Chapter 201
Chapter 201 Ruli and Alma, Run for Magic Sword -------At the same time, at the sky overlooking the capital-------
About one kilometer above the capital.
Ruli and Alma are falling down toward the city.
"There should be a vacant lot over there. We should land there."
"Umm, how about there, I see some thicket over there so we won"t stand out no? There"s no one around too, it"s safe all around."
The girls have learned magic to decelerate mid-air for situations like this.
And thus, they"re able to adjust their drop point to a degree.
It should be doable for them to land at the vacant lot the size Ruli pointed.
...That said, the size is also nearing the upper limit they can handle, so it can be dangerous if they don"t have good controls.
It"s probably part of the reason Alma suggested to land at a thicket.
However, Ruli denies her suggestion.
"It would take too long if we land there. That vacant lot is the closest place to the royal palace."
Landing in front of the palace would have been the fastest, but there"s a lot of people at the location, so they"re not able to land safely there.
Among the locations that are s.p.a.cious enough for them to land, the place Ruli chose is the closest to the palace.
"But, it shouldn"t take more than a minute to close that distance if we run at full power right? We"d better land at the thicket, it"s safer and..."
"Mathi-kun said that he"s going to buy us time. One minute is too much for our bought time."
The weight of one second in a high level battle is not the same as one second in an ordinary one.
In a fight between students, 10 seconds would afford them at most three attacks.
Five attacks in that time would probably be the limit of swordsmen famed for their strength in this era.
And with chant magic, one shot might even be impossible in 10 seconds.
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However, with Mathias, 10 seconds could mean dozens or maybe even hundreds attacks exchanged in a battle.
In such a fight, even a minute would be draining to both.
The higher the level of a battle, the quicker the conclusion is.
Ruli has come to understand that after all the fights they"ve been through.
That"s why Ruli chose the place where they could move the quickest, even if it"s one where it"s nearing their control limit.
She cannot afford to fail even once, but she"s been training magic every day. She has no intention in failing in the first place.
"...I got it. I"ll land at the vacant lot too. Will we be heading straight to the palace once we"re on ground?"
"Let"s do so. The city must be in uproar thanks to Iris-san, so it should be easier for us to pa.s.s through instead."
"Even so, if we tried to run into the palace without permissions, they"d drive us away, or worst, detain us..."
"The royal palace"s personnels should know that we"re Mathi-kun"s party members, so that shouldn"t happen. I feel a bit bad, but let"s use Mathi-kun"s name and sort of threaten them. That"s the fastest method."
Ruli stared at the royal palace as she said that.
These dangerous words are not something the usual Ruli would have said, she must be giving maximum priority to time-shortening.
"...And what if they didn"t let us?"
"Me and Alma should be capable enough to break through the palace"s defense. The problem is the lock at the treasury, but if it still hasn"t changed from before, I"m confident we can break through it."
"Ruli, feels like your lines of thinking are getting more and more like Mathi-kun...."
Alma looked like she couldn"t believe it for an instant, but she immediately put up a serious expression.
"You"re serious right?"
"Of course."
"...Gotcha. I"ll follow along too. I don"t want to use this if possible though."
Alma looks at the bow in her
her hand.
If they failed to subjugate Zaridias, the people in this city would almost certainly be all slaughtered.
Success and failure of this subjugation rests on Mathias"s shoulder--and Mathias needs the magic sword to win.
Even if she understands that, she still doesn"t want to fight the capital"s populace if she can help it.
Alma looks at the approaching ground while praying that they would succeed in persuading the palace"s personnels.
"We"re about to hit the ground."
"Let"s do it calmly, but be sure to not slow down too much. The people nearby would probably come after we landed, so we"d better rush pa.s.s them with magic."
"Gotcha!"
After they"re done discussing, they take the posture to land.
Defensive and strengthening magic to defend their body are important when landing, but landing posture is also immensely important.
The two have learned from Mathias, the landing posture to immediately be ready for battle right after they land.
That doesn"t change even if they"re falling from one kilometer above ground. The only difference is that they need to use more support magic.
...Even the two never imagined that they would end up using the techniques they learned to fall one kilometer down off a dragon.
--The two landed safely partly thanks to the training.
"What, what"s going on!?"
"I swear I saw the dragon dropped something..."
"Aren"t those human!?"
The sound of their landing was loud as expected of a 1-km fall, so people gathered round.
And since people went outside due to the dragon, lots of people came.
However, Ruli and Alma pay them no heed.
"We"ll run pa.s.s them!"
"Yeah!"
The two use simple stealth magic and jump over the crowd toward the royal palace.
Ruli and Alma don"t even have to try to simply evade ordinary people"s eyes.
Only three people who are Second Academy"s students that happened to be there noticed them, but they didn"t attempt to chase the two.
They"re in a situation where a dragon suddenly showed
suddenly showed up, and then Ruli and Alma who had been away from the capital fell down.
The students have no idea about the big picture, but they understand very well that there"s something big going on.
"Oy, the two that fell down were Ruli and Alma right? Did they come as reinforcement to fend off the dragon?"
"...I don"t feel hostility from the dragon, but there"s no doubt that they"re related to it. I"m intrigued that Mathias isn"t with them, but they look to be quite in a hurry, so there must be something going on... Should we help them?"
"Just us three would just drag them down instead. Shouldn"t we gather more people first?"
"...You"re quite right. I"ll go inform the princ.i.p.al, you go get students who are still at the lodging house."
How to act in a state of emergency is in the second academy"s curriculum.
The textbook Mathias left deal not only with fighting when a battle begins.
Ways to effectively demonstrate your powers before a battle begin is also included in the Second Academy"s curriculum.
It hasn"t been long since such lessons started so there"s not a lot of students who have mastered the skill, but fortunately the three students here are amongst the best in the academy.
And thus, the Second Academy"s students begun their preparations for the approaching fight.
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--While the students were preparing, Ruli and Alma came closer to the palace by running on the roofs while avoiding the crowd."...Hey, is it just my imagination?"
"You mean demon"s mana? ...Unfortunately, it"s real. It"s just as Mathi-kun predicted."
Ruli replied to Alma"s question while they were running.
There"s mana reaction from a different demon than Zaridias.
On their way to the capital, Mathis told them about this possibility.
The capital"s great barrier does prevent demon"s infiltration, however, demons with relatively weak magic power are ablepower are able to slip through the barrier given enough time by camouflaging.
The demons in this era probably have no skill to do that, but it"s a different story if Zaridias is involved.
It won"t be strange for Zaridias to hide a demon in the royal capital in preparation for some kind of situations if it"s to destroy humans.
Mathias might be the human whom demons are most wary with, but for a country, that applies to Eis Kingdom.
"...Should we run while hiding from the demon?"
"I think it"s too late for that the moment we fell down the sky. If we have to fight anyway, let"s make it quick."
"You"re right yeah, they should know about us already. Guess no choice but to beat the demon somehow."
"I"d rather avoid fighting since it"d take time though..."
The two were running without breaking their pace even while discussing that.
After about a minute, the palace came into view.
--The king is standing in front of the palace guarded with heavy security.
Looks like he"s come out to see the situation after receiving reports about a dragon.
"The king is here... but that"s some security."
"We have no choice but to keep going there and hoping that he remembers us from Mathi-kun"s matter. At worst, we might have to break through it..."
The two talked in whispers after using Hearing Strengthening, and drew closer to the king.
Without slowing down. Since they knew they would have been stopped by the people around, they intend to let the king notice they"re here first.
The palace guards attempt to stop them, but there"s no way ordinary guards could stop these two.
"Your majesty, please come over here!"
The guards who"s pulling the king"s arm urges the king to escape while shielding him.
In fact, it would be easy for the two a.s.sa.s.sinate the king if they wished so.
However, the king brushes off the guards and shouts out loud.
"Ruli Abendroht! Where is Mathias!"