Toaru Majutsu no Index SP c2

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter2
Mark s.p.a.ce[edit]
A completely ordinary stone apartment building existed within the London Borough of Lambeth. One room of that ordinary apartment was a base of a magic cabal large enough to shake all of the United Kingdom.

The cabal was known as the Dawn-Colored Sunlight.

They did not create the grand towers or palaces used by witches in picture books. They divided up their a.s.sets as much as possible and gathered only the necessary things and people at one of their bases when they were needed to perform some kind of ceremonial magic. These bases were not strange secret lairs. Instead, they were apartments or other kinds of rented rooms. If they did not do all that, their losses due to attacks from the anti-magician organization of the Anglican Church would be too great.

The magic side was referred to as a single ent.i.ty, but many different factions and forces existed within it. While some of them were divided by their specific doctrine like the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican Church (although those two were not magic cabals), some magic cabals were created solely to maximize profit.

All sorts of different types of cabals existed and any number of things sent sparks flying between cabals. They chaotically grew, chaotically fought, chaotically destroyed each other, and finally reached some kind of strange overall balance. Like that, the different powers continued to grow and shrink below the surface where normal people never saw them.

“Ahh, now this is nice. I could get used to having one of these rather than a fireplace.”

The boss of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight, a girl named Birdway, was relaxing within a strange item she had ordered from an eastern island nation. It was called a kotatsu and it was something like a combination of a table and a bed. In order to use this strange item, she had created a “no shoes zone” in the room.

All that was well and good, but it was only the beginning of fall. It was too early to be bringing out a kotatsu. It seemed the master of the room really wanted to try out the item she had ordered from j.a.pan.

The blonde girl who looked about 12 stuck her slender, black stocking-covered legs under the thick blanket as she flipped through a magazine and cut up some reddish-brown yokan.

The t.i.tle of the magazine was Einstein.

It was a well-known science magazine.

“With the s.p.a.ce age finally here, it seems the hot topics are acquiring lunar resources and developing low-cost launch methods. …Wait, how would you use ceremonial magic in s.p.a.ce? The protection from leylines would weaken and the entire concept of the cardinal direction as well as up and down would be gone, so how would you create a temple? N-no, but you might be able to use that to your advantage and create some kind of never-before-seen ceremonial grounds that rotates in all 360 degrees. If you did that, you might end up with some kind of never-before-seen effect!! Dammit. I should have taken the measurements before when I had the chance!!”

“You can’t, boss,” kindly said a blond man wearing black formal clothes and a scarf.

He was pouring black tea for himself into a refined j.a.panese teacup.

“That is of the science side. It is outside of our jurisdiction.”

“I know, I know. …You never let me have any fun,” said Birdway with a click of her tongue in response to his realism.

But pointing out things like that could be said to be the blond man’s job.

“What is going on today? Why did you suddenly yell at me to go buy you this magazine?”

“That would be because of this.”

Birdway flipped the page and pointed toward an article t.i.tled, “Let’s Resolve the Energy Crisis! A New Weapon Appears to Advance Oil Drilling in the Arctic Ocean!!”

The blond subordinate raised his face from the magazine.

“You can’t, boss.”

“Not that, you idiot. You have guts to start lecturing me before I’ve even told you what I’m talking about.”

Birdway threw some of the cut-up yokan into her mouth and made a slurping noise as she sipped at her green tea. Her subordinate was fully permeated with European culture, so he looked displeased at the noise. The girl gave a satisfied (and evil) grin before continuing the discussion.

“Some people are saying it would be a problem if the development reaches the Arctic.”

“…? Can parts for spiritual items be found there?”

Forests and mountains where magical plants could be harvested were a vital resource for magic cabals, but the Arctic Ocean held no value for the Dawn-Colored Sunlight. They did not rely on marine products.

“No, not that.” Birdway kicked her feet underneath the kotatsu. “Suspicion has arisen that the Dusk Exit is supporting the oil drilling team in the Arctic.”

“…A British Golden-style cabal like us.”

The blond subordinate clearly looked displeased at that. The Golden-style cabals were referred to as a group, but there were countless different types. The types of spells they used and goals they held were all different. The Dusk Exit was famous for being very wasteful and causing problems for others by using up limited personnel and resources.

There was no concept of equivalent exchange in modern magic.

How great a result could one gain from a limited resource? It could be called a means of cheating each other using the exchange rate. As a result, the failure of a large-scale ceremony was all the more disastrous.

However, the Dusk Exit did not see it that way.

It was similar to spending a hundred million yen on a piece of gold the size of your fingertip.

They were a group of savages who acted like intellectuals and they were often criticized as not even being magicians because they abandoned all thought and tried to make everything work by brute force.

“A few pieces of technology connected to Academy City are involved with this oil drilling.” Birdway dug through a small basket that held a few different types of teacakes. “Thanks to that, both the science side and the magic side are mad at the other claiming they have ‘crossed the line’. On top of that, it seems the Dusk Exit wants to use the funds they gain from the oil drilling to deal with a Portuguese market, so it seems there’s enough of a just cause.”

A market.

When they used that term, they referred to a magic cabal that dealt in human trafficking.

“A Portuguese market… So children?”

“Yes, as materials for spiritual items. They’ll just be used up. A human’s life force is used to refine magic power, but it seems they want to refine a large amount of magic power in an instant to get an explosive reaction from a large-scale spell.”

Birdway laughed and grabbed a quill that lay beside her. She wrote on a small piece of memo paper. The curves seemed extremely arbitrary, rough, and flowing like a celebrity’s signature. The verb “drawing” almost seemed more appropriate than “writing”.

After only 15 seconds, she had completed an exceedingly simplified charm.

“Apparently, the idiots in the Dusk Exit can only create a single copy of something like this using up three whole kids. As a fellow Golden-style magician, it almost gives me a headache.”

“…”

With her subordinate looking on silently, Birdway tapped her index finger in the center of the charm. That was enough to activate the spell which caused a few biscuits to pop out of the charm.

Birdway tossed a freshly baked biscuit into her mouth.

“This is only an estimate, but most likely, it will take only about 0.7 seconds for the children they use to be shattered both inside and out. They will be nothing but empty sh.e.l.ls by the end. Doesn’t that extreme wastefulness sound exactly like something they’d do? If the oil platform being developed is completed, the Dusk Exit will set up a distribution route using the funds they receive and that will be enough to create the framework for pitiful children to be sent flowing into the darkness.”

An unpleasant strength focused itself in the blond subordinate’s brow.

It may have seemed ridiculous, but he had his own sense of morality.

Meanwhile, Birdway tapped her finger on a photo in the science magazine with a casual expression on her face.

“And so those who claim to protect the peace are going to start by destroying this.”

“The ocean resources survey ship…?”

“It’s a large ship that is searching for areas filled with oil. It also has enough equipment and materials...o...b..ard to build an offsh.o.r.e oil platform. I mentioned that the Dusk Exit’s oil platform was still being developed, remember? Well, if this ship is sunk, their plan will be brought to a complete halt. It seems they don’t have the excess money needed to prepare a replacement ship.”

“What does any of this have to do with us?” asked the blond subordinate cautiously. “You couldn’t possibly be thinking of creating a united front with the Anglican Church or Academy City, could you? And even if we were to do it alone, the Dawn-Colored Sunlight would gain nothing from it.”

When the subordinate thought about it, the story may have been a good sob story, but it was so simple that it actually made him cautious. If “those who claim to protect the peace” had invited them, it could be a trap.

“No,” said Birdway denying all of that with a single word. “We have no obligation to go along with the Anglican Church or Academy City’s mission of self-satisfaction. If they were going to go and crush some s.h.i.tty cabal, I’d gladly just sit back and watch the show, but that’s not what this is about.”

“?”

“Ugh, what a pain. Just look at this.”

Birdway’s small finger slid to the side of the photo of the ocean resources survey ship. She pointed at a group photo of intellectuals wearing lab coats that had a caption under it saying, “The scientists who created the world’s largest survey ship.”

The blond subordinate let out a groan upon seeing that.

He recognized one of the faces.

It was Patricia Birdway.

He had heard that she had been invited as a guest researcher at a British science inst.i.tution due to the high praise her internet-published paper had received from scientists around the world, but he had never thought she would be enjoying an extended cruise after working on a project to create such a ridiculously huge ship.

“…A-a suppression mission is going to be carried out soon, right? And that will involve sinking that ship as well as everyone aboard?”

“Correct,” Birdway said in a solemn voice as she brought both her elbows up onto the kotatsu and folded her hands in front of her face. “Simply put, this is very bad. Please do something about it.”


Water spread out in every direction.

Possibly due to the Foehn phenomenon, the ocean surface glittered like it was midsummer despite the season actually being the beginning of autumn. The ocean wind grew warm and the sun sent out piercing rays of white light.

A single object floated amid it all: the Blue Research.

It was a survey ship meant to search for oil sleeping at the bottom of the ocean, but its shape was difficult to describe. One possible description was three 500 meter tankers lined up next to each other with a giant metal sheet on top. However, instead of a single metal sheet, multiple long narrow ones were lined up, creating intentional gaps between. It looked something like a giant moving set of artificial fishing ponds.

More than 30 cranes made of countless metal pipes covered the metal sheet and a winch with a small submarine hanging down was installed at one end. One portion was filled with the parts needed to construct the offsh.o.r.e oil platform and there were also three circular heliports with an H drawn in the middle. Sitting atop one of them was what was said to be an observation helicopter, but it was actually an attack helicopter. It was most likely there to drive back any pirates targeting the metal sheets or anything else of value.

Something floated above the world’s largest survey ship that was created from and filled with giant ma.s.ses of metal.

The object was 50 meters up.

As it flew silently through the air, it looked something like a fluttering b.u.t.terfly or a leaf caught in the wind. However, it was actually a card.

It was the ace of swords.

The sc.r.a.p of paper that was no more substantial than a commercial trading card landed atop the end of one of the dozens-of-meters-long cranes…or so it seemed. However, it actually stabbed deeply into the thick metal pillar with a slight slicing noise.

The number one was the beginning.

A change occurred that displayed that number.

“There we go,” said a man.

A blond man wearing black formal clothes and a scarf stood on the end of the crane as if he had appeared out of thin air. His name was Mark s.p.a.ce. He was the magician who had come to the Arctic Ocean on the orders of the boss of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight, Birdway, whose legs had been stuck under the kotatsu at their base.

(Hm. It seems I wasn’t noticed.)

Mark quickly checked around the area as he stood on the end of the crane. Instead of a thick wire, a large drill hung from the crane. In order to carry out the drilling from atop the unstable ship, the metal pillar had joints at set intervals so it could bend freely like an animal’s spine.

He could see a few workers from where he stood, but none of them were looking his way. …Well, that was not too surprising. They were worried about pirates approaching in small armed boats, not someone being blown in on the wind.

Mark’s objective was to recover Patricia Birdway who was aboard the large survey ship, the Blue Research. If he did not meet up with the girl and get her off the ship before the imminent attack, they would get wrapped up in it.

“I suppose I should get started.”

Mark sat down on the slanted crane with his legs to the side and slid down as if sliding down a banister. He controlled his speed by strengthening or weakening his grip on the edge of the crane using his white-gloved hand. When he silently and lightly landed on the roof of the driver’s seat box at the base of the crane, he used his momentum to immediately head down to the deck.

(Was Miss Patricia’s field of study marine geology?)

Mark ran along the ship while ducking through the gaps of the complex layout of pipes that were most likely for the crude oil and mud to pa.s.s through once it was drilled. As he ran, he pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket. Mark used tarot. The 22-card major arcana was more famous and included such cards as the Hierophant and the Lovers, but he specialized in the minor arcana. The minor arcana had 56 cards divided into the four suits of wands, cups, swords, and coins.

Those four suits could be used to create symbolic weapons of fire, water, wind, and earth respectively.

Of the four suits of the minor arcana, Mark s.p.a.ce specialized in the 14 sword cards that corresponded to wind.

That included the number cards from ace to 10 and the court cards which were the page, the knight, the queen, and the king. Also, Mark used special tarot cards that were optimized to be used as symbolic weapons that activated the spells used by Golden-style organizations.

(Really, that princess always asks for such ridiculous things. Although, if she foolishly handed me the major arcana, that would be a problem in its own way…)

Those 14 cards were the whole of the hand Mark had to use.

And he had already used the ace of swords in his entry, so…

(Thirteen left.)

As he travelled quickly across the ship, Mark rechecked his own strength.

The sword card symbolic weapons were not all equal. Nor were the ones with greater numbers stronger than the ones with lesser numbers. Even though they all had the attribute of yellow, the number changed the power that manifested itself in the real world, so the spell activated by each card was different.

He did not have 13 of a single spell. He had 13 different spells.

Gritting his teeth at what that meant, Mark stared forward as he ran.

(I will shake off all the danger using these and rescue Miss Patricia!!)


Mark s.p.a.ce had built up his determination, but…

“Mark! Do you have your handheld game system with you? Let’s make a friends connection.”

“No, um…”

The magician was seriously fl.u.s.tered as he stood within a small room filled with computers that used lasers or ultrasonic waves (he didn’t know the details) to search for oil at the bottom of the ocean. Somehow foolish-sounding electronic noises filled the room as if to mock him.

“Huh!? I didn’t get the Wind Angel Armor… Maybe you can’t get it with a simple friends connection. Or maybe it has to do with the date. O-okay, it’s sort of cheating, but let’s try again after I change the system’s calendar.”

“M-miss Patricia. There is something I must discuss with-…”

“C’mon, Mark!! I need your help to get the Wind Angel Armor!! Just by equipping it, you get more experience points, so I won’t be satisfied until I have it!!”

“Ee!! But this game’s balance is biased!! The G.o.ds from j.a.panese mythology clearly get the higher stats!!”

“Well, the game was made by a j.a.panese company for the j.a.panese market, so there’s no helping it. Even if you say it’s based around a school, I don’t have a good grasp of what a j.a.panese school is like,” said the small girl with a laugh as she munched on an apple pie that seemed to be freshly made. “Mgh. This is just so much better. I need to ask her for the recipe. Oh, this young American woman named Reffile who works in the ship’s kitchen baked this really good apple pie for me!”

Seeing Patricia like that calmed Mark down a little, but he was also reminded that the girl had the same blood running through her veins as her sister.

Mark had attempted to tell her he had something to tell her, but he had been cut off so quickly that he decided to change his tactic.

“W-was it really okay for me to intrude like this? I was just wondering if I was getting in the way of your work.”

“No, no. You don’t need to worry about that.” Patricia looked up from her handheld game and smiled. “This may be the world’s largest marine resources survey ship, but it’s really nothing more than a means to stand up to Academy City. Their ship is better when it comes to actual capability, but they wanted ours to be better than Academy City’s in some way. Since its sole purpose is to show off, it’s actually registered as a British ship even though the taxes would have been lower if it was registered with Panama.”

“Oh, I see,” Mark s.p.a.ce said arbitrarily as a sweat drop dripped down from his temple to his cheek.

He had a single problem.

(…How am I supposed to bring this up?)

Birdway, the boss of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight, worked to ensure that her younger sister Patricia did not find out about magic. There was of course an implicit understanding that all of her subordinates would go along with that as well. That meant he had to convince Patricia without using the word magic and had to get her off of the Blue Research without letting her detect any magical phenomena.

(If it comes down to it, I can use the helicopter on the Blue Research to escape if I must do so without magic. Right now, I need to worry more about how to convince Miss Patricia to leave rather than the means of escape.)

“Mwooooohhhh!! What am I supposed to do!?”

“?”

Patricia looked at Mark with a puzzled expression as he held his head in his hands and tore at his hair.

“My sister really does worry too much. I can’t believe she went to the effort of chartering a helicopter to send you here. I can deal with everything here myself. And it must be tough for you too, Mark. She just sends you all over the place on a whim.”

“Ha ha ha.”

“It’s lucky the Blue Research has plenty of heliports. What were you going to do if there was nowhere to land? My sister’s excessive use of money must cause a lot of problems for you.”

“…”

Mark buried his head in his hands upon hearing Patricia’s completely normal and common interpretation of the events.

She would never even dream of the possibility of a magic cabal being involved with the Blue Research.

She would never even dream of possibility of a combined attack being carried out on the Blue Research.

She would never even dream of the possibility of escaping the ship using magic.

And if he failed, his boss, Birdway, would make sure to thoroughly kill him.

(What am I supposed to do? Is there no way!?)

In the normal world that Patricia Birdway lived in, she had been invited to the Blue Research as a guest researcher for one of the leading scientific inst.i.tutions in the United Kingdom. She was taking an extended break from school for the event and everyone was expecting great things from her, so she could not simply leave. In other words, Patricia was not going to move an inch unless Mark managed to be quite eloquent indeed.

As the magician trembled, Patricia stared at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong, Mark? You aren’t looking too good.”

“D-don’t worry. It’s nothi-…”

Before he finished speaking, a light bulb switched on above Mark s.p.a.ce’s head.

He had only one possible strategy.

“That’s iiiiiitttttttt!!”

“Ee!?”

“Miss Patricia, Miss Patricia!! The situation is most dire!! This is no time to be sitting her searching for the Wind Angel Armor!!”

“Wha-? Eh…? Th-there’s something more important than the Wind Angel Armor? D-do you mean a super rare item like the Water Angel Lily!?”

“Lady Birdway has collapsed!! She is currently in the hospital, but the doctors say she only has about a 50/50 chance. This could be a truly urgent situation. Just in case, you need to head to the hospital to see her!!”

That was his sure-fire fake illness attack. He did not feel right lying about it, but a kind and pure girl like Patricia was sure to be worried enough to come with him.

“Hmm. I’d really like to do that, but…”

“Huh!? That’s surprisingly cold of you!!”

“Ah ha ha. My sister always says you need to be able to take care of yourself before you can worry about others. That’s part of the reason that I’m working so hard on my own. Not to mention that she would come out looking perfectly fine even if a building exploded around her.”

Patricia was likely only joking, but that was actually literally true. However…

(E-even when she is not here, you are the only one that can say that kind of thing about that monster!! That is a frightening ability, Miss Patricia!!)

However, that was no time to tremble in fear. Since he had come so far, Mark had no choice but to make sure the sure-fire fake illness attack worked.

As such, he had to add on details to her condition.

“Th-the truth is Lady Birdway managed to get her hands on an Ultra Huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s Cream Set that claimed it could easily give anyone large b.r.e.a.s.t.s.”

“A-and did it work!? Where did she get it!?”

“No, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s stayed the same size, but her areola alone grew quite large. It was a most tragic incident.”

“No…”

“And on top of that, she also acquired an Academy City breast growing machine. She put two bowl-like items over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s like vacuum packs. This caused them to turn a strange bluish-purple and she writhed around on the ground.”

“Nnn. But surely someone like my sister could deal with a situation like that.”

“Gh!? Th-that d.a.m.n brat then refused to admit defeat and insisted with teary eyes that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had grown and that she had leveled up. That was when even more strange side effects started occurring. After all sorts of strange twists and turns, her bust size ended up at over 5 meters and she had 8 nipples. They looked something like Gatling guns and it was quite disturb-…hahh!?”

A chill suddenly shot down Mark’s spine.

He had a feeling it had been killer intent.

He didn’t want to think of the possibility, but Birdway might have been using some kind of magical means to keep an eye on him.

With sweat covering his body, Mark s.p.a.ce timidly looked around the area.

The pure Patricia was not aware of the impending danger and she was tugging on Mark’s clothes.

“H-her life might really be in danger!! If that really did happen to her, I can’t just ignore it! I don’t like leaving the research team, but I really am only needed once the drilling point has been discovered, so they should manage.”

“Now you tell me!! If I had known that, I wouldn’t have had to cross that deadly tightrope!!”

“?”

Patricia gave an innocent and lovely look of puzzlement.

Mark pointed and said, “Oh, Miss Patricia. Did you just get the Wind Angel Armor?”

“Eh!?” she said and frantically looked down at her handheld game.

Just as she did, Mark’s leg flew straight over her head.

Of course, his kick had not been aimed at Patricia.

Something had been creeping up behind her. A strange green figure had appeared there at some point. Mark’s leg had moved just before its hand had reached Patricia’s shoulder.

When his whip-like kick struck the side of the figure’s head, he felt a damp feeling like he had crushed a clump of rotting leaves. No noise was made. The figure disappeared as if it had never been there at all.

“Oh, c’mon, Mark!! This isn’t the Wind Angel Armor; it’s the Exusiai Armor! That’s a common item!”

When Patricia raised her head, Mark had a bitter smile on his face and his foot was lowered to the same position it had been in 2 seconds before.

(…Earth Telesma. So it is a fellow Golden-style magician!!)

As he internally a.n.a.lyzed the situation, Mark reached his hand out toward the center of Patricia’s chest like he was pressing an elevator b.u.t.ton.

He held a single card in his palm.

It was the two of swords.

Silence and interruption. Just as he did, Patricia’s mind and body were split apart causing her to lose consciousness.

It was as if he were making sure no one else could interfere with her.

“Hehh. What a kind attacker.”

Along with that sudden voice, he heard a dry sound and the ceiling of the room was sliced apart in a straight line. No, that was not quite accurate. An invisible blade extending from the ceiling reached down and sliced the floor at the same time. It headed straight through the spot Mark had been standing in an instant before.

(The enemy is…above!?)

Mark held Patricia’s unconscious form in one arm as he opened the metal door to leave the small room and head into the pa.s.sageway.

That had been a mistake.

“But it seems you are more stupid than kind.”

“!?”

The instant he heard that voice coming from the side, Mark felt a dull but heavy shock in his side. It felt like he had been struck by one of the giant bells in a Buddhist temple. Mark doubled over and flew a few meters before landing. His sense of professionalism made sure he balled himself up in order to protect Patricia.

The world’s largest marine resources survey ship was a ma.s.s of scientific technology and its main purpose was for oil drilling. The pa.s.sageway Mark rolled through was a surprisingly dirty one filled with ugly metal pipes.

“Gh…bh…!!”

As Mark coughed, a dark red liquid escaped his lips.

He just barely managed to get back up and spotted a cylindrical stone pillar floating on its side and a woman standing next to it. She wore a short skirt, a shirt that was open on the front, an oddly long glove that reached her upper arm on her right hand, and a lace glove of the sort a lady would wear on her left hand. The left glove was light pink while the right one was split vertically with one side white and the other black.

On her left hand, the woman wore rings with letters of the alphabet on them as if they were stamps. She was using that hand to toy with her bangs as she gave a faint smile.

“A tarot user, hm? And instead of using the 22 cards of the major arcana that each connect directly to their respective sephira, you’re using the minor arcana as symbolic weapons of fire, water, wind, and earth.”

Mark saw no sign of the ship’s crew coming to see what the commotion was about.

The woman before him had likely used a people clearing spell.

“You cannot use their power to its fullest because the pathways to the one who can give you permission to touch the gem have been intentionally cut off. …You must be from a cabal with quite some leadership. The idea that only the limited supervisors may touch the true meaning of Kabbalah has made its way into your very core.”

“…To be honest, you do not look like someone from the Dusk Exit.”

“Please do not think of me as the same as those beasts,” said the woman as she looked at Mark as if evaluating him. “My name is Wyss Winered. I am also known as Time Loss. Simply put, people hire me to buy them some time. I was hired here to deal with magicians like you.”

“Why?”

A lot of a.s.sumed information was contained within that short question.

The marine resources survey ship, Blue Research, was being supported by the Dusk Exit. They were crossing the line between magic and science in order to use the crude oil they found to obtain children from a Portuguese “market”. Those children would be inefficiently used en ma.s.se to create only small effects. Mark was asking why she would join them.

“Well,” Wyss’s response was short as well. It too held quite a bit of a.s.sumed information. “I was just hoping for some leftovers.”

“…”

He said nothing more.

Mark s.p.a.ce ended the conversation with her.

Power filled the tarot card he held.

The card Mark held between his index finger and middle finger was the three of swords.

The trigger of mayhem and the sorrow that invites bad luck. Mark swung it upwards diagonally and the air sliced, following that motion. The air became a single giant sword and sliced through even the very end of the pa.s.sageway.

“Your speed’s not bad.”

In response, Wyss lightly swung her left hand with the alphabet rings and spun her right arm with its long, black-and-white glove.

Matching that motion, the stone pillar floating next to her crushed the air blade. Wind and earth. The two elements came into conflict, exploded, and a storm of vacuum and stone scattered about at high speed.

Mark made no attempt to defend against it.

Instead, he pulled out the four of swords.

Flight and banishment. The instant the card emitted a soft glow, Mark and Patricia’s bodies disappeared into thin air. The card floated through the air and avoided the violence. Once it had escaped the barrage, the human forms reappeared…and directly attacked Wyss.

But…

“Too slow.”

Mark heard those words right after using the five of swords to slice through Wyss’s body which he quickly realized was a fake made of sand.

However, he did not make it in time.

He felt something touch the left side of his head. Mark immediately swung his head to the side and a tremendous shock shook his brain. He could not even comprehend how he had been attacked. At any rate, the heavy, hammer-like attack caused his semicircular ca.n.a.ls to cease functioning. To prevent himself from falling, Mark steadied himself against the narrow pa.s.sageway’s wall.

His vision shook.

Mark somehow managed to hang on to his fleeing consciousness.

That was when the third wave arrived.

Something like a bowling ball shot toward him. He managed to detect that much, but his body did not move in response. The blunt weapon struck him directly, applying even more pressure to his skull. This time, all strength left Mark’s body. Patricia’s body fell from his grasp. Mark could see that as he slid down to the ground, but he could not bring his body to move.

“Golden-style magic is often referred to as a whole, but there are all sorts of different types.” Wyss’s voice reverberated within Mark’s throbbing head. “Your tarot is intended for large scale ceremonies. It just isn’t suited for battles where quick actions are needed.”

Mark did not say anything in response.

Instead, he silently pulled out the six of swords.

That card symbolized the chance to answer a difficult question.

His conversation with Wyss Winered was already over.


Mark ran through the pa.s.sageway, still holding his tarot cards.

He no longer had the leeway needed to hold Patricia. He hid her unconscious form behind something and stood up as a lone magician.

As Wyss chased him, she activated various pieces of magic.

Multiple stone pillars flew through the air, sharp arrowhead-like stone fragments rained down, and thin, disk-like blades sliced through the air.

No crewmembers were in the area.

Wyss Winered may have used some kind of people clearing magic, but it was also possible that area had been designated as a battle area by the Blue Research, so everyone was keeping their distance. At any rate, Wyss’s various attacks were only aimed at Mark.

Her spells were both varied and quick, so the walls and metal pipes of the marine resources survey ship were torn apart, severed, crushed, and otherwise destroyed. The stage of the battle was no longer the straight pa.s.sageway. It had moved to an area a few floors down that was about the size of a school gym and filled with drilling machinery.

It was not an engine room that rotated a giant propeller. It merely allowed the Blue Research to provide power for the drilling operation. The two magicians’ battle escalated within that area filled with giant engines.

The reason Mark had gone there was clear.

It had not been an active decision.

Mark s.p.a.ce was being chased.

“Why don’t you just realize it’s hopeless?” Wyss smiled as she created a stone spear from a rippling wall. “It may be true that each of your individual attacks is stronger than mine, but I can always circle around and crush your attack before you can get it off. Due to how much work you have to do, you can never catch up to me.”

A red light floated up at the tip of the spear and Wyss spun it around.

This created a crimson circle. What appeared from that primitive magic circle was a deluge of flames.

Her attacks were no longer just of the earth element.

“!?”

Mark pulled out the eight of swords.

It symbolized a hindrance, a wall, or a weight. The wall of wind it created scattered the flames and then Mark spun the eight of swords around before its effects wore off.

Simply put, the card was now reversed.

This held a different meaning from the symbol he had used for defense. The power being scattered outward was transformed into an attacking sword.

But before he could swing that sword, Wyss made her move.

An arm of water came from the right and a sh.e.l.l of vacuum came from the left.

Before he could react, both attacks struck Mark and he was blown away. Despite the fact that only his body had struck them, he heard the roar of steel pipes and machinery being crushed.

“I told you it was hopeless,” repeated Wyss Winered. “No matter how much you optimize the spell, a ceremonial spell requires the preparation of the area, the construction of a safe area for the spell user, the calling in of the power, the manipulation of that power, and finally the safe return of that power. Its power can only be properly used in a long-distance attack. Your spells are not suited for close-quarters combat. Did you make a mistake when choosing your weapon or are you enough of an idiot to only know how to use this one type of weapon?”

“…”

Mark did not respond as he lay buried in a pile of metal.

The nine of swords he had just started to activate fell from his hand.

He observed Wyss’s body with his dim consciousness.

Or rather, he observed two parts of her.

The first was her right hand. On that hand was the long glove split down the center with the right side white and the left side black.

The second was her left hand. She had two rings on that hand. The one on her middle finger had the letter J carved on it and the one on her index finger had the letter B carved on it.

Mark clicked his tongue.

He came to a gradual understanding of what kind of magic his enemy was using.

(The entrance, hm?)

Jachin and Boaz. Those were the name of stereotypical spiritual items that had originally been the two pillars decorating the entrance to Solomon’s Temple and were now placed at the entrance to ceremonial grounds in Western magic. The two pillars acted as guideposts to call in power and Wyss was using her hands and entire body to represent them.

In doing so, she had eliminated a lot of the effort needed to activate magic.

Wyss only had to set what kind of power she wanted to produce and alter the positions of the two pillars in order to produce an attack. While Mark had to rely on a tool for the entire process, she used her body to represent the magic circle and symbols which reduced the effort needed from a speed standpoint.

It was true that he could not outdo that kind of speed.

An ominous roar radiated out from Wyss.

It was a type of omen.

Tarot and the two pillars. Neither was clearly superior to the other. However, in that situation, at that range, and with that timing, Wyss would clearly crush Mark.

But…

“…What?” Wyss Winered frowned slightly. “Why are you smiling?”

“You probably should have put a little more thought into what the things you yourself said mean,” said Mark with b.l.o.o.d.y lips as he remained buried in rubble. “Ceremonial magic is powerful but slow. You yourself said so, so you should know that this is no time for you to be smiling.”

“Don’t tell me you think you can overcome my speed with your tarot.”

“That’s just the thing.” Mark must not have had the strength to stand up because he shook his head where he was. “I do not need to be faster than you for each individual attack.” Mark paused for a second. “After all, when I am using a single powerful attack, I merely need to use it once.”

By the time Wyss felt a chill run down her spine, it was too late.

The world’s largest marine resources survey ship, the Blue Research, was created from three 500-meter tankers lined up next to each other with countless metal plates connecting them. The entire ship started creaking ominously. A ma.s.sive amount of power was causing s.p.a.ce itself to tremble.

“…A single powerful attack?”

Wyss’s instinct told her she was in trouble.

Mark had said he was using a single powerful attack.

He had used all sorts of different tarot cards, but he was not counting those.

That meant…

All the tarot cards Mark had scattered up to that point had been…

“Are you saying all of those were part of your strategy? But you had no overall purpose in their use. It was all you could do to use them at random to try to keep up with my speed!!”

“Yes, and that was enough. Using the spells as an immediate reaction to your attacks was the proper thing to do. That’s simply how tarot works. You don’t cheat and look at what the cards are before flipping them over. You simply flip them over one at a time without thinking.” Mark smiled. “But you do not discard cards in tarot. The true essence of tarot does not lie in each individual card. The table on which multiple cards are lined up is what is important.”

In other words, he was activating the cards as tarot cards rather than as symbolic weapons.

“When the tarot cards arranged on the table are flipped over, they give meaning.”

He had made the entire Blue Research correspond to the table on which the tarot cards lay.

“As the cards are flipped over, you lose freedom, and the number of cards I could use did indeed lower. However, in exchange, the entire table’s element and direction became more definite.”

Of course, the ruler of the table was the man who had control of the tarot cards.

“And all of the cards I flipped over here were sword cards. Since I only had that one suit, the table’s color was naturally uniform. I did not have to even think about what element and direction I was giving the giant table that the Blue Research has become.”

As he spoke, Mark pulled out a single card.

It was the ten of swords.

It was his final number card, leaving him with only the four court cards.

“It holds the meaning of a great tragedy. Right side up, it is the greatest symbol of tragedy among the 56 cards of the minor arcana. However, when reversed, it holds the meaning of a strong heart that fights against unreasonable atrocities.”

The number cards, ace through 10, indicated the kind of phenomenon that would occur.

The court cards, the page, the knight, the queen, and the king, indicated who it would occur to.

“Now all the details regarding the power and phenomenon have been put together. Only the selection of the person remains. It is all collected within the court cards.”

A chill covered Wyss’s entire body.

The phenomenon was occurring.

(Dammit. What is he calling in!?)

The true essence of Golden-style ceremonial magic was the use of Telesma. The element of the angel corresponding to the desired object or desired effect would be chosen and then either taken into the magic user’s physical body, used as a foothold in the creation of special spiritual item, or simply used to create a phenomenon that would be impossible with simple magic power.

But what was the spell that existed as a basis for all that?

What had been developed as the foundation for Golden-style magic cabals?

“Its elemental color is yellow. Its directional location is the front. And most importantly, it is the one who rules over wind and air,” Mark chanted.

He slowly lifted his head while still collapsed on the ground and spoke as if calling out to a friend.

“Hey, glorious archangel. How are you doing?”

The summoning of an angel.

Naturally, he was not dragging down an angel in its entirety. That was not something that could be done by a mere magician.

Mark s.p.a.ce was only calling in a ma.s.s of Telesma.

Most likely, what was categorized as an angel among Golden-style cabals was nothing more than a small fraction of their power.

However, whether it was only a tenth or even a hundredth of their power, it was more than enough to do away with a magician or two.

(Sorry.)

Mark recalled the conversation he and Patricia had had.

He recalled the handheld game she had been playing.

(My poor skills are not enough to display any details like the armor of this wind angel.)

It might have been possible if one used all 22 cards of the major arcana, but Mark was not as skilled as Birdway. And what he had was more than enough to defeat Wyss Winered.

“You are the one that said it,” said Mark with a smile as he pointed and gave a command. “Ceremonial magic is slower but more powerful.”

He did not wait for his opponent to respond.

Wind blew and dust flew.


A small Cessna plane flew slowly through the blue sky.

Its flight plan said it had taken off at an airport in Scotland and would return after flying around the Arctic Ocean for two hours. At that time of year, curious sightseers wanting to watch orcas through binoculars would likely be paying for it.

However, that Cessna plane had two things that set it apart from most planes with similar flight plans.

First, it did not have any sightseers aboard.

Second, a few devices in its storage area were dumped down into the ocean.

The devices were long, narrow, and about a meter long. There were four of them. The Cessna plane dropped them so they formed a circle with a diameter of 500 meters.

When the devices. .h.i.t the ocean surface, they sank down and then floated back up like a buoy or fishing bobber. The Cessna’s pilot made two or three quick transmissions.

After that, everything would continue according to the normal flight plan.

The Cessna plane slowly flew across the Arctic Ocean.

Only the devices floating among the waves remained.

The letters on their side read “Down Waver”.


Wyss Winered had been defeated.

Mark slowly stood up from the destroyed machinery. He was unable to move any faster. As if all of his joints were dislocated, he felt pain of various types and intensities every time he moved.

The drilling equipment had been utterly destroyed. Many of the thick pipes had been broken in half, white steam was being emitted from various places, and the steel inner door had been torn apart as if it had been a paper sliding door. Wyss’s spells had done a fair bit of damage, but the damage from the archangel was everywhere. Mark could not see anything in the room that had not been destroyed.

(…An attack from an angel.)

Mark looked down at his own hand. He held four cards there. All of the number cards had been arranged, leaving him with only court cards. The archangel Telesma he had called in was condensed inside the court cards, putting it under Mark’s control.

He could not relax yet.

He had to escape before the general attack began.

(…Kh. Where is Miss Patricia…?)

Mark walked back the way he had come, seeming to drag himself through the pain. As he did, Wyss briefly entered his field of vision. She was pa.s.sed out and her limbs were sprawled about, but he did not pay any attention to her.

Since the Blue Research had prepared a magician like her, it could not be a normal ship. The crew was made up of the kind of people that would gather money to spend on children at a “market”. He had to escape with Patricia as quickly as possible.

“…What are you…planning to do?”

Mark slowly turned around upon hearing that sudden voice. She had been unconscious just a second before, but now Wyss was faintly staring at him.

“…I just received word that the attack is beginning. This ship can no longer be saved. You should just give up and leave the ship.”

“What are you saying?” Mark asked, sensing some kind of discrepancy in her words.

Why did she seem so glad that the Blue Research would be sunk? That was the reverse of what he would expect of someone who had been hired by the Dusk Exit.

Wyss Winered then said, “Your precious Dusk Exit is done for. I’m saying it serves you right.”

(It couldn’t be…)

Wyss had said she had been hired to buy some time as Time Loss. But who had hired her? For what purpose was she buying time?

Wasn’t it possible she had been hired to buy some time to make sure no one escaped the Blue Research before the attack began?

“Were you hired by Academy City or the Anglican Church?”

“You idiot? You didn’t even know-…?” Wyss trailed off and must have noticed something odd about what Mark was saying. A mocking smile appeared on her face. “Hah. Don’t tell me you’re from some other cabal than the Dusk Exit.”

Mark averted his gaze.

That was enough of a response.

(How confusing. When she said she wanted some “leftovers”, that must have referred to some leftover jobs…)

But something still did not add up.

Mark s.p.a.ce and Wyss Winered were both magicians with no connection to the Dusk Exit. So where were the Dusk Exit magicians who were supposedly aboard the Blue Research? Normal people were one thing, but any expert magician would have noticed that commotion. Surely they would have reacted in some way.

As he thought, a very bad feeling crept up in the back of Mark’s mind.

“Hey!!” He grabbed Wyss’s collar and lifted her up “You can’t mean…Please don’t tell me they aren’t here…”

They had certainly received information that the Dusk Exit was behind the Blue Research.

However…

“Don’t tell me the only people aboard are normal hardworking people who know nothing about the money gained here funding a magic cabal, that money being used to buy children from a Portuguese market, or those children being dragged down into the darkness!!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”

Wyss looked utterly dumbfounded.

For the first time, her expression held no hostility or scorn.

“Why are you only checking on this kind of thing now?”

(Dammit!!)

Mark let go of Wyss’s collar and cursed silently.

Whatever the reason and whatever the circ.u.mstances, the money made there would cause some kind of incident. The Dusk Exit would use the funds to buy children from a Portuguese “market” magic cabal and then use those unfortunate children as disposable resources for creating spiritual items. The process would destroy the children in 0.7 seconds. That was why they were simply going to blow away the ship in its entirety. Actually, those who claimed to protect the peace probably did not even care about the children. The attack was punishment for those who crossed the line between magic and science. They would defend the agreement they had made. That was all “protecting the peace” meant to them.

(What do I do?)

Mark s.p.a.ce had been ordered to take Patricia Birdway from the Blue Research before the attack so she would not get caught up in it.

But was it right to just let everyone else aboard be killed?

Did a truly excellent subordinate do nothing but follow his orders to the letter?

(Let’s do this.)

Mark made a silent vow as he clenched his teeth.

(I will save Patricia Birdway. As long as I do that, a slight detour should not matter. So I will do this. I will prove that the Dawn-Colored Sunlight is not so cheap a cabal!!)

Mark was thinking and travelling through the ship when…

“Wah wah! Mark, this is bad!!”

Suddenly, Patricia herself came charging around a corner. He had stuck the two of swords to her chest, but it was gone. It may have been knocked off during all the fighting.

(The Telesma…)

Mark surrept.i.tiously glanced down at the tarot cards in his hand. The Telesma he had called in was still there. It seemed a card or two being moved out of place was not enough to cause problems once the power had been gathered.

He spoke to Patricia while hiding that kind of magical information.

“What happened, Miss Patricia?”

“W-well…The thing is…!!”

From her perspective, the inside of the Blue Research had been utterly destroyed at some point. That had to have surprised her and Mark a.s.sumed that was what had her worried. However, that was not it.

Patricia was holding a large stack of doc.u.ments in her arms and her face was pale.

“I-it’s a waterspout! Or is it a whirlpool? A-at any rate, something bad is heading this way!!”

“?”

“Ah, it’s hard to explain!! Um…come here!!”

Patricia grabbed Mark with her small hand and pulled him to a nearby room with surprising strength. Patricia operated the computer within the room and a wireframe ocean appeared on the screen.

It must have been a program used to display detailed waves and ocean currents.

However, that was not what it was currently showing.

It showed a giant pit with a diameter of 500 meters and a depth of around 70 meters.

Patricia had called it a waterspout. It must have been something similar to when a washing machine agitated the water around. As was evident when one stuck a hand in a bucket of water and spun it around, the center of a whirlpool created a pit.

And this giant “down wave” was approaching the Blue Research at tremendous speed. On its current route, the ship would surely be swallowed up.

“I don’t think it would be visible right now if you just looked out at the ocean surface with binoculars,” said Patricia as she stared at the screen. “Instead of rising up like with a tsunami, this whirlpool sinks down below the ocean surface. Looking out with the naked eye would show you nothing but a flat surface. An arc-like current might be visible like with a waterspout, but it will be too late by the time we can see that.”

It was fortunate they were on the world’s largest marine resources survey ship. The various instruments aboard allowed them to spot it well before normal.

“Miss Patricia, what will happen when that whirlpool reaches us? With a ship this large, could we somehow make it?”

“N-no.” Patricia shook her head. “This whirlpool is heading for the ship at two or three hundred kilometers per hour. When it reaches us, the ship will rapidly sink to the depths of the whirlpool. Essentially, this ship will be falling from a height of about 70 meters. And then ma.s.sive amounts of seawater will flow into the damaged areas…”

In that case, the heavier the ship, the more damage would be done.

It was like having the entire ship fall from a cliff. The crew would certainly not survive.

According to Patricia, the Blue Research was equipped with plenty of giant propellers, so it could resist the arcing currents caused around the down wave without being swept away. However, it was all over if they fell directly into the center.

“Can we avoid it?”

“This is a large ship. It isn’t that easy…” Patricia’s voice sounded bitter. “I contacted the rest of the crew, but they seem to be panicking. Not that I can blame them with that whirlpool suddenly appearing like that and heading toward us.”

Mark was listening to her, but he started thinking about something else.

He recalled what Birdway, the boss of the Dawn-Colored Sunlight, had said. The Blue Research had violated the treaty, so it was going to be exterminated. And now a convenient localized disaster had occurred.

(This is bad. The attack has already begun!!)

The marine resources survey ship had life boats and heliports, but he doubted the attackers would allow any of the obvious escape methods to be used. And even if they could be used, Mark doubted they would be enough to save the entire crew of that giant ship.

Mark s.p.a.ce turned back toward Patricia.

“…This kind of thing does not happen often, right?”

“R-right. Sometimes earthquakes cause localized tsunamis in unrelated areas, but this is the first I’ve heard of something like this.”

“So it would be unthinkable for two to occur in quick succession?”

“Umm, why are you asking me this..?”

(In other words, if the first one misses, they will not fire a second. If they did, it would simply seem too unnatural. They have to finish this with the first one in order to avoid any unnecessary attention on the incident.)

That also meant that they could manage if they survived the first one.

Mark reorganized his thoughts on the incident unfolding before him.

A down wave with a diameter of over 500 meters was approaching at 200-300 kph. It was impossible to avoid it even if they tried. Most likely, they could not use the life boats or helicopter. If it did reach them, they would suddenly fall about 70 meters. The handheld game. What Patricia had wanted. Everyone aboard the Blue Research was a normal person. How could they be saved? How could every single one of them be returned to their families?

“If…” Mark s.p.a.ce started. “If the ship were to survive in this situation, that would be quite a miracle, wouldn’t it?”

“Mark, that…”

Patricia was not sure what to say.

But since she did not immediately deny the possibility, she may have believed in it a tiny bit. Or perhaps she could not keep her heart in balance without holding onto some kind of hope.

Normally thinking, no one would survive in that situation.

Not even an expert magician could overturn that situation.

But Mark s.p.a.ce had the archangel that ruled over wind and air.

(I only have the four court cards left.)

All of the Telesma he had called in was concentrated in those four cards.

He could summon it at any time.

The only question left was how he would use that ultimate hand.

An ocean cliff 500 meters across and 70 meters deep approached. If it reached them, even the world’s largest marine resources survey ship would be smashed to pieces. As long as the ship was something that floated in the water, it had no way of fighting against the ocean surface itself falling away.

(I can only use the element of wind and air. I cannot directly manipulate the water, so I cannot destroy the ocean cliff or change its path.)

There was still hope left.

The ocean cliff damaged sailing vessels that floated on the ocean surface. In other words, it had no means of sinking something that floated in the air. If he could cause the Blue Research to float a few centimeters or even a single millimeter in the air, the ocean cliff would pa.s.s below them causing no damage. But…

(No, even if I can manipulate the wind and air, I cannot lift up such a huge ship like it was a hovercraft. This is not a problem that can be solved by just charging in at it.)

The Blue Research could not be moved.

The down wave approached as if it was aiming for the side of the ship.

Mark s.p.a.ce clenched the four court cards in his hand.


“Well?”

A completely ordinary stone apartment building existed within the London Borough of Lambeth. One room of that ordinary apartment was a base of a magic cabal large enough to shake all of the United Kingdom.

The cabal was known as the Dawn-Colored Sunlight.

The cabal’s boss, Birdway, was for some reason standing dauntingly atop a j.a.panese kotatsu.

A news program was running on a flat-screen television in the corner of the room.

“A down wave suddenly occurred in the Arctic Ocean, but the entire crew of the world’s largest marine resources survey ship, the Blue Research, is confirmed to be safe.”

The announcer reading the script must have been glad he was reading positive news because a slight hint of pride could be heard in his accurate p.r.o.nunciation.

“According to the crew, a sudden tsunami lifted the entire Blue Research up temporarily, allowing the ‘cliff’ of the down wave to pa.s.s below them.”

The picture switched over to a recording of a familiar girl of about 12.

The lucky girl who had miraculously survived was known to the two in the apartment as Patricia Birdway.

“It really is quite a mystery. There was no sign of an earthquake, so the cause of those two sudden waves has greatly roused my curiosity, not to mention the curiosity of every other scientist in the world. There are just so many mysteries left in this world! This is why I can’t stop loving oceanology! Oh, sis, Mark, are you watching?”

Birdway did not even glance over at the screen. Instead, she simply remained standing dauntingly atop the j.a.panese kotatsu while staring down at Mark s.p.a.ce.

“So a ma.s.sive amount of bubbles was mixed in with the seawater below the Blue Research to explosively increase the volume of the water. The ship was lifted up with simple explosive force rather than with the buoyancy of the water. I suppose that is a way of manipulating the ocean surface with only the element of wind and air.”

A dark aura exploded out from Birdway.

Her displeasure was on full display.

“It seems some idiot called in an idol of an angel to crush a single freelance magician and then secretly lifted the world’s largest marine resources survey ship to keep its crew from falling into the down wave. This idiot saved those people despite doing so also interfering with Academy City’s plan and destroying