CH 4

4 - The Holy Knight Reines

The swordsman’s golden hair flutters beautifully, they struck at a speed that ordinary humans wouldn’t even be able to see.

“Wait, geeze,” Keisuke started.

Without waiting for her to finish, the sword was thrust at high speed towards Keisuke’s neck… but the attack clearly struck a decoy, and the swordsman calmly realized that and readjusted their stance.

“Sorry, I’m not about to die the same way twice,” Keisuke said.

When she should have been stabbed in the throat, Keisuke stood behind the swordsman and stood as if nothing happened.

“Phantom Magic…” the swordsman muttered.

Although Keisuke had used phantom magic to dodge the attack, the sudden ambush, and the clear aura of murderous intent, Keisuke’s head hadn’t caught up with the situation at all, all manner of questions rose in her head.

What, when, who? Why was she even being attacked?

It doesn’t make sense, but the strength of the swordsman is authentic, and if she fights normally without magic, she wouldn’t win, but Keisuke isn’t so goodhearted that she’d let herself be silently killed without even knowing why she was being attacked in the first place.

“So you’re a witch, after all?” the swordsman says as they slowly turn around and confront Keisuke.

“A woman?” Keisuke asks, astonished to finally see her attacker’s face.

The swordsman with the power beyond common sense was a beautiful woman with golden blonde hair.

She is dressed in armor, but she has a sharp gaze directed at Keisuke and a large sword that is disproportionate to her slender body.

Despite being an attacker who just tried to stab her in the throat, Keisuke is fascinated by this overwhelmingly divine appearance.

However, now is not the time to gawk, Keisuke asks the female swordsman a question:

“Why did you attack me?”

“Why? You don’t need a reason to kill a witch!!” the swordsman snapped.

They were capable of having a conversation, but she can tell by the attitude, that she’s got a pretty strong reason for attacking Keisuke.

Keisuke realizes it’s difficult to speak calmly right now but she’s not at all convinced by what she’s saying.

The female swordsman isn’t bothering at all to hide her clear murderous intentions.

“To expose yourself in front of a Knight of the Holy Emperor without your kindred is awfully arrogant of you!” she snapped.

“No, I don’t know anything about you, I’m not trying to show off, and I don’t even know what a knight of the Holy Emperor is!?” Keisuke asked.

“Shut up, Witch!” the swordsman snapped.

Again, the word “witch” may be referring to Keisuke, but Keisuke has no idea what that even is supposed to mean.

This hostility isn’t what Keisuke wants.

“Why are you calling me a witch? I’m not a witch!” Keisuke said.

“You used magic, that’s all the proof I need!”

“That noun, witch, is it just common sense? Is it something special?”Keisuke asked.

“I, Lady Reines von Agrianes, First of the Order of the Holy Empire, hereby condemn you in the name of justice!!” Reines shouts, ignoring Keisuke as she readies her sword.

“What the hell is this?! For goodness’ sake!” Keisuke yelled.

A merciless attack begins without any more words.

After dodging the first blow she couldn’t even see, Keisuke activates magic against Reines as it’s clear she doesn’t want to talk.

“Dragand,” Keisuke says.

A huge stone wall rises from the ground, between Reines and Keisuke.

“It’s useless!!” Reines shouts.

She sliced the protective wall into pieces as easily as slicing butter with a hot knife. 1

“No way!!” Keisuke yelled.

The sword moves so fast she can only see the flashes, it’s clear the abilities of this female knight were beyond common sense.

“Time out, time out!” Keisuke yelled. “Aren’t you a little too strong?!”

“Magic doesn’t work against those who have received the blessing of the Holy Emperor, so give up, Witch!” Reines said, relentlessly swinging her sword as she pursues Keisuke.

“I’m a little curious to know if magic really is ineffective,” Keisuke said.

She casts a second spell to test it.

“Destro.”

However. The resulting blast of light scatters and fizzles out before it hits Reines.

“Is that a magical barrier?” Keisuke asked.

“Holy blade, banish evil!” Reines cried.

Her sword shines bright.

“DEMON SLAYER SLASH!!!!”

The giant sword is swung up from a low stance and towards Keisuke, the light coming off of it extends far, so much so that it scoops out the ground, the buildings and the ground are destroyed, and the people around scream and run for cover.

“Watch where you’re swinging!” Keisuke yelled.

Reines seemed to ignore the consequences and continued her rampage.

Every time Reines launches an attack, parts of the city were destroyed.

“Hey, hey! This is overkill!” Keisuke yelled.

“Shut up!!” Reines yelled.

Keisuke prepares to magically undo Reines’s damage. “Reperia.”

The destroyed structures rapidly go back to their original states. As Keisuke was also dodging the knight’s attacks at the same time, her brain’s gears were constantly spinning.

“How strange, do you think you can stop me with only one hand?” Reines asked as she twisted her body and kicked Keisuke.

“!?”

Even though Keisuke blocked it with her arm, she’s blown away by the unimaginable force behind it and is slammed against the wall of a nearby building.

“Oww.”

Fragments of rubble and debris crumble, crack, and rain on Keisuke.

The inhabitants of the house look at Keisuke with shock and tremble in fear.

“Reperia.”

The broken sections go back to normal in the blink of an eye.

“I’m sorry, I’ll wrap this up soon,” Keisuke said, leaving through the front door of the now-restored house.

Reines was waiting outside with her sword.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but don’t cause trouble for other people,” Keisuke said.

“Witch subjugation has the highest priority,” Reines replied.

“Witch this, witch that, are you an idiot that can only repeat that?”

“Witches are the heralds of this world’s destruction, we Holy Knights kill the witches even if it costs us our lives, that is our mission!” Reines yelled.

Keisuke doesn’t understand what she’s talking about at all, the only thing she did get, and clearly so was that “She’ll definitely kill any and all witches.”

However, they couldn’t go on like this, she needed to understand this situation and let Reines know Keisuke’s position.

To do that, she’d need to…

“Dialog is necessary, misunderstandings must be cleared up, reconciliation and peace are necessary, conflicts will lead to nothing,” Keisuke mutters to herself.

It’s the commandments when you were part of a company delegation: speak firmly before you fight! You can’t do a good job with only misunderstandings! Only by working hand-in-hand can you make the most profit!!! It was the simplest and most difficult of things.

“Yeah, that’s where we’ll start, we can’t do any work until we agree with each other,” Keisuke muttered.

Reines continued to attack in the meanwhile, several sword slashes appear to extend with beams of light, but Keisuke dodges at the last minute every time.

“Sorry to be a bother, but I need to talk to you,” Keisuke said.

“There is nothing to talk about!!” Reines yelled.

Her sword-swinging speed increases and every time she swung, the impact destroyed the surrounding cityscape, but Keisuke continued,

“You’re misunderstanding this, I want to explain!”

“I am misunderstanding nothing, I kill witches! That’s all there is to it!” Reines snapped.

Keisuke sighs since the lady knight clearly does not intend to listen, Keisuke has no choice but to try “resistance.”

“Decant, 1, Clasion.”

As Keisuke chants, her arms channel magic, her two hands are engulfed with flames and parry Reines sword and knock it back wide, Keisuke tries to punch but Reines barely blocked it with her sword.

Keisuke was thrilled by such a display of strength. Her heart raced with excitement at such refined swordsmanship.

“You’re the strongest person I have ever met, no joke,” Keisuke said.

“Shut up! Disappear, Witch!!!” Reines yelled.

“But I can’t disappear just yet!” Keisuke yelled.

“2, Chrogent.”

“!?”

As Reines was about to cut Keisuke in two, she suddenly stopped.

Decant is Keisuke’s original spellcasting technique, allowing her to activate two spells at the same time and any time she pleases.

First was Clasion while she bought time for Chrogent was being cast.

“What the? What is this!?”

Keisuke’s second spell is a magic circle that surrounds Reines’s body, it was time magic that freezes the target at that moment.

Chrogent completely locks Reines’s body in time.

“It’s magic, I made sure you can still move your mouth,” Keisuke said.

“Magic? That can’t be right, my armor can negate even super magic,” Reines said.

“I see, that’s great, but… the time magic I used is higher than super magic, it’s transcendental magic.”

There are different levels of magic.

From the lowest, there is Lower Magic, to Upper Magic, to Super Magic.

Normally, the ceiling is with Super Magic, and it’s said it’s difficult to use anything beyond that level, but she has Extreme Magic and even higher still, Ultimate Magic.

To be one of the best in her original world, Keisuke had to be a mage of that level.

However, Keisuke, who was called Tanzanite, has reached the realm of Transcendental Magic beyond even the Ultimate, breaking all known limits of what was thought possible and easily nullifying super magic.

“There can’t be any such magic in this world!! Stop talking bullshit!” Reines said.

From that, however, Keisuke is convinced that this world is not the one she had lived in.

“If it doesn’t exist, and you should be able to negate super magic, why are you being magically restrained?” Keisuke asked. “Care to explain?”

“BITCH!!” Reines said.

“Sorry about this, let me explain a bit,” Keisuke said.

“I’m not going to speak to a witch!” Reines snapped.

“Huh… weren’t we just talking now?” Keisuke asked.

“Shut up!!” Reines said.

“… I want to clarify it, but don’t call me a witch! Ah, no, I meant I’m not a witch.”

Keisuke chooses her words but her trying to avoid inflaming her target is in vain.

“What is a woman who uses magic but a witch?!” Reines said.

The words echo in Keisuke’s mind… it seems that in this world, a woman who uses magic is recognized as a witch.

Then, when she finally understood the reaction of the people in the city and the appearance of using magic, Keisuke realized she was a witch.

“Even so,” Keisuke said, “I’m not a witch… hmm.”

“Then what are you?!” Reines snapped.

Who was she? Someone? Keisuke was a little worried about the answer to that question and suddenly realized that she was Lulurun.

Well, I’m a Magical… Girl… you know,” she whispered, embarrassed and quiet.

T/N: The levels for the magic system tiers are difficult to translate. Japanese has so many ways to translate top-tier magic and it’s not a number system like in Overlord. Please, do suggest better ideas if you have them.