| Author: Kashiwagi Masato | Original Source: Syosetu | Word Count: 2393 characters |
| Translator: PunishedLyly | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 1643 words |
| Editor(s): Fire | ||
『Now then, it’s time! Event No. 1 Death Bridge!! Ready? Go!!!』
『Whoah! How quick! Team A’s Kief! And team D’s Urania! Both started with the ideal starting dash!』
On Sharl’s signal, the participants of the first event ran all at once. However, the ones that got a head start were these two; Urania of team D and Kief of team A.
Both of them share one thing in common, they’re dog ear-kins that specialize in wind attribute magic. The two of them gathered magic power on their back and the sole of their foot before the start signal and simultaneously activated their magic with the start of the race. With explosive momentum, the two of them had a brilliant starting dash.
『While a step behind the struggle for the first place, team C’s Mahara isn’t backing down!』
Despite falling behind, Mahara of team C is still chasing after the two of them. It seems that she also intended to do a wind attribute assisted starting dash, but because of her weaker physicality due to being purely human, it resulted in her being a step behind them.
『Now for our feature participant! Did team B’s Liev misjudge her output!? Even so, she immediately got up and pursued the three in front! Do your best! Give us mages the chance to dream!』
Liev of team B stumbled on her start dash. While she can now use magic instead of magecraft after granting her a grimoire, as to be expected, she’s the least proficient among the four. Due to her loading more magic power than she imagined, she tripped and was drastically far behind. Even so, she immediately stood up and once again focused her magic power to catch up with the other three and ran.
「Damn! How come you’re so fast despite being『diseased』!」
「……Effort.」
「Oh, is that so!」
While seemingly having an exchange, Urania and Kief got over the first obstacle. As though the wall wasn’t even there, they easily jumped over it while Mahara needed a moment of charging to jump over it. Liev also took some time but, even so, she still got over it much faster than the mages during the demo, showing the extreme ability gap between magic and magecraft.
『Our four participants passed through the first obstacle without a sweat! The top two, in particular, ran through it as if the obstacle didn’t exist to begin with! Ahh, do your best Liev! Don’t ever turn around!!』
Likely hooked by this statement, Liev turned around and saw that the wall that she just climbed is about to be gnawed on by a giant mouth. That’s right, the moment the four of them passed through the first obstacle, Bigmouth appeared at the starting area. Moreover, it isn’t the mini version like it was at the demo, but one bigger than the bridge’s width. Its speed is also completely different.
「Hii!?」
『Ahh, run, Liev! Run! But be careful! You’ll be at the second obstacle soon!』
Seeing how gigantic the mouth is, Liev frantically ran while shrieking, successfully gaining distance from it. However, right before her is the second obstacle. This second obstacle, where innumerable spikes jut out from above and below, isn’t the type to injure even if you accidentally got hit by the spikes. However, getting hit by the spikes will immobilize the victim for a while and naturally, this victim will get swallowed altogether with the spikes by the Bigmouth following behind them.
Urania and Kief run through it effortlessly while Mahara intercepts the projected spikes with wind magic as she moves onward. Needing to intercept these, Mahara will end up falling greatly behind the two sprinters but if she becomes negligent with the interception, she’ll quickly get pinned down. As such, she could only grind her teeth while seeing the two off.
At this point, Mahara and Liev are hopelessly too far behind to compete for first place.
「You’re really! Fast, you know!」
「Praising me, won’t, do you anything!」
「Still! This time! I won’t lose!」
Easily passing through the collapsing floors of the third obstacle, the two dog ear-kin also ran through the fourth and fifth obstacles just as easily and are still keeping pace with each other. Urania occasionally runs on walls, jumps great distances, and creates footholds using “Wall”; in contrast, Kief uses wind magic to launch herself like a bullet, trampling the obstacles as she runs over them. While different with their methods, their speed is roughly the same.
「From here on! I’ll be leaving you in the dust! Awooo!」
『Suddenly! A howl from Kief! What is her aim here-…… Wait, Kief’s body is getting bigger…… No, greatly swelling up! Unbelievable! Kief has used the beastkin’s trump card! The Beast Transformation!』
Kief abruptly howled to the sky and immediately her silhouette expanded into the figure of a wolf running on four legs. The wolf, seemingly clad in wind, shot a quick glance at Urania before running twice faster than it did up until now, leaving Urania in a blink of an eye.
Seeing the wolf away, Urania frustratedly grits her teeth. Urania is ‘diseased’ and due to the medicine administered to her in her childhood, she isn’t capable of using Beast Transformation. Perhaps she has some yearning and envy for this that she had long lost.
「…… But even if I can’t use Beast Transformation, I still have…….」
Urania muttered something, but her words didn’t reach my ears. Still, seeing her face, I can tell. She hasn’t given up yet. Rather, she seems to have locked onto an enemy worth defeating, Kief.
「”……”! “……”! “……”!」
『Urania is saying something but I can’t quite catch it! The distance between her and Kief is already quite large! Does she still have some way to recover from this!?』
In preparation, Urania cast several spells. With a level of magic power manipulation equal to mine, she gathers the minimum required magic power. Eventually done with the preparations, she smirked only for a moment before bracing herself and initiating her first acceleration.
『Whoah! Urania! She suddenly sped up! What in the world just happened!?』
It’s not particularly complicated. Urania simply launched herself with a “Wall” to gain a burst of speed. Naturally, she also used “Wind”, manipulating the air around her to decrease air resistance as much as possible. Doing so, Urania transformed herself into a bullet, now being so fast that she’s leaving a contrail.
Obviously, no matter how little her air resistance is now, she can’t stay in the air forever. It’s different if she uses “Levitation” like I do but if she does, Urania will eventually halt midair as she would have no way of gaining more momentum.1
However, immediately as Urania touched the ground, she accelerated exactly as she did earlier. That’s because she instantly recast “Wall” magic. Urania applied her “Wall” magic not on the ground, but on the sole of her shoes. By casting “Wall” in advance, it activates as she lands, and the instant she’s launched, she terminates the magic and decreases any excess weight, successfully achieving consecutive bursts of acceleration.
『Urania! Amazing, amazing! Using only the basic magic “Wall” and “Wind”, she’s catching up to Kief in the beast form!』
「Are you kidding me!?」
Not expecting Urania to pursue, Kief yelled out loud in beast form. While her speed has greatly increased in beast form, her large build has made Kief struggle with breaking through the obstacles. In contrast, since Urania purely increased in speed, she can still go over the obstacles as easily as she did before.
The distance between the two quickly closed up, and as they returned to being next to each other……
「I’m, stepping up a gear, okay?」
Urania’s words finally left Kief speechless. Up until now, Urania wasn’t taking things seriously. Well, obviously she must have spared no effort. After all, Urania isn’t the type to intentionally mess around to make light of her opponents. However, just because she puts in her full effort doesn’t mean that she’s not holding back. After all, there are still more events, meaning it’s necessary for her to save her trump card so that her opponents wouldn’t know of it.
What Urania did after that was something only a few people could probably understand. Well, no, anyone that looks at the path she ran through could likely understand what exactly she did. The ground Urania ran through had a large number of walls protruding. Yup, instead of leaping a great distance, Urania simply ran and used “Wall” as she kicked the ground.
Demanding tight control as one misstep would make her trip and fall, Urania continues accelerating. Erasing her own wind resistance and even having the wind to propel her, she borrowed the help of the same earth she’s treading on and reached the goal with first place.
『Goal!! First place! Urania! Second place! Kief! Third place! Liev!2 Fourth place! Mahara!』
Seeing everyone reach the goal without getting swallowed by Bigmouth, Sharl announced the placements. I expected Liev who was falling behind in the beginning to just land fourth place but Mahara failed to conserve her magic power, causing her to lose momentum on the way and be somehow overtaken by Liev, resulting in their final placement.
This Death Bridge was made exaggeratedly but as I thought, it’s pretty tepid for sorcerers. As a result, most of the obstacles were simply jumped over, I’ll need to take this into consideration from here on out.
