Chapter 238

Chapter 238 - A Fight Between Sisters

Cos and Pia moved to the outskirts of Sky Island.

Here, even if a commotion broke out, it would not be heard all the way in the crowded central area.

Cos smiled as she undid the buttons of her robe one by one.

“It has been a long time since I had a mock battle with you, Pia. The last time was five years ago, probably?”

“That is right.”

After those five years, the gap between them had grown so vast that a mock battle itself could no longer be established.

That was why Pia had avoided facing Cos and had thought it was meaningless.

And yet now, overturning all of those thoughts, she stood before her sister.

“You remember the mock battle rules, do you not?”

“Yes. We use magic without taking the opponent’s life, and if the opponent is incapacitated, we dispel the magic.”

“I am glad you remember.”

“We did not do it often, but there were not many rules either.”

Just as she said, Cos did not often have mock battles.

Rather, among the blood kin, she belonged to the side that had done them the least. The reason was connected to why Pia had avoided fighting her.

“There was no one who wanted to have a mock battle with you, Big Sister. It was not that you did not do it. You could not.”

“Was that so? I do not remember very well.”

“Even if anyone did, it would only have been me or Ryan. And even we were no match for you.”

“How embarrassing.”

Cos twirled her blue hair around one finger and smiled faintly.

A child who had always grown up receiving only love did not know how to hate, nor did she recognize the hatred directed at herself.

Pia lowered her head, slowly nodded, and opened her Core.

“But now, even you will be a little out of breath, Big Sister. I succeeded recently.”

“Wow.”

Cos let out a small exclamation of admiration.

Along with the opening of her Core, six rings could be felt rotating intensely around it as their center.

The sixth ring had not formed long ago, so its rotation was still a little awkward, but there was no problem with its operation.

“How impressive. The 6th Circle.”

“You reached that realm five years ago, Big Sister. You do not have to praise me too much. Still…”

Pia raised both hands. The sleeves of her robe fluttered along with the mana circulating through her body.

“Now that I have reached the same 6th Circle as you, I think I can follow your field of vision, at least a little.”

Cos gave an innocent smile.

“Then would you like to attack first?”

“If you are willing to yield that to me.”

WHOOSH—

A heat haze rose over Pia’s arms. Soon, the wavering heat that spread over her entire body warmed the surroundings.

A 6th Circle Fire Attribute mage. The reason she had chosen the Fire Attribute was, to a great extent, because of someone else.

It was so she could stand against her sister, even slightly.

In order to have even a slightly better chance of winning against Cos, who had cultivated the Wind Attribute, she had immersed herself in the Fire Attribute.

“To think it is Pia’s Fire Attribute magic after reaching the 6th Circle. As a Wind Attribute mage, I have no choice but to be nervous.”

“You do not have to say such empty flattery.”

She thrust out a straight punch.

BOOOOM—!!

Using the bones of her fist as a cannon muzzle, she fired not a cannonball, but a fireball the size of a cannon.

The heat haze that had spread from Pia’s entire body like sunflower petals also spewed out fireballs.

This was the characteristic of Fire Attribute magic. The heat produced by the manifestation of magic, combined with the mage’s own heat, gradually created an advantageous environment.

“It was a good thing I loosened the buttons of my robe beforehand.”

Otherwise, I might have been in trouble from the heat.

After quietly adding that, Cos spread her arms to either side and spun in place.

It was like the dance of a dancer. Soft, and softer still.

Two streams of wind blew along the tips of her two hands, drawing circles along the trajectory of her arms.

WHOOOOOSH—

BAAAAANG—!!

The fireball, its advance blocked by a barrier made of wind, exploded and scattered flames.

Yet even those flames were scattered by the circling wind, unable to reach Cos.

However, protecting even her robe was difficult.

“The power contained in that fireball cannot be compared to before. You did not even have much preparation time, yet you reached my robe.”

The robe dragged slightly against the ground. Smoke rose along with the smell of burning from a hole the size of a finger at its hem.

According to the natural compatibility of the attributes, the fireball should have devoured the Wind Attribute wind and grown larger.

If that had happened, the hole in the robe would not have ended at that size.

“…Big Sister, you are a Wind Attribute mage, so why is it that you have the strongest defense among the mages of the Magic Tower, rather than being the fastest?”

After patting her robe to put out the remaining embers, Cos answered sheepishly.

“The Wind Attribute already has the fastest attack speed by its very nature. Rather than increasing its speed even further, it seemed better to fix its weakness.”

After finishing her answer, she held out her palm.

“It is my turn now, is it not?”

“……”

The heat haze wavering above Pia’s shoulders grew even hotter.

As Cos had said a moment earlier, among the Five Elemental Orders, the Wind Attribute had the fastest attack speed, but the weakest defense.

Yet the First Daughter had been the first among Wind Attribute mages to receive the alias of the Toughest Shield.

Therefore, her attack speed should certainly have been no different from that of an ordinary Wind Attribute mage. Surely it should have been.

“Here I go.”

SWOOOOSH—!

The sound of an arrow tearing through the air tickled her eardrums.

It was the signal that had appeared consistently throughout the many mock battles she had fought against the First Daughter.

A very precise signal that her attack had reached right before my eyes.

“Hngh!”

She kindled flames in one foot planted on the ground and shifted her body to the side.

CRUNCH—

An axe-like mark appeared on the tree directly behind her.

If she had dodged even a little later, her right shoulder would have been bruised on the spot.

“You dodge well. The Fire Attribute is not an attribute with strong defense either, so evasion is indeed the right answer.”

“On top of that, both you and I focused only on one attribute, Big Sister.”

“Yes. That is why Ryan is interesting. His talent appears evenly across every attribute. That is why he is good at all of them.”

As Cos spoke, she wrapped two more winds around her fingers.

The winds wound around her index and middle fingers, using them as pillars while rotating like snakes and increasing their speed.

Then, as though flicking someone on the forehead, she folded her fingers back with her thumb and fired them as they were.

SWOOOOSH—!!

SWOOOSH—!!

This time, they were faster than before, and there were more of them.

“I will not dodge this time.”

FWOOOOOOSH—

She condensed the heat haze surrounding her entire body in an instant.

She gathered it into both arms, and wherever those arms moved, space itself seemed to bend.

To a Fire Attribute mage, heat was power. It was both attack and defense.

The Fire Attribute, which made the best attack into the best defense, confronted the two winds fired by the First Daughter head-on.

‘Why do you think I trained in the Fire Attribute…!’

The Fire Attribute could take in the Wind Attribute’s wind and grow even larger.

The Fire Attribute she had immersed herself in to defeat her sister swallowed the First Daughter’s wind exactly according to that theory.

“Hooo…”

The Fire Attribute that succeeded in devouring it swelled even further.

However, the Wind Attribute also had a path to survival.

“You have to swallow it properly.”

“…What?”

“The wind a Wind Attribute mage creates. Even if it really looks like wind, it is ultimately mana, just like your fire.”

WHOOOOOSH—

“…!!”

A blade-like wind blew through the flames. It was larger and far more vicious than the wind that had brushed past her shoulder.

Just as the fire had taken in the wind, the wind used the fire as nourishment and blew even more fiercely.

“Aaaah…!”

That gluttony continued until the wind blew all the flames away.

The mage, now trapped in the middle of the vortex, could barely stand, and even keeping her balance was difficult.

Therefore, the outcome had been decided.

Thud—

As the vortex disappeared, Pia sank to her knees on the field.

“…For the first time, I absorbed your wind, Big Sister. But this is another new problem.”

“Is that not terribly exciting?”

“Uh…?”

For a moment, she doubted her own ears and asked again. But her sister’s eyes before her were sincere.

“A new problem. The answer that certainly exists beyond it. The process of reaching that answer. The exhilaration waiting at the end of that process. The me who will have grown. No matter which of those you imagine, is it not enjoyable?”

“Uh, well…”

“The adults are weak because they cannot enjoy that process.”

After murmuring that softly, Cos fastened the buttons of her robe again.

“Then I will be going. I will contact you again once I arrive at the neutral zone.”

“W-Wait, Big Sister.”

“Yes?”

With Cos’s words just now, a question that had remained a mystery all this time was resolved.

“Then did you develop defensive techniques on your own because increasing defensive power was the most difficult problem for the Wind Attribute?”

“Mmm.”

Cos thought for a moment before answering.

“That is correct. But it was only by chance that I came to handle the Wind Attribute. It looked the most interesting.”

“…I see.”

The younger sister had nothing more to say and brushed off her knees as she stood.

“Have a safe trip. I am truly glad you are on our side, Big Sister.”

“Thank you. Oh, and I reached the 7th Circle right before coming to Sky Island.”

“……”

“Recently, realizations have suddenly been flooding into me.”

Did she even know how old she was? The 7th Circle in her mid-twenties. Even novels were not written like this.

Pia no longer had the strength to be surprised.

She had reached a transcendent state of accepting anything as just the way it was, and she nodded with a head that felt three times heavier.

“Well done.”

“Mm. Thank you again.”

Cos blushed shyly at the praise.

She must have heard every kind of praise there was, so Pia could not understand why she seemed so unfamiliar with it.

“Then I really will be going.”

“All right.”

The sisters parted ways on the field.

The younger sister, left behind on Sky Island, mulled over what her older sister had said a moment ago.

“I thought she was mad in a refined way, but now I cannot even tell whether this is refined or not.”

Pia let out a hollow laugh.

“Is it not terribly exciting, she says.”

It was a remark that made her shake her head on its own, but now, for some reason, she felt she could understand it.

In fact, it felt as though this was the first time she had ever spoken with her sister for this long.

Was that why? As her sister had said, she felt like trying it at least once.

***

Raymond’s Mansion without Raymond.

The guest who had been staying in the mansion for a little while ended up receiving the guest who had just arrived.

“Margrave.”

“Fifth Son.”

The Margrave had blond hair and golden eyes, though they were somewhat muted.

It was clear proof that he was a member of the Imperial Family, but his residence was not the Imperial Palace.

It was the borderland, a place far harsher than the Imperial Palace, facing the Northern Sword Family and bitterly cold.

The emperor’s half-brother, who had come through the fierce snowstorms of that place, gave a faint laugh.

“You look as though you were waiting for me.”

“Would you believe me if I said I was?”

He was a member of the Imperial Family, but his rank was the count of the border. Therefore, there was no need to use honorifics. The other party did not want them either.

“David. Let the guest in.”

“Th-That is…”

Since Raymond was absent, David was not supposed to let anyone into the mansion, but he simply could not bring himself to say that.

That was only natural. Anyone who directly faced the Margrave’s icy golden eyes would find their mouth frozen shut.

“Come in.”

In the end, the Youngest Son gestured inside with his chin in David’s stead.

The Margrave pushed past the flustered David and entered the mansion.

Since it would be rude for one guest to invite another guest in and even use the reception room, he brought him into his own room.

“Are you living here like an ant clinging to someone else’s nest?”

“Something like that.”

The Youngest Son poured the tea David had brewed earlier, now completely cold, into two cups.

“Sit anywhere.”

“The blood kin of a Great Family of the East has quite poor manners when receiving a guest.”

“This is not my house, so just eat and drink what you are given. Are people at the border supposed to complain about food?”

The Margrave and the Youngest Son sat facing each other, neither letting a single remark pass unanswered.

“So why were you waiting for me?”

“The right to ask the first question belongs to me, who was already here. You are, strictly speaking, the visitor.”

“My reason is simple. I merely wanted to ask your intentions.”

The Margrave briefly stroked his frost-covered golden beard.

“Do you happen to have any interest in the conquest of the North?”