"Aryandor...!"
When Rudy appeared, it was the moment he saw Aryandor being captured.
The flow of the fight, the condition of the opponent, the opponent himself.
He knew nothing about the situation.
Yet, Rudy reacted.
Astina lay in front of him, smiling as she fell.
And there was Aryandor's back in view.
Rudy threw a punch.
Aryandor's body was pierced through.
Just as one would pierce a piece of paper with a finger, Aryandor's body was pierced.
Aryandor fell to the ground.
"Ha... You came too late, didn't you?"
Astina said with a smile.
Though she said that, there was no specific promise between Rudy and her.
The only promise was that Rudy would come to save Astina.
Yet, Astina had set a trap.
She captured Aryandor and planned to harm him.
"I just need to set the trap."
Astina staged a situation where she appeared in danger.
She pretended to unravel time magic.
Aryandor was lulled into complacency, failing to grasp her intentions.
Aryandor might have understood Astina's intention, but not my trust.
Blind trust in a situation without promises or plans.
Even if Aryandor had realized this, he would have scoffed.
In a way, it was a foolish trust.
Yet, Astina believed.
It was okay even if there was no direct promise with Rudy.
Because he said he would come himself.
Because he said he would come to help in the most dangerous situation.
Astina, who had overcome everything alone until she met Rudy at the academy, changed.
Rudy was less capable than her, but she learned many things from him.
She learned to cooperate, realizing there were problems she couldn't solve alone.
By dividing tasks with her colleagues, she learned trust.
And so, Astina was no longer alone.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"I waited. Rudy."
Astina smiled foolishly.
"No, senior. Why are you in such a state..."
Rudy, not fully grasping the situation, rushed to Astina.
"Didn't I capture him well?"
"That's not the problem... What if I had been late?"
"I know Rudy Astria keeps his word. He said he would come to rescue in danger, so I planned accordingly."
Astina calculated every variable and situation in her plans.
One might say this plan wasn't calculative, but Astina had meticulously planned even this situation.
While trust can't be quantified, in Astina's calculations, the probability of Rudy coming was 100 percent, making it a perfect plan.
"More importantly, how did you get here? The way you appeared seemed like spatial magic. Can you use spatial magic now?"
"That... The magic I used wasn't mine. I borrowed some power to use it... But that's not important right now..."
Rudy was overwhelmed, worrying about Astina and checking on Aryandor.
"Yes, let's check on him first."
"Can you move?"
Astina's body was covered with numerous wounds.
There were no fatal wounds, but the sheer number was too many.
Astina responded with a smile instead of an answer.
"Yes, let's go for now..."
Rudy supported Astina and approached the fallen Aryandor.
Aryandor lay there with a pierced chest.
The ground was soaked with Aryandor's blood, like a flood had occurred.
With so much blood lost, he would die even if the chest wound healed.
Rudy leaned down and touched Aryandor.
"He seems to be still alive."
His breath was faintly present.
However, it seemed he would die if just a little more time passed.
"Then, I will finish this."
Astina reached out her hand.
"Are you going to kill him?"
"We have to. Who knows what might happen if we try to take him to the capital alive."
Hearing Astina's words, Rudy stepped forward.
"Then, I will do it. You're low on mana, aren't you?"
Astina shook her head.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})"No, I started this fight, so I will finish it."
Astina was the one who provoked the rebels and brought them here.
Therefore, she wanted to end this war herself.
Rudy felt uncomfortable leaving the task to Astina, but he couldn't bring himself to intervene seeing her expression.
"Then, please proceed."
Astina nodded and moved her mana.
"Gravity."
Crack—
Just as Astina was about to use her magic to crush Aryandor's head, his body shone brightly.
"Huh?"
"What is this..."
Astina and Rudy looked at his body in disbelief.
Dozens of tattoos engraved on his body.
Tattoos that they couldn't see with the naked eye were now visible.
"...Magic circles?"
They were indeed magic circles.
Magic circles in the form of tattoos.
Rudy immediately shouted as he recognized their form.
"Astina!!!"
"The attack..."
Astina was using her magic, but it didn't affect Aryandor.
A protective shield from Aryandor's magic circles was guarding him.
Rudy grasped the situation and surrounded his fist with mana.
Light emanated from Rudy's glove, and he swung his fist at Aryandor.
His fist broke through Aryandor's shield and approached his body.
Boom!
Rudy struck down at the corpse, and simultaneously, a strong light engulfed both Astina and him.
"Ugh..."
"What..."
Rudy and Astina shielded their eyes from the intense light.
"Huh?"
That's when Rudy sensed something strange.
A feeling of the space twisting.
This strangeness wasn't just a feeling.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})"Ah..."
As the intense light faded, they looked where Aryandor had been.
Aryandor's body had vanished like a ghost.
And then...
"Indeed, dying doesn't feel good."
From behind Astina and Rudy, a man approached, touching his chest where he had been wounded.
It was Aryandor.
"How did Rudy Astria get here? I heard he was definitely in the capital."
The wound in his chest had disappeared, and his clothes were unscathed.
Astina and Rudy looked at him with a sense of futility.
Aryandor looked at them and laughed.
"Why do you look like that? As if you've seen a dead man."
It was certainly Aryandor, who had nearly died.
Could he really return to his original state even in such a situation?
"Still, I'll give you credit. McDowell fought all day and only managed to kill me twice, but you've already killed me once. Perhaps you're even better than McDowell."
Aryandor was using his body as if it were a magical tool.
Despite being unconscious, he was able to use magic and defy death.
"Using your body like that will wear it out, won't it?"
"Do you think your body and mine are the same?"
Aryandor's body.
While his time magic and swordsmanship were outstanding, the most unique aspect was that he was a magic swordsman.
A magic swordsman could use both the physical abilities of a swordsman and the mana manipulation of a wizard.
It seemed this trait allowed him to perform such impossible feats.
"Besides, last time you conspired with the saint. Or was it from the very beginning? Another being from a different dimension."
Aryandor said this, looking at Astina beside him.
Astina showed no disturbance at Aryandor's words.
"So you already knew? I thought it would be a shocking revelation, but it's boring."
Aryandor looked at Rudy with a leisurely expression.
"The question is how you got here... Surely, only spatial magic could enable such an appearance. Have you already learned spatial magic?"
Rudy's method of arriving here.
It was indeed spatial magic.
But Rudy couldn't use spatial magic at the moment.
He had only succeeded in perceiving space and hadn't tried anything beyond that.
If he were to use spatial magic, this battlefield would be his first time.
'I can't use the magical tool again...'
How Rudy got here.
It was thanks to a spatial magic tool from the Astria family.
He had 'stolen' that tool, unobtainable even with astronomical sums of money, from the Astria family's vault.
No one present could know this fact.
Who would think that he had stolen a magical tool from the Astria family?
'It's best to stay quiet for now.'
Rudy let Aryandor continue to misunderstand.
If Aryandor thought he could use spatial magic, he would be more cautious.
Just as time magic showed transcendent abilities, spatial magic had similar levels of capability.
The question was whether they could win even with such tactics.
The fact that the opponent could resurrect even after being killed was a tremendous pressure.
'But I did sense something.'
Rudy recalled the distortion in space he felt when magic was activated in Aryandor's body.
He had experienced this distortion once before.
Back when he was in his future body, Aryandor used magic, and Rudy had felt a similar twist then.
The relationship between space and time.
It felt like he had grasped a clue to this mystery.
Now, there was only one thing left to do.
"Rudy Astria, you are truly entertaining..."
Just as Aryandor was about to speak, Rudy brushed back his hair.
"Why so talkative?"
"…Talkative?"
Aryandor's expression hardened at Rudy's words.
"Always babbling. How can a man talk so much?"
Rudy said this as he manipulated his mana.
"Stop with the words and come at me, kid. If you're scared, just run away."
"Hmph."
Aryandor looked at Rudy with a cold gaze.
"So you don't want to prolong your living moments even a little bit."
He reached out, picking up a sword that had fallen to the ground.
"I'll kill you."
"Yes, that's more like it."
Rudy smiled.
Then, as if on cue, they both charged towards each other.
