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 .

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 .

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 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 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 .

◇

--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 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!"