Chapter 232 – Ivan"s FireworksIvan"s Fireworks
Ivan woke up to the sounds of swords clashing outside. He was drinking up until two hours ago, so he was still a little groggy, but he needed to get up.
「Ivan! We got company!」
A knight, one of the men Alexei sent for reinforcement, stormed in through the door. Just like Ivan, he was drinking a while ago too, but while his face was red, he was already armed.
「S-Sorry! I"ll be right there!」
「You can bring your sword, but don"t use it. You"re drunk, it"ll only get in the way. Either tie up enemies, or help our comrades!」
「G-Got it!」
The knigh bolted through the hallway. As Ivan stood up, he tripped on the sheets and tumbled down to the floor.
「Ouch…」
Covering his face, he caught sight of his bag propped against the wall, a thin rod sticking out of it.
「O-Oh, right. I need to call Hikaru.」
It was given to him by Hikaru to use if the enemy attacked at night. At the tip of the rod was a chrysalis-shaped object with a small string extending from it.
「Let"s see… A vase…」
Ivan shoved the rod into the empty vase with the chrysalis pointed upwards. As he opened the window, a chill breeze rushed in, and he could clearly hear men shouting as they fought. I need to join them soon. Why did I even get drunk? Ivan thought.
He shook his head.「I gotta do this first.」
A small candle still burned on the candlestand on the table.
「Uh, he said to light it up.」
Ivan took both the candlestick and the vase to the window. As he brought the flame close to the string, it made a hissing sound and gave off sparks. Ivan"s eyes widened as the spark quickly consumed the string.
「What the?!」
He thought the chrysalis would explode, but instead it let out a shrill noise as it launched high into the night sky along with the rod before going off with a bang. It was a so-called skyrocket that, of course, Ivan knew nothing about.
「Wh-What was that…?」He stood there, dumbfounded.「I-I gotta go, too.」He then bolted out of the room.
Hikaru slept alone in his room. Right now, Catherine was in the apartment as well. She could"ve slept at the mansion where she stayed when cla.s.ses were in session, but the servants weren"t around during winter. He couldn"t let her stay in a huge mansion all alone.
Suddenly, light coming from a magic item illuminated his entire room. Created by Katy, it functioned by lighting up once the skyrocket exploded. Through some sort of a radio wave, the explosion would cause a mana reaction that would trigger the device. His place might be close to the academy, but he couldn"t possibly hear the explosion.
Hikaru explained about the radio that they discovered in the Zubura ruins to Katy, and she made progress in her studies about it. As for the skyrocket, Katy herself learned about it from the catalog of artifacts. The fact that she could create this with little information just proved how incredible she was as a Magic Item Specialist.
「They"re here, huh?」
Hikaru quickly got out of bed and changed. After wearing his cloak and fastening the wakizashi on his waist, he was good to go.
「Hikaru.」
He was met by Lavia and Catherine in their pajamas in the living room. The magic lamp emitted only a faint light, and he couldn"t see clearly, but he thought Catherine was surprisingly blessed around the chest area.
「Sorry I woke you up. I"m going.」
「Okay. We"ll—」
With his mobility, it would be much easier if Hikaru went alone, and Lavia"s forte was large-scale magic against a large number of enemies. She wouldn"t be able to do much this time.
「You can go back to sleep.」he said.
「Kay.」
「W-Wait! How can you be so calm about this?!」Catherine exclaimed.
「You can stay up, then, if you want. Anyway, I"m in a hurry.」
「Bye.」Lavia said.
「Hm… Take care, then.」Catherine added, still not convinced if this was the right idea.
Both Hikaru and Lavia were already used to urgent situations, while Catherine was not.
Hikaru ran down the stairs and out of the building. Up in the sky, the bright moon illuminated his snowy path. With five points on Power Burst, it actually made it harder to dash at full speed in the snow. Even so, the academy was close. He made it there in less than ten minutes after the magic item in his room went off.
Hikaru slowed down as he neared the dorms. The knights from Jarazack, slightly injured, had the a.s.sailants surrounded. A few severely-injured ones gathered in a corner, tended to by Ivan.
There were less than ten a.s.sailants, while twenty men—double that of the enemy—surrounded them. But the knights, their weapons on the ready, couldn"t get closer.
The a.s.sailants were stained in deep red. Blood oozed from their bodies. One of them even lost his arm. But each and every one of them still stood. They were willing to fight to the bitter end.
「Keep your guard up.」Mikhail said, his great sword on hand.
「Yes, Sir!」the men replied in unison.
Looks like I can just leave this to them, Hikaru thought. Is this all of the enemies?
Hikaru"s Instinct spoke to him. Claude was not here. He was in lecture building C with Luka.
What if an elite team headed there? A cornered rat will bite a cat.
Claude hadn"t fought someone who was prepared to throw their life away. Even the knights who clearly outnumbered the a.s.sailants couldn"t take them all down immediately. Tenacious enemies with such firm determination were tough.
Hikaru deactivated his Stealth as he approached Ivan.
「Ivan.」
「H-Hikaru?! Where"d you come from?!」
「Where are the other knights? Over at Claude?」
「Well…」
Ivan explained things to Hikaru. There were supposed to be fifty men, but about twenty of them took a request from the guild and went monster hunting.
「Those idiots!」
Monsters surging forth at this point in time couldn"t possibly be true. Pretending to go hunt monsters and then come back was one thing, but actually going out on a hunt for real was utter foolishness.
「That means…」
A chill ran down Hikaru"s spine.
Right now, only Claude is protecting Luka…
Claude"s sword deflected the sword of the blue-haired man. It wasn"t as though Larks Lordgrad Ludancia wasn"t strong enough. Claude was just that much stronger.
How?! No one told me Claude Zahard Kirihal was a skilled swordsman!
Larks couldn"t hide his agitation.
「Now you know the difference in our abilities. You"ll have to bring more people if you want a chance of defeating me.」
Claude sounded calm, but he was anything but that. He was up against three people. If he took down Larks, the other two would surely attack. To make matters worse, the lanky man was a short-bow user.
Claude just needs to buy time and he wins, Larks thought. So he doesn"t need to kill his opponent…
Utter humiliation. He expected to lose against a man from Jarazack, but not someone from Kirihal.
Contrary to Hikaru"s expectations, Claude managed to defend himself.
「Oh, what"s this?」Then all of a sudden, Larks heard an indifferent voice.「Come on, Sir. You should at least be able to kill Claude. I know we didn"t expect him to be this strong, but I thought you were quite strong yourself.」
The lanky bow-user, Ray, suddenly started speaking. His words took Larks by surprise. It wasn"t the same Ray he knew. It wasn"t the young man who expressed how much he respected his commander.
Something"s wrong, Larks thought. Though he couldn"t exactly tell what exactly. The other man, Larks" right-hand Joseph, noticed Ray"s strange behavior.
「You moron! Keep your mouth shut!」Joseph yelled as he grabbed Ray"s shoulders.「We have an enemy right before us—」
Ray stabbed Joseph"s arm with something. Joseph quickly pulled away, his face twisted in pain.
「What are you doing?!」
Ray smiled. On his hand was a syringe, its needle as big as the ones used by smiths in sewing. Blood dripped from Joseph"s arm.
「We"ll surely lose if this goes on longer. So how about we use the ace up my sleeve?」
His mouth curved into a smile, but his eyes were dead serious. The next instant, Joseph let out a scream.