“Wha— Huh?”
Suimei let out a confused stammer as the white flame wrapped around him. Bewilderment was written across his face, and unable to do anything else, he simply stood there dumbfounded.
But that reaction was to be expected. The white flame that all coveted and revered threatened to engulf him. Before such power, it was perfectly normal to give up without any resistance.
Yes, that was how things normally went. It was how things should go, but for some reason, after Suimei spun around with a bewildered look on his face, he timidly snapped his fingers. Then it happened in the blink of an eye. The white flame lost its color and became a plain red flame.
“Wh-What?!”
And in the brief moment that Felmenia was astonished by this phenomenon, the flames surrounding Suimei quickly lost their fury. They died down and vanished as if nothing had happened at all.
After casting a sidelong glance at the surprised Felmenia, Suimei took a good long look at where the once white flame had just been burning brightly. He eventually sluggishly turned back to her.
“So... is that it?”
He sounded as though he had been expecting something extraordinarily violent, but those expectations had been disappointingly betrayed. It was what someone might say at the turn of an anticlimax.
His tension and worry lost all purpose and merely hung over him, aimless and with nowhere to go. But Suimei’s nonchalant words triggered a whole new firestorm of their own—a conflagration of confusion from Felmenia’s mouth.
“Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-What?! HOW?! Why did my white flame disappear?! It’s the summit of all flame that only those who have arrived at its truth can use! How did it... with only a snap of your fingers...”
“Wow... No, are you serious right now? You said ‘the truth,’ so I was wondering what kind of dangerous magicka you were about to whip out on me, but then all you did was mix in oxygen to slightly accelerate the combustion...”
“I-I won’t stand for that attitude! M-My flame is...!”
Seeing Suimei’s striking disappointment, Felmenia was unable to choose her words properly. Why did her white flame vanish? Why was he so disappointed? Those thoughts dominated her mind and were hindering her ability to make any sort of meaningful retort. But Suimei wasn’t done. He moved from outright disbelief to offering candid advice.
“No curse, no meaning given to the flame... If there isn’t even a single thread tied in from legend, you can barely call that magicka. If I were your teacher, I’d be yelling at you to go back to the basics right now.”
“Wh-What?! Just where do you get off saying my magic is so lacking?!”
“Everywhere! Anywhere! It’s got nothing of what I just said. You’re nothing but a glorified flamethrower! And a crappy one, at that!”
“What?!”
“Hahh, that’s enough, damn it... Seriously...”
Suimei spoke like a professor who had abandoned all hope of trying to explain something to a student. He had gone well past exasperation and his eyes were now swaying more towards pity, all of which infuriated Felmenia. And that was on top of her initial confusion. What had actually just happened? What had he done? Suimei let out another grand sigh, and then suddenly... a magic circle manifested at his feet.
“What?!”
“...What is it now?”
His reproachful tone conveyed how over this he was. But Felmenia didn’t care. She was still reeling from seeing the impossible just happen before her very eyes.
“A magic circle drew itself on the ground... Impossible...”
“...Hmm?”
“Hmm, my ass! Why... Why did a magic circle suddenly manifest at your feet?! Such a thing shouldn’t be possible! S-Suimei Yakagi, what the hell did you do?!”
While Felmenia was shouting over the strange phenomenon, Suimei furrowed his brow. He was starting to look a little pale, but Felmenia felt like she was the only one who had the right to be making that kind of face right now.
A magic circle had to be drawn, but it didn’t necessarily have to be on the ground or the floor. They could be drawn on walls, rock surfaces, paper—largely anything that could be written on could be used to construct the magic either in whole or in part. These circles served as a way to simplify the course one had to follow to invoke a magic spell.
In short, a circle contained the letters or numbers that comprised a spell’s equation and combined them with precise shapes. Since it required a fair amount of effort to draw one carefully, it was needless to say that it wasn’t something that could be done in the middle of combat. Creating one was far more complex than any one single gesture or motion, but this man...
“That’s normal, isn’t it?”
“How is that normal?! Just how exactly do you manipulate mana to get a magic circle to just draw itself?!”
“That kinda thing is just done using liturgy on the spell beforehand to...”
In the middle of explaining, Suimei seemed to realize something else and once more put his hand to his head.
“Man, this too? This world is even further behind than I imagined. Do you guys even take magic seriously?”
Suimei paid no mind to Felmenia as he vented his anguish. But after racking his brain for a long few moments, he came back to her question. He repeatedly traced a circle with his finger on his forehead, and spoke in a much different tone than before.
“Um, you know... This is all set up in advance. By interfering with the world beforehand so that when a portion of the spell is constructed, the magicka circle which supports it automatically forms, it then gets inserted into the infrastructure of the magicka being cast. So by doing that, when the magicka is used, the magicka circle automatically manifests, and the magicka can be invoked at a high speed. Got it?”
“Eh, ah...?”
“Don’t just fucking chirp like what I’m saying doesn’t make any sense. This is totally legitimate. You just saw me do it right in front of you. I’ll say it before you start ranting and raving again, and this also applies to the magicka before, but if you’re gonna deny the mysteries that happen before your very eyes, I can’t acknowledge you as a scholar of the mysteries. Got it?”
“...”
Hearing Suimei reprimand her so, Felmenia was at a loss for words. There was no room for her to object in the slightest. He had a good point, but this was the very first she’d ever heard of a technique that could automatically manifest a magic circle even existing. Nobody had ever used a magic circle like that before. Even the sage had never talked of such things.
“Simplifying the process of invoking magicka is essential in the middle of combat, isn’t it? I thought this was a world of swords and sorcery? If you guys are this inept, then the world I came from is more fantastical than this one...”
“W-We do have a way of simplifying the process to invoke magic! Magic without chanting is the extreme pinnacle of that!”
“Huh, oh yeah? You think not having a chant is some kinda sophisticated technique?”
“O-Of course.”
“Well, I guess for some grand magicka it would be, but... Well, let me ask you this. Is this kinda thing really some amazing technique to you people?”
With those vexed words, Suimei snapped his fingers. When he did, with a profound snap—in complete concert with the sound created by snapping his thumb and index finger—the air right in front of Felmenia’s eyes burst with violent vigor.
She had no time to take a breath or even gulp. It was as if the air in front of her eyes exploded in all directions. Its destructive force surpassed that of wind, and rattled everything in the area with a shockwave.
“Huh, ah... What... was that? No chant, and not only that, but no keyword...”
“‘Amaaaaazing, Suimei-kun! You invoked magicka without a chant! From today on, I hereby acknowledge you as one of the great magicians...!’ Hahh, how stupid...”
Suimei’s chest, which had been proudly puffed out, now deflated. After pouring cold water all over his own joke, Su
imei was no longer in a good mood.
“I’m tired of explaining things. I can’t keep up with all these questions. That’s why...”
Suimei trailed off, and then switched tracks.
“Archiatius overload!”
Arc hiatus over-lode?
Was it a magic chant? It was far too short to differentiate between the spell and the keyword. She didn’t even have a single clue what he was even calling out to. Yet all the same, the magic circle at his feet began shining brightly. It then filled with a corona of a rainbow’s brilliance and unleashed something within the young man.
“Huh?!”
Immediately following that, an enormous amount of mana blew against Felmenia. She reflexively closed her eyes against such dazzling power, but when she reopened them after the torrent had calmed down, she could see the form of something standing there with tranquil mana filling it to the brim and covering it in an overpowering aura.
“Y-Your mana increased?! What did—”
“What did I do? I said I was done with questions, remember? I’m not gonna explain any more. Oh, wait, I get it. You’re surprised that my mana was amplified just now. I suppose you can’t even get your head around that, huh?”
Suimei spoke in a somewhat irritated voice. He’d lost all interest in answering her questions, to the point he didn’t even want to hear her ask them anymore. Taking a moment to return to his normally calm disposition, he brought the conversation back around.
“Hmph. Ever since saying that we should begin, we’ve wasted quite a lot of time, so... now then, little miss mage, is it my turn yet?”
Suimei scoffed like he wasn’t amused at all.
Felmenia was taken aback. Just what was happening right before her eyes? She’d lost count of how many times she’d wondered that after wandering into the garden now. The amplification of his mana was one thing, but the circle he used to activate it was genuinely mind-blowing.
Going out of your way to construct a magic circle to simplify the process of invoking magic seemed contradictory. Drawing the magic circle would only increase the effort, and in the end, increase the overall time that went into casting the spell. Yet this man had turned all logic on its head and invoked magic in far less than what should have been the bare minimum amount of time required to do so.
It was no trick. Nothing she’d seen was just for show. And acknowledging that, she could no longer treat this young man as someone inferior to her. Things that she couldn’t do, things that she couldn’t understand... He did it all with ease. Surely this young man wasn’t overestimating himself when he proclaimed his power. He’d walked down a magical path she knew nothing about in a world she knew nothing about. His knowledge towered over hers.
Felmenia took a moment to ponder what that meant. Surely this young man was stronger than her. Surely he was stronger than the sage who taught her. Surely he was even stronger than the hero Reiji. Surely this young man, even before the Demon Lord who was guiding the world to ruin...
“...Who are you?”
“Now that you mention it, I guess I haven’t properly introduced myself since coming here, huh? Well, fine. Just for you, why don’t I do that now?”
Suimei looked like he’d remembered something long forgotten, and then looked right at Felmenia.
“I am the magician Yakagi Suimei. One who aspires to unravel all the truth in the world using the mysteries, and a scholar of the mysteries from modern Japan.”
Magician Yakagi Suimei.
That was the name of the man who would, shortly after this, bring the mage extolled as the greatest in all Astel to the ground for the first time. The name of the mage she could never catch up to.
★
“Hmph...”
Impudently and quietly, Suimei scoffed. Just as he had planned, Felmenia Stingray was lured into his barrier, and at present, he had just transitioned to demonstrating his utmost power as a magician by activating his archiatius, his mana furnace.
Having finally come to grips with the overwhelming difference in power between them, Felmenia was bound in place by unease and fear. Suimei stood before her, making the most of his knowledge and skills, with his mana overflowing from within him. If anybody with a proper understanding of the situation had been present, they likely would have thought that using the full extent of his power was going too far.
Felmenia Stingray—no, the magicians of this world were just that far behind magicians of Suimei’s world. He knew that, and it would have been prudent to hold back in order to suppress any needless mana consumption. That would be the smartest, most efficient, and most gentlemanly way of carrying things out.
But Suimei had no such intentions. Even if this world’s magicians knew nothing of the varied systems of magicka, even if they knew nothing of the effective usage of magicka circles, even if they didn’t dedicate themselves to improving their chants, and even if they didn’t do something as fundamental as forging mana furnaces with themselves, to Suimei, a magician was a magician.
And so he prepared the stage for battle. As the host who beckoned her to battle, no matter how lowly the conflict would be, Suimei couldn’t ignore etiquette as a magician of the Society by not demonstrating his full powers. A magician should act like a magician, and that meant using magicka with all their heart and soul to mesmerize their opponent and force them to yield. Regardless of what his intentions were after the fight, as the host, he had to stand tall in battle and put on a good show. That was Yakagi Suimei’s pride as a magician.
Suimei squared off with Felmenia. Naturally, this battle had no starting signal. Really, it had already begun. All that was left was for one side to make their move. And unable to bear the tension anymore, the first to act was Felmenia.
“Tch! Oh Fire! Thou art imbued with the essence of all flame, but burn unbound by the laws of nature! Now, turn everything in existence to ashes, the white calamity of truth! Truth Flare!”
It was the same magicka that she used before—the one she said demonstrated the truth of flame, the white flame. Though she claimed it revealed the true nature of fire, it was really just magicka that caused a flash of fire at a higher temperature than normal. But it seemed her attack from before was just a warmup. This one was on a remarkably larger scale. The amount of mana she poured into it was also considerably increased.
The flame that was suddenly given birth undulated like a wave and twisted like a vortex as it clashed against itself. As it spread out, it focused on Suimei in an instant and converged at his location.
In that moment, Suimei’s heart completely changed gears.
This was a flood of fire that could burn him to death. He held nothing against it, but he wouldn’t let that just happen. Certainly not. Sucking in a nimble breath, he focused his gaze. Then, optimizing his mana, he invoked his magicka.
“Secundum, tertium, quartum moenia, expansio localis.”
[Second, third, fourth rampart, local expansion.]
This was Suimei’s defensive magicka.
The ramparts from the brilliant golden fortress—what he’d nearly used in the ritual chamber the day he was summoned—spread out within a limited area. Suimei stuck out his arm as if catching something with his palm, and three golden magicka circles piled atop each other to become his shield
A flame that was only hot would never get to him now. The fortress’s walls were sturdy. Mere flame wouldn’t be able to bring them down. The worst it could do would be getting caught up in the threefold rampart shield and extinguishing itself in vain.
The white flame roared thunderously along its trajectory as it tapered to a point and crashed into the golden magicka circles. The obstructed white flame let fly pure white sparks upon contact and fanned out. It burned so brightly and furiously that the whole area was bathed in a blinding white light. With a thunderous roar like an excavation machine, the collision hurled white sparks every which way, showering the area around Suimei. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds passed. But the white
flame couldn’t pierce through the shield. Caught up on the second rampart which served as a barrier against spells, the rotating third rampart unraveled the spell behind the incoming attack. Thanks to that, the dazzling white light faded as it regressed to red. Then by the fourth and final rampart’s reflective power, what was left of the magicka exploded and was scattered.
“I-I’m not done yet!”
Suimei could hear Felmenia’s panicked but brave voice. That was likely her declaration of intent to follow up. He managed to ward off her attack straight from the front, but as she implied, there were still white flames burning in the air around her.
Issuing the command, she sent them flying. The white flame rushed for Suimei once more, but this time it wound around and came at his side. It continued to shift and change directions as it closed in. It seemed Felmenia’s title as a court mage wasn’t for show. The mana to manipulate the flames, the quick thinking to manage their movements, and the strength to handle them—she was showcasing her skills masterfully. That unhindered magicka control could be called first class and was certainly worthy of admiration.
However, in the end, no matter how flashy the fire was, it wouldn’t amount to anything without substance behind it. Magicka that couldn’t penetrate his ramparts and had no special destructive effects would never even scratch the golden fortress. But Suimei released his defenses and took evasive action instead. The flame chased after him without missing a beat as he charged off in a straight line, his coattails not so much as singed.
Casting a glance back at the white flame that couldn’t keep up with him, Suimei shifted to his counterattack. The distance between himself and his opponent was quite large, so he conjured some acceleration magicka.
“Gravitas residito, massa reducito.”
[Abate gravity, reduce mass.]
With that quiet murmur, Suimei’s body was lightly released from the shackles of gravity. It was now as though he weighed nothing at all. He then ran—no, he flew. With his black coattails whipping through the air behind him, he tore away from the white flame that was chasing him, and then closed in on Felmenia at the speed of a darting swallow.
The Magic in this Other World is Too Far Behind! Volume 1 Page 14
