Maydare Volume 4 Chapter 5 - The Twilight Clan I

Forgot to update yesterday sorry

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“Where are you guys going!? If you go outside, I’ll strip away your top student positions!”

Nero, Frey, and I, with Professor Lila’s angry voice at our backs, exited the Salt Maze.

The doorway through which we had entered the Salt Maze was now open again. 

An avalanche of students who had failed to escape rushed in, but we went against the current and went above ground once again. 

“Kyaaaaah!”

“Don't freeze! The ogres are coming this way!”

“...”

As soon as we were on the ground, we heard a scream. Furthermore, we saw a dead ogre with a big hole in its belly. We trembled with fear.

Just around the entrance of the labyrinth, several teachers were guarding the area. Among them was the Potions professor, Professor Medite. He had drawn a magic circle on the ground and was preparing some kind of magic. 

His left arm was already covered in blood from a wound. His monocle was also cracked. 

“Uncle Medite…!”

When we ran up to him, Professor Medite’s eyes widened. 

“Miss Makia…why are you here…! You have to escape to the first labyrinth right now!”

“But, Uncle!”

“It's okay. This is just a minor scrape. And I’m going to need a lot of blood for the magic I'm going to use now anyway. This is just perfect.”

Uncle was looking around warily, his eyes narrowed.

Here and there, we heard the screams and groans of monsters we had never heard before. Ogres were already approaching this area. 

At the front lines, many teachers and the spirits that protected Lune Ruschia were fighting to stop the invasion of the ogres. 

——But the enemy would surely come here. 

“When all the students have fled underground, I will remove the poisonous mist from this place. It's a powerful poison that the ogres don't like. You won’t be safe from it either. Get underground!”

“But then, Uncle, you’ll…!”

“I’m a teacher! I have a duty to protect my students in times like this. And I can withstand a certain amount of poison. You know that, don't you, Miss Makia?”

That was true.

Uncle Medite had taken in all kinds of poisons in his body and had antibodies against them. 

The poison that was effective against the ogres was probably made here using Uncle’s blood as the source for the magic. 

The Medite family’s poison magicians were capable of such a thing, but Uncle said that the poison was only to buy time to protect the students. 

“Shit, the magic soldiers and royal knights haven’t arrived yet?”

“Your Highness, the area around the school island has been enclosed in the enemy’s barrier, so the royal soldiers cannot approach the school.”

Only at a time like this did Uncle Medite treat Frey like the fifth prince of this country. 

“Most likely, they are using the Lune Ruschia students as hostages to demand something from the royal court.”

“W-What…?”

The worst case scenario. Everyone felt that way.

If things stayed like this, even if everyone escaped into the labyrinth, that didn’t change the fact that the Lune Ruschia students were in the palm of the enemy’s hand, and there was the possibility that the Kingdom of Ruschia would be forced to make the worst choice.

Lune Ruschia was filled with the children of nobles, and right now, it also had the Savior Airi and several princes. It was the perfect isolated island for a hostage situation.

“Fugue!”

At that moment, Nero’s spirit, Fugue, descended from the sky to Nero. 

“I think we found Lapis! She’s on the southern forest road.”

Southern forest road? Why would Lapis be on a forest road leading to the coast? 

But there was no time to think about it. We must find Lapis and bring her back. 

“You can’t go there! There’s a mass of ogres approaching that place. You’re no match against demons…!”

Shaking off Uncle’s desperate shouts, we ran to Uncle’s desperate shouts.

I’m sorry, Uncle, but I couldn’t abandon Lapis.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry…

Looking up at the sky, I could see magic school teachers flying through the sky with levitation magic and spirits.

The teachers were prioritizing the evacuation of students who were late in escaping and those who were injured, while stopping the invasion of the invading ogres along with the spirits.

It seemed that the demons had entered the school from the southern coast through the forest road. 

The further we went in that direction, the more we came across dead ogres. 

The smell of blood was wafting through the woods. 

And for some reason, there were knives everywhere. They were simple, unadorned steel knives. 

“Let’spick up a few of them. They’ll probably be useful.” 

Agreeing with Nero's suggestion, Frey and I both nodded wordlessly and picked up a blade. 

It was true that we had rushed out without any equipment. Even though I had heard from Bishop Eska that it was the arrogance of a magician to think that everything could be managed with magic alone.

Fortunately, we hadn’t seen any human bodies yet.

I didn’t want to see such a thing, but even if it was the corpse of an ogre, the color and smell of its blood makes my brain flash back to the horrors I saw on the rooftop of the school in my past life.

The stench was so foul that it made me want to vomit, and the feeling of dreadful foreboding made me feel dizzy.

“Stop.”

Nero, who was running ahead, stopped us. 

Apparently his contact lenses were telling him that there was a swarm of enemies nearby.

“One in the front, one to the right, and two to the left.”

“Ogres? Oi oi, what are we going to do?”

“Ogres don’t like fire. We have no choice but to burn them away with fire magic. We have Makia, and if we all do it at the same time, we should have enough firepower.”

Surprisingly, Nero was calm against the ogres and didn’t hesitate. 

Perhaps he had some experience in encountering or fighting with ogres. 

We looked at each other and nodded. And then…

“——Flames.”

Nero faced the front, Frey faced the right, and I faced the left. Together, we released the pure flame magic that we knew and were familiar with it.

The flames shot out in three directions, becoming a serpent of flame that crept through the forest and consumed the enemy. 

The screams that shot through my ears were those of a creature I had never heard before. 

We are not so accustomed to life-threatening battles that we could ignore the agonies of death and move on.

I was painfully aware that the enemy, no matter what it was, was rightly a living creature. 

While I was concentrating on keeping myself calm, an ogre leapt at me from the gap between the flames on the left. I caught it out of the corner of my eye. 

“Makia!” “Leader!”

Nero and Frey called out to me at the same time. 

But at this time, I had already made a quick decision on how to fight the ogre. 

I had already braced my body so I could do it.

I wove a thin, refined flame onto the knife I had just picked up and threw it at the giant demon. The knife flew in a straight line and pierced the ogre’s forehead. It let out a cry and escaped while becoming a mass of flames.

“Haa, haa, haa…”

——My training with Bishop Eska had paid off and helped me in practice. 

It was because I threw the knife like I did in knife-throwing practice every time, bare-handed.

My accuracy rate wasn’t that good, but since I hit the mark when it truly counted, maybe this was that “fight-or-flight response” people talked about…

Now, the hand that threw the knife was trembling.

When I looked up, Nero and Frey were looking at me with wide eyes.

“Hm, what is it?”

“What did you just do? What are you? How were you able to do all of a sudden? And without an incantation!” Frey said.

“You fought like a magic soldier,” Nero said.

Oh, I see. I guess these two didn’t know that I had been training in anti-demon combat.  

“I’ll explain later. Let’s find Lapis right away.”

For some reason, the fight just now no longer disturbed my heart. Perhaps I should say that I had resolved myself.

Even if the enemy was a living creature, in the end we had no choice but to protect what is irreplaceable to us with all our might. 

Even then, we were standing on a thin line, when our enemies were trampling over our precious school and threatening our lives…

Using the guidance of the flying Fugue as a mark again, we looked for Lepis. 

The gruesome past that Lapis told me the other day kept going around and around in my head. 

I can't stop the unpleasant stirring in my heart. 

“...Lapis came to this school for revenge.”

“What?”

I also had to talk about it to Nero and Frey, just a little. 

Calming down once more, I spoke.

“Most of her people, the Twilight clan, had been abducted and slaughtered by the Heavenly Empire’s ogres.”

“...”

“You two might not have realized it, but…Lapis has one prosthetic arm and one prosthetic leg.”

I’m sorry, Lapis.

I'm sorry I took the liberty of telling others something you didn't want anyone to know. 

But, when we reached Lapis at the end of all this…I didn’t know what we were going to witness.

I had given them this information in advance so that they wouldn’t be hindered in making a quick decision in a critical situation. Nero and Frey were silent. 

I wondered what Lepis was thinking when the ogres of the Heavenly Empire she hated attacked this school. 

What was she thinking, and why did she go toward the direction of the ogres without telling us anything? 

“Lapis…”

In the open space at the end of the forest road, we found a figure who seemed to be Lapis. 

Her long black hair, which she usually wore in a braid, was undone, and the strong sea wind that blew through the forest road made it flutter to the side. 

Her prosthetic arm and leg were free from their camouflage and enveloped in buzzing magical power, showing that they had been overworked. 

Her Lune Ruschia robes were also covered in blood. 

“...”

We were stunned and speechless at the sight of Lapis standing there. 

There was a huge metal scythe in her hands, and she wielded it like a god of death, slicing through ogres one after another. The ogres were also swarming, trying to kill her.

Knives were scattered around Lapis.

There were also the knives we had picked up earlier in the forest and used to fight off the ogres. They were apparently weapons created by Lapis’s alchemy. 

“La…!”

I was about to shout her name. Nero immediately covered my mouth and made me kneel down. That was because the knives were flying over here as well.

And from the gap in the bushes, we watched with bated breath the scene of the battle unfolding before our eyes. 

The way Lapis swung her scythe was so quick that it was difficult to follow her figure. 

Rather than being quick, it was as if he was disappearing and then reappearing in a blink of an eye, such a bizarre speed. Did Twilight have this kind of magic…?

Maybe these were moves that were only possible with magical prosthetic limbs. 

After she swung the scythe, there was nothing left but the corpses of ogres. 

I had never seen this Lapis before, full of quiet madness and violence.

“...!”

Suddenly, with a jerk, Lapis’s movements slowed and she fell to her knees on the ground. 

Upon closer inspection, she was already injured here and there, bleeding badly. 

“Lapis!”

We saw an opening in the battle and rushed to Lapis.

Nero instantly deployed a magical wall to surround and protect us. 

However…we were already behind enemy lines. 

The ogres were shouting, now with new prey in front of them, and countless more appeared. The large teleportation magic circle was still glowing over the southern sea. As long as it was there, the enemy’s ogres would spring forth indefinitely.   

“Makia, everyone, why…?”

Lapis squeezed out a voice mixed with anger and pain.

“What do you mean, why, you idiot! We came searching for you because you suddenly disappeared! Our bodies moved on their own even though this place is full of monsters, so we’re idiots too!”

Before anyone else could say anything, Frey shouted at Lapis indignantly.

Lepis looked bewildered.

“Lapis, don’t move. You might not have realized it, but you’re considerably injured and bleeding.”

“You’re about to run out of magical power. It’ll be dangerous if you keep this up.”

As Nero pointed out, the reason Lapis couldn’t stand up was because she was about to run out of magical energy.

I knew that her magical prosthetic limbs would slow down when there was a disturbance and reduction in the magical energy she supplied to them.

“Please…please run away. Why did you come here?”

But Lapis rejected us once again with a low, threatening voice.

“This is my fight! You don't have to risk your lives to fight the ogres. It’s none of your business!” 

“...Lapis.”

“It’s none of your business, it’s none of your business! You can’t do anything about it…!”

My palm struck Lapis’s cheek with all my strength.

No matter what, I couldn’t forgive Lapis’s words.

I never thought I would ever hit my precious best friend.

I had never hit Airi before, even when I was very angry with her. Even though I was a girl who could endure. 

“Don’t say stupid things like that! Garnet Team 9 is all four of us! Just try telling us that this is none of our business! I’ll never forgive you!”

“...”

I must not break down into tears.

At a time like this, I had to speak cleanly and precisely, but I ended up crying in anger. It wasn’t cool at all.

Lapis was completely speechless after being hit by me. 

She put her hand on her red, swollen cheek, and pursed her lips tightly. 

“Lapis. I know you didn’t want to drag us into this, but you need to calm down a little more. Whatever you do, there’s a limit to what you can do alone. Let’s retreat here, heal your injuries, and prepare ourselves,” Nero said. 

“That’s right, Miss Lapis. I know you've been through a lot, but…if you die, you lose. You have to live to win,” Frey said. 

Perhaps to cover for me, who couldn’t say anything because I had dissolved into tears, Nero and Frey said good things with calm words.

There’s a limit to what you can do on your own…if you die, you lose…that was all true.

Lapis hung her head as tears fell from her eyes. It looked like she had finally regained her composure.

“I’m sorry…”

Was she terribly sad that she had involved us into this?

Or was she reflecting upon what Garnet Team 9 had woven together this past year in her own way?

“I’m sorry. I did something selfish. I couldn’t help but be recall the devastation of my hometown with this attack by ogres.”

“Lapis…”

“Kill those bastards, kill them. Take back what was taken from us. That was what was whispered in my ears when I was a young girl who was resolved to fight to the bitter end… My body moved on its own, and I ended up here…”

Lapis, staring at her blood-covered hands, trembled.

She probably couldn’t just stand by and quietly watch the demons close in on us. She was the one who understood the terror of demons best.

Lapis’s fighting ability was beyond my imagination. It was far beyond the level of a student. 

She fought and fought and fought–to the point of even losing her limbs.

“Makia, the magical wall won’t hold any longer. They are gathering in droves. We have to escape from here…!”

Nero said, his voice strained. The ogres were trying to break the magical wall by pounding it with their fists and their weapons. 

What should we do? I knew that ogres were weak against fire. But there were so many of them.

It was all or nothing. I might as well use the Scarlet Witch’s magic.

If I use that crimson thread spell I used at the summer ball…

But if I used the Scarlet Witch’s magic, I would no longer be of any use. I was prepared for that, and I grabbed a lock of my hair.

——But, that was when it happened.

We heard someone talking from the sky. We looked up.

“...There, she, is.”

“So it’s true. We found Lady Lapis. I thought something was up when all the ogres were gathering in one spot.”

“It’s the chief’s daughter. Should have died a long time ago. She’s a disgrace to the clan.”

Clad in fluttering robes, large, medium, and small silhouettes were swaying.

We hadn’t noticed them at all, but this mysterious trio was there before we knew it, staring down at us from above.

“Who…?”

They were dressed in black robes, all of them with iron masks covering their mouths, but they had black hair and purple eyes, roughly the same physical features as Lapis.

However, one of the three had the wolf-like ears, while another had a small horn on their forehead. It was difficult to determine whether they were humans, demons, or spirits. 

Lapis spoke in a terribly calm voice. 

“Toma…Vidal…Kikiruna…these three are members of the Twilight clan.”

“What…!?”

“The Twilight clan used to coexist with demons.  Therefore, there are some who have a mix of  demon blood strongly remaining within them.”

Now that she said it, it was true. The ancestor of Twilight, the〈Black Demon King〉, was said to have created a nation of demons. 

But more importantly, why were Twilight clan members here? 

Weren’t they being held captive by the Heavenly Empire? 

Lapis glared strongly at her black-robed brethren as they floated leisurely in the air. 

“Which one of you is the traitor…! If only you haven’t switched sides to the Heavenly Empire, we wouldn’t have lost so many of our brethren!”

Lapis shouted. She tried to stand up, but collapsed again.

Frey caught her. “Don’t force yourself,” he told her.

The large, medium, and small trio, dressed in black robes and floating in the air, narrowed their eyes and peered down at us with a relaxed attitude.    

“Hey, what do you mean by traitor, Lapis?” I asked in a whisper.

“...Seven years ago, there were traitors who told the Heavenly Empire how to enter the Twilight hidden village. Originally, within Twilight, opinions were divided as to whether or not we should join Frezier or the Heavenly Empire in a future war. At that time, those people joined the Heavenly Empire’s side, and they were traitors who sold the Twilight clan out.”

“...I see.”

The past and the fate of the Twilight clan wasn’t as simple as it might seemed.  

Looking at Lapis’s expression, I could sense that her hatred and resentment with nowhere else to go returning once more. The demons alone were troublesome, but now enemy magicians were attacking here… 

I stood up instead of Lepis and raised my face toward the trio. 

“Are you guys the ones who created that large teleportation magic circle?”

It would be possible for the Twilight clan, who were experts in spatial magic. 

My question caused the black-robed trio to turn their gazes toward me. 

“That's right, young lady. That’s the large-scale teleportation magic circle that’s filled with our wisdom.” 

The “medium” sized young man with beast ears, answered with a bold smile. 

“But don’t worry. We intend to minimize the harm towards the students.”

“What…?”

“How far can Twilight’s large-scale teleportation magic travel, and how many soldiers can we send into the enemy’s country? This is an experiment, so to speak.”

What was more, he proudly proclaimed such a joke.

I clenched my fists. 

“Don’t…don’t joke around! You say you’re minimizing the harm, but that just means you’re okay with it even if a few people die! A war is going to start at this rate!”

Even though I was indignant, they laughed at my words.

“If, a war, starts, that’s, fine…”

A man with the “largest” frame of the group said in a broken voice like a machine.

“Yes, yes! The Kingdom of Ruschia is no match for the Hermedes Heavenly Empire anyway. It is your destiny to be dominated. Because you still believe that spirit magic is omnipotent! So lame! Kyahahahaha!”

The girl with pigtails and a small horn on her forehead, the “smallest” of the three, laughed in a high-pitched voice. 

I couldn’t believe they were Lapis’s brethren.

The fact that they look somewhat alike was even more hateful. 

“Anyways, get out of the way. One of our missions was to secure Lady Lapis. She’s supposed to be in possession of Twilight’s hidden treasure.”

The pupils of the young man with beast ears flashed sharply. 

I didn't know what was going on, but I stood in front of Lepis with my hands outstretched. 

“I won’t move. Lapis is my best friend. She’s our comrade.”

“Uwah, is this what they call ‘youth’!? So lame! It’s pissing me off! I’m gonna kill you!”

The girl with her hair in pigtails forged a thin scythe in her hands and swung it at us.

Nero’s magical wall blocked this attack, but with only a single blow, a large crack appeared in the wall.

The impact was so strong that it reverberated through the magical wall. 

Frey and I held up our hands to reinforce the magic wall, but this was nothing more than a war of attrition. At some point, without fail, the magic on our side would run out. 

“Kyahaha! Die!” The pigtailed girl bared her teeth in a grin and continuously swung her scythe at the magical wall. 

Each blow is so heavy that it was hard to believe that they were coming from a slender girl, and the magical walls were destroyed one after another. It wasn’t just physical attacks. I felt a strange pressure, as though the space itself was shaking.

“...!”

This was all done at the ends of a single girl. If the others, who were watching from a lofty position, moved into action, we would be easily defeated. At this rate, at this rate…

“It’s no good. Everyone, please escape. They’re different from the ogres!”

“It’s too late for that, Lapis. We’re either all going to survive here, or we’re all going to die. Well, I don't intend to die here.”

Nero answered matter-of-factly.

“Hahaha. Then we have to escape somehow. All of us together.”

Frey also said something out of character and brushed his hair upwards. 

I felt the same. I had already resolved myself.

“Everyone, listen. I’m going to use magic. The magic I used at the summer ball.”

“!?”

I purposely didn’t say that it was the〈Scarlet Witch’s〉magic and worded it in a way that only my teammates would understand. They were shocked.

They seemed like they wanted to say something, and for me, it was sink or swim, but there was no other way left to get out of this situation. 

But with the Scarlet Witch’s magic, I could restrain all the enemies here at once. 

If we lived, we won. If we didn’t survive, we lost. 

“Kyahaha! I don’t know what you’re gonna do, but it’s futile.”

The pigtailed girl noticed that I was up to something, but she laughed it off as something inconsequential and continued her attacks.

However, it would be more convenient for me if she didn’t pay attention.

I stopped deploying magical walls and cut off a lock of my hair without hesitation.

“Maki rie luci ah…”

In the middle of my chant, the young man with beast ears with beast ears sensed something and sent a metal spear produced by alchemy toward us. 

Nero, however, immediately blocked it with an additional magical wall, and Frey also took advantage of the opportunity to hold Lapis, who couldn’t move. 

“Crimson reason, doll of bloodーturn, turn, red spinning wheel!”

The hair I cut off scattered just above the magic circle, emitting a crimson light and becoming sharp, thin, and aggressively red threads in a matter of seconds. 

I remembered the first time I used this magic. 

At that time, I had lost control of myself an chanted an unknown spell. 

But it was different now. I used it consciously, as my own magic. 

It didn’t need to be large-scale. I used it within the necessary range, with the necessary amount of magic power, and with control. 

Only when I was able to do that could I claim that I have mastered this spell.

The red threads, as before, recognized anything hostile to me and followed it wherever it went. 

The enemy, wary of the red threads moving like a living thing, quickly fled. 

“What is this!?”

——I got them!

I tracked down the ogres on the ground and the trio in the air and wound them up with the red threads, trapping them tightly. Even the trees in the forest were engulfed, and it looked just like a red cocoon.

“Alright! Let’s escape, you guys!”

Frey, holding Lepis, gave the order. Nero, while supporting me with his body, was moving his line of sight this way and that, looking for a way to escape. 

This was fine. Even if we couldn’t defeat them…escaping was the only way to win here. 

The red threads I had stretched around here would surely hide us. 

“Makia, Makia, I’m sorry.”

I heard Lapis’s tearful voice. 

My consciousness was growing hazy immediately after using the Scarlet Witch’s magic. 

But it was much better than last time. I guess this was also thanks to the muscle training with Bishop Eska… 

We went on the forest road and ran straight ahead. We must somehow make it back to the first labyrinth. 

“Tsk. I see. So that girl’s the〈Scarlet Witch’s〉descendant.”

“The Jester, also, talked about, her. Said to, watch out, for that witch’s, magic.”

“Kyahaha! So she’s the enemy! Our archenemy! Since the〈Scarlet Witch〉and the〈Black Demon King〉hated each other and always fought!”

I heard the Twilight magicians’ voices from behind.

Even though they were imprisoned by the crimson threads, the enemy was somewhat laidback and calm. I couldn’t help but feel that there was something terribly off about their behavior.

Even so…

Even so, all we could do now was to keep running away and survive.

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