54. League of Spirit (1)
A girl with pure white hair and dazzling eyes as though they held platinum starlight was drifting through the blue sky.
She sat on her broom with her legs neatly together, which was the distinctive flying posture of a witch.
290 kilometers per hour.
If one wanted to call it fast, then yes, it was fast enough—but for someone who could move through space freely to begin with, this speed amounted to little more than a pleasant little drive to feel the cool wind.
“Ahh, how bland!”
The moment she cried out while racing along on her broom, her voice spilled out as though echoing.
Because her body was not real, but an illusion.
“No matter how much I amplify the senses, twenty percent is the limit…”
The White Witch, and the King of Witches.
Even Scarlett had ultimately failed to complete the art of creating a double through the making of another body. Because the act of creating a second flesh was itself something that went against the providence of the world.
“Should I go digging around graveyards too?”
It had already been a hundred years since she rejected the corpse-possession type of cloning magic, saying it was too vulgar for the King of Witches to use.
She was starting to regret it a little.
“Well, I suppose I should be satisfied with this much~ I’ve spent hundreds of years trapped up until now, after all.”
When she flopped down across the broom and crossed her legs, her skirt hiked up into a rather perilous state—but surely there would not be any pervert high enough in the sky to peek under a lady’s skirt.
At least, not until—
“King of Witches.”
—she heard a telepathic voice strike her ear as bluntly as a direct punch.
“Kyaah?!”
Startled out of her mind, Scarlett fumbled on the broom and fell—and at that moment, a gray man appeared in midair.
“Enough with the games.”
At those words, Scarlett, who had been plummeting, suddenly stopped in midair as though hung from a clothes hanger.
Making a pouty face, she hastily pulled her skirt back into place in the same pose she had been falling in, then flicked a finger. The broom that had been floating far above flew straight down and slid beneath her, supporting her seat again.
“Wasn’t it your fault for peeking at a lady in the first place?”
Grunting as she climbed back onto the broom, Scarlett crossed her legs and folded her arms.
She twisted her entire body in displeasure, but it seemed to do nothing at all against that “Divine Moon,” who looked as though he had no emotions to begin with.
“So, why did you come find me, Grey Sky October? You could’ve just come straight to my house. I’d have treated you very, very nicely.”
Long gray hair, gray eyes.
That handsome man with a cold yet clean-cut appearance lightly ignored Scarlett’s teasing as she swung her legs, then snapped his fingers.
Snap!
A casual motion.
But the result was anything but casual.
The pale blue sky began to darken into a deep violet, as though curtains were being drawn across it.
And there, densely etched into place, appeared countless stars and the Milky Way.
“…Tch.”
Scarlett frowned as she looked at the innumerable stars.
Some stars had lost their light. Some were blazing as though exploding.
And yet, strangely enough, there was not a single star that appeared to be being born.
“It looks very, very different from the last time I saw it~”
“The world is no longer being born.”
“Of course not! Because we’re here.”
“…That is not right. Even if we are here, there should still be ‘other us’ existing in ‘other worlds.’”
“You mean parallel worlds? Wow~ I don’t believe in that sort of thing.”
“Do not change the subject, King of Witches.”
“Aww, why~ Serious talk is boring. Can’t I rest a little? Hmm?”
Grey Sky October cleanly ignored Scarlett’s complaint and pointed with a finger toward a certain spot.
There, a single star was falling, stripped of its light.
“Ooh~ Pretty. Isn’t it?”
Scarlett spoke with an ordinary note of admiration, but Grey Sky October answered heavily.
“It is a world where a Dark Dragon was born. It took only an instant for it to collapse.”
“Did you go see it yourself?”
At Scarlett’s question, her eyes sparkling, Grey Sky October turned his head.
There—
countless stars were pouring down like a shower.
Stars far too immense to be described merely as a meteor shower.
“All worlds are dying.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Worlds being born and dying is simply the way fate proceeds.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“That no new worlds are being born. And…”
Grey Sky October lowered his gaze into something bleak and took a step closer to Scarlett.
“…that this world beneath our feet is not running toward death.”
“That’s the problem.”
“Oh, really? I had no idea.”
“Last night, one of the laws connected to this world’s death collapsed. It must have something to do with you. What happened?”
“Mmm~ How embarrassing. That’s a lady’s secret. Do you really have to know?”
“I never expected you would tell me easily.”
When Grey Sky October opened his palm, space itself began to clot above it.
It was neither gray, nor black, nor white—
but literally a lump of space itself.
“Huh? You’re going to fight me?”
Making a blank face, Scarlett pointed at herself with her index finger and said,
“How about thinking that over again?”
“I am not fighting you. I am threatening you.”
“Ooh~ Now I’m getting a little scared.”
Wrapping both arms around herself and shaking her head as she exaggerated her fear, Scarlett suddenly opened her eyes and grinned.
“But what a shame. This body is fake!”
At those words, Grey Sky October clenched his palm with all his might and twisted Scarlett’s body.
Crunch!
Her arms and legs bent backward, her body breaking apart into dozens of pieces—
yet the smile never left Scarlett’s face.
“I told you~! I told you to come find me at my house. With that precious space-shifting art of yours!”
Cackling—exactly like a witch—
Scarlett’s body shattered into dust and vanished.
Grey Sky October, his expression rigid, slowly opened his palm.
There, resting atop it, was a single ticket that read:
[If you don’t come visit, I’ll turn you into a frog!]
Crunch, crack!
The instant Grey Sky October clenched his fist, the ticket tore apart and disintegrated down to the atomic level.
It was a pity that he had let Scarlett slip away when she had done nothing but tease him from beginning to end…
but in truth, he had never seriously intended to capture her in the first place.
It had already been hundreds of years since the King of Witches hid her true body and vanished from sight, so even finding one of her doubles like this was fortunate enough.
“Still… I learned something useful.”
Murmuring that, Grey Sky October watched the 흐름 of the world below for a moment, then turned and vanished beyond space.
Even now, hundreds, thousands of constellations were still falling from the sky.
Perhaps after all the stars had gone out,
there would be only one left.
Thanks to a small event held on campus each autumn, a strange sense of anticipation always rose in the students’ hearts.
Because the school tournament to select Stella’s representatives for League of Spirit was about to begin.
When people hear “school tournament,” they might imagine something on a very small scale—
but Stella was different.
To begin with, some students enrolled for the sake of League of Spirit matches alone and formed clubs specifically for it, and once nearly a thousand elite Stella magic warriors in a single year began taking the game seriously, the scale naturally became extraordinary.
There were even over ten thousand spectators who bought tickets just to come watch the school tournament itself, so its standing easily surpassed that of an ordinary mid-to-small-sized regional competition.
Flame grinned brightly as she submitted the application form for “Team Flame.”
The members alone were Baek Yuseol, Eizel, Ma Yuseong, and Hae Wonryang, with no reserve members—but even with just five people, that was more than enough to carry a match.
For a hastily assembled team, it would not be an exaggeration to call them championship contenders.
The one problem was that most of the members had never actually experienced League of Spirit before.
Which meant that from this point, with less than two weeks left until the tournament, they would have to cram in practice at lightning speed.
“How interested were they in the match in the original work, again?”
Baek Yuseol, first of all, could be excluded since he did not even appear in the original romance fantasy novel.
Eizel, as a perfectly broken character with the traits [Jack-of-All-Trades] and [Versatile], had once received a brief mention in the original work saying that simply by watching League of Spirit for a short time, she had attained skill on the level of a pro player.
She had even entered the tournament herself and won it.
The electrifying thrill from back then—when she crushed Hong Biyeon’s school rival team, then advanced to the world tournament and even defeated Zeliel there!
Flame still had not forgotten it.
The catharsis had been so overwhelming that she had rewatched the championship scene at least ten times.
“As for Ma Yuseong and Hae Wonryang…”
In the original work, there had been no mention of them participating in the tournament.
League of Spirit had been a side story from the beginning, and Eizel had formed a team with Pung Harang and various supporting characters, while main cast characters had barely appeared at all.
“And Baek Yuseol goes without saying.”
That guy was simply good at everything.
According to him, he had never tried it before and had no desire to, but once the game started, he would inevitably turn into the most dependable force on the team.
“Whew…”
The professor receiving the application adjusted his glasses and clicked his tongue.
“These are some terrifying members. I’m really looking forward to this. Even Stella’s representative lineup is going to have to be on edge.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not like we trained professionally or anything. There’s no reason for them to be nervous. Pure magic warriors and professional players are different, after all.”
She had to be modest for appearances’ sake, so Flame said that—
and just then, someone beside her tapped her shoulder.
“That’s true. Professional players and magic warriors are different.”
“Huh?”
The tap itself had not hurt, but it annoyed her. Rubbing the spot on her arm with one hand, Flame turned to look at the other person.
The girl looked to be in at least the mid-170s in height, so tall that Flame had to tilt her head back to look up at her, and the neatly straight-cut bangs made her seem like the sharp, no-nonsense type.
“Ga Yurin…?”
She was definitely wearing Stella’s uniform, yet she was a supporting character Flame had never once encountered on campus.
Flame remembered the name.
Not because Ga Yurin was famous, but because in the original romance fantasy, the very first opponent Eizel defeated after awakening in the middle of the competition was none other than Ga Yurin.
“I know very well how great you are as magic warriors. But it’ll be different in the arena. I guess you gathered a lineup like that because you want to win, but… why not give it up? You don’t stand a chance.”
After spitting out those cold words, Ga Yurin submitted her application and turned away.
Even to another woman, that proud stride looked cool and sexy, but because she was so unbelievably rude, Flame could only stare in disbelief.
“What the hell was that?”
“Haha, my apologies. That child’s temperament is quite fierce. As you know, she’s preparing to go pro.”
“Ah, right. I know.”
Flame was not irritated because Ga Yurin had come over to pick a fight.
She was irritated because that kind of fight was originally supposed to be directed at Eizel, not herself.
“Ugh, I feel kind of bad for Eizel.”
Come to think of it, the original work had changed so much that Eizel had not even gotten the chance to form a team.
Originally, this part of the story had been full of heartfelt resolve—she joined the tournament to shake off the tangled relationships around the Scarlven Emperor and Princess Hong Biyeon—but now none of that existed anymore.
Even the fact that Eizel was still just studying in the classroom when the tournament was about to begin showed how much more peaceful and stable her life had become.
“As you know, spirit players are often looked down on by magic warriors. That’s why she’s always so on edge. And on top of that, your team hasn’t trained for it at all, has it? So she probably assumed you were looking down on this entire competitive scene even more.”
That was not exactly wrong.
There was even a saying that people who could not endure the life of a magic warrior fled into League of Spirit instead.
That did not mean Flame was looking down on it.
To begin with, the reason she formed the team was to escape that bastard Scarlven, so why would she have any reason to look down on anything?
“Sports are sports, and fighting is fighting. What is there to look down on?”
“It would be wonderful if all mages thought the same way you do. Here, take your application slip. From now on, the League of Spirit practice grounds will be open to you as well, and you will be given a chance to train there. It won’t be much time, but do your best.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
Two weeks?
One day would be enough.
[Read only on MugenCodex.]
