Chapter 33 - Attacking the tiger head-on

Carlos-sama had Vertical Rolls’ twin sisters and two other people on his side. On my side, I had Emilia, Anthony, Mary, and Victoria.

The moment they saw Mary and the others, some of the people standing behind Pax-sama, Ciel-sama, and Maxwell-sama’s companions became surprised. I looked at Mary and the others and noticed that the three of them were wearing wry smiles as they met their gazes.

(If I remember correctly, those twins behind Carlos-sama are Vertical Rolls’ younger twin sisters. Then, those people are… Well, not like it concerns me though.)

“Where the hell are you looking, you shit?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I was just wondering if it’s still okay to back out.”

Carlos-sama snorted and replied, “Hmph, I’ll make quick work of you, pieces of trash.”

“Is that so?”

I tilted my head at him as Mary and the others finished forming their weapons with mana. A magic student clad in wind floated high in the sky and signaled with his hands.

“Begin!”

[Let my enemies tremble with heaven’s fury! <Thunderbolt!>]

A bolt of lightning shot towards us from the finger he pointed. Anthony quickly materialized his weapon—a pair of gauntlets with lion’s heads—and blocked the shot.

Bolts of lightning continued to rain down upon us, stirring up the dust.

“Hmph. This’ll do.”

After 20 seconds of continuous fire, Carlos-sama’s confident voice was heard. I used a basic wind spell to disperse the dust. Emilia and Anthony ran in that instant.

“What!?”

“Carlos-sama!”

The twins quickly stepped forward and created a barrier of water to block Emilia and Anthony’s advance. Mary notched her bow, which had a simple yet elegant elven design, to the limit and shot a water arrow towards them. When the arrow hit their barrier, Mary quickly controlled the magic and dispersed it.

“Urk!”

“Kyaa!”

Emilia slashed at one of Carlos-sama’s subordinates on her left while Anthony punched the stomach of the one on her right.

The two subordinates quickly cast wind spells to soften their landing.

Emilia and Anthony retreated quickly, hiding behind a wall of wind created by Victoria, who held a green staff with a serpent’s head at the top.

“You pieces of shit!”

Carlos-sama started chanting a spell, causing the clouds in the sky to darken.

“!”

Because I hadn’t prepared a weapon beforehand, I noticed that the mana I had been concentrating was being sucked by the sky. I quickly dispersed it and formed two balls of mana: one with the fire element and the other with the water element.

<Thunderstrike!>

Anthony jumped towards the sky and punched the thunderbolt without hesitation.

“What!?”

“Is this for real!?”

“How on earth…?”

As I dashed towards one of Carlos-sama’s subordinates, I overheard the reactions of some of the magic students.

When I was about 6 meters away, I manipulated the mana inside the two balls and sent them flying towards the unsuspecting person. The balls rapidly spun around him and began freezing him. Although he managed to cast a wind barrier, he was encapsulated in ice.

“Guh!”

Emilia had also defeated one of Carlos-sama’s subordinates with her broadsword, which was a size smaller than the standard ones.

Carlos-sama, noticing that he was getting cornered, used magic and started floating up. The twins beside him did the same.

“Where the hell did you get those weapons!?”

He demanded from us with a frustrated face.

Smiling contentedly, I replied, “With magic, of course.”

“Like hell there’s magic that can do that!”

“It’s true, you know. Look over there.”

I pointed at a random general student who seemed surprised. He was nudged by the person next to him and began concentrating mana. A few seconds later, the student created a small fireball and materialized a sword and shield.

“What!?”

“All of us can do it. We only learned it so we’d be prepared in case of a disaster.”

“Carlos-sama, I think it’s best if we get serious here.”

“Krisha’s right, Carlos-sama. If we don’t, we might be the ones who lose.”

The twins who were flying beside him suggested. He nodded to them and raised his hand.

“Then let’s summon our familiars and quickly deal with these pieces of trash!”

“Yes.”

The twins performed the same action as him. Three magic circles suddenly appeared above them.

“Get back, Lumina-sama!”

Hearing Mary’s shout, I sprinted back to the wind barrier. Turning my head, I saw two serpents, white and around 15 meters long, appearing from the circles above the twins. From Carlos-sama’s circles, two tigers with green gemstones on their foreheads and black and white stripes emerged and roared.

“Can we also do that?”

“I don’t know. Should we try? Since we saw their magic circles, we could mimic them and maybe something will come out.”

Because they weren’t attacking us, I asked Emilia a question.

Victoria showed us a wry smile and said, “We can’t do that, Lumina-sama. Familiars feed on their contractor’s mana. Since we don’t have a lot of mana, it’s basically impossible for us to summon them.”

“… Is that so?”

“Yes.”

I hung my head in disappointment as my thought of summoning a beast like theirs was shattered.

“Now that Carlos-sama has summoned his prized beasts, those general students are done for!”

“What they did before was just a fluke! There’s no way Carlos-sama will lose to them!”

The magic students around us recovered from the shock and displayed confident smiles as they looked at the two 15-meter-long serpents and two 5-meter-tall tigers.

“Go!”

The two tigers leaped the moment Carlos-sama gave the order.

“Kuh!”

Victoria groaned as she focused on maintaining the barrier. The two serpents flew behind us and attacked the barrier.

<Lightning Strike!>

<<River Surge!!>>

Anthony noticed the casting and quickly created a wall of earth above us before the magic could be launched.

“… Lumina-sama… I don’t know how long I can hold this… Quickly get away from here.”

“What about you!?”

“Don’t worry about me…”

I accepted Victoria’s resolve and began searching for an escape route. However, with two tigers in front, two serpents behind, and a combination of lightning and water above us, we were cornered.

With no place to run, an idea popped into my head, and a smile appeared on my face.

“What are you planning, Lumina-sama?”

“It’s nothing great. I was just thinking of attacking the tiger head-on.”

“…”

Emilia’s expression turned shocked as she processed what I had just said. But with no other choice, she reluctantly agreed. I combined the water and fire balls and manipulated the magic and mana inside them to create a sword of ice. Given the tight situation, the sword was simple and lacked design.

I quickly jumped between the two tigers and slashed at one of them.

Unfortunately, their fur was quite tough, and all I managed was a scratch. Emilia, following suit, experienced the same result. Mary also shot arrows as she landed beside me.

The tigers, noticing us, changed their targets and charged toward us. Emilia and I quickly flew upward, with Mary following right behind. I made the floor beneath me disappear and used gravity as momentum to stab the tiger’s back.

Mary shot a barrage of arrows, strengthening them by passing them through a series of mana walls. As a result, the arrows became larger, akin to ballista ammo.

Emilia reshaped her sword into a spear and descended toward one of the tigers. One of them saw us falling and roared.

“What!?”

I was surprised as lightning surrounded the tiger.

“Aaaaahh!!!”

Since I couldn’t stop my free fall, I was hit by the lightning. Emilia enveloped herself in mana and rescued me. The two of us then flew higher with Mary.

“Kyaaaa!”

“Guh!”

Further away, Victoria and Anthony’s screams were heard. Their barriers were destroyed by constant attacks, leaving them hit by water and lightning.

Since I didn’t need to chant, I created a ball of light and injected mana into it to heal myself.

“So they can use magic too, huh.”

“Who knew?”

Carlos-sama then glared at us and said, “I won’t let you surrender!”

“Ugh…”

The twins commanded the serpents to chase after us while chanting. The tigers roared and began shooting lightning bolts at us, forcing the three of us to separate and dodge their attacks.

Seeking a safe place to regroup, I tried flying above the clouds. Emilia and Mary noticed and followed me.

“““Haa… haa…”””

I looked behind us and saw that the serpents weren’t pursuing us.

“Haa… Let’s review a bit. First, Carlos-sama uses lightning magic and can summon tigers that can also shoot lightning. Second, the twins have flying serpents and can use water magic like the twins. Although we use null element magic, their summons are just plain cheating. This feels more like a monster fight than a magic battle.”

““Nn…””

The two of them agreed with my assessment.

“I wonder if Victoria is alright.”

“Let’s hope so…”

“What about Anthony?”

“I think he’s alright…”

I created a mana screen and surveyed the spot where Victoria and Anthony were. We saw general students picking up their bodies and starting to heal them.

They seemed alright. Though they had some burns on their arms and legs, none of the injuries were life-threatening.

I then shifted the screen towards the serp

ents and tigers. The three of us began devising countermeasures.

“Hmmm… Why don’t we strengthen our bodies like Shin does?”

Mary suggested.

“Let’s not. We don’t understand the theory of how magic and mana strengthen the body. In the worst case, we might explode.”

“… Then let’s not.”

An idea came to mind.

“Why don’t the three of us combine our magic?”

““Huh?””

The two of them looked at me with confusion.

“Mary will use her bow to shoot arrows of water. Emilia and I will use fire magic to turn them into ice by decreasing the energy of the molecules in the water and gathering the excess thermal energy around a ball of fire beside us. We’ll keep doing this until the fireball becomes big enough, then throw it at them.”

“What? Molecules? Thermal energy?”

Unlike Emilia, who understood, Mary asked me what I meant.

“Don’t worry. Just shoot arrows at them. Emilia and I will handle the rest.”

“Uh-huh.”

Emilia came closer with a hesitant look.

“I’m only good at controlling and increasing heat, Lumina-sama. I can’t make ice by decreasing the energy of molecules like you.”

“You still don’t understand ‘thermal energy’?”

Emilia shyly hung her head.

“Yes.”

“I see… Then I’ll leave controlling the fireball to you. I’ll focus on concentrating the energy I took from the arrow.”

“If it’s that, then I think I can manage.”

I then looked at Mary, who still looked confused.

“Let’s begin our counter-attack. We’ll aim at the serpents first, then the tigers, and finally, Carlos-sama.”

““Yes.””