Chapter 50: Strategic-Class Ultimate Magic

“Kakeru, can you hear me? I have the target in sight.”

“Kakeru-sama, can you hear me? I have confirmed the enemy as well.”

“I can hear both of you. I can see its black shell in the distance from here too.”

Yuuka and Aoi were nowhere nearby, but their voices reached me through the earpiece beside my ear.

We were using wireless headsets I had bought in Japan. I did not understand all the technical details myself, but a clerk at a store in Akihabara had recommended a digital radio system that could work across several kilometers.

With these, we could talk and coordinate in real time. The earpieces were hands-free, too, so they should not interfere with the fighting.

“First that device called a drone, and now something like this…”

“It can’t transmit as far as a national-treasure-class magic tool, but it’s small, doesn’t get in the way, uses no mana, and lets several people share information in real time. It really could change the very nature of warfare.”

Gustav-san looked astonished yet again. These radios could not connect people across the vast distances covered by the national-treasure-class communication crystal I had already returned to Rain, but they still allowed several people to communicate effortlessly over several kilometers.

Rain’s assessment might not have been an exaggeration. Depending on how they were used, supplies from Japan could become military threats. I had no connections that could make it happen, but perhaps it was even possible to bring a tank into this world.

Yes. I truly needed to be careful about how I used this power.

“The target is still advancing in a straight line. We’ll proceed a little farther as planned. Begin the attack once it reaches the open ground.”

Both women answered in unison, “Understood!”

The Abystortas was slow, but it was steadily drawing closer.

Soraval lay behind us. Somehow, we had to stop it here.

“…It really is enormous. The ground shakes with every step it takes.”

“It certainly deserves to be called a natural disaster.”

“They say nothing grows for some time in the wake of its passage.”

Each time the Abystortas took another step toward us, a heavy thud echoed across the land and the earth trembled.

It was still far away, yet I could see the huge, pitch-black mountain moving. Even now, it crushed a towering ancient tree between its jaws and made it vanish in an instant.

Earlier, I had used the recovered drone to survey the path the Abystortas had taken. Not a single tree remained. There was only level ground, flattened beneath its massive body, stretching into the distance. The monster fully deserved its names, the Earth Eater and the Natural Disaster.

“The Abystortas has entered the open ground. Aoi, it’s all yours!”

“Yes! Leave it to me!”

The Abystortas advanced into the center of the grassland. Nothing there could obstruct our attack.

“Stars that wheel across the heavens, emerge from beyond the void and summon the flames of ruin—”

Aoi’s incantation came through the headset.

Magic in this world could apparently be activated in three ways: with a full incantation, with the incantation omitted, or without chanting at all. A full incantation took time and left the caster exposed, but it produced the greatest power. Since the Abystortas moved extremely slowly, Aoi could take her time chanting and strike it with maximum force.

In any case, its attacks could not reach Aoi while she flew overhead using magic. She could bombard the Abystortas one-sidedly and without risk.

“Scorch the atmosphere and reduce all creation to ash! Meteor Catastrophe!”

The instant Aoi finished her chant, an enormous magic circle appeared in the sky. Five blazing meteors, each roughly ten meters across, emerged from it and hurtled down toward the Abystortas.

A deafening series of explosions rolled across the area. Even at our considerable distance, the aftermath of the spell reached us.

“…So this is the magic of Aoi-dono, the Sage. The Unique Skills bestowed upon the Blessed People truly possess astonishing power.”

“Aoi-chan being an elf probably matters too. Elves are born with a high aptitude for magic, which makes her an exceptionally good match for the [Archmage] Unique Skill. I doubt even many of the previous Blessed People who possessed [Archmage] could wield magic of this magnitude so easily.”

“…”

I was too stunned by the spell’s unbelievable power to speak, while Gustav-san and Rain calmly analyzed Aoi’s magic beside me.

This was in a completely different league from the lightning magic she had used to defeat the Silver Wolf. She truly had not been remotely serious back then. I never imagined she would call down meteors. Magic was absolutely ridiculous…

Aoi had explained Meteor Catastrophe to us beforehand. It was a combined fire-and-earth spell—an enormous, strategic-class ultimate magic attack that covered a vast area. The claim that battles between Blessed People could alter the landscape had not been an exaggeration at all.

“…It wasn’t enough. I annihilated every other monster in the vicinity, but the Abystortas itself is still moving.”

Dust still blanketed the area after Aoi’s spell, but from her position she could already see that the Abystortas had survived.

“The Abystortas’s shell possesses tremendous resistance to magic. Even so, I am amazed that a spell of such magnitude failed to halt it.”

I had been told beforehand that its jet-black shell had high magical resistance. Still, just as Gustav-san said, the creature did not stop advancing even after taking a spell of that scale. It truly was a monster beyond all common sense.

It would have been simple if that spell had killed it, but we had anticipated this possibility.

The real battle began now.