“Got it.” Louise nodded, her face blank.
“No limits on type of spells used. You can go first… my treat.”
“All right.”
“Okay… good luck.”
Louise brandished her wand. In the air, Tabitha began to shake the rope, wobbling Saito left and right. Spells like “fireball” have high accuracy rates, and as long as the target doesn’t move i can hit it. However, Louise had more than that to worry about – she had to make the spell work in the first place.
Louise thought hard. What would work? Wind? Fire? Water and earth are both out… they don’t have many spells that can cut ropes. Fire spells work the best here… and here Louise remembered that that is exactly what Kirche is good at.
Kirche’s fireballs will cut that rope easily. I can’t fail this one.
She picked fireballs anyway. Aiming a small one at the target, she recited the short spell. If she fails, Saito gets Kirche’s sword, and to someone esteemed like Louise, this is completely unacceptable. She finished reciting, and with her utmost concentration, flicked her wand. If it works, a fireball should come out of the tip.
But nothing came out of the wand. The next moment, the wall behind Saito exploded. The shock wave shook Saito even harder. “What the hell?! Are you trying to kill me?!” Saito’s angry yell drifted down towards them.
The rope remained intact. If she thought she could use the shock wave to break the rope, she wasn’t thinking. A large crack appeared on the wall.
Kirche collapsed in laughter. “ZERO! ZERO LOUISE! You broke the wall instead of the rope! Now that’s talent !”
Louise looked down.
“Really, I’ve got to ask you… what the heck did you do to make it blow up like that?! Oh god… my sides hurt…”
Louise frustratingly held her fists and knelt to the ground.
“Next is my turn.” Kirche aimed at the rope like a hunter would his prey. Tabitha was shaking the rope, so it was tough aiming. Despite that, Kirche kept a brisk, easy smile. Chanting a short spell, Kirche waved her wand born out from habit, fire spells are her specialty after all.
From her wand appeared a melon-sized fireball, which flew towards Saito striking the rope, and burned it loose in an instant. Saito started to fall to the ground, but Tabitha waved her staff from the rooftop, casting a Spell of Levitation on him, causing him to slowly land on the ground.
“I win, Vallière!” Kirche announced in earnest.
Louise sat down, pulling on the grass with her hands in despair.
Meanwhile, Fouquet watched them from the bushes. The thief saw the crack on the walls from Louise’s blast. What kind of magic is that? She asked for a fireball spell, but nothing came out of her wand, and the wall blew up. I’ve never heard of a spell that can make things explode like this. Fouquet shook his head. More importantly, I can’t let go of this chance. Fouquet started chanting a long spell, waving his wand at the ground. When finished, a mild smile formed on his face. Following Fouquet's voice, a bulge formed on the ground. Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt was showing his talent.
“What a shame, Vallière!” Kirche laughed.
Her battle lost, Louise reluctantly and gloomily slacked her shoulders. Saito watched her, a complicated emotion on his face. “…why don’t you uh… untie me first?” He managed a low tone. He couldn’t move with the rope wrapped around him in layers.
Kirche smiled, “Oh, why of course, I’ll be glad to!”
Right then, Kirche felt something behind her. She turned around. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “What… what the heck is this?!” Her jaw dropped. What she saw was a huge earth golem moving towards them.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!” Kirche ran away screaming.
Saito yelled behind her, “Hey! Hey! Don’t go! Don’t leave me here!” He was in a panic. After all, he had never seen such an enormous golem, and it was heading towards him. “Wh…what the hell is this?! It’s huge!” Saito wanted to run, but the ropes had him tight on the ground.
Louise recovered her senses and ran towards him.
“You… why are you tied up like this?!”
“Isn’t that your idea?!”
Above them, the golem raised its foot.
Saito lost hope. “Louise, get out of there!” He yelled.
“Dammit… this rope…” Louise tried in vain to untie the knots.
The golem’s foot descended. Saito closed his eyes.
In that instant, Tabitha’s wind dragon veered from the skies grabbing the two with its talons and pulled them out from under the foot with only inches to spare, before it came down crushing everything under it in a heartbeat.
Hanging under the wind dragon, Saito and Louise watched the golem. Saito shakily asked, “Wh-wh-what…the hell is that?”
“I’m not sure… but it’s one gigantic earth golem! Somebody must have summoned that!”
“Something that big?!”
“…whoever summoned this must be at least a triangle level mage.”
Saito bit his lip, and thought of Louise, who tried to untie him despite her danger. “That aside… why didn’t you run?”
“No respectable master would desert her familiar like that.” She answered frankly.
Saito watched her quietly. For some reason, he found her quite attractive… just now.
Fouquet, standing on the golem’s shoulder, smiled and paid no attention to the wind dragon or Kirche escaping. A dark cape covered him from head to toe so they could not make out his face. Fouquet transformed the golem fist to a metallic composition, and ordered it to punch the wall. A dull thump sounded as the metallic fist hit in the wall, collapsing it. Under the dark cape, Fouquet smirked.
The golem transported Fouquet in with its hand, and the thief entered through the hole and into the treasure vault. It stored valuables of every kind, but Fouquet had only one target.
The Staff of Destruction.
A row of staffs of many sorts hung on the wall, but one came to Fouquet as completely unlike a staff. It was a mail long, and made with a sort of metal that he had never seen before. He looked at the metal plate right under it, reading, “Staff of Destruction, do not remove.” His smile grew to a grin.
Fouquet picked up the Staff of Destruction, and was shocked by its lightness. Just what is this thing made of? He had no time to ponder and ran back on to the golem’s shoulder.
Fouquet burned a message onto the wall before leaving: “I have the Staff of Destruction. – Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt.”
With its caped summoner sitting on its shoulder, the golem leaped over the Academy walls, landed with a huge thud, and moved toward the grasslands and beyond.
Above the golem, the wind dragon circled around. Tabitha, sitting on the wind dragon, waved her staff for a Spell of Levitation, moving Saito and Louise onto the dragon’s back. She waved again, the air around Saito resonated into slicing waves, shredding the binding rope into pieces.
“Thank you,” he said to Tabitha in gratitude.
Her face remained blank, only nodding in acceptance.
Saito watched the gigantic earth golem, and asked Louise, “That mage… broke the wall. But what for?”
“The treasure vault.” Tabitha answered.
“He was holding something when it came out of that hole.”
“It was a thief. But… that was quite bold.”
They watched as the giant golem suddenly crumbled in mid-run, into a large mound of dirt.
They descended to the ground.
Brightly illuminated by the moons, there was nothing else besides the mountain of dirt. Just like that, the summoning mage had disappeared into the night.