Slayers - Volume 4 - Chapter 3

3: The Saillune Family Squabble Explodes!

“Wha? Why me?!” I started to complain, when just then...

Vmm! The big bug’s attack came out of the blue. All I saw was a slight blur of its wings, and the next thing I knew, I was rolling head over heels across the lawn.

Guh... The tumble knocked the wind out of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Kanzel. He was staring straight at me with that same cold smile on his face.

“Lina!” Gourry cried, making a sweep at the bug with his sword. His blade sunk deep into its leg before coming out the other side.

Gyeee... The insect twitched its feelers in annoyance, then swiped at Gourry—with the leg he thought he’d just cut off!

“What?!” Gourry exclaimed, leaping back in a panic.

Normal attacks clearly weren’t going to work on this thing. It was obviously some kind of magical beast, like Zanaffar in Sairaag... if probably not quite on that level.

I wasn’t about to miss the opening Gourry gave me, though! I was already back on my feet, finishing an incantation.

“Asher Dist!”

Gyeee! The bug trembled violently, releasing an air-shaking cry from its mouth.

But... that was all it did.

That spell would’ve turned even a vampire to powder, but it hadn’t done any detectable damage to this “bug.” It was tougher than I thought! Still, I had to admit summoning a magical beast like this was an impressive feat...

The bug turned its face toward me, opened its mouth wide, and... Kyeee!

When it cried out this time, I immediately leaped to the side. I then heard a huge explosion behind me. I glanced back to see part of the lawn unearthed with the dirt below exposed. It must’ve been another shockwave.

“Gourry! The light!” I cried as I started chanting again. With the soldiers still swarming all around the bug, I wouldn’t be able to cast a major spell.

Nevertheless, as I began my incantation, the bug made a horizontal swipe toward my legs. I didn’t bother trying to dodge because I thought I was well out of its range, but...

Crack! Regardless, I felt a hard impact against my legs, which sent me into a somersault and onto my back.

“Lina!” Gourry shrieked in alarm.

“What are you doing? Kanzel, this wasn’t the deal!” Alfred screamed at the suspicious sorcerer some distance away...

Not that that was going to make the bug in front of me disappear. The tips of its feelers, pointed at me, began to glow with electric plasma.

No!

I struggled to right myself, but my legs were numb and sluggish. Lightning struck.

“Aaaaagh!” came a scream torn from my throat.

...

I must have blacked out for a second. When I next opened my eyes, all I could see was the bug’s front leg, drawn back to strike. It was going to crush me! A tingle of fear ran up my spine.

Oh, the humiliation! Lina Inverse slain, squashed by a bug? It was too grim a fate to imagine, but I was powerless to stop it!

Crack!

Just then, the incoming appendage disappeared—it was Lady Amelia! Whatever spell it was she’d cast had apparently blown the bug’s leg clean off. The last thing I saw before my world went black was Gourry, Sword of Light in hand, leaping off the ground to slice at the insect’s head.

“Let’s drop this job,” Gourry said to me. It was the first thing I heard upon waking up.

“Uh?” I looked around me, uncertain of where I was or what had happened.

We were in a rather large room with pristine white walls and ceiling. The air was thick with the smell of herbs. A number of magical doctors, sweat on their brows, were looking at me in great relief. Ah, this was the temple treatment center where Gourry had taken me back when Zuma crushed my windpipe.

“Huh...?”

Just sitting up took everything I had. It felt like there were weights strapped to my body. I was laid up in a bed at the center of a large six-pointed star.

“Hey! How ya feelin’?” Lady Amelia asked cheerily.

At her prompting, I tried moving around in various ways.

“I’m... exhausted, but nothing hurts and everything seems to be working. Something feels weird about my legs, though...”

“I’ll bet! You’ll get used to it soon.”

“You’ll bet? What exactly happened to me?”

“You’re better off not asking,” Gourry cut in.

Of course, when he put it that way, it only made me even more curious... I cast a glance Amelia’s way.

She simply waved back at me with a grin and said, “Oh, don’t worry. Seriously, no big deal. It just sliced your legs off and burned you extra-crispy—that’s all.”

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have asked. But jeez, girl, work on that bedside manner!

“So... can you give me the rest of the story?” I asked.

“That big bug thing got you, and Master Gourry just barely managed to take it out with the Sword of Light. I sure was surprised to see he had it, honestly...”

Yeah, I knew that much already...

“Lady Amelia,” I tried asking again, “I meant after I lost consciousness—”

“Lina,” Gourry interrupted. “We’ve done enough. Let’s quit this job now.”

“How come?”

“How come? How come?! Someone’s trying to kill you! If you stick your neck out any further, they’re gonna take a swing at it for sure!”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Then...”

“Listen, Gourry. That bug had a clear target in mind. Like you said, someone’s trying to kill me. But why?”

“W-Well... I...”

“Don’t know, do you?”

“No...”

“I don’t either. These attacks on us seem inexplicable under the circumstances. The only way to make sense of them is if they’re completely unrelated to the succession dispute. I think someone’s after me first and foremost, and they’re using the chaos as cover.”

“Ooh...”

“Which means that quitting this job won’t pull my feet out of the fire.”

“I guess not...”

“So if walking away won’t make me any safer, I might as well keep my word to Sir Phil, right?”

There, my blond companion fell silent.

“Listen, Gourry...”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for worrying about me. But it’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Still, don’t you dare let your guard down. It’s probably that Kanzel guy who’s after you, and there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

“Hmm... speaking of Kanzel,” I said while scratching my head. “I’m not so sure. I figured he was our likeliest candidate... right up until Mr. Nastybug appeared. I was watching him the whole time, and I’m positive that he didn’t chant a single spell.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” I began while looking between Gourry and Amelia, “that someone else summoned that bug.”

“Now, Lady Amelia, can I ask...” I began after letting my dramatic revelation really settle in, “Was anyone else in the meeting entourage capable of using magic?”

“Let’s see. Aside from the guards, you, and Master Gourry... Well, Master Kanzel goes without saying, but there’s also Uncle Christopher, Alfred, and me. Basically everyone except for my dad.”

“How skilled are they?”

“I don’t really know. There aren’t any strictures about what we can and can’t learn, so we mainly just study whatever we think is neat. I happen to know most of the common cleric spells, plus a little bit of black and shamanistic magic. My sister Gracia really liked that sort of stuff, so I learned it with her.”

“Hmm... One last question, then. I believe a man named Randy used to reside here at the palace. Were he and your uncle close?”

“Close enough, I guess. You knew Uncle Randionne?”

“Kind of,” I answered vaguely.

My working theory at the moment was that Christopher summoned the bug. I’d been operating under the assumption that he had no reason to target me personally, but that wasn’t necessarily true.

Remember how I mentioned I’d gotten involved in an incident with Sir Phil once before? Well, someone was trying to assassinate him at the time and it turned out to be his traveling companion, a guy named Randy who was third in line for the throne. Randy was killed during said incident, and while I wasn’t the one who did the deed... What if Christopher thought I was?

“So, what happened with the talk?” I asked.

“It was called off, obviously. The atmosphere after the attack... wasn’t exactly conducive, let’s say.”

“So other than us confirming that someone’s after me, nothing’s changed?”

“Oh, that’s not true,” Amelia said, still with a beaming smile. “Kanzel’s gone missing now.”

It was two days later that Lady Amelia brought us something significant. Gourry and I were in our umpteenth uneventful hour of standing outside of Sir Phil’s office.

“Hey there!” she called with a wave.

“Hey there!” we replied, lightly returning the gesture.

Ever since we came to the conclusion I was being targeted, we’d decided that it was too dangerous for me and Gourry to split up. That meant we spent all our time with Sir Phil now... generally speaking, with very little to do. There hadn’t been any more attacks (which, I mean, was a good thing!), but Lady Amelia’s arrival was a welcome break to the otherwise uninterrupted monotony.

With a meaningful glance, she asked, “Could you guys come with me a minute?”

Gourry and I looked at each other. It had to be something serious—serious enough that she didn’t want to say it in front of the other guards. Thus we followed her to a nearby room... presumably a guest room, as it looked exactly like the rooms where Gourry and I were staying.

“Something happened, right?” I asked.

“Hey, don’t look so worried. It’s nothing too serious,” she said with a smile as she retrieved a piece of paper from her pocket. “Yesterday, Clo— I mean, Lord Clophel went into the city for an errand and kinda got himself kidnapped. Hahaha.”

“What?!” Gourry and I exclaimed in unison.

“That sounds pretty serious to me,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, same,” he agreed.

“From a certain perspective, I guess so... Anyway, they sent me this today,” she continued, revealing the piece of paper to us.

It was a letter addressed to Sir Phil. Your typical ransom note. “If you want Clophel back alive, come alone, et cetera, et cetera,” complete with your standard array of stock threats. I mean, sure, I know originality’s not what you really look for in a ransom note, but still...

“I bet they sent it to me because security’s too tight on my dad. Knowing him, I’m sure he’ll rush right out to handle things himself the moment I show it to him. It’s not like I can just toss the note out, though. Which means I’ve got a favor to ask you guys.”

“You want us to save Lord Clophel?”

“Bingo! But I probably can’t keep this a secret from my dad any longer than, say, tomorrow morning. So you’ll get it done by then, right? Okay, later!”

“W-Wait, Lady Amelia!” I called as she made to leave. “I’m n-not sure this is—”

“You won’t do it?”

“We will, but—”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

“It’s just... I feel like this has to be a trap.”

“Hahaha! Oh, Mistress Lina, of course it’s a trap!” she said with an unconcerned wave.

“Well, I mean... they probably sent you that letter knowing you’d ask us to handle it. Which means they’ll likely try to attack Sir Phil while we’re out of the palace.”

“Oh, yeah, could be,” she said, still unfazed.

What the heck? Does she really understand what’s going on here?

Her cavalier demeanor gave me a real case of the nerves, but Lady Amelia clearly had no time for such reservations.

“Don’t you worry! I’m sure it’ll work out,” she proclaimed.

You’re sure, huh?

“Look, if you guys split up, they’ll probably come after you again, Mistress Lina. And we can’t just abandon Lord Clophel! The meetup location isn’t somewhere that we can easily surround with soldiers, which means it has to be you guys. I mean, if it were up to me, I’d be happy to go with and unleash some justice on these unspeakable villains, but we should also have a magic-user back here just in case. So, I know it’s a pain in the rear, but I really need you guys on the job. Thanks!”

And with that, she was out the door and gone... leaving Gourry and me behind, staring dumbly at each other.

The city was bathed in fine evening mist, with the Lighting spells upon its lampposts casting the avenue in a hazy light.

We were currently walking through the fifteenth block in the furthest reaches of Saillune City. It was your stereotypical “sleazy downtown.” Cheap, dingy apartments. Brothels and bars alight with raucous voices drifting on the wind. But—perhaps due to the chaos and the eerie fog—there was no one in sight around us.

Sneaking out of the palace had been a cinch. And once we saved Lord Clophel, we’d be able to just march back in through the front gate. The only question now was how powerful the enemy we were facing would be. If they had Zuma or one of those bugs on their side, things might get dicey.

According to the map Amelia had given us, the meetup spot was in the middle of a spider’s web of weaving alleyways in a shady part of town. She was right about the location, at least; it would’ve been impossible to reliably stage soldiers around a maze like this.

There were streetlamps here and there, but their faint light in the mist mainly made things creepier. We avoided them and stuck to the darkness. I figured the people who’d kidnapped Lord Clophel probably had men on the lookout, and we wanted to avoid a fight if possible.

I couldn’t use my spells freely in such tight city quarters, for one thing. But more importantly, the enemy would almost certainly use Lord Clophel against us. My usual MO would be to simply to send both captor and hostage flying with a not-quite-lethal spell, but treatment like that would probably give the poor old man a heart attack. Better to forgo that possibility with a stealthy slip into enemy territory.

“Stop,” I urged Gourry quietly.

There was a small plaza just ahead of us. Well... less of a plaza and more of a small break between buildings. Perhaps there had been a structure there that was now long torn down. The ground was hardpack dirt with a lonely streetlamp at the center standing over a large pile of oversized refuse. We’d have to cross the space in order to reach our destination, but the plaza-not-plaza was pretty wide open... There was bound to be a lookout or two around. There was no way we’d make it through unseen, even through the fog.

We stowed away in the shadows beyond the lamplight and projected our senses to search for nearby signs of life.

“Two in the alley beyond,” Gourry whispered.

“One to hold us off while the other sounds the alarm, I bet.”

“Most likely. One of them seems pretty skilled.”

“How skilled?”

“Remember those guys who attacked us at the palace? Probably not quite that good, but close.”

“Tricky...”

Even if we could beat them in a fight, it would be better to avoid one.

“Is there another way around?” Gourry asked.

“Maybe, but they probably have guys doing shifts everywhere. Sneaking around trying to avoid them would just waste time. We need to break through, and fast.”

“But how?”

“Well... how about this?”

I whispered my plan into Gourry’s ear.

The two of us strode boldly into the plaza. We stayed along the edges of the lamplight, but kept our cool as we made a beeline for the two lookouts crouched in the alley beyond. My senses told me they were remaining in place as we approached... but they had also put up their guard as we remained obscured from each other by the dark and the mist.

“Anything to report?” Gourry asked, hushed.

No response. It seemed they weren’t expecting us to address them, leaving them uncertain about how to react.

“We just got word that the targets have left the palace. They’ll be headed this way soon,” Gourry continued on as we slowly moved closer. We could now clearly see the two lookouts down the alleyway. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t scare me like that,” one said, finally breaking the silence. “I thought you were them.”

“We are,” I replied... just as Gourry planted a fist in the man’s solar plexus.

“What—?!”

Before his cohort could even call out, Gourry landed a hard chop on the back of his neck. And with that, both sentries were out cold.

“I can’t believe they fell for it,” Gourry said in vague disbelief.

“Well, they’re probably just hired goons. There’s no way they all know each other on sight. So acting the way we did—with a little help from the mist—just made them assume we were part of the gang. Anyway, we’d better hurry—” I started to say, then froze.

A presence had abruptly appeared behind me... a place I was sure had been unoccupied moments ago.

Gourry and I whipped around. Beneath the streetlights, shrouded in the pale fog, stood a man whose cold eyes were fixed on us. It was unmistakably...

Kanzel the sorcerer.

“It’s been a while... Or so I’d say, but it hasn’t really been all that long, has it?” he asked.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had a falling out with your employer and fled the palace,” I asked, meeting his gaze.

But... whew, this guy! The pressure he put out was incredible. Just looking him in the eye got the sweat rolling down my cheeks. I already knew Kanzel was a force to be reckoned with, but seeing him here and now... he might be even more of a monster than I’d thought!

“It’s true that we’ve parted ways,” he said unflinchingly. “It seems my sponsor didn’t care for my methods. I suppose that stands to reason... I found his conditions rather stifling myself. His demand to act under the radar and suppress my magical power resulted in a number of failures.”

“So... what exactly do you want?” I managed to squeeze out of my throat, which felt like dried straw.

Gourry swiftly drew the Sword of Light. He must have felt it, too, instinctively—if we let our guard down for a second, we were dead meat. That was the kind of threat we were dealing with here.

“What do I want, you ask?” A thin smile appeared on Kanzel’s face. “I think you know, Lina Inverse... I mean to kill you.”

“Why?!”

“I have no need to explain myself.”

And with that... Vwish! Kanzel disappeared. The next thing I knew, a presence appeared behind me.

“What?!”

I immediately turned around... and right in front of my eyes was Kanzel’s outstretched palm, glowing with pale blue magical light.

No way! I can’t dodge that!

“Die.”

Kfffwish! The ball of energy he unleashed broke up just before it hit me. Gourry had used the Sword of Light to block it in the nick of time before promptly slashing at Kanzel with a backswing. Kanzel evaded with a leap backward, then vanished as promptly as he’d appeared.

Above us?!

This time, rather than looking, I simply jumped away. A split second later, balls of pale blue light rained down where I’d just been standing. They were small, but I knew any one would be lethal with a direct hit.

“Very impressive,” Kanzel said with admiration, hovering in the air against the backdrop of the night. “If you’d bothered to look up, that would have been all the opportunity I needed.”

“You can’t be...” I said hoarsely.

Blinking through space without even reciting a spell, much less gathering and firing magic in an instant... That shouldn’t be possible. No, it wasn’t possible—for a human.

“Oh, come now.” He smiled thinly as he touched back down upon the ground. Gourry took a good swing at him from behind, but the sorcerer dissolved once more into the darkness and reappeared beneath the streetlight. “That fool Seigram could do this much. Is it so surprising that I can as well?”

“Seigram?!” Gourry and I cried in unison.

He was talking about a demon we once tangled with in a harrowing fight. While we beat him, he nearly killed us for the trouble. Worse yet, we didn’t actually manage to finish him off. I had a feeling we’d see him again, and yet... to hear someone speak of him so trivially...

“You’re a demon?!” Gourry exclaimed.

“I am. To think a humanlike appearance would make you so blind to my true nature... You humans really are pathetic,” Kanzel mocked.

I didn’t have time to argue. I was already reciting a spell under my breath.

Still, I knew it was unlikely that my magic could beat him. That bug back at the palace—which I was now almost certain had been summoned by Kanzel—soaked up an Asher Dist with barely a flinch. How powerful was he, then, to control something like that?

A Dragon Slave might be able to take him out, but if I used that in the middle of a city, the collateral damage would be unfathomable. In fact, in a Venn diagram of spells you could safely cast inside a city and spells that could actually hurt a demon... the intersection was woefully small and underwhelming. My arsenal available under the circumstances would require me to score at least a few dozen successive hits to take him down.

That left us only Gourry’s Sword of Light to rely on, and landing a solid blow with that would be tricky considering Kanzel’s blinking ability... But regardless of the odds, we simply had to get the job done.

“Let’s go!” Gourry shouted, taking off in a run as I fell into line behind him.

“You’re fast!” Kanzel praised as he disappeared before our charge.

Gourry’s sword cut fruitlessly through the air. I quickly leaped away. Staying in one place for long would be inviting another surprise attack from a yet-unknown direction. This time, he reappeared a little to the right of the streetlamp.

“Elemekia Lance!” I cried, firing my spell the moment I detected his presence.

It was a magical lance meant to do astral damage to demons, but I didn’t think it would do much against Kanzel. It was really my only option at the time, but even if it hit...

“Pathetic,” he whispered as he simply brushed it aside. “You can’t defeat me like that.”

With those words came a searing flash of light, which was especially effective against my dark-adjusted pupils.

“Gwuh!”

My eyes were stinging and I was effectively blind, but I didn’t have time to sit and sulk about it. I jumped to the right and felt something hot pass just to the left of my head—then an explosion behind me. I’d managed to dodge one hit, but could I keep this up until my vision recovered?

As my gears were turning, I felt several new presences arrive on the scene. Most likely, Lord Clophel’s kidnappers had overheard our fight with Kanzel and come running. This could be my break!

I set illumination to maximum and duration to zero, and threw a spell at the newly arriving figures...

“Lighting!”

“Wuh?!”

The men screamed and scrambled, temporarily blinded. In the confusion, I dove into their ranks. Sorry, fellas! I just needed some warm bodies to shield me from Kanzel. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to attack through bystanders, but I had to buy time somehow to recover my sight.

“Tch!” Kanzel clicked his tongue before disappearing again.

Where will he come from next?! Above, or—

I scanned the area with my senses fervently, but I couldn’t detect Kanzel anywhere. Instead, I felt a number of additional presences approaching from an alley. Probably more of Lord Clophel’s abductors. But, dang it, my sight wasn’t quite back yet!

“Lina!” I heard Gourry call. He then grabbed my hand, apparently having recovered already. “You’re okay?!”

“I think so...” I replied. “Where’s Kanzel?”

“Don’t know. He just vanished. How’re you doing?”

“My vision’s still a little blurry... Swordplay’s out of the question, but I think I can swing just about anything else.”

“Enemies abound. The alleys are too narrow for us to break through their ranks. We’ll have to use a flight spell to pass overhead. Can you manage that?”

“I’ll give it a try!” I said and began the chant.

Before Kanzel had shown up, I’d been holding off on my travel magic in the event the enemy had someone who could sense it. But the cat was out of the bag now, so I just grabbed Gourry and held on tight.

“Lei Wing!”

And with that, we ascended.

“You made it pretty far. Credit where it’s due,” spat the man standing between us and our destination.

My hope had been to just smash our way in before the enemy could react, but their hideout turned out to be a pretty big abandoned apartment building with no lights on inside. It would take time to search every nook and cranny, meaning the captors could easily make off with Lord Clophel through another exit while we searched for him.

So, instead of all that mess, I landed in the hopes of grabbing a local to give us a little tour, you could say... And now we found ourselves here, cut off by this guy. Probably the commander.

“Hey, thanks for greeting us with that old cliche. Now, how about you make this easy and hand over the old man you kidnapped? I’ll make it worth your while... by, you know, not killing you maybe?”

“Sounds to me like you don’t care what we do to the hostage,” the man countered, seemingly unperturbed by my threat.

“Sure, go ahead and kill him if you really want. But that’ll mean there’s nothing holding us back from just murdering you lot. And, in case there’s any doubt, yeah—we walk the walk as far as that goes.”

“I know,” he replied condescendingly. “But you should know the old man is too valuable for us to kill. There’s someone here in this building quietly watching what happens, though... and if you try anything funny, he’ll cut off one of the old man’s hands.”

“What?!” we cried in unison.

“And if you ignore that warning, he’ll lose the other one too. You can try to take one of us hostage, but we’re all mercenaries who don’t owe a thing to each other. The guy watching from the shadows won’t hesitate to cut the old man to pieces.”

Dammit... I didn’t know who’d come up with this plan, but they sure knew their way around a hostage situation. Gourry and I were now powerless to force our way through.

“So, what’s it gonna be?” the commander asked, a big, threatening grin on his face.

“Okay... fine. Gourry, drop your sword.”

“Right.”

With no other choice, we gave up our weapons. A few other men then came out to tie our hands behind our backs.

“Guess we got ourselves captured, huh?” Gourry grumbled.

“That’s just how the cookie crumbled. But we’ll make it work, right?” I replied.

“Listen to yourself... Do you even realize how bad this is?”

“Just shut up and walk, okay?” the commander demanded, annoyed by our bickering.

We were being led further into the building by a number of seedy-looking figures. It was a large apartment complex, weathered and abandoned. The candlesticks our escorts were holding gave us flickering glimpses of the dingy walls. The air was damp and heavy, permeated by a faint rank smell.

I couldn’t deny it made for a great hideout, but it was also pretty dang depressing. Spending too much time in a place like this could really warp a person. I mean, I guess it was already too late for these guys anyway...

“You don’t have to tell me, but I do have a question. Is Lord Clophel really alive and well?” I asked.

“You’ll see him soon enough,” the commander replied.

“Please don’t say ‘in hell,’” I groaned with a roll of my eyes.

“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you until you’ve played your part.”

“In other words, you’d totally kill us if we didn’t have a part to play?”

“I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

Our back-and-forth continued as we made our way deeper into the building. I could have busted out at any time, but it seemed wiser to wait until they took us to Lord Clophel.

“Ah, of course. The basement, right?”

“Shut up.”

We then descended a stone staircase, the air growing stickier as we went. A door awaited us at the bottom.

“This is it,” the man said, cracking it open before freezing on the spot.

Someone was already inside... Someone I wasn’t thrilled to see.

“I’ve been waiting,” said Zuma the assassin quietly, his eyes focused on me.

“Wh-What do you want?” the commander said, clearly panicked.

Zuma was standing just on the other side of the door, so I couldn’t see what was going on inside.

“I came to kill that girl. Let me have her,” he replied with perfect calm.

“Don’t be stupid!” the commander shouted, suddenly angry. “You’re that assassin Kanzel hired, aren’t you? Well, he’s out of the picture now and we need these hostages for our plan! I don’t take orders from you!”

I doubted this guy was especially interested in saving my life; he more so seemed to be offended by Zuma’s attitude. I tell ya, that kind of pride can be the death of you...

“I see...” Zuma swiftly stepped out of the room, approaching the commander. “If we’re no longer affiliated, then I have no need to hold back.”

Then, with a strangely leisurely motion, Zuma leaped through the air and...

Crack!

I couldn’t see exactly what happened from where I was standing, but I could tell the commander’s neck had snapped. Before his body could even hit the floor, Zuma was past him and leaping at me. His movements seemed effortless, but they were fast—too fast and too sudden for the other men to react. I quickly drew back and began to chant a spell, but...

“Arrgh!” one man cried as he flew into Zuma.

Or, rather, as he was kicked into Zuma by Gourry. Zuma tried to dodge the unexpected human projectile, but being on a narrow staircase didn’t make that easy. He ended up entangled with the man, the both of them rolling down the stairs and through the door.

That seemed to snap the other men out of their daze.

“You cur!”

“Get him!”

They all drew their swords and charged after the assassin, giving me time enough to finish my incantation.

“Bram Fang!”

The arrow of wind I unleashed cut the ropes binding Gourry’s hands. He then ran over to the commander with the broken neck and retrieved our swords. And by the time he made it back to me and cut my hands free, the battle below was decided.

We charged down into the basement, which was a vast and empty space. It must have been used as a storeroom at some point. Lord Clophel was further in, tied to a chair.

“Oh! It’s you two!” he cried joyfully.

Thankfully he seemed safe after all, but this was no time for a catch-up chat. The Lighting spell shining down from the ceiling illuminated the bodies littering the floor. The only man left standing was Zuma.

“Can you beat him?” I asked.

“Dunno,” Gourry replied uncertainly.

The assassin slowly turned to face us.

“Get out of my way,” he said quietly to Gourry.

“You really think I’ll do that?” he replied defiantly, holding his sword at the ready as he stood between the two of us.

The assassin moved slowly and carefully. He seemed to perceive Gourry’s skill, as he didn’t charge right for him. I knew, however, that Gourry could be in real trouble if Zuma managed to get off his spell that shrouded the room in darkness...

That meant I couldn’t give him time to chant! I immediately made a break for Lord Clophel.

Zuma seemed shaken for a moment, and his hesitation over whether to pursue me or to go for Gourry first generated an opening. Gourry charged! Zuma dodged the swing of his longsword in the nick of time by ducking.

Ugh, so close! But Gourry’s swordsmanship seemed to have the assassin on the ropes. He was backing him into a wall, bit by bit. Heroic sagas were full of overconfident fools who let their hubris get the better of them in situations like this, spelling their downfall. Thankfully, Gourry wasn’t that careless. He kept lunging at Zuma, slowly and surely cornering him... until the assassin suddenly dropped to the floor and rolled toward Gourry. This would ordinarily be where you finished a guy off with a stomp and a backhand slash, but against someone like Zuma, that might just earn you a broken foot.

Letting him get too close would put Gourry at a disadvantage too, so he preemptively leaped away. When he did, Zuma snapped his body, using the momentum to right himself and take off running... right at me!

“No!” Gourry shouted.

I hastily readied my sword, still chanting.

Bam! Zuma sprung up off the floor with great force. He then planted a hand on the ceiling and pushed against it to kick down at me. Trying to counterattack would only get me killed. I sprang back without hesitation. And just as Zuma landed... he was greeted with a ball of light to the face.

“Lighting!”

“Gah!” he cried as it scorched his eyes.

It wasn’t me who cast the spell, though. (If I had, Zuma would have easily dodged it.) It was Lord Clophel.

The unexpected attack forced the assassin to stagger back a few steps. He then promptly fled up the stairs, dashing to escape. It would be dangerous to pursue, of course, so Gourry didn’t.

“Guess we’re rid of him for now,” he said in an unusually somber tone—granted, you’d have to be stupid or crazy to be in a good mood after tangling with that guy.

“Thank you for the help, Lord Clophel,” I said as I untied him.

“Oh, I’m the one who should be thanking you. That’s the only spell I can use... I never expected it to be good for more than reading at night.” He then continued as he rubbed his unbound wrists, “Some of the men that assassin felled before you arrived are still breathing, I think. When he first came in, I saw him drop my guards... but I don’t believe he killed them. They could make for useful witnesses.”

Lord Clophel was right; four of the men on the floor were unconscious. The rest were all dead, killed with a single strike from Zuma. We tied the survivors up, and then Gourry woke one of them up for us.

“Ugh...” he groaned as he looked around, freezing when he came to appreciate the situation.

“How are you feeling?” I asked with the coldest tone I could manage.

“Y-You... Damn that Kanzel! He double-crossed us for firing him!” he gasped, his eyes stricken with fear.

He seemed to be under a misapprehension, but I was under no obligation to correct it.

“Better keep your voice down,” I said. “You knew what you were signing up for when you took this job, right? Surely you were prepared for... this.”

“A-Are they all dead?” the man asked, looking around at the bodies on the floor.

“They don’t look very alive to me. Care to join them?”

“No! Please, no!”

“Then answer my question: Who was it that hired you?”

“I... I don’t know! I really don’t!”

A blatant lie. But rather than asking again, I decided to take a more efficient route to an answer.

“All right. If you don’t know, you don’t know,” I said casually, then smiled coldly. “You have three living companions, so I’ll ask them instead. In the meantime, you can join your comrades.”

I thumbed back at the corpses, and the man went pale. To add a little gravitas to my bluff, Gourry seized his head from behind.

“Wait! Please, wait! I’ll tell you anything!” he shouted in panic.

“I thought you didn’t know jack.”

“I’ll tell you what I do know! So please, don’t kill me!”

I folded my arms and made a big show of thinking it over before saying, “Hmm... All right. Tell me everything you can. If I like what I hear, I’ll spare you.”

“You want to know who’s behind this, right? Right?” he pleaded, suddenly very cooperative indeed. He must’ve really been scared. “You’ve probably met the guy. He’s a member of the royal family... He always covered his face when we met and wouldn’t give his name, but when he was talking with that Kanzel bastard, I heard Kanzel say it! And I’ll tell you!”

“Enough with the buildup. It’s Christopher, right?”

“No,” the man said with a sudden, disarming grin. “Alfred.”

“Say whaaat?!” Gourry, Lord Clophel, and I all cried in unison.

“Are you serious?” I asked after regaining my decorum.

“Yeah. Said he was lighting a fire under his dad’s ass or something.”

“But they attacked Alfred too!”

“Oh, that?” the man said casually. “One of my buddies was in on that job... It was apparently really sudden. Someone on the inside let them into the palace. ‘Go to stand-alone building such-and-such. When you hear banging on the wall from the inside, attack. But don’t lay a hand on a certain person.’ That was the deal.”

I played the events back in my head. I remembered Alfred pacing around the room anxiously and pounding on the wall. Making himself look like one of the victims to divert suspicion... It was a pretty plausible scenario, now that I thought about it.

“Anything else?” I urged him.

“He said everything was going great at first, but then that Kanzel bastard suddenly started acting weird. Said he broke from the plan to attack someone other than who he was supposed to kill... so they blew up at each other and parted ways.”

“So how does Kanzel know Alfred, exactly?”

“I... I dunno. I wasn’t the guy’s babysitter or nothin’...”

It was easy to imagine, though. Kanzel probably knew Sir Phil and I were acquainted. And suspecting that I’d come sniffing around when I got wind of the succession plot, he’d joined up with Alfred the would-be usurper. It was definitely playing the long game... but even for a demon, tracking down a traveling sorcerer on rumor alone would be all but impossible. Especially when said sorcerer was as much-rumored as me.

But in the end, here we were. Kanzel’s plan had worked. I still don’t know why he wanted me dead, but it seemed he’d cooked up a scenario where I ended up collateral damage in a family squabble. Yet even after going to the trouble of hiring an assassin, I was still breathing. And now after falling out with Alfred, he’d put an abrupt end to his elaborate scheme and come after us outright.

“Anything else?” I asked the man.

He shook his head, but I’d already heard more than enough. We had our witness, so it was time to confront the culprit!

Things had more or less worked themselves out. The current plan was to take our captives back to the palace and get them to confess to the whole plot. Sir Phil could handle things from there and our work would be done.

But... two problems remained. The first was obvious: even after our job was technically over, Kanzel and Zuma would still be out there. They weren’t exactly just going to drop this.

“Why so glum, Lina?” Gourry asked.

“Well, you know...” I responded vaguely.

“Kanzel stuff?”

I nodded. Of course, stewing over it wouldn’t solve anything.

We were currently on the way back to the palace after saving Lord Clophel. Gourry was pulling along the four survivors, who were tied together.

By the time we’d left the building, the night fog had grown a little thicker and Alfred’s hired men were gone. I doubted they’d run away; they were probably just regrouping elsewhere.

That brought us to our second problem: we were probably in for another ambush before we made it to the palace. And this time, the enemy would come at us with everything they had. It would be hard to fight with four hostages and Lord Clophel in tow. We were just gonna have to pull out all the stops ourselves.

At last, our little parade came out on the main avenue. The streetlamps shone like pale blue orbs in the mist. I could see human figures down the street through the fog—thirty or forty of them—standing between us and the palace.

“Figured they’d be waiting for us.”

At my words, one of the figures swept back his hair with a theatrical gesture and took a step forward.

“We were indeed, my dear,” he said.

At that greeting, I raised an eyebrow.

“Oho... I didn’t expect a personal welcome, Sir Alfred.”

“Someone relayed the situation to me. I thought it would be only right to address you myself.”

“Appreciate the trouble.”

“Honestly, you’re no end of trouble... You’ve done nothing but muddle my plans since you arrived.”

“That might be karma, actually. Try being less of an ass.”

“How insulting...”

“Plenty more where that came from!”

“No, that’s enough talk. It’s high time we settled this.”

“I agree,” I said, drawing my sword.

And then...

“The girl is mine,” echoed a sonorous voice through the night mist.

Geh! This guy again!

“You, eh?” A wry smile appeared on Alfred’s face. “You interfered before, I’m told, but... very well. It doesn’t matter who kills them, just as long as they’re dead. Do as you wish.”

“Happy to oblige,” said the voice, now from behind me.

I turned to see a night-cloaked shadow—Zuma the assassin. We were flanked.

“Hey now, don’t I get a say in this?” complained Gourry, pointing his just-drawn sword at Zuma. “I’m her guardian, remember? If you want to fight her, you have to go through me.”

“Hmm...” Zuma hummed pensively for a moment, then said in a low voice, “If you insist.”

No matter how skilled he might be, Zuma couldn’t fight me while also fending off Gourry. He was only making the logical choice.

“Really, everyone, fight whomever you like,” Alfred said languidly. “And now we have all that sorted out... let’s get started, shall we?”

“Sleeping!”

My spell kicked things off... but my targets were the four hostages. They were tied up already, but anything they tried to pull during the fight would only be a liability. As they slumped to the ground, Gourry lunged at Zuma behind me. I took the opportunity to start my next spell, charging straight for the group of men down the street.

“Go!” Alfred ordered, unleashing his band against me.

I just charged straight into them: “Mega Brand!”

Crash! A ripple ran through the flagstones of the street, and the moment it reached the band of men, the ground below them blasted upward into the night sky. I quickly leaped back and prepared another spell. I considered rushing through the crowd and taking Alfred hostage, but then they might take Lord Clophel in exchange, which would put us in a stalemate.

“Vun Ga Ruim!” Alfred shouted, holding his hands high.

Oh, right... He’s got magic too.

Vshhhhh! A sound like the swarming of insects rose up around him, and some sort of black mist raced along the ground. It looked a little like the darkness spell Zuma had used before, but...

This mist billowed up from the ground and took the form of several figures. They were humanoid and black as night, with hazy silhouettes—shadow beasts! These were low-level magical beasts that lived on the astral plane, capable of clinging to opponents and draining away their life force. They were definitely high up on the creepy scale... But their existence was extremely unstable. They couldn’t survive even a full day on their own—not that I had that long to wait!

Still, as low-level as they were, they were resistant to physical attacks and most elemental spells. And sadly, I didn’t have time to switch up incantations.

“Fireball!”

Since it wouldn’t do any good against the shadow beasts, I unleashed this bad boy on Alfred’s men nearby. The ball of pale blue light streaked toward them...

“Break!”

...And burst into ten with a snap of my fingers, peppering the area with small explosions.

The men screamed. The explosions were small, but they could be plenty fatal if you were close enough. I took out a bunch of guys that way, but more than half their band still remained. They already had me surrounded, too... If only I could buy some time, I could retake the initiative. And if the city guard heard the chaos and came running, Alfred would be finished...

Of course, they knew that as well as I did and were gonna pull out all the stops to finish things before then. One of his men charged at me, but I managed to block his strike with my sword.

“Dust Chip!” I cried.

The air glittered in the hazy lamplight and I quickly leaped back. The man slicing at me recoiled with a scream. Dust Chip was a spell that unleashed countless tiny ice arrows from my fingertips. It was weak and close-range only, but when it hit, it sure did sting!

“Diem Wind!” Alfred shouted, taking the next move.

His spell of choice conjured a blast of wind to hold an opponent at bay. It covered a wide area, which made it difficult to dodge, so rather than brute force it, I jumped back and let it wash over me. Vwoosh! The blast howled in my ears. My breath caught in my throat for a second, interrupting my chant.

All this time, the shadow beasts were creeping up on me. My only hope of fighting them was with magic, meaning I’d have to get an incantation off... Was that why Alfred kept needling me with minor spells?!

While I was distracted, I heard a yelp from behind me...

Oh no! Lord Clophel! I turned around in time to see the sword clattering to the ground from his hands. I quickly chanted a spell to try to save him, but one of Alfred’s men was already closing on him bit by bit, sword drawn.

“Die, old man!” he shouted, raising his blade aloft.

No! I’m not gonna make it!

“Bram Blazer!”

A streak of blue light darted through the night sky and bowled over the would-be assassin just in time!

That was—

“What?!” Alfred quickly scanned the area.

A figure was standing on the second-floor terrace of an old shop along the avenue.

“Impossible!” Alfred shouted, his eyes wide. “What are you doing here, Amelia?!”