Chapter 41: Confrontation (2)

R​ea​d on​ KatReadi​ng​Cafe

Translator Note

So you may have noticed there were like 3 versions uploaded and taken down and then reuploaded, I am an idiot who uploaded the wrong versions multiple times. Feel free to come into Kat’s discord and clown on me

Did this mere child just dispel my illusion magic?

Louveci observed Sugar with her sightless eyes.

Sugar’s magical energy, which had been in turmoil from consecutive uses—casting spells, exploding her magic for propulsion, and running—was gradually stabilizing. It was as if something was being absorbed, filling the gaps as the amount of energy increased.

The faint magical energy scattered in the air was slowly being drawn toward Sugar.

“…”

“Huff… Anyway. Are you hurt?”

Sugar, having caught her breath somewhat, looked at Louveci.

Lifeless gray eyes contrasted with Sugar’s vibrant pink and sky-blue ones.

Louveci reached out her hand.

“Just what are you…”

“You’re moving, so I guess you’re not hurt.”

“…Even if I were caught in that explosion, I wouldn’t be seriously injured.”

“Huh? Are you human?”

“Yes, I’m human. A living, breathing person. So…”

Her hand, slender and long, clad in black gloves, touched Sugar’s head.

“Thank you, Sugar. I never thought… you’d throw yourself like that to save me. You’re a kind child.”

Sugar subtly moved her head away.

“If you’re grateful, send me home.”

“Yes. I’ll definitely do that, so don’t worry.”

Louveci smiled and stood up.

Sugar also straightened her posture, holding her wand.

Ahead, the fused entity, which had taken on a humanoid form, was approaching steadily.

“Wow, they made that out of human corpses…”

Sugar covered her mouth, disgusted. The grotesque object was too explicit, a display of poor taste.

“I didn’t want to show you this.”

“That’s stupid.”

Sugar, suppressing her nausea, stared ahead. She raised her wand, her eyes wide and her head held high.

She didn’t know many spells.

But she had to go back. Her sick friend was waiting for her.

“When did you get that wand?”

“It’s always been there.”

It was a precious gift exchanged between the two of them. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to tell you.

‘Ah, no need to be sorry.’

Even though we’re fighting together now, this woman is still part of the religious order.

Life is full of strange twists.

Sugar smiled faintly and adjusted her slightly tilted pink headband, which had shifted during her frantic movements. Just then, the golem lunged.

“Icy Road.”

The first spell was Louveci’s.

A wide sheet of ice spread across the ground ahead. The blood-soaked lump of flesh would surely slip…

But at that moment, it jumped.

The corpse fragments scattered toward the two in an instant.

“…!”

Startled by the sudden obstruction of her vision, Sugar flinched. For Louveci, who relied on her hearing, it wasn’t a big issue.

Louveci pulled Sugar behind her and immediately aimed her wand.

Tap, tap—

With two taps of her index finger on the wand’s handle, something invisible shot out, piercing the focal “fragment” floating among the corpse pieces.

The corpse fragments, now powerless, fell to the ground with a thud.

At the same time, a magical projectile flew toward them.

Looking around, they were surrounded again by newly arrived followers.

“This religious order really has a lot of people! Do you really need to proselytize? Ah, I guess you’ll have to recruit new followers after today since they’re all going to die!”

Sugar dodged left and right, picking up a rock the size of a human head.

Though heavy, she infused it with magic and threw it without hesitation. It flew in the blink of an eye, canceling out the magical projectile.

As the rock, now devoid of energy, fell to the ground, Louveci aimed her wand.

In that moment, bang—it exploded, and each shard of rock, infused with magic, shot toward the followers. They looked like blades.

“You said they’d die? At least we should try to keep these people alive.”

Are you really saving them? Sugar gave her a questioning look, but another follower blocked her path. Drawing a sword, they swung it wildly, infused with magic.

“Yikes!”

Sugar quickly ducked as the sword aimed for her head.

Being short has its perks!

“These people are trying to kill me!”

“This is…”

Even though you acknowledged their potential earlier. I guess this is the direction things are going.

“Claude! Followers! Don’t touch the child!”

Regardless, the follower swung their sword at Sugar.

Sugar slid under the follower’s legs from her crouched position and quickly stood up, spinning to deliver a kick to their vital spot.

The rotation and Sugar’s magical energy combined made it a solid hit.

“Argh!”

The follower writhed in pain, dropping their sword, which Sugar swiftly picked up.

In one hand, a wand. In the other, a sword. What a strange combination.

Yet Sugar was full of confidence. She felt like a knight in spirit.

But in an instant, a dagger flew toward her, shattering that feeling.

Sugar dodged quickly and, in retaliation, scowled and prepared to throw the sword she held.

“Sugar! Aim for their hands or legs!”

Following Louveci’s advice, she adjusted her aim slightly.

Pouring her magic into the sword, she threw it, and it embedded itself in the leg of the follower who had thrown the dagger. The follower groaned and collapsed. Sugar was good at throwing things quickly.

Without a moment to catch her breath, another follower lunged at her. But Sugar didn’t dodge. Instead, she pushed off the ground and leaped toward them.

“Protection.”

It was the first spell Sugar had learned at level 3. A spell taught with clear intent, filled with care.

Using her body, now shielded, as a projectile, she headbutted the follower in the stomach. It was quite effective. The follower collapsed, unable to breathe. They hadn’t expected her to fight back.

Finally catching her breath, Sugar looked around and saw most of the followers were down.

Louveci, in the distance, had just sent another follower’s wand flying. It seemed she had handled the rest.

“How many are left now…?”

Louveci muttered as she scanned the area.

Noticing a follower pretending to be unconscious while aiming a wand at Louveci, Sugar quickly picked up an apple rolling on the ground. It had fallen out of the fruit bag, miraculously intact despite the chaos.

She ran over and shoved the apple into the follower’s mouth as they began to chant a spell. The follower gagged, and the spell stopped.

Now we can really catch our breath.

As Sugar wiped the sweat from her forehead, Louveci looked up at the crow in the sky.

“Claude. Are you going to continue this meaningless battle of attrition?”

It wasn’t entirely meaningless. Eventually, the two of them would run out of magic first.

But Louveci still seemed fine. She stood upright, holding her wand with both hands.

If Sugar hadn’t been there, if the followers hadn’t been a match, she could have shown even more. She looked quite confident.

[…]

The crow, knowing this well, silently took flight.

Flapping its wings without a word, it soared high into the sky, as if unaware of any limits.

At the same time, dozens of other crows followed. They must have been hiding in the trees.

Seeing the remaining followers standing idly, it seemed no retreat order had been given.

If the crows were leaving, they could have flown elsewhere, but instead, they headed high above the two.

An inexplicable action.

Frowning as she watched, Louveci suddenly looked horrified.

“…No way!”

“What? Why are they doing that?”

Louveci’s face darkened. Despite the bright afternoon sun shining down on them, it felt endlessly dark.

Disappointment. Confusion.

Betrayal by a once-trusted colleague.

“Why… why would they go this far… for me…”

Sugar, sensing something bad, approached, and Louveci looked up at the sky as she spoke.

“Sugar. You need to go. Run as fast as you can. With the skills you showed earlier… you might just barely escape.”

“Why are you saying this all of a sudden? What’s going on…? If it’s that dangerous, why aren’t you running too?”

“…Even after being dragged into this because of me, you’re still worried about me.”

“No, I don’t like you, but I still don’t want to see you get hurt…!”

“No matter where I go, that thing will follow. It’s better to stop it here. The city full of people is right next to us. I’ve said it many times. The religious order doesn’t harm civilians.”

“The person behind those crows is full of intent to harm!”

“He shouldn’t go that far.”

“Ha…”

“It’s okay. I can stop it somehow. But I can’t guarantee you won’t get hurt, so that’s why I’m saying this. Remember the oath? I swore I wouldn’t harm you.”

“…”

“Go. Let me keep my oath.”

Sugar closed her mouth.

Clutching her wand tightly, she took a few hesitant steps backward, then turned around.

There was no need to worry about this woman.

They hadn’t met often, and they hadn’t built any particularly good relationship. She was just an old hag who always poked at people’s feelings. An apostle of an evil religious order.

If they fought among themselves and self-destructed, that would be a good thing.

Sugar had a dream of going to Steele with her friend. The best path for her was one where the Shadow Cult didn’t exist.

In another world, a version of herself had been captured by them and lived a life that could hardly be called “living.”

So, in fact, it would be a good thing. If they fought and killed or injured each other, it had nothing to do with Sugar.

Step by step, she distanced herself from the battlefield.

In the distance, the crows circling in the sky let out eerie cries that reached her ears.

An ominous sight. She could feel the unsettling energy brushing against her skin.

“…”

All she had to do was turn off her nerves and run.

If she poured her magic into her legs and ran at full speed.

And if she returned to the orphanage, pretending nothing had happened, and took care of her sick friend—

“Ah! How can I just leave her?!”

“Sugar! What are you doing?!”

“If you get hurt and can’t move, those crows will come after me next! So you have to stop them!”

She gripped her wand and quickly stood beside Louveci.

As soon as she did, the space where the crows had been circling began to twist.

The sky seemed to tear apart.

As all but one of the crows threw themselves into the rift, something began to take shape.

A black void. A mere fragment of “that thing.”

Sugar couldn’t close her mouth. She couldn’t believe they would go this far. It was too much, even for teammates.

“You haven’t even received the sacrament…! You can’t withstand that power…!”

Louveci frantically embraced Sugar. It was already too late, but she wanted to save her somehow.

Even though they revered Him, as an apostle, she knew better than anyone the power He wielded.

Despite Louveci’s reaction, Sugar silently stared at the sky. It felt as if she was locking eyes with a fragment of the evil god.

Even though it was just a tiny, insignificant part, it was still something no human could possibly contend with. Her legs trembled, and cold sweat poured down her back, but she didn’t look away.

Could she withstand it? She didn’t know.

But still. Couldn’t she try?

In the original story, her counterpart had endured the main body of the evil god from the age of 14.

She gripped her wand tightly and stared straight ahead.

She couldn’t do anything yet but block, but someday, she would erase Him from this world. With that firm resolve, she chanted:

“Protection!”

The void descended.

It simply flowed from above, downward. A force that moved without any aggressive intent, just following its natural course.

Yet, it was fatal to humans.

Her breath caught, and she felt as if she was losing herself. Struggling in the pitch-black energy, she wondered if there was an end to this.

But if she focused on her hand, she could feel something.

It was the wand-shaped cane she had gifted to her dear friend. They shared it, taking turns using it. She could feel the warmth of their hands through it.

Following that, she focused her consciousness on her head and felt something being activated.

The pink headband.

Her friend had given it to her as a surprise gift. She didn’t know what it was, but some kind of magic was woven into it. Even this was precious to her.

If she repeated this, she wouldn’t lose herself.

Her eyes snapped open.

She held her breath, enduring the pressure. The protective barrier had long since dissipated, and the flow of magical energy within her body had gone haywire. Her magical pathways expanded and contracted, threatening to burst, but she endured. She could endure.

An eternity seemed to pass.

“Haa… haa…”

When the blue sky became visible again, her legs gave out.

The evil god’s magical energy enveloped the forest like fog, corroding all the natural elements. The followers of the religious order writhed in agony, unable to even scream. Yet, the area around Sugar remained untouched.

[What… is this…]

The crow’s beak gaped open. It opened wider and wider until something burst out from within, taking on a human form.

A man in a black robe with a bird-like mask looked down at Sugar from the sky.

“Sugar… How on earth…?”

Louveci stared at Sugar in disbelief. When the evil god’s magical energy touched Sugar’s barrier, her body, it didn’t repel—it simply melted into her. Louveci couldn’t close her mouth at the sight.

Even those who had received the sacrament couldn’t do something like this. At best, their bodies would be destroyed, and they’d barely cling to life.

Of course, Sugar was still affected, her body swaying unsteadily, but it was nothing compared to being half-dead.

“Ugh… I feel like throwing up… Just leave me… and go deal with that guy…”

“…”

Louveci silently stared at Sugar.

Her empty eyes fixed on Sugar.

“…Louveci?”

Those eyes sent a chill down her spine.