“To be more precise, you’ve been set up. The saint had been in an annoying position for you, right?”
“What did you say!?”
Only Gulde himself knew the biggest reason why he came here.
Even the saint who drove him here did not know he was here.
Otherwise, he would have long been destroyed.
If so, then why did this boy know about it?
The boy answered just that with a huge smile.
“The reason she was in Kulash was because she was looking for Masquerade. It was easy to lead her around by giving her fresh information about his whereabouts.”
“I-Impossible! So you’re saying you led me here!?”
“Exactly. After all, there was no way that you wouldn’t look for that monster beast after fleeing here from the saint. This also made the perfect place since even if a corner of the forest was erased or the land sank, everything could be blamed on the Tenkorius. That sort of thing happens here from time to time, you see.”
The boy, who should have been a human, laughed like a demon.
For a moment, Gulde found himself stepping back. This was a trap. The boy had been expecting him.
No, he had been made to come here. Was his body trembling because of the humiliation? Or was it the fear?
He had been dancing on the boy’s palm this whole time. It finally made sense why the boy had been acting so arrogantly from the start.
From the very beginning, something had been prepared here to destroy a lich lord such as himself.
“Bingo!”
“!”
He should have been void of facial expressions, yet the boy read him perfectly, then clapped his hands in applause.
That frightfully bright voice sent chills down Gulde’s back.
He had to come up with an answer to this situation, but after being scared once, he found it hard to collect his thoughts.
Then as if to mock even that, the boy shook his head as though he were an actor in a play.
“Ah, but, if I prepared something too big, you would have noticed it and might not have approached, so I prepared just one thing. It’s pretty small.”
As a suspicious smile surfaced on the boy, he reached out his hand and touched the space in front of him.
In the next moment, the magic formation that had been hidden showed itself, and just as he said, it was a small, palm-sized magic that even he, who did not know of gravity magic, knew.
“…Turret Magic?”
That was a kind of magic often installed in military bases, forts, and military camps during wars.
It was generally classified as Ceremonial Magic, but most of the spells under Turret Magic could be easily prepared.
Normally, when using a spell, there was a need to use a chant to control mana and the magic formula.
But in the battlefield, where a moment’s decision could prove crucial, and considering the skill of the common soldier, such a thing would just create an opening.
However, in the event of war, invasion by another country, or an attack by a horde of monsters or beasts, the firepower provided by magic was just too crucial, and the same level of firepower had to be available regardless who was available.
After many trials and error, the answer they arrived to was Turret Magic.
By pouring mana into a magic circle, a turret would be deployed and shoot magic.
They took less space than cannons that shot cannonballs and didn’t need its own transport since the spell only needed to be engraved.
Maintenance was minimal, and there was no need to load shells after each shot. There were still differences in scale and power, but in modern times, this magic would surely be used by every country’s army.
When it was palm-sized, even the smallest soldier could deploy it. However, its power was about two-thirds of normal magic using the same amount of mana. After all, it was originally a branch of magic devised for soldiers unskilled at magic.
Naturally, it shouldn’t be able to turn this situation around.
“W-What could something so tiny possibly do in a situation like this!?”
A tiny magic formation and a low-class turret magic couldn’t possibly pose any threat to him.
Gulde tried to get back at the boy for all the verbal abuse until now, but he couldn’t stop himself from shaking.
Though a part of him laughed at the boy’s formation, a part of him couldn’t help but wonder how the boy could be so unaffected if that was all he prepared.
From the way the boy kept smiling at him, he must have had something else prepared.
Gulde was so sure of that that his skeletal body froze.
“But of course, it’s──────to clean up trash.”
The boy giggled and threw the magic formation into the air.
Gulde followed it with his empty eye sockets, but he doubted what he was seeing.
Despite the fact that the boy softly threw it up, the magic formation quickly reached the sky, and he couldn’t sense it anymore.
The moment it reached the top, someone’s finger snapped.
“!?”
“…Huh?”
“Hah?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
In the next moment, a scene that no one could comprehend unfolded.
The magic formation that had gone into the sky suddenly increased in number. Moreover, it was not just by twice or thrice, and neither was it by dozens or a hundred.
In the blink of an eye, the magic formations filled the sky.
The night sky filled with stars was covered without any gaps with magic formations.
“…W-What did you do?”
Normally, just moving a turret magic that has already been deployed was worthy of praise.
But even for Gulde with his lich lord body, that was no longer limited by a physical brain, it was impossible to copy the same turret magic to such an astronomical number.
That remained true even if he multiplied himself many times.
“I copy-pasted it, not that any of you can understand that. Hmm, though I suppose in this situation, control key and shift key is more apt?”
“Don’t mess with me! Just what the hell are you saying!?”
The boy’s attitude frustrated Gulde to no end, but all he got in return was a crescent moon smile.
“Of course, it’s something from another world that you know nothing of. Weren’t you a pursuer of knowledge?”
‘Yet you don’t even know something like that,’ the boy seemed to say in mockery.
No, he was mocking him a roundabout way on purpose.
───Just what the heck is this thing!?
What was it that Gulde encountered? What was it that he was fighting against?
Should he attack, retreat, or negotiate? He needed to make a decision now, but fear gripped him.
No matter which way he looked at that boy, he possessed nothing more than a tiny presence. A child even lesser than commoners.
Even now, he could lose sight of him if he didn’t focus. And yet, whether it was the princess from a magic kingdom, or an Undead King that uses forbidden arts, none could stand against him. Gulde could all too easily imagine himself dancing on the palm of the hands of this seeming omnipotent being.
Then suddenly, the boy raised his hand.
“Eek!”
Just that was enough to make Gulde scream, but then in the next moment, the magic formations in the sky lit up all at once.
Seemingly designed to shoot bullets of fire, dots of fire filled the sky.
But that scenery was…
“Uh, what was it again? If I recall correctly, you said you’d show me the power of numerical superiority, right?”
“A-Ah, ahh… Gu!”
Gulde ruminated on the words he said with so much confidence earlier while the
When he thought of how many fires there were in the sky right now, Gulde realized just what a joke he was, and the humiliation from that felt like his chest was being gouged out.
An incomprehensible sound leaked out of his jaws. For some reason, the rattling of his bones sounded so painful.
“In that case, I’ll teach you the power of the stars.”
With a vicious smile on the boy’s face, his hand swung down like an executioner’s blade, and in the next moment, the false heavens born between the earth and the sky shone beautifully and without mercy, and then…
────The stars fell.
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