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　The sound that reached my ears was too stuffy and unfamiliar. A sense of urgency crept in, like a crazy alarm that never stopped going off.

　Beaten up by the rushing wind and the unpleasant high-pitched sound echoing in his head, Loki opened his thin eyes, his eyelids trembling.
　In his snatched vision, Loki barely recognized the situation.
　He wasn't even sure how long he had been unconscious, but he was sure only that the battle was still going on now.

　The fact that he was able to regain consciousness in this way was due to chance and luck.
　Just before I passed out, I put a piece of paper engraved with 【Simple Healing Magic】 that I had kept in my pocket on my abdomen. That was the reason why he was able to open his eyes again, albeit slightly. After all, it was only to the extent of promoting self-healing abilities, and I'm grateful that I was able to return to consciousness like this.

　I wasn't even sure if I was really able to put it on, but in any case, I guess I made it in time.


　Even so, just leaning on my neck was enough to send intense pain coursing through my body.
　It's a good thing that you're able to get a good idea of what's going on right now, but what I saw in Loki's eyes...............was a different person from the Ars that I've been watching by his side for the last year and a bit.

　As a result, Ars, who had done his best just to escape from the magic of the discs that swiveled in every direction, was not able to attack it. Most importantly, Ars's body was in tatters, with blood soaked everywhere.
　Not caring about the wounds, Ars had sharpened his nerves. Even now, he dives into his bosom at a moment's notice.
　However, it is just barely blocked by the rapidly turning disc-shaped magic. I'm going to be able to take a distance to see the opportunity, but the play of evasion in the nick of time is carving a raw wound every minute. I'm sure you'll be able to see this kind of futuristic war of attrition all the time.
　The black hair that sticks to his forehead and the cold face of the emotionless Ars.

(Al........)

　But those eyes were not looking at anyone, nor were they reflecting. The strangeness of the eyes, which were not even puppets, made Loki feel something like a crisis.
　He was shaken by the uncommon situation, with no regard for his injuries.

　The battle of life and death is always a matter of weighing one's own life in the balance. In the outside world we may lose sight of that sense of danger, but we never forget it. As long as we are human beings, even if our senses are numb, our bodies honestly carry our fears.
　It is not allowed to escape or give in, and only by facing it can it hold life together.

　But there was something definitively missing from the current Ars.
　Whether it was a demon or a human, he hadn't offered the price in the battle for life and death.

　To Loki, who had been watching from the side, that strange scene seemed too uncomfortable to accept.
　I'm sure that, regardless of the overwhelming difference in ability, Ars has always thought about "life" and "death". That's why he's been able to hold on to life to this day. Even though he has been given the title of the strongest, the vulnerability of the human body is unchanged.
　He has returned from the land of the dead many times. No matter how strong you are, if you are in the body of a man, there is certainly a price to pay.

(Something's wrong. He said that Al's disorder was an abnormality in the substitution of magic power.......)

　Of all the mental illnesses that mages are prone to in the outside world, the one they fear the most is magical outbursts. In particular, bereavement of a companion, as in this case, triggers a major insanity. In other words, it leads directly to the runaway of magic power.
　However, the current Ars was fighting using his magic power despite being incomplete.

　The source of Ars's dis-ease was in his magical power, a condition that slightly extended to his physical functions. This symptom was from the outside world that took Tesfia and Alice with it. Mental stress, or rather, it's largely due to mental load. That's why I wanted to avoid letting Ars see the way he was taken in by the demon.

(Al isn't normal right now, but it's not like his magical powers are out of control either.)

　An unearned fear swelled within Loki.
　A one-sided violation, such an absurd harbinger of life and death, was approaching without a sound.
　The Ars in Loki's eyes wasn't him in his childhood, nor was it him who had been used like a rag in the army... and not him at the Academy.

　Thinking about it, a chilling thought passed through his mind that the fact that he was in his five bodies for the time it took for Loki to wake up was not because he was being protected by Ars, but just a coincidence.



　Immediately after, Ars was about to exercise magical defense rather than evasion in the face of a pincer attack from all sides. As a result of the priority of reflexive judgment that evasion was impossible, there was no hesitation at all before moving into action.
　However, the fact that four perfectly timed pincer attacks were made at the same time made it clear that they were made to do so is more obvious than the fire. After being forced to evade, it was a packing move.
　It is not an exaggeration to say that the method of action that Ars instantly judged was chosen from among many.

　In an instantaneous decision that could be called a gut feeling, Ars chose defense. After reading a few moves ahead, he tried to try to defend himself with magic, knowing that the current Ars couldn't spin magic enough to prevent it.
　By all accounts, it was nothing more than a reckless gamble. Not a tactic to win, but a reluctant choice to minimize injuries.

　Normally, Loki's entire body would be scared out of its wits, but for some reason, this time he was able to watch without a cold shoulder.
　It's a good thing that you're at a disadvantage, because it's the only thing that's not in your favor, but you can't help but feel that the exchange of life and death that Loki has been having is in his scarred hands.

　Perhaps that's why I was unfazed when I saw the faintest trace of magic power pass through the ring of chains that had fallen in front of Loki's eyes.
　The ring of chains that had separated from Ars's hand and separated, each one as if they were connected by an invisible thread, letting Ars's magic power pass through them.

　But still ... another fear within Loki gradually expands.
　It is the fear of fearing that Ars himself will be broken. It's not clear now what will break him, or even if it's a mental thing.

　A strong bad feeling had grown to a magnitude that could not be ignored.

　It's a good thing that you're not going to be able to get away from it all. It must be because the current Ars is him that Loki has never seen before, after all, that makes you think so.


　The AWR in Ars's hands was now unreliably broken from its vital chains.
　A tremendous amount of magical power is poured into AWR to jump over such anxiety, and the chains that are scattered around also react as if they were resonating. The enormous amount of magical power that seems inexhaustible released by Ars fills the surroundings with vigor.
　It is accompanied by a chill that is different from the cold air, a mischievous magical power. It's simply an eerie magic power that doesn't make you feel any emotions like killing intent.

　I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that I'm not the only one.
　The miasma is so dense that it can cover even the body like a miasma, creating a thick, black fog. It's not just a matter of time before you get to the point where you'll be able to get your hands on it.
　It's not a bad idea to have a good time. I don't know if they didn't even give you time to prevent it, but the disks cleanly passed through the place where Ars was.

　Only the dense magic power was left behind, and it looked to Loki as if it had been severed into four pieces.
　But soon after, at the edge of her vision, she opened her eyes wide at the sudden appearance of Arus. In response to the phenomenon, Loki immediately thought of a magic that only Ars can use [Information Interchangeable Transfer between Two Points [Shuffle]]. However, this magic is to replace the positional information with the object with Ars himself.

　The event that just happened to Ars is that it moves only himself. Coincidentally, it is the same magic used by [Abomination of Disobedience (Demi Azure)].
　Even 【Shuffle】, which replaces the positional information of two points, is something that is far beyond the realm of what humans can handle. Even the application of this technology, the transition gate 《 Circle Port》, is, in fact, a black box at its core. It's something that is used in everyday life as a matter of course, but a complex and bizarre magical system requires a sophisticated device to activate it.

　The equipment of a different vector than AWR as a weapon is necessary, and that is sometimes the reason why it cannot be established as magic.

　While rejecting the idea that it's impossible, it's not hard to see why it's Loki. I feel that those who know Ars well can barely understand it.
　After all, the 【Transition Gate 【Circle Port】 is something that was created by Ars's research.
　However, even that was something that used a large-scale device.

　Transferring personal location information, which is thought to be even more difficult than that, is.......