Editing Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode2 (section)

===11===

Myousou Yagoro twirled his 70cm baton and rested it on his shoulder.

“So Macbeth’s witches whip up the wind in the reverse direction of the sailors’ map to stop the ship. That includes the wind and the water element. A direct hit from that sticky blow would have knocked them unconscious.

“Not that I expected to hit supersonic witches so easily,'' sighed Yagoro. Especially when it was an impromptu bit of magic that didn’t even include all Three Aspects.

“But that’s fine.”

The scared trio took a few seconds before they burned with intense humiliation and rage. If they rushed his way, he could easily win. His biggest fear was if they kept their cool and continued hunting Melehe.

(Dammit, Viocia. You didn’t have to steal my line like that, don’tcha think? I’m risking my life when it really isn’t my fight, after all.)

That said, it had been odd for Melehe to barge into the Arena without any hints to guide her there. She must have overheard Yagoro and Schanze’s conversation. And ''he was willing to pretend'' that gave him a justification for helping her out.

Also, the tutor boy had finally risen to the same height as the witches. However, he was not tearing through the air at supersonic speed on a Formula Broom.

He was using one of the cutting-edge elevators that looked like giant red scales and rotated up above the buildings. That meant he was on one of the narrow elevator cars dangling below them. Quick movements and evasion would be difficult from there. He had to use the advantages of the fixed position to overwhelm the supersonic witches.

“Bring it on.”

Yagoro swung his collapsible baton while constructing a strategy in his head.

Multiple lights melted together at once. Popping the spherical barrier had released all the witches into the open sky. When the red, blue, and green lights gathered, they skillfully avoided the giant dragons and griffins flying through the dawn sky and wove their flightpaths together to draw a large circle around Yagoro’s position. The radius of this circle was less than 200m.

At that speed and distance, stopping their spellcasting fingertips to destroy their magic wasn’t an option.

“Ha. On the ground, you could’ve at least used the buildings and terrain to shield you, but you were stupid enough to come up into the sky for us.”

It was probably the green light that was actually speaking. That would be the witch named Lampans.

“What, is this the famous tutor? I’ve heard some stories about Navigate Exam, but I also know your name isn’t found on any of the prep school lists of successful students. That means you don’t know jack about Maleficium! You’re just some bluffing boy!!”

“Was the spherical barrier meant to be a distorted version of the Sphere of Sensation? No, I don’t need to figure that out. Since it was broken from the outside, its identity doesn’t affect the battle.”

''He wasn’t listening.'' The unnatural blond boy’s thoughts were elsewhere.

(I would estimate their speed at between Mach 1 and 3.)

This wasn’t a simple competition of speed. The most frightening thing about witches was their ability to turn as sharply as a bicycle or motorcycle while moving at those speeds. Yagoro imagined their general specs based on some of his old knowledge. In a pure dogfight, the witches would have an edge on the latest ramjet engine fighters.

But this was a good thing, actually. If the witches charged at him, they would reach him in no time, but their magic used their voices. That wasn’t a major problem for them when they were pursuing a fleeing supersonic opponent while surrounded by a barrier, but when their opponent was stationary, they would pass him by before their voice spears could have their effect. Generally speaking, witches always moved forward. There were exceptions like Melehe who could hover or take off vertically, but that trio were forced to fly in a large circle.

That gave him a chance.

Had the long-sleeve sailor uniform boy’s casual behavior wounded their pride? The three lights gathered together and directed their prophecy toward the center of their giant circle.

“We’ll shred you to pieces!!!”

“''As if you could''!”

That simple statement was all it took.

The entire sky seemed to freeze over.

“Your Macbeth witches spell is certainly powerful. It has the extraordinary effect of burdening people with the ''destiny'' of whatever fictional role or position you give them!”

If they called you their lord, you really would become that. Whether you wanted it or not.

“But that’s a verbal curse. It doesn’t work if there’s no one there to hear it, don’tcha think!? So you have no way of damaging this elevator that would fall the instant you cut the chain!!”

“!?”

“Your only other option is to get me to hear your voice so I can make the elevator malfunction myself, don’tcha think? Which is why you went to all that touching effort to see if your voice was reaching me.”

“Oh,” said Melehe, her mouth falling open of its own accord.

They had been fighting at supersonic speed. ''It had been unusual for their voices to reach her at all.'' So Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans had constantly exchanged provocative comments while watching their opponent’s face. That way they could monitor in real time if their distorted voices were reaching that opponent using the compressed bundles of sound.

The blond tutor boy roared from atop the giant scales.

“But that’s exceedingly easy to interrupt!”

“Welcome back, you foolish, foolish fool. You stagger more than a drunk, foolish human!”

“That isn’t going to work! The world of magic isn’t simple enough for you to brute force your way through it!!”

Nothing happened.

The only thing reaching Yagoro was how rattled the red, blue, and green lights were.

“It doesn’t matter what you say! No matter how I did it, this was over from the moment I reached the same height as you. And now I have a prophecy for you: you’re the ones who will be falling to the ground!!”

“Welcome back, foolish, foolish scarecrow. You are more unsteady on your feet than a tightrope walker, foolish scarecrow!!”

“You’re fine with ending this quick, I hope? You have no way of dodging this!!”

He ignored them and pointed his baton at them.

They were nowhere near within his reach, but the three streaks of light still showed clear signs of panic.

“Welcome back, silly, silly doll. You will fall from-!?”

“''I’m sick of your brute forcing. This is magic. If you’d kept up with your studying, you’d know the answer''!!”

He verbally cut them off, but he was actually more cautious of their actions than anyone else.

Their magic took affect when it was heard, not when it was spoken.

Even if each individual sound had a large quantity of language data compressed into it, sound was still sound.

Their large circle put them less than 200m away and the speed of sound was approximately 331m/s. That meant a lag of just over 0.6 seconds for their sound to reach him, which just barely gave him enough time to react after seeing a change in the streaks of light.

He was safe as long as their voices did not reach his ears. Just like speaking commands to a demon or whistling from a keyhole, the intention was not enough. And stopping it didn’t require anything as precise as the antiphase. For example, there was the masking effect. When a low and a high sound were produced simultaneously, the high sound would be drowned out. That could even confuse pilots during midair refueling or acrobatic flying because the sound of the other craft’s engine would seem to suddenly vanish.

What mattered was that their voices could not reach him but his voice could reach them.

(Outdoors, an unamplified voice generally can’t travel 200m. If not for that, I wouldn’t use this cramped elevator.)

“Now’s your last chance for a tearful apology, Lampans!!”

“How about you go to hell, you- gah!?”

“Lampans!?”

One of the three streaks of light grew distorted and unraveled. The green light – ponytailed Lampans – entered a spin and rapidly lost speed. She was no longer conscious. Like this, she really would crash down into the ground, but the blue light – Holibre, just barely managed to catch her.

“What’s this? Are you sure you have time to worry about her, Holibre?”

“She’s my frie- geeyahhh!!!?”

Holibre’s body jerked upwards. She had the face of someone who took an electric shock to the heart. At this point, even someone without much knowledge of magic could tell some kind of invisible power was at play. Something was attacking the three witches and it had torn through the sky to pierce that girl’s young body.

Blue Holibre stalled out while still holding onto unconscious Lampans. She wasn’t falling straight down, but she would crash eventually. But the final member of the trio – crimson Arbamini – did not go to retrieve the other two. She may have thought this curse was triggered by physical contact.

“If so, you’re ''wrong'', Arbamini!”

She didn’t respond.

The red light raced away from the falling two, but she hadn’t abandoned them. Even at this distance, Yagoro could tell she was muttering something under her breath.

Which meant she had slowed down enough to be followed by the naked eye. The trio of witches each commanded one of the Three Aspects, so with even one out of the fight, their magic fell apart.

But at the same time…

“This isn’t over yet. I’m still magically linked with Holibre and Lampans. If I send my willpower to them through that invisible line, they should wake up. And then they can use their brooms to recover before they crash!!”

“But can they do all that in time, Arbamini? If not, your friends will go splat against the stone pavement!”

(No response, huh? ''In that case,'' I need to change tack too.)

For the first time, the tutor was aware of some faint worry within him.

Still dangling from the giant scales by a single chain, he lifted a leg. He pulled off something pasted to the sole of his shoe. This was not just a scrap of parchment. It was a talisman with an actual meaning.

“Cursed items don’t have to be anything special. Food, ritual tools, and other ordinary objects can become cursed if you mistreat them. Just like supposedly holy temples and churches can become dens of monsters once they’re abandoned.”

This was a piece of magic he had prepared in advance.

The blond boy held the cursed talisman between his fingers and held his arm out horizontally.

The curse didn’t have to be strong. Not if it was only a targeting tracker used to ensure an attack reached its target.

“Take this!! You have 180 seconds!! Attach it to Arbamini and this is all over!!”

Something sharply passed Yagoro by from behind.

The instant he let go, Viocia caught the impure parchment with perfect precision.