Several days had passed since the three A-class students were attacked and Ermes had begun his investigation of Clyde.
One afternoon after school, Ermes walked through the academy corridors with a contemplative expression.
After a period of deliberation, what surfaced on his face was — certainty.
"...Yes, I'm sure of it."
His investigation over the past few days, combined with the events that had transpired during that time — and his own deductions regarding magic. Putting it all together, Ermes had already arrived at the truth behind the magic Clyde wielded.
...I see, he thought. This was indeed a blind spot. If this magic were used skillfully, it would not be impossible to cause such phenomena "without anyone lifting a finger."
And at the same time, he felt the urgency to act quickly.
After all, if Clyde had used that magic consciously, intentionally — the damage would likely not be limited to a handful of people.
Therefore, he had to confront Clyde immediately, uncover the truth, and corner him before it was too late.
But before that — the direction he was heading was not toward Clyde's location. He had been summoned by a certain person, and he could not very well ignore that.
Thus, he arrived at the B-class he normally frequented. Some time had already passed since classes ended. When Ermes stepped into the empty, deserted classroom where no one else was present, he found —
"...Hey. Sorry for calling you out at a time like this, Er."
A beautiful young woman bathed in the slanting western sunlight, which cast a faint red glow upon her silver hair.
Nina von Frodaite waved toward him with her usual easygoing smile.
"That's fine, but... what is this regarding? Is it about Clyde, after all?"
"Oh come on. A girl calls you to an empty classroom after school, just the two of you? You could show a little more excitement, you know."
At Ermes's inquiry, Nina first pouted her lips cutely in mild dissatisfaction.
But soon, her expression shifted to its usual look — or rather, something slightly more serious.
"But yes, that's about the size of it. ...You've already figured out Clyde's Bloodline Magic, haven't you?"
"Yes. I had actually intended to confront him today — but it seems Clyde didn't come to school."
Whether he'd realized he was being cornered, or whether problems had arisen from another direction — in any case, they could not afford to let him slip away.
"I'll be meeting up with Katia-dono and Sara-dono and heading to Clyde's family home. If he's not there, we'll confront his family instead. I've already received the Duke's permission for that."
"I see. Well, that makes sense. ...Then I have one piece of advice for you."
Nina nodded at Ermes's stated plan, then fixed him with a direct gaze.
"This matter... is probably worse than you imagine. Definitely much worse than you think. Dealing with Clyde won't be simple, either."
"!"
Interpreting the meaning behind those words, Ermes calmly asked:
"...Does Nina-dono know something?"
"Yeah, sort of. Rather than knowing — there was something I was hiding. ...If you're heading toward him, I can't very well keep hiding it anymore. I want you to judge for yourself after hearing it. That's one of the reasons I called you here."
That made sense. The secret was probably related to Clyde, which explained why she had chosen this moment to bring it up.
Nina opened her mouth.
"...My family was a family of knights."
"?"
But what she revealed was her own personal history.
He tilted his head for a moment — but she clearly wasn't one to tell such stories on a whim. If she was saying it, there must be something worth hearing. Deciding as much, Ermes continued to listen.
"Knights who were also mages. The common weakness of Bloodline Magic users is the chanting process — my family produced outstanding knights who could protect them through it. That was my..."
"...Original..."
"...family."
— "Original," meaning...
"And so, from childhood, I was trained as well. Training wasn't really unpleasant — swinging a sword was fun and suited me. Besides, apparently I had tremendous talent. I was told over and over 'if only you were a boy'... and in fact, I was actually raised as a boy for a time, which is why I talk like this."
She casually revealed the origin of her distinctive manner of speaking, then continued.
"— But even so, this was still the Yustia Kingdom. The kind of place where such tragedies happened."
...Her expression was different from before, tinged with a hint of sorrow.
"My Bloodline Magic was... absolutely terrible."
"!"
"Knight family or not, magic was still important in this kingdom. ...And my magic had problems in just about every conceivable way. ...In the end, no matter how you looked at it, I couldn't stay in the family anymore and was taken in by another house — the Frodaite Viscount family."
"That's... awful."
In a sense, she too was a victim who had been denied the blessing of magic, just like Ermes.
"It was a real shock, yeah. The sword training I'd done up to that point was my identity, so I couldn't give that up. ...But everything else — I just couldn't help losing all motivation. If a thing you're born with decides everything, what's the point of even trying, you know?"
"...Katia-dono once struggled with the same issue."
"Yeah. That's why I was interested in you from the start — or rather, felt a sense of sympathy."
And her story continued up to the time of Ermes's transfer.
"Someone who was driven from their home because of magic, just like me. Someone who had it worse than me — stripped of even their noble status — but came back. I wondered what someone like you, who I knew must have felt the same things I did, would do at this academy."
That was what she had thought when she first spoke to him. And the result was —
"— You're amazing, you know that?"
Her current expression said it all.
"That even in a country like this, someone can remain so straight and true. Thanks to you, everyone in B-class has gotten better. The academy is changing too. And I myself — for the first time in a long while, I've been able to feel this passionate again."
She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her chest, as if recalling that heat.
Then, opening her eyes once more, Nina smiled warmly at Ermes.
"So, once again — thank you, Er."
"—"
That gentle smile, combined with the western sunlight illuminating her, was so ethereally beautiful, lovely, and endearing that Ermes momentarily forgot himself, captivated by the sight.
...But he pulled himself together. Because everything up to this point had been preamble. The real substance — the most important thing he needed to hear — was yet to come.
"Sorry for the long story. ...Yes, this is where the real topic begins."
She must have sensed that too, as her expression turned serious. She took a breath, then spoke with composure:
"My —"
That was the instant.
"— Bloodline Magic — 'Balefire Curtain of the Evil God.'"
From somewhere — nowhere — a voice echoed, and suddenly the classroom was engulfed in dim darkness.
"No —"
It wasn't just the classroom. Ermes looked out the window, his eyes wide with shock.
Outside the classroom. Beyond the courtyard, running along the fence that enclosed the academy.
A pitch-black, dome-shaped "something" had been deployed, walling the academy's interior off from the outside world.
Ermes knew exactly what that meant.
"—"
He was trapped.
That was certainly a problem, but what truly tightened Ermes's chest was a single question.
"...Whose magic is that?"
He didn't know.
Ermes had at least catalogued every spell used by students in his year. Given recent developments, he also knew about prominent spells outside his year.
But this magic — its effect, its quality of magic power — matched nothing he had ever seen.
That was right. The magic he had recently identified as Clyde's was not this.
In other words — interference from a third party whose magic was entirely unknown to him.
"..."
Truly, just as Nina had said — "worse than you imagine."
Correctly intuiting the arrival of danger, Ermes glared at the bizarre scene surrounding the academy.
◆
"...That should do it."
At the same time, near the academy's main gate.
A man in his mid-twenties with sharp features — the very same man who had recently approached Clyde.
He was the one who had deployed the black dome covering the entire academy with his Bloodline Magic. He spoke to the blue-haired boy standing beside him.
"Good. With this, nobody inside the academy can get out unless something extraordinary happens. Is this sufficient, Clyde?"
"...Yes. It's an astonishing technique."
The boy he addressed — Clyde — muttered while breaking into a slight sweat, a faint trace of fear toward the man leaking through his voice.
The barrier this man had erected might not be a mere barrier — but even if it were, its range was far too vast.
This academy boasted one of the largest grounds in the Royal Capital, surpassed only by the area around the Royal Palace. A barrier covering its entire territory... how much magic power and output would be required to make that possible?
As if receiving Clyde's gaze, the man returned a reassuring smile.
"I'm pushing myself a bit too, you know. Besides, maintaining the barrier probably takes everything I've got, so I can't move from here. Incidentally, it's just you and me — no reinforcements."
Conclusion: the only one who could act from here was Clyde. But —
"But it shouldn't be a problem, right? You — "
Even understanding this, the man declared with casual nonchalance:
"— The current you should find it easy to destroy the entire academy by yourself, from here."
"Yes, of course."
Receiving that unbelievable statement — both in terms of the action itself and its feasibility — Clyde nonetheless nodded with a beaming smile.
"...Honestly, it was everything before this that was wrong."
Rather, he began speaking as if to no one in particular, wearing the twisted smile he had displayed countless times in the past.
"I've been so humble, sacrificing myself for the sake of this country, working so hard. And my noble sentiments were trampled upon by ugly jealousy and self-aggrandizement — people who refuse to accept new values, who keep dragging me down! No matter how much I punish them, they never decrease! Then —"
And then.
"This academy itself is wrong! It must be!"
Clyde declared this without a trace of doubt, his voice bright and clear.
"Mm-mm, that's right."
The man, for his part, showed complete agreement with Clyde's words.
"This country is already so rotten that small-scale changes can't fix anything. Your academy is the worst example of that. ...And when decay goes beyond treatment, the most rational remedy is to 'cut it away.'"
"Yes, leave it to me! Thanks to you, I've finally awakened!"
The man's full affirmation — the validation Clyde had never received before — only galvanized him further.
"I'll teach them! The people who can't change their outdated values — this country will cast them aside from now on! You're on the losing side of natural selection! And the one who will lead this kingdom forward — is me!"
A vow filled with hatred toward the academy that had never gone his way, and hope for a convenient future.
The man listened to it all with satisfaction, then at last pointed to the black crystal in Clyde's possession.
"I've arranged it so you can artificially replicate the effects of 'my magic' using that magical tool as well. You should be able to use it well — but it's only supplementary. The real thing is 'your magic.' That magnificent technique you were never able to fully unleash, trapped by pointless conventions — please, put it to work for the future of this kingdom!"
"Yes!"
"A fine response. ...Then I'll leave the rest to you, comrade of the future."
With those final words, the man dissolved as if melting away through the black wall.
Clyde remained alone. But there was not a trace of anxiety on his face.
He gazed at the academy. Trembling with joy at the thought of ravaging that detestable place with his own two hands, and the delight of being able to use his magic without restraint.
With unfathomable self-affirmation and pleasure, he drew a breath and sang:
"— O nonexistent lives, O unchained hearts — gather at the Hall of the Calamitous Star; the banner of the revelry stands here!"
The incident in which the three A-class students met with misfortune of unknown cause.
Those who investigated it had made one critical mistake.
They had concluded that the perpetrator was
a human hand.
But that was understandable.
Indeed, in this world, magical entities other than humans existed. The ghost soldiers from Katia's "Netherworld of Salvation" were a prime example.
But even so, there was nothing in their frame of reference that could execute such precise, pinpoint offenses. Moreover, Clyde had been at home at the time of the incidents, and before that, if a purely magical entity of that caliber had been acting, anyone with even a modest sensitivity to magic power would have noticed something.
And so, they had overlooked it.
In this world, entities existed at the same level as animals — found everywhere, and the weaker ones possessed so little magic power they were indistinguishable from actual animals.
Some could infiltrate places that were impossible for humans to reach, while others displayed physical strength and agility far beyond human capability.
Yet when it came to "harming humans," they demonstrated terrifying ability and intelligence — an existence far too familiar to them.
"Bloodline Magic — 'The Uttermost Black of Ten Thousand Miles!'"
The moment Clyde made his grand declaration of magic —
— Slithering.
As if crawling out, replacing the man as he departed through the black wall, "it" appeared.
Some were massive bipedal creatures with thick fur, like a cross between a bear and a tiger.
Some were enormous bees with terrifyingly developed stingers.
Some were pitch-black things that had stepped beyond the boundaries of living creatures altogether.
A multitude of magical creatures — countless beings that could easily fill and overflow the entire academy.
They shared two traits: their eyes burned with pure killing intent, glowing fiercely —
— and yet, every single one submitted obediently to Clyde alone.
Clyde accepted that loyalty with rapture and declared:
"That's right — in my hands, even humanity's enemies can be put to productive use! My incompetent father who hid my abilities, the academy people who never appreciated me, that man who got full of himself — they're all wrong! Ignorant people like that — it serves them right to be devoured!"
It was, as he said, magic that turned humanity's adversaries to his use.
Useful without question, but so terrifying in its ferocity that it had been kept secret to avoid provoking backlash — a magic belonging to the kingdom's dark underbelly.
Bloodline Magic, "The Uttermost Black of Ten Thousand Miles."
Its effect was the control of monsters.
"Now then, let me teach you all — those pitiful fools, those blind fools who failed to recognize someone with true power — who the real agent of change is!"
And so, in the academy from which there was no escape —
The assault began, led by countless incarnations of malice born of hatred.