Disciple of Immortal

Act 2: Chapter 23: Spider Hunting

I deployed a magic circle, pointing with my forefinger before making a slashing motion with my arm.

「Time-Space Magic, 10th Rank; 《Dimension Slash(Room Slash)》」

The next moment, the bodies of the surrounding Ragnos were split in half. Their body fluids sprouted from the cross-section.

Though this magic has an extremely limited range, namely just a single line in exchange for its high versatility, and limited power, it was more than enough to take care of these small fries.

This versatility and power made the Ragno subjugation like a walk in the park.

I ran in between the Ragnos’ corpses and arrived in front of Pomera and Philia.

「S-Splendid.」

Pomera said so while holding on to Philia.

「Since it’s a low-rank magic, its power is just right for this job.」

「Low… rank?」

Pomera was tilting her neck in confusion.

「Can you make that disappear, Philia-chan? It makes me feel anxious…」

I pointed at the mysterious white laughing sphere in the air.

「Are you sure? Won’t Kanata get into trouble if that person called Rosemonde spread rumours about us to another person?」

「… Well, I guess there’s no problem if it’s her.」

I told Philia so, looking at the forest where Rosemonde escaped to.

Philia seemed to feel relieved upon hearing my remark, and thus, she erased the mysterious sphere in the air.

Pomera, who was desperately holding on to Philia for a while now, finally released the latter with an extremely relieved look on her face, as if a heavy burden had just lifted from her shoulders.

「… But well, I’m curious, just what kind of sphere is that?」

「It’s 《Eerie Face(Creepy Ball)》！」

Philia replied with a proud look on her face.

I see… 《Creepy Ball》, huh. What a befitting name.

Maybe it was named like that exactly because of its creepy appearance.

「What were you going to do with that object?」

「I’m… gonna turn it into splat! Mixing them together… Uhm, somehow it’ll look like a mess, and then…」

Philia explained while flapping her arms, making gestures that I couldn’t understand.

All I knew was the fact that the person herself might not even realize that she just created something ridiculously creepy.

「I guess I just have to show it to Kanata and Pomera right away!」

Yeah, I want to… wait, stop, I don’t want to see that creepy ball again.

After that, Pomera, Philia and I started our Ragno subjugation for real.

I ran toward the crowd of Ragnos, sending the closest ones flying with punches or kicks, and killed the rest all at once with 《Room Slash》.

In this way, I massacred a lot of Ragnos by combining spatial blades with footwork.

I never expected that 《Room Slash》 ‘s versatility would be this useful. Though it was pretty much useless against the devils in《Distorted World of Cursed Mirror》, this magic turned out to be extremely useful in fights outside of that creepy place.

Rather than 『Cutting』, The ultra-thin blade created from that magic was actually 『Disconnecting』 spatial coordinates in its wake. For that reason, it was really easy to collect the subjugation proof since the target didn’t explode or turn into minced meat.

Pomera was also pointing her cane toward another group of Ragnos.

「Spirit Magic, 5th Rank; 《Flare Fly》!」

A bright red fire ball appeared from the tip of her cane and fell right in the middle of the crowd of Ragnos. The fireball then exploded, swallowing the Ragnos around it and turning them into charcoal.

Well, I guess the eyeball would be safe if it was just that level of explosion.

Since 《Flare Fly》 was an AOE explosion type magic, it was suitable for this commission.

I looked at Philia when she raised her hands and a pair of giant, pure white arms appeared from the ground.

「One, two, pa~n!」

When Philia clapped her hands, the arms movement was synchronized with her movement.

The two arms then dug a trench in the ground beneath them, and then pressed their palms together.

I could see from the gap of those palms that more than ten Ragnos were trapped inside and then forcefully compressed till their body fluid sprouted out from their bodies like when you crushed tomato with your bare hand.

The eyeball of those Ragnos squashed out of its eye socket and rolled on the ground around that tragic scene.

Are the other eyes… safe?

Since there was no other way to substitute Ragnos’ single eye as proof of subjugation, I guess it was no big deal even if some of them… were nothing more than half squashed meatballs.

Philia’s giant white arms squeezed almost sixty Ragnos into a single meatball.

「Time-Space Magic, 4th Rank; 《Short Gate》」

I teleported behind the Ragnos who tried to escape and swung my arm to the side.

The blade of 《Room Slash》 sliced through the body of the Ragnos.

「As expected of Kanata-san! The way you use your speciality, time-space magic, is as amazing as before!」

Pomera approached me as she sung such praise.

「My speciality is actually fire-type magic. Time-space magic is my master, Lunaire’s speciality. Or rather, she might only prefer to use time-space magic since it’s really convenient…」

Rather, I didn’t even know what her speciality was. I just thought that time-space magic was her speciality since she often uses it and I never saw her being cornered before.

The chance that she prefers time-space magic over her own speciality might simply be because the former was really convenient and useful magic, be it offensive, defensive, or support.

Her true speciality might be something along the lines of necromancy.

I mean, she said herself that necromancy was her speciality– though hidden from the others– when she was still alive. There was a chance that her necromancy had already become stronger than before since she was also contaminated by Hades’ impurity.

In addition, the main reason why I mainly used time-space magic was that I’m still an amateur in suppressing the overwhelming damage of fire magic.

If I fired my strongest fire magic without suppressing its destructive power, I might end up destroying an entire city and forest.

In addition, I doubt that I could extinguish my own, most powerful fire magic’s flame.

Well, one could say that one of the reasons why I love to use time-space magic was simply because I often saw Lunaire use it with ease, thus, it was ingrained in my brain.

「… Eh? I-Is that so? Does that mean you never used your strongest magic until now?」

Though Pomera looked dumbfounded for a moment, she returned to her normal expression with a shake of her head and continued.

「No… I guess there’s no end to it if I keep being surprised by Kanata-san…」

She then looked at the horizon as if she just attained an enlightenment.

Seriously… just what kind of a monster I am in Pomera’s imagination.

「If this is enough to surprise you, I guess you’ll be extremely surprised once you meet Lunaire. I mean, I really can’t see the bottom of her ability.」

「Kanata-san, you really like Lunaire-sana huh…」

A chill ran down my spine when Pomera said those words.

Due to a certain flow of events, I ended up telling Pomera that Lunaire was an old woman. Though she saw it as me being grateful to Lunaire, if she observed my reaction, she might suspect that Lunaire was actually a lich, an undead.

Though I tried to be careful, it seems she caught on to something since I always speak fondly of Lunaire.

「Y-Yeah, as in deep affection. I mean, Lunaire-san is a grandma after all!」

「W-Why did I feel that you’re just trying to make an excuse? You’ve already told me about that before you know?」

Pomera spoke with a slightly bewildered voice.

I kowtowed to Lunaire in my heart.

I ended up lying about her again.

I had no idea how many years it’ll take for me to see her again, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to see her in the face due to this lie.