Though they can’t fight the Demon King head‑on, it’s not that mages lack power; against the Demon King, victory rides a different storm entirely.
Persona, spirit, will—subtle, illogical currents that blaze like wild fire; charging blind, acting without hard results—mages have always scorned that smoke.
That’s the cliff they won’t cross against the Demon King.
The passion they call useless, the blood‑bold heat they dismiss, is the very key gods and demons recognize, like a gate’s hidden seal.
Even so, mages who can’t scratch the Demon King still join a Hero Squad as support, woven into the shield wall—like Augustus’s teammate, Gugwen, now Vice Dean of the Hero Academy.
They clear abnormal states, stack buffs, widen sightlines, share battle intel, and drum the fight’s tempo; raising the dead is a Divine Healer’s burden, but patching the living, mages do with deft hands, and in sheer rapid mid‑fight recovery, they outpace priests like a mountain river.
Set aside that one ceiling, and mages rank first as the teammate you most want—and first as the opponent you least want, names carved into iron.
Right now, Stini and I are hunting someone very good with magitek, a fox in a city maze.
“Orcish war‑shout magic, elven leap magic, Aerian endowment magic—three already! How rich is this guy?!”
Stini grumbled, voice like a kettle hiss.
“If he had your gift, he wouldn’t burn cash like incense either.”
I glanced at the faint silver glow etched across her face, moon‑lit vinework; those are the power‑marks that cling when ‘Nature’s Favor’ activates—an endowment‑type formula the Aerian use, born from elven high magic.
As we craft weapons from two hands, each race grows magic from its bones and talent, branches from a living trunk.
Except humans, that bare branch.
It’s not that I look down on humans—I mean… humans really lack talent in magic; in combat too; and in IQ—cough—compared to other races, like pebbles beside boulders.
Humans didn’t grow their own magic, but they copy like mirrors.
Thus came magitek: thin mana, bit by bit; time and money piled like bricks; rituals and words engraved and stored, released on need, gears of sigils turning into a craft that competes.
That’s how humans climbed from near‑nothing to almost anything, a stair made of coins.
The young man with the suitcase flung more burst runes behind him, sparks writing a trail—patterned from the elven mid‑tier Leap spell “Scorch,” primed with specific mana and touch‑triggered; each blast equals twenty kilograms of TNT; a magic apprentice needs two hours to make one; cost about one Colonna gold coin—credit to Shadow Artisan Andor Mephy, figures from last term’s final paper “On the Cost‑Benefit of Three Fireball Devastations.”
Stini drew a breath, shut her eyes, and sped into the storm like a dancer into rain.
Fury‑flames uncoiled from the runes, then licked her skin and cloth, gentle as cats; the fire knew the girl wearing silver marks was a friend.
High‑tier magic “Nature’s Favor” is for elves recognized by Nature; for a time, the self is accepted as part of the wild, a leaf on the wind.
Magitek can copy it too, but since the original embraces elves, human use is ill‑fitting, joints grinding—credit to Hero Stini Saya, who nearly belly‑skated under the pass line; her unripe, data‑less thoughts come from her final paper “A Half‑Elf’s View on Magic Compatibility.”
Half of that paper, I wrote; and Miss Vega is my maid—her quill counts under my name, like a shadow adding ink.
Stini breathed deep again and quickened, steps hammering like rain.
She ducked, she slipped; she raised her forearm to shield her face; trusting her own magic resistance, she charged straight through, a hawk through hail.
With both sides running the advanced application “War God Unparalleled,” her raw base shone like tempered steel; she closed on the young man hurling explosions down the street.
Mages run well and fight well; rich omnivores using magitek are greased lightning on cobbles—hard to stop, hard to net.
But Stini, today’s chosen Hero, carries twelve blessings of Primordial Deities, several kingdoms’ benedictions, combat instincts that drive ambushers mad, peerless martial skill, and the truth of an omni‑mage; failing to catch an unknown rookie would be the twist, not the rule.
Element’s grace floods her senses; her command of flame and frost is a tide; she can snatch part of what her foe commands, like stealing wind from lungs—one third of his spells jammed mid‑cast under her dominance.
As an adventurer, she’s hunted rare beasts for coin, and she’s fine at tightening a net—pressing prey until a noose is felt on the neck, breath choked, resistance abandoned.
Yet the thief with the case grew wilder; blood‑veins climbed his eyes, and he burned magitek like life‑fat to a candle’s end.
At this tempo, he’d die before we cuffed him, drained of life to feed empty mana, a wick guttering in storm.
Stini hesitated, pain pricking like nettles, then let it go and pressed on, sand sliding through an hourglass.
Prey at the limit, stage one: abandon flight.
For the first time he turned fully, terror and mania braided on his face; he yanked talismans from his pockets, poured mana in, and flung them like a gambler’s cards.
The girl walked through smoke and flame, opened her eyes, and faced a mirror catching pale morning light, a lake set upright.
Prey at the limit, stage two: cornered beast fights.
Her Holy Lance carved a crooked arc, skirting the mid‑tier magic “Counter‑Wound Mirror” like a fish around ice; her Holy Sword swept forward, and mana climbed its blade mid‑air.
By the time steel kissed glass, the Aerian endowment “Grant: Unravel” was finished; a shriek split stone, and crystal cracked like frost.
Behind the mirror, the young man had already leapt ten meters; the elven leap magic “Stillfeather” turned him light as thistle, and “War God Unparalleled” gave him the shove to flee farther from Stini.
Of course, he left her a gift: several “Corrosion” runes vented toxic mana mist, a green bruise in the air.
The Hero found a window in the storm.
Narrow’s grace, “Price of Valor,” gives her resistance near gods and demons to poison and curses; these soulless, will‑less indirect attacks can be flatly nullified.
Even so, the sting bit—her eyes swelled, her lungs burned; a cough pawed at her throat like a cat wanting out.
No pedestrians lined the street, at least not within the forecast blast; the avenue lay empty, a dry riverbed.
Twenty meters, a sweet attack distance.
No cover between, a taut bowstring of space.
Stini forced through the itch and ache, seized the opening, and cast her Holy Lance, a white ray tearing the air.
In three seconds she stacked a trinity: Dwarven augmentation “Weapons’ Proper Edge”; Aerian endowment “Grant: Sure‑Strike”; Orcish war‑shout “Hunt”—either woven on herself or granted to the Lance.
Lava, poison fog, frost, iron—none stopped this fated pierce; they only delayed it a heartbeat, like snow on a blade.
The young man’s Dragon‑Shout magic “Not‑Me” sputtered incomplete; he tore a lock of hair, scalp bleeding like crushed berries, and hurled it tied to a crystal packed with cramped runes.
A hair early—the Lance’s tip hit the crystal, shattering it into quartered shards, a pretty spray of dust.
A hair late—the Lance’s side cut across his ring and little finger roots, taking their upper halves, red petals falling.
Prey at the boundary, stage three: death‑throes.
He chose to step in instead of fleeing, tossing escape behind him; in his heart he knew, “I won’t run unless I beat the Hero,” and he was right as a grim law.
Mid‑range clinch isn’t ideal for Stini right after throwing her Lance, but his case is worse—the color drained from his face as he squeezed life to feed magitek, his death date walking closer.
Stini tensed—not fear of losing; she wanted him caught alive, not driven to a cliff’s edge.
She hoped I’d do something; I knew that hope, a quiet thread of our tacit accord.
Honestly, in the original plan, a dead buyer of my collectible was better; corpses don’t talk, and they don’t sprout messy surprises like weeds.
But since our accord hums in tune, and I promised my lovely girlfriend Ferrel no deaths today…
I dropped from the Shadow.
