Mightiest Melee Magician

“……Call them out? What do you mean by that?”

“Are you saying we’ll make a scene on purpose?”

Seta and Irene.

They both had horrified expressions, as if they hadn’t understood my intentions.

It was a natural reaction.

For us to make commotion when even staying as silent as possible wouldn’t have been enough.

However, there was a valid reason for us to do this.

“From now on, we’ll need to bypass the many lodges that are scattered around the Central Village. That place is covered by a dense forest and we don’t know who or how many will be hiding in that brush, so it’ll be very dangerous.”

“So?”

“We’ll call them out to us so that they can’t ambush us.”

“But…… What if there are too many of them? There’s a good chance we’ll be at a disadvantage numbers-wise.”

I shrugged my shoulders to say it wasn’t a big deal.

“We just don’t have to fight.”

“……Ah.”

Irene nodded her head, having understood what I meant.

Still confused about the plan, Seta asked again,

“What? What does that mean? Why are you guys the only ones in the know? Explain it to me too.”

I told Seta,

“Sherki used the dummy to confirm our location. They would know that we’re only a small team of three, so the 15-person group might be heading here to eliminate us right now.”

“Hm? That’s probably true. So what does that have to do with…… Ah! So we’ll make a ruckus on purpose so our enemies will fight each other?”

“Yeah.”

My plan.

The 15-person group that was coming to hunt us,

And the many other students who were currently in hiding to ambush unsuspecting passersby.

I was thinking of pulling them all into one place.

There was a saying in the Majeross Ocean in the far East of the Frelian continent.

Use pirates to fight pirates.

Students weren’t pirates……

But who cares?

It was a saying about using enemies to defeat enemies.

“Aha……! So that’s why this is the best method but not a good idea!”

“Yeah.”

“Ok! Then, what do we need to do now?”

Seta couldn’t hide his excitement for our current plan.

I flicked my fingers and smiled openly.

“Let’s wake everyone up.”

* * *

The largest facility on Battle Island that could house over 10 people at once.

The Central Village.

The 15-person group that controlled this area was the biggest predator of this survival event.

They’d already eliminated five people on the first day.

However, they couldn’t avoid losses either.

“How much damage to our side?”

“We already have four people eliminated.”

“Damn it. If it were anyone but Doom Prime…”

“……”

Two people were eliminated in the battle against Callus’ 7-person group,

And during this, the monstrous guerilla attack by Doom Prime made them suffer another two losses.

A total of four deaths, and thus, only eleven remained.

However, the group leader, Dylan Marken, was calm.

“Don’t worry. There aren’t any teams left that can threaten us now.”

His confidence wasn’t baseless.

The 7-person group formed by the Collum Magic School representative, Callus, was a team of mid-ranked magicians that could’ve been called the 2nd strongest force on the island, but they had already lost five members and were now disbanded.

Attacking the now 11-person group through guerilla tactics also became nigh impossible for Doom.

After their base of operations had stabilized, they had nothing to fear.

“We just need to group together and wipe out everyone else.”

Eleven people.

The number had decreased, but it was still an unopposable fighting force.

If they fought using their numbers, who would be able to stop them?

However, even to this Dylan Marken, there was someone out there who was like a thorn in his side.

“Did you find them?”

The ones who didn’t even show their shadows for the whole day.

The prominent winning candidate Irene Prius and the tiresome Seta Malkiri.

And,

The one who brought unique plans to each match and surprised everyone.

Ruin Ardell.

Dylan ordered the scouting of their whereabouts to the dummy magician, ‘Sherki’.

“Kekek. Found them.”

Sherki used his perfectly crafted dummy, disguised into the form of an eliminated student, and found them.

Of course,

“They’re hiding like mice in that western lodge? Kekek. Unfortunately, I was found out… Unfortunate. So unfortunate. They were nearly fooled. Kekek……”

His scheme was stopped by Ruin Ardell.

From this, Dylan was surprised for two reasons.

“Ruin Ardell is hiding? There’s no way he would be……”

“Keke. Aren’t you overestimating that guy?”

“……Maybe.”

Firstly, it was because Ruin’s 3-person team’s first plan was just ‘hiding’.

And secondly,

The main reason why he was surprised,

“So…… Sherki. The dummy you created was caught? How?”

Dummy Magician Sherki’s illusion magic and dummy production were second to none.

As one of the 11 children, even the Fire King Teron praised him, saying he was, “a magician that can transform even lies into truth”.

Of course, the dummy was just a doll.

It couldn’t use magic and it didn’t have the power to kill either.

That was why, if one was intent on figuring out if it was a dummy or not, there were ways to find out.

However, Ruin had suspected someone who ‘perfectly’ looked like a person on the outside as a dummy.

And he caught on as well.

Sherki also frowned, having found this situation suspicious.

“Kekek. That Ruin Ardell guy. He noticed.”

“……Ruin did? How did he catch it?”

“Kekek. Dunno. He’s too confident in his decisions.”

“He was confident.”

“Wait a second.”

Turn—

Sherki rapidly rolled his eyes in an unnatural way.

It was seeing the world again through the dummy’s eyes.

However, it was still an unbelievable situation.

“What? Kekek. If we’re being pedantic, there were some points that could be considered suspicious…… But I still can’t understand that Ruin guy. He seemed to have ‘confirmed’ that I was a dummy and threw a punch at me.”

“……”

Confirmed.

Just how could he have known?

Was it the culmination of suspicions?

Dylan couldn’t work it out.

Even he, someone who had figured out most of the participants, knew less about Ruin than anyone else.

However, the truth was that they’d been caught.

And that wasn’t the important thing right now.

“……So they’re hiding in the West.”

* * *

* * *

They figured out where these troublesome people were.

And they had been given the perfect chance to eliminate them.

If they missed this chance, the three could go into hiding again.

Or, they might need to face them with less than eleven people later down the line.

In this most advantageous situation…

They needed to settle this issue.

Dylan Marken was thinking of perfectly utilizing this opportunity.

“Get ready to move right now. We need to catch those guys.”

“All eleven of us? Or should we leave some in the facility?”

“It’s dangerous to split because of Doom. That guy is definitely hiding somewhere and watching us. So, we’ll move everyone at once.”

“Understood.”

“……”

Ruin Ardell.

A thorn in the side.

No matter how small the thorn, if you left it alone, it was natural that the wound would worsen.

In the end, it would fester.

Dylan was planning to remove this thorn as a whole.

“Where to?”

“The western lodge. We’re only against three people, but we can’t let our guards down. We’ll use all our firepower at once and get rid of them.”

However, this ambitious morning assault didn’t progress as Dylan Marken wanted.

Just 10 minutes before they would arrive at the western lodge…

Boom! B-B-B-Boom!!!

“Wh-what? Is there a fight?”

“At this time?”

“……”

There was a loud explosion from the direction of the western lodge.

A variable that wasn’t accounted for.

An unexpected situation.

The explosion chained into another and constantly reverberated out.

Crash!

Powerful lightning magic that could split the dark, early-morning sky in two, and even earth magic that shook the very ground they stood on.

All kinds of magic were being cast here.

One could tell just by looking at it that a huge battle was happening.

Looking at this, Dylan thought—

No, he knew,

‘While they were running away after predicting we’ll attack them, they were attacked by other students.”

The most probable theory.

Then this was the perfect chance to attack them, while they were busy fighting others.

“Keep moving!”

The group moved through the brush and marched forward.

Soon, the western lodge came into sight.

And then,

‘……Found them!’

Dylan Marken noticed multiple individuals in the darkness.

He didn’t hesitate to throw out the preemptive attack.

“Holy Arrow!”

He was also one of the strong winning candidates.

With his clear shout, a huge arrow of light traced a beautiful path through the air and flew straight forward.

Whistle—!

The arrow lit up the dark morning air with a brilliant light.

“Behind! Behind us!”

“It’s an ambush!”

And when this arrow of light made contact with the person in the darkness,

“……Huh?”

Dylan felt something was off.

‘……It’s not Ruin?’

Right.

Those guys weren’t in Ruin’s team.

A momentary lull.

They thought maybe the battle was over.

But it seemed the battle they’d expected hadn’t happened at all.

Even those guys were panicking at the unexpected attack.

Dylan hurriedly looked around.

‘W-where are they?’

He hurriedly looked for Ruin, but he couldn’t find them.

The unfeeling darkness had hidden them perfectly.

* * *

“……That holy magic. It’s definitely Dylan Marken. The fight has begun.”

While listening to Irene’s calm commentary, Seta and I were……

Crunch!

“Nom nom…… Should we even do this?”

“Nom nom…… Can’t be helped. I’m hungry.”

Eating apples.

“No! Not that. Gulp! I’m talking about if we can just sit here and watch.”

“……”

The plan…

Was a huge success.

The short fireworks show we performed woke up everyone on Battle Island and garnered a huge amount of attention.

The students lying in wait around the trees all gathered to the epicenter of the sound to gain as many kill points as possible.

Of course, we had already retreated to a safe place.

The 15-person team that we were waiting for so much also came.

We talked as we watched the active battlefield.

“Nom nom…… It’s true that we can’t stay here like this. This is the perfect opportunity.”

“Opportunity? What are you thinking?”

I stuffed the remaining apple pieces into my mouth.

“We need to sweep everyone up.”

Operation Name,

You shouldn’t forget about me.

While they were too busy fighting each other,

“……Let’s go. We need to eat up some kills.”

We’ll devour them all in one go.

——