Chapter 87: The Iruma Magician

Tokyo Magic University had established a solid defense against the zombie panic.

That said, their actual countermeasures were fairly simple: defensive magic barriers were cast around the perimeter of the university to prevent zombie intrusion, and from elevated positions like the school buildings and the ice tower, they fired arrows, bullets, and spells downward to repel them.

If a zombie, granted false life, sustained significant damage, its body would collapse, succumbing to magic death and turning to dust. If that weren’t the case, the area surrounding the university would have been buried under mountains of zombie corpses.

The zombies were nothing more than moving corpses, with no special abilities to speak of. They didn’t use magic, and when set alight, their tattered clothing easily caught fire. They couldn’t breach the tough, towering walls of defensive magic — the best they could manage was to scratch at the walls or try to push against them.

If the Blue Witch had stepped outside the university and confronted them physically, there’d have been no need for magic at all. But the sheer number of zombies was overwhelming. Furthermore, learning from the lessons of the Aratake gang’s raid, the Blue Witch chose to stay close to Professor Ohinata at all times, never straying from his side.

On the rooftop of the school building, a command post had been set up, where professors—trapped in the university after staying late in their laboratories—had gathered after getting caught up in the zombie panic. Professors who weren’t at the command post, along with the unlucky students stuck on campus, were on the frontlines, assisting with the defense.

By the light of magic flames, three professors surrounded a map spread out on the table, deep in discussion: Professor Sendou from the Department of Monster Studies, Professor Inui from the Department of Mutation Studies, and Professor Tsukumozawa, who taught general education subjects.

Professor Sendou, listening to reports relayed by his eyeball-shaped familiar, nodded and jotted a new number onto Mitaka City on the map.

After glancing over the entire map, he adjusted his glasses with an index finger and spoke his conclusion.

“The witch from Setagaya, who had sided with the zombies, was apparently defeated by the witch from Mitaka. Judging from the distribution and density of the zombies, there’s no doubt the origin point is the territory controlled by the Zombie Witch. The ones that appeared in Bunkyo Ward probably used the underground tunnels to get there. Humans can’t use the tunnels due to flooded sections, but zombies can pass through without breathing. Quite a number of them seem to have come from Saitama as well, but technically that’s a different matter. Given that last year’s heavy rains collapsed and severed some of the tunnels, it makes sense that there are fewer zombies in Shinagawa, where the direct underground route from Kunitachi City is blocked. On the other hand, the tunnels to Saitama seem to still be intact.
Rather than assume there’s a separate origin point, it’s more logical to believe that the Zombie Witch’s forces moved through the tunnels to Saitama, regrouped, and launched a second wave of invasion overland back into Tokyo.”

Professor Inui, holding a dissection diagram, chimed in with his own findings.

“Our department dissected ten zombie specimens, and there were no signs of mutation in their anatomical structure. They were unquestionably human. The kind of magic death caused by severe physical loss isn’t something you see in monsters or magicians, nor in gremlins for that matter. They were all created by the Zombie Witch’s magic. Given that, combined with Associate Professor Nanase’s observations, we can safely dismiss the idea that Setagaya’s witch was falsely accused. It’s reasonable to conclude she was indeed working with the Zombie Witch.”

“…Um, do I even have a reason to be here?”

Professor Tsukumozawa, from the general education faculty, raised her hand lightly and spoke in a somewhat sulky tone.

“I don’t think I have anything meaningful to contribute at this point. My specialties are history and astronomy, you know? I feel like I’d be more useful joining the zombie-hunting team with a crossbow.”

Professor Sendou smiled wryly.

“But it was your idea to pull the old crossbows out of the Combat Studies department’s storage, wasn’t it? The more brains we have, the better. Knowledge is a weapon too, you know.”

“But Associate Professor Nanase went off to join the defense team right away, didn’t he?”

“That’s because Nanase has undergone combat training. And as they say, two heads are better than one. You’ve never practiced with a crossbow, right, Professor Tsukumozawa? Since arrows are limited, I’d rather you stay here.”

Reluctantly, Tsukumozawa nodded in agreement. Sandwiched between two authoritative senior professors, the relatively young and newly appointed female professor looked quite uncomfortable.

There was no shortage of manpower for fending off the zombie panic. The real problem was figuring out what the actual problem was.

The professors debated intensely, trying to uncover the root cause and the full scope of the incident. Tsukumozawa mostly listened quietly, only occasionally asking a small question. But after a while, she started reviewing her notes, and, raising her hand again, spoke, even as if doubting herself.

“I’ve been thinking… what if this whole zombie panic is actually a diversion?”

“A diversion? Using close to four million zombies? That sounds more like a full-scale occupation strategy. They’ve used the underground tunnels to sneak zombies in, then exploited the new moon’s darkness for a combined surface assault, spreading across the entire Tokyo area in one coordinated push. It’s cunning, calculated.”

“But don’t you think it’s odd that there’s no clear endgame? Sure, the invasion was smooth — I half expected something like this would happen while the Seer was off in Hokkaido. But even so, the zombies themselves are just… underwhelming. There weren’t any particularly strong ones. Sure, they could overwhelm a magician with sheer numbers, but they’d never stand a chance against an magician. Their firepower is fundamentally lacking. With that level of strength, the witches would wipe them out in under three days. Even if Setagaya’s witch was working with the Zombie Witch, it wasn’t nearly enough to face the entire witches’ assembly. And in the end, Setagaya lost to just one witch from Mitaka. It feels like this uprising doesn’t have a real goal. It just doesn’t sit right with me that the Zombie Witch, who’d been lying low for so long, would suddenly erupt into such mindless destruction.”

“Hmm, you’ve got a point. There are reports of them attacking magic item shops, trade markets, and dynamite factories, but now that you mention it, the scale of this operation seems too big if that’s all they wanted. Even if they managed to occupy those places temporarily, there’s no long-term benefit.
It does make more sense if they had another objective entirely.”

Professor Inui nodded in agreement, and Professor Sendou followed suit.

The three of them then discussed what the true target could be, assuming the zombie invasion was merely a diversion, but none of them could reach a conclusion.

Seeing that the “wisdom of three” wasn’t enough, Professor Inui decided to consult a witch.

He called out loudly to the Blue Witch, who had been staying close to Professor Ohinata and launching spells within the safe radius of an amulet’s natural recovery field.

“Blue Witch! May I have a moment? There’s a theory we’ve come up with — that this zombie uprising is just a diversion—”

One hour before sunrise, the world still cloaked in darkness.

After hearing the possibility that the zombie panic was only a large-scale decoy, the Blue Witch took Professor Ohinata to a hidden room beneath the university for safekeeping. Once he was secure, she cast a return spell and hurried back to Okutama.

The moment the Blue Witch materialized in the backyard of the Dairi residence, formed from golden particles —

A massive, silver, fist-shaped light, as big as a grown adult, was already hurtling toward her face.

With inhuman reflexes, the Blue Witch triggered the emergency defense mechanism embedded in her staff, erecting a powerful defensive barrier. The silver fist smashed into the barrier, and the impact burst outward, scattering as a blinding wave of light that ripped the ground apart.

When the silver torrent, the roar, and the tremors finally subsided, the Blue Witch turned around — and her blood ran cold.

The ground, starting from the center of the defense spell’s impact, had been gouged out in a wide fan-shaped crater, smoke rising from the devastation as if a missile had exploded.

Had her reflexes been even a fraction of a second slower in activating the emergency barrier, she would have been dead.

The one-time perfect defense mechanism Dairi had installed had undoubtedly saved her life.

The powerful spell wore off early in exchange for its strength, and the Blue Witch, fully on guard, glared toward the direction the silver fist had come flying from.

The professors at the Magic University had been correct in their predictions.
The zombie horde had merely been a diversion.

The real enemy had arrived — in Okutama.

As the thin smoke and lingering silver fragments cleared, what stood beyond them was a single boy.

He looked to be around ten years old. Golden hair, with dull, murky black eyes. His entire body was covered in seams and stitches, like some eerie patchwork doll. Clutching the Demon King Gremlin in his hand, the boy smiled.

His face wasn’t familiar. A complete stranger.

“You’re late, Blue Witch—”

But the moment the boy spoke, his gentle, friendly-sounding voice — so easy on the ears — the Blue Witch immediately understood the true identity of the enemy standing before her.

“!! Ice Javelin, Du Vaara!”

“—Unfortunately, it’s too late.”

The Blue Witch didn’t bother responding to the words of her mortal enemy, the Iruma Magician.
As the Iruma Magician dodged the ice spear magic with only a half-turn, she unleashed an unchanted shooting spell to follow up. But he too summoned a silver shield without an incantation and blocked the shot, even as his stance remained broken.

Old trauma surged up. Anger, hatred — all bubbled to the surface.

At the same time, her sharpened, icy killing intent was fully awakened.

“Impressively refined unchanted magic. But I’m no slouch myself, wouldn’t you say?”

“Arise, [×××], my [××] blood-tide — Deenit!”

A swarm of golden petal-like fragments erupted around the Iruma Magician, surging toward the Blue Witch.
She cast an enhancement spell and sprinted at full speed, but the golden petals struck the ground just behind her, transforming everything they touched into solid gold.

A barrage of black unchanted beams fired as she ran — but the Iruma Magician’s silver dome, spread in all directions, blocked every single one.

“Aren’t you willing to talk? If you are, I’m ready to settle this with words.”

“The spear is forged from Du [×××] Ice, Vaara Snow, and Zaaara Sorrow — Kunnei-made, Sicel.”

The Blue Witch’s trident spell was met by the Iruma Magician’s evasive maneuver — he had golden tendrils grab him and hurl him away, dodging her attack entirely.

The Blue Witch didn’t answer him. She wouldn’t speak.

If she had the breath for even one word, she’d rather spend it on another spell.

She’d learned six years ago that trying to talk to the Iruma Magician was utterly pointless.

Why had the Iruma Magician returned from the dead?

How did he break through Okutama’s defenses?

What was he plotting?

All of it was trivial.

The one and only certainty:
The Iruma Magician had to be killed here and now.

The gruesome memory of the Iruma Magician’s human experiments, conducted at the cost of Ome’s citizens, flashed through her mind, and nausea welled up.

If she let him escape now, there was no telling what fresh hell he’d unleash next — even imagining it was terrifying.

Even after a brief exchange, it was clear: the Iruma Magician, for some reason, was weakened.

He was using unknown unchanted spells one after another, but hadn’t used a single traditional chanted spell.

From the way he dodged and blocked, it was also obvious his physical abilities were severely impaired.

And that had something to do with what she’d glimpsed in the corner of her vision — the Spider Witch, lying on her back just outside Dairi’s residence, convulsing in agony.

Okutama’s defenses had been breached, but the Iruma Magician hadn’t escaped unscathed.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take down her cunning enemy.

“That Mamuugi beast [×××] spewed [×××] pure white — the Vaara World [Putorae]—”

“Would you listen if it were his voice? Dairi!”

At the Iruma Magician’s voice, Dairi stepped out from behind the half-collapsed general store, partially destroyed by the magical battle.

Seeing that Dairi was still alive brought a deep wave of relief — and then, upon noticing the cursed magic brand carved onto his chest, a new surge of fury.

Just when she thought her hatred for the Iruma Magician couldn’t deepen any further, it did.

But when Dairi, unguarded, casually stepped into the line of fire, the spell the Blue Witch had charged with killing intent and magic dissolved into nothing.

Seeing her scattered magic energy, the Iruma Magician’s eyes went wide, then he applauded in apparent admiration.

“Love, isn’t it, Blue Witch? Beautiful. Truly, love is the most sacred, wonderful, and powerful force in the world. To think taking a hostage would actually work on you. People do change.”

“Hey, Hiyori, sorry to ask — but would you mind dying for me? I’d be delighted if you became a zombie.”

Hearing those words — spoken as if Dairi truly desired it — the Blue Witch could no longer hold back, and her voice burst into a scream of pure hatred.

The Iruma Magician laughed with delight and, taking advantage of her lapse, unleashed a colossal silver fist he’d woven together in secret.

“We are the fortress of Nautek Dodd!”

The Blue Witch activated the compressed ring of Kyanos, concentrating her basic defensive magic — the foundation of her magic fortress — into the size of a single shield.

But even that condensed and reinforced barrier was shattered by the silver fist.

The torrent of silver blasted through and struck the Blue Witch, even as she tried to retreat with a backstep.

“Keep fighting, Blue Witch. But don’t hurt him, okay? Aim only at me!”

The Iruma Magician laughed as he grabbed Dairi with his golden tendrils and swung him around like an absolute shield.

She clung to the faint hope that Dairi might resist, searching his expression, but there wasn’t even the slightest sign of struggle or protest.

The tide of battle had decisively turned against the Blue Witch.

Unable to launch a proper attack, she was mercilessly tormented by the Iruma Magician’s gold and silver magic, accompanied by his mocking laughter.

The one small mercy: it seemed the Iruma Magician didn’t truly wish to harm Dairi either.

He used him as a shield — but he swung him around with a strange, careful precision, making sure not to inflict fatal injuries.

The fact that he hadn’t placed Dairi directly on the front lines from the very start, combined with the Iruma Magician’s known efficiency, made it clear:

Iruma didn’t want Dairi dead. He was a vital, irreplaceable piece — and Iruma intended to claim him alive, if at all possible.

But the moment the Iruma Magician’s life was truly threatened, he wouldn’t hesitate to trade Dairi’s life to save his own. That much was equally clear.

Disgusting as it was, the Iruma Magician never misjudged the scales of profit and loss.

“You don’t have a heart, but you have a soul. That’s something to be happy about.”

“However…!”

The second silver fist, although aimed slightly off-target, still landed a direct hit. The Blue Witch was spun into the air, her body tumbling before crashing into a waterwheel on the riverbank.

The magician from Iruma, holding onto his golden tendrils, descended to the riverbank with Dairi, looking as if he might even hum a cheerful tune.

The Blue Witch coughed up blood.

Her internal organs were damaged, and multiple bones were broken. Her left arm was immobile.

In utter despair, the Blue Witch shed tears.

Unable to endure the pain, she slammed her fist into the stones of the riverbank.

The magician from Iruma had to be killed here and now.

However, to do that, Dairi had to be killed.

After enduring immense suffering, the Blue Witch had finally accepted this painful reality.

Maintaining a distance, the magician from Iruma cautiously observed from afar.

His evaluation of her wounds was clear, measuring her blood loss and the extent of her injuries.

The Blue Witch spoke to Dairi, who was held aloft by the golden tendrils, with a genuine wish.

“Dairi… please, tell me you trust me.”

Before the magician from Iruma could intervene, Dairi immediately responded with a carefree smile.

“Of course! I trust Hiyori more than anyone in the world!”

With those words, the tears that had been streaming down her cheeks stopped.

She wiped the blood from her mouth, then, with resolve, stood up on both feet and raised her staff, Kyanos. Seeing her, the magician from Iruma sighed.

“Dairi, you shouldn’t trust your enemy.”

“Huh? Oh, really? Well, then I won’t trust you!”

The Blue Witch used her incantationless shield to block the silver arrow fired by Iruma.

Then, she began to gather the magic power required for a large spell.

Compared to the past, the Blue Witch’s control over her magic had improved significantly.

Even her staff’s functionality had advanced.

But still, this magic was uncontrollable. There was no way to aim it solely at the  Iruma while avoiding Dairi.

Cold air began to spread from her feet, freezing the surface of the river.

The magician from Iruma, seeing the signs of a large spell, retreated.

“Whoops… are you serious?”

The magician, using Dairi as a shield, tried to increase the distance.

However, his feet were caught by the ice shackles that had been cast without an incantation.

The ice shackles were extremely weak—fragile enough that even a child could break free from them. But for the magician, whose physical abilities had greatly declined, the shackles were fatal.

Tripping over his feet, the magician fell, crashing hard to the ground, and the golden tendrils vanished.

“You, Zey, freeze in the glacial silence of Torika…!”

A wave of cold air spread out. The trees along the riverbank began to turn white.

Iruma tried to get Dairi to carry him, but Dairi, having been roughly handled with the idea that “only his life mattered,” had injured his leg and was dragging it behind him.

The barrage of silver arrows shot in desperation was perfectly blocked by a semi-transparent shield that mimicked the magician’s silver one.

Realizing that his last-ditch efforts were futile, the magician from Iruma let out a long, final sigh, raising his hands in surrender.

Then, the magic was completed.

“Sleep in the eternal frozen earth, E. Nasheka, Vaara!”

“I wish you the worst of luck, Blue Witch. You’re going to kill me twice. At least suffer through the rest of your long life.”

From the staff, Kyanos, a pale blue wave of energy was released.

The wave shattered the three layers of silver shields the magician from Iruma had erected as though they were nothing, freezing everything in an instant.

A cold wind blew fiercely, scattering diamond dust.

Amidst the beautiful white ice crystals, Dairi and the magician from Iruma were sealed within the icebergs and died.

The body of the magician from Iruma, who had once been revived, turned to dust in the ice, vanishing into the void from which he could never return due to the magic death.

Dairi, left alone in the ice, looked as if he were merely sleeping.

The Blue Witch, the sole victor, placed her hand on the iceberg and bowed her head.

Dairi Kenshi had said he trusted her, Hiyori Aoyama.

Even when he was under the puppet magic, he still said he trusted her.

If that was the case, there was no time to cry. She had to respond to that trust.

A long, long journey filled with suffering would begin, a journey without Dairi.

Once, the Witch of the Flames had said, “I want you to kill me with the Great Glacier Magic and seal me away.”

Though she had been sealed away through other means, the Witch of the Flames knew the true essence of the Great Glacier Magic.

The gigantic monster that had turned Tokyo into a sea of fire was killed by the Great Glacier Magic.

The Witch of the Flames, who was tasked with the painstaking work of thawing the monster’s ice, noticed something strange.

The magical power of all living things gradually diminishes upon death. There should be no exceptions to this rule.

However, the gigantic monster, which had been killed by the Great Glacier Magic and sealed within the ice, maintained its body and magical power perfectly, regardless of how much time passed.

Neither physically nor magically had any degradation occurred—it was as if it were merely asleep.

Until the thawing process began and it was exposed to the air, the monster remained dead, with time itself frozen.

In the world of magic, physical death is not truly death.

Resurrection is possible.

The Great Glacier Magic is a spell that puts one to sleep until the time comes for resurrection.

The morning sun rose from beyond the mountains in Okutama, and light began to shine.

Resurrection magic does exist.

Though humanity is still unaware of it.

Somewhere in the world, there must be someone who knows how to perform resurrection magic.

Then let’s search for it.

No matter what it takes.

Whether it takes decades, centuries, or even millennia.

For the one I love, who said they trust me, I will definitely find resurrection magic.

The Blue Witch, reluctantly tearing herself away, looked back countless times, imprinting the image of Dairi sleeping within the ice, and then began walking forward.

The long, long journey of the Blue Witch had begun.

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