Stiyl Magnus was sitting on the ground of the bus depot.
From a while back, the mechanics who were supposed to be there for the regular maintenance of the machines had been moving in and out. As Stiyl was in a blind corner, nobody noticed him. In normal circumstances, he'd use the people clearing field, so there was nothing he should be worried about. But right now, he was unable to use magic.
(I'm already looking like this just by losing my trump card. I haven't grown up one bit at all.)
Stiyl gently puffed out some air.
Thinking about it, it had been the same situation during the end of July, with his Innocentius. Once Stiyl was deprived of his trump card, he'd be extremely weak. After that incident, he had reflected on it, and put in quite a bit of effort to improve himself, like thinking of a mirage spell to dodge attacks, and improving the effectiveness of his runes, but these were just tactics to 'prevent the enemy from taking away his trump card', and it really felt like he was too lazy to put in some basic effort.
(Now that I'm in this ugly state, can I really protect that child…? If the enemy's target this time is that, what should I do? I'm in a…)
The ring of the cell phone interrupted his thoughts.
Stiyl pulled out the phone from his coat, and pressed the 'call' button.
It was from Tsuchimikado.
"Kami-yan has already destroyed Oriana's Shorthand. Is there any changes to your body's conditions?"
"Until you asked this, I didn't feel anything at all…"
Stiyl carefully pulled out a rune card, and took a deep breath, held his breath, and exhaled, muttering a few words.
Voom. With a soft sound, an orange flame appeared on his finger.
There was no feeling of the rejection on his entire body that was caused by the counterspell.
"…Okay, seems like there's no problem."
"I see. Then please use that searching spell 'all-around reality array'. I've already set up the colored paper and the magic array beforehand. You know what to do?"
"Don't belittle me," Stiyl said.
Around his feet were the circle and the four pieces of colored paper that Tsuchimikado had set up, and in the middle of the circle, was the thick piece of paper that Oriana set up. Though he didn't understand the positioning that was based on the Onmyoji arts, activating a spell that someone else set up wasn't difficult.
"Are you alright over there? Isn't Oriana's spell in the middle of an arena? If you snuck in, isn't it impossible for you to leave like that?"
Sneaking into a match wasn't easy, and leaving halfway through was difficult as well. If one or two were to sneak out like that, they'd be seen.
But, Tsuchimikado calmly said,
"No problem nya. We have already left the arena."
"…How did you do that?"
"There was a student hurt in front of our eyes. That person was diagnosed to have severe heatstroke, and was sent to the hospital. We pretended to take care of that unconscious student, and while helping her out of the arena, we slipped away."
His tone wasn't as frivolous as before.
That's the voice of a magician, Stiyl thought.
"I see."
He said.
"Did Kamijou Touma go berserk?"
"Since you knew about it, I'll leave it to you. We'll be launching our counterattack here. If we don't, it'll be disrespectful to that student."
Tsuchimikado hung up the phone.
As Stiyl put the cell phone back in his coat, he thought,
(Nobody's perfect. To think that this Kamijou Touma, who beat me the last time, has times of failure.)
But, he continued,
"—Am I feeling remorseful of my immaturity because of this?"
Was this the fact that Kamijou Touma, who had been unable to save the victim in front of him, realized so precisely and personally?
Stiyl didn't have anything else to say.
He was just silently doing what he had to do, as if he didn't want to burden his comrades any further, even if he didn't realize it himself.
The four pieces of colored paper started to spin. The magic array 'all-around reality array' was activating, ready to look for Oriana Thomson's whereabouts.