and the ones you forsake are the correct ones?”

  “…I cannot call it ideal,” said the Knight Leader after a pause. But the light in his eyes never wavered. “But history is already on the move. We cannot turn back time, so all we can do is join a side. The most beneficial side for this nation’s future.”

  William nodded. “I see.”

  And then he moved.

  He brought up his bloodied left hand to join his right on Ascalon’s hilt. Its white cloth, wrapped to prevent sliding, quickly turned red.

  “Have you made your decision?” asked the Knight Leader, still not moving. “Will you flee in defeat or die?”

  “No.” William Orwell rejected the choice itself. “These are my two options: kill you or not kill you.”

  “…I see. You’ve made your choice, then.” The Knight Leader sighed.

  He didn’t say it directly, but William’s goal was probably to rescue the third princess.

  The mercenary’s retreat would secure a perfect success for their invasion and subjugation of the entire nation, which would ensure the third princess’s execution. As the last bastion against this fate, he was unlikely to run.

  “You will not withdraw, no matter the outcome?”

  “There is no point in talking,” answered William immediately.

  The head of the knights sucked his teeth. “Frankly speaking, I haven’t the heart to pass judgment on the third princess. And there are distasteful things about how the second princess, Carissa, does things, too.”

  “…”

  “But Carissa is already on the move for revolution. Any knight in this nation would tell you she isn’t the type of person to let excuses stop her.”

  The battle was already over.

  The Knight Leader, his finishing blow at the ready, spoke his final words to his old friend.

  “Now that history has begun its upheaval, no half measures can be allowed. If this revolution drags on in the form of internal strife, the United Kingdom’s national power as a whole will diminish, and foreign enemies will take advantage of it to easily attack and defeat us.”

  Was it in accordance with a knight’s chivalry, which asked for mercy unto enemies?

  That was where the reason lay for the head of the Knights taking up his sword and fighting, from beginning to end.

  “To save this nation, our only choice is to lay down our arms at once and create a new order. And the question there is who will stand at the top. If Her Majesty returns to the throne, we will not escape our current crisis. Which means it must be someone else. Between the first princess’s intelligence, the second princess’s military prowess, and the third princess’s charisma, which of them will be able to fight back against the approaching crisis should she ascend the throne? One barely needs to think about it.”

  “Nonsense.” William Orwell cut it all down with a single word. “Did you think adding more unnecessary words in the name of justice would fill the hole of your own barbaric acts?”

  “And yet you still do not speak of your own intentions even now.”

  “Is it something that needs to be spoken of?”

  That was all the mercenary said, ignoring the pain from his wound-covered body.

  The Knight Leader, however, had predicted this response. “You want to warn me of the danger of the nation losing its virtue to engage wholly in military matters. But I would answer that there exists no absolute, correct order of precedence. We can only decide which card to choose.”

  William, possessing many a means to attack, wielding a sword that h
ad the gall to have his knight’s crest on the side, said, “I see. But I have already shown you my reason.”

  “What?”

  “Pah. That is something I’ve no need to speak of.”

  He didn’t need prospects of victory.

  Gripping his bloodstained sword hilt even more tightly, the mercenary stared straight into the face of the knight.

  He was always that kind of man. The Knight Leader narrowed his eyes slightly and brought the tip of his sword away and directly above, assuming a downswing posture.

  “Severing power,” “armament weight,” “movement speed,” “durability,” “attack range,” “specialty usage,” “precision”—an ultimate attack that connoted all of them.

  “Then…”

  The Knight Leader had no hesitation.

  He said one last thing to his enemy he’d known for so long.

  “If you will not withdraw, you will die here.”

  The two moved at the same time.

  Bang!! The blast of a shock wave rang out through the night.

  William Orwell sprinted only forward, using all the strength at his disposal to close with his enemy as fast as he could.

  Meanwhile, the Knight Leader took a step but not to move. It was to shift his center and bring the sword he held in both hands down with all his might.

  He had no need to run up to his enemy. All he had to do was swing his sword down to unleash an attack with incredible range. Its overwhelming movement speed would prevent evasion, its overwhelming severing power and armament weight would prevent defense, and its overwhelming durability rating would prevent the Knight Leader’s blade from breaking.

  This was what it meant to kill for certain.

  Sure enough, the Knight Leader swung the longsword down without mercy a moment before the mercenary plunged into close range.

  Shh-pow!! went the sound of slicing air.

  And a moment later, a slashing attack that was too enormous to be from a sword crashed toward William from directly above. The warrior reacted instantly and repositioned Ascalon above his head, but—

  Ga-keeeee!!

  Their slashes collided and bounced away.

  Even the Knight Leader’s attack, which should have been a certain kill, was canceled out.