Chapter 23 | The Assassin Releases the God Spear
Turning away from Dia’s troubled gaze, I walked out onto the courtyard with Count Viekone.
“All right. I accept your challenge,” I declared.
The man threw back his head and laughed with delight at my agreeing to the duel.
As I paced toward him, I counted down the remaining time.
Four hundred forty-three more seconds.
Both camps had stopped fighting, almost as if the hard-fought battle of the last few days had never even happened.
The frightful man’s exclamations alone had brought the conflict to an end. He truly was a monster.
I walked a few hundred meters from the castle to a level plain with a nice view of the land around us, then turned to face my enemy. There he stood, with his spiky red hair and two-handed spear so long, it dwarfed its wielder.
His already muscular body had swollen to abnormal proportions thanks to the S-Rank skill Berserk. A faint glow could be seen in the man’s eyes, and horns were protruding from his head. Faced with such a sight, anyone would’ve thought him a demon. I could almost see the flames of his fighting spirit bursting forth from around his body.
Something was off, though. Berserk was supposed to grant overwhelming strength in exchange for losing the ability to reason. While my opponent was clearly hungry for a fight, it seemed he was still in possession of his mental faculties.
There was a skill that negated the side effects of Berserk, but I thought it impossible that someone could’ve been fortunate enough to have been awarded both. If the goddess had allowed him to choose his skills like she’d permitted me, it would’ve been feasible, but the odds seemed too low for such a powerful combination to have occurred naturally.
Two hundred twenty-one more seconds.
“Give me your name, kid,” the man demanded.
“Feri Marconi. My family are distant relatives of House Viekone.” There was no way I could give him my real name, so I offered a fake one instead.
“Feri. I won’t forget it. Thanks to you, I was able to taste my own blood for the first time.” At those words, the horned man wiped blood from his forehead and licked it.
The wound itself had already healed. Even as a mage, such an injury should not have closed after only a few minutes.
His robust body had been enhanced by Berserk, affording him unbreakable defense, but some other skill allowed him to retain his intelligence. Both mind and strength were in top form. I couldn’t think of a more dangerous foe to face. As if that hadn’t been bad enough, the man also appeared able to recover from superficial damage almost immediately.
It almost made me want to call him a cheat.
“I’m glad to hear it. Since we’re about to duel, it’s only proper to give your name in return. A knight’s honor demands such,” I replied.
Truthfully, I couldn’t care less what the man’s name was, but if he wanted to play knights, I was more than happy to go along with it. The more distracted he was, the easier it would be to kill him.
“Ah, sorry about that. I’m Setanta Macness. This is good. This is what it’s like to show respect to your opponent before a battle.”
The Macness family was known to have connections to the Soigelian royal family. So why had Setanta allied himself with the revolting noble faction?
Setanta was also the one known as Kran’s Hound, the very same person I’d previously reasoned had the highest chance of being the hero. Seeing how he’d used his spear to such deadly effect had done little to lessen that suspicion.
“Setanta, I have something I want to confirm. If I win this duel, will the army actually withdraw?” I asked.
“That’s what I said, didn’t I? We’ll pull out, and I’ll never touch this domain again. If anyone else tries to interfere with this land, I’ll kill them myself. Wanna make it a geas?” Setanta inquired, shrugging. Evidently, he was offended that I hadn’t taken him at his word.
A geas was an oath offered to the gods.
“I believe you. But if I win, I’m going to kill you. I don’t see how you’ll be able to keep your promise.” My bold words were meant as a provocation.
“You’ve got a big mouth, kid… You’re the first person dumb enough to talk to me that way. Hey, Dilmura! If I die, make sure to uphold my oath in my place! Satisfied now?”
“Thank you. One more question. What will happen if I lose?”
“If I win, then we’ll take Dia and kill everyone here. I don’t feel great about it, but that’s what’s gonna happen. Gets you even more fired up, though, huh?”
“Yeah, you’re right. There’s no way I can lose now.”
“Then let’s go ahead and get this started. I can’t wait any longer. I’ve been waiting my entire life for someone strong enough to give me a real fight.”
To be honest, speaking with Setanta wasn’t easy. I couldn’t relate to his feelings at all.
“Before we begin in earnest, can we get the soldiers around us to move back? I’m afraid we won’t be able to avoid harming them during our fight. If I win, the war will be over. There’s no need for any more unnecessary death,” I said.
“You’re such a nice boy. Did your parents teach you those manners?”
“That’s right. I’m the product of very strict discipline.”
Both camps heeded the command and gave us a wide berth.
While I’d decided to kill anyone who obstructed my path to rescuing Dia, I still didn’t want any unnecessary bloodshed. Plus, this was a perfect excuse to stall for time and get Setanta into position.
Little by little, I moved our starting position away from the estate, telling him that it would be easier for us to fight out in the open without any obstructions.
Setanta fell for it, and I guided him precisely to where I wanted him.
I produced four titanium-alloy knives. I placed two of them at my hips and gripped the other two in my hands.
Forty-four more seconds.
“Sorry, could you give me a second to prepare?”
“Go ahead. This won’t be any fun if you’re not at your full strength. So you’re a dual-wielder? Those knives are puny. How do you think you’re gonna stop my spear with those?”
“You’ll see once we start fighting. Actually, you probably won’t.”
The little blades were nothing more than a distraction. I was using them to attract Setanta’s attention to ensure he didn’t notice my real attack.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I’m going to end this duel without needing to deal with your spear.”
Nineteen more seconds.
“That mouth of yours is starting to get on my nerves. I can’t figure you out, and that’s only making me more excited to kill you. What should our starting signal be?”
“How about we start when this coin hits the ground?”
“Works for me.”
I flicked a coin with my finger, and it spun through the air.
Setanta focused on the coin. In a real one-on-one bout, nothing was more important than the first strike. That’s why he was watching the coin so intently, to make sure he didn’t miss the moment it hit the ground.
The man was so focused, he’d lost sight of everything else around him.
Eight more seconds.
He had no idea that he was about to be assassinated. If I had to pin down the exact meaning of that word, I’d define it as killing someone via an unexpected method without a target being aware it was happening.
Even while I stood right in front of Setanta, I had devised a way to kill him that fit that definition.
“I am not a knight. Honor and respect have no place in my line of work. Die.”
The count hit zero.
The moment the coin hit the ground, Setanta’s fighting spirit and mana surged, but the man suddenly disappeared.
It wasn’t that he’d suddenly moved at such a high speed that he’d appeared invisible, although that’s what he’d tried to do. Unfortunately for him, I’d killed him before he ever got the chance. My own attack had been so quick that not even my Tuatha Dé eyes had been able to keep up.
A hole that went down for miles had been gouged into the earth. It fissured and began to spread as the ground shook.
I directed all of my mana to my legs and leaped backward. I then shifted it toward defending myself.
So powerful was the spell I’d used to kill Setanta that I risked ending my own life with the aftershock. I focused everything I had on defending myself.
That’s when the ground exploded.
Shock waves accompanied by a tsunami of sediment radiated out from the spot where Setanta had been standing.
I was swallowed up immediately. Totally buried by dirt, I was helplessly thrown around in all directions as the blast wave carried me away.
A conjured barrier of wind maintained my supply of oxygen. I fought desperately to maintain my mana output and protect myself. Letting up for a moment would’ve spelled my death.
I had no idea how far the tsunami carried me, but the shaking finally stopped, and I came to a stop.
Both of my legs had broken, the result of jumping back with more force than my body could handle. I also had a few cracked ribs, and my left arm had snapped. My legs and ribs had thankfully broken rather cleanly, so I used mana to connect them back together. My left arm, however, had a compound fracture. If I tried to heal it as it was, the risk was high that it would connect in an unnatural way. I decided to hold out for medical treatment.
Using earth magic, I pushed myself free from the mountain of dirt and rock.
I was shocked to see where I’d ended up. The force of my attack had carried me from the site of the duel all the way back to the demolished rampart.
“That was Gungnir, the formula I developed to use against the hero. That was the magic that killed you, Setanta.”
What remained after my assassination was shocking.
A yawning abyss at least a few kilometers deep had been gouged into the earth where Setanta had been standing. Its bottom was too far down to see. Dirt from the explosion had been kicked up so high, it was raining down on the castle roof.
This was only the aftermath. Setanta had taken a direct hit. There was no way he’d survived, and I sensed no sign of him.
Many soldiers in the surrounding area were buried in dirt. The Viekone soldiers were assisting those who needed help, while the noble faction soldiers were running away with looks of confused terror.
Good thing I had them all stay back , I thought.
Had anyone else been within two hundred meters of my attack, they would’ve almost certainly perished.
That was Gungnir—the spell I’d designed to assassinate the hero.
When I’d tossed the tungsten spear out the window, the assassination had already been 80 percent complete.
There was an earth spell that doubled the target’s gravity.
I studied the formula for that spell and discovered that you could adjust the multiplier both positively and negatively.
I multiplied the tungsten’s gravity by -2, which caused the spear to accelerate upward at 19.8 meters per second squared.
The amount of time my mana allowed me to maintain that reverse gravity spell was three minutes. The spear accelerated upward for that entire time, and even once its gravity returned to normal, its kinetic energy continued to carry it upward until it came to a stop at 1,023.5 kilometers aboveground.
Naturally, what came up had to come back down.
With a spear falling from 1,023.5 kilometers, it would reach a speed of 4,480 meters per second.
The spear weighed one hundred kilograms and fell at a velocity of Mach 14, which created a force of 3.6 × 109 joules.
Considering a tank cannon fired with kinetic energy equal to 9 × 106 joules, the spear fell with four hundred times the kinetic energy of a tank cannon. The heavier the object, the more force with which it would fall, but the problem was that a greater mass depleted my mana quicker when inverting its gravity. This significantly shortened the length of time I could maintain the spell.
At present, that was the limit of my power.
My inspiration for this attack was a weapon that had been developed back in a country from my former world known as America. Commonly, they were called “rods from God.”
Rods from God was an idea for a weapon that would drop metal rods from satellites orbiting in space. Upon impact, the rods would rival the power of nuclear weapons.
There were problems with actually realizing this weapon, though. The cost of placing objects of that mass in space was prohibitive, and even if you did get the projectiles into space, keeping them from burning up in the atmosphere before they reached the ground was an issue as well.
The magic of this world made getting around such complications rather simple.
I lifted my spear a thousand kilometers in the air merely by reversing its gravity, and a convenient spell called Windbreak dealt with the friction of entering the atmosphere by repelling air.
Gungnir was the most power I could manage, which made it the ace up my sleeve.
“I already knew this, but putting its power aside, there are a lot of drawbacks.”
The biggest problem was how long it took to prepare. A total of ten minutes was needed for the spear to make its trip up and then back down. Another problem was the difficulty of aiming the shot.
Normal mages would be killed simply by being caught up in the explosion of the impact. That meant the death zone extended as far as two hundred meters out, so long as the target was a normal person. I doubted the hero was likely to die unless he took the hit head-on.
Even without the concern of air friction because of my wind magic, I still had to account for the rotation of the planet, among many other calculations. Even if I got all of the calculations right, if the spear was off by even the tiniest degree, it would probably fail to kill the hero.
Thankfully, I’d been able to practice the attack a few times on an uninhabited island. If I hadn’t, I probably would’ve missed. I really owed Maha for having found a spot where I could practice.
This time the spear had landed exactly where I’d calculated it would, but I still had adjustments I could make to the formula.
“For the time being, I need to check for his corpse.”
Using wind magic, I scanned the area for Setanta. While it was likely he was dead, I couldn’t be sure until I saw the body myself. At Mach 14, Gungnir had been too fast, even for my Tuatha Dé eyes, to perceive.
I searched every inch of the surrounding area, but I found no sign of the red-haired man. I even tried searching underground with earth mana, but that turned up nothing as well.
In addition to not finding any trace of a body, something else was curiously absent—Gáe Bolg, Setanta’s divine treasure. Even after an impact that big, it shouldn’t have disappeared.
If the weapon wasn’t there, did that mean that Setanta had somehow escaped with it?
“That’s impossible,” I said to myself. If he’d been able to grab the spear and escape, he doubtlessly would’ve tried to continue the duel.
Dia came running toward me.
The noble faction army had already pulled out. Actually, it would’ve been more accurate to say they fled to safety. I doubt they wanted to fight a monster capable of both causing so much destruction and killing Kran’s Hound.
“Lugh! Thank goodness you’re safe,” Dia cried.
I caught her as she flung herself at me.
It seemed like Dia had a hugging habit. She kissed me on the cheek, then blushed deep red and turned away.
Overcome with love for her, I turned her face toward mine, and this time I kissed her on the lips. She accepted the motion, although she was forced to balance on the tips of her toes in order to reach me, an effort which only made her more adorable.
It was really only a peck; our lips barely touched. But that did not diminish the joy I felt from the act.
“Well, that was a surprise… But…not an unpleasant one.”
Dia’s every mannerism was cute.
My elation was short-lived as I realized the successful assassination had created a new problem. Since the entire noble faction army had run away, the plan to fake Dia’s death wouldn’t work anymore.
This was my first ever failed assassination.
Things certainly could’ve turned out worse, though. While I prided myself on my flawless success rate as an assassin, I cared far more for Dia’s safety.
Such a way of thinking would’ve been impossible for my former self.
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