One Raffy, Entering Stage Right

A week passed before a squadron of Guard Mages caught up to them. Milipitas heard the clanking of hoofs and wagon wheels long before they made their approach.

“I count forty-five, excluding Captain Segurio. Shall we execute our strategy?”

“Yup, let’s make sure we look like final bosses out there. If we scare them shitless, they won’t be coming back for a long time.” Gideon shot them a thumbs-up as they all spread out. He watched them move into position, following Milipitas first, who went straight ahead.

A few invisible love taps back in the city, even though it sent the Guard Mages flying, hadn’t discouraged them from thinking they had a chance with numbers. Since they were already aware of Milipitas and Ferdinand’s involvement, the only choice was to make the other party members as seemingly overpowered as possible. As for Gideon, no one could see his actions anyways, so he went wild as their support.

“There she is, the dark elf! Fire! Fire!”

Bolts of lightning and spears of ice crashed into the tree line where Milipitas was hopping from branch to branch. The foliage served as proper cover to deflect their spells while she closed in on them.

Leaping forward, a fierce aura of Wind magic spiraled around her arms. She brought them together, creating a vortex that shot forward into the advance group of Guard Mages.

“It’s only a tier three spell! Barriers up, we can handle!”

Many of the mages felt confident. Wind spells of such strength only had the ability to bring down unsteady houses and sweep unprepared opponents away. Most of the damage came from the fall afterward. It was hardly an attack that couldn’t be weathered by a simple protection spell and taking cover.

However, time stopped right as they started chanting.

Gideon popped out from the bushes, carrying a small, leafy branch. He took one look at the situation before positioning himself in the middle of Milipitas and her opponents.

“Alright, Operation Blow Me Away, here we go!”

Gideon waved the branch like it was a fan, over and over. He kept doing it for several minutes, adding on to the inevitable air pressure that would happen when time flowed again. Once he was satisfied, he jogged away and took cover before releasing his ability.

The branch in his hand burst into pieces from the accumulated friction of movement in compressed time. But he could hardly notice it as an incredible howl of wind barreled into the unsuspecting mages, carrying them through an entire clearing that had formed behind them. A hundred-meter width of trees had been stripped from the roots and flung back, along with any flora behind them for half a kilometer.

Milipitas looked back to the edge of the bushes where she noticed Gideon, pointing at the damage and obviously angry at him for destroying nature.

“A little much, don’t you think?!”

“Damn, I was only going for an F5, but I think it went completely off the charts.”

“Tier five? But that would kill them.”

Gideon waved her statement away because of a misunderstanding.

“Don’t worry about it. My world uses a different scale to measure awesomeness. It has nothing to do with magic but science instead. I’m going to check on the others.”

He blipped out of sight at that moment, leaving Milipitas to sigh at the natural disaster that was Hurricane Gideon. She could barely see the downed mages in the distance, her acute hearing able to pick up faint breathing to confirm that they were still alive.

She hopped back into the trees, resuming her job at knocking the wind out of any stragglers.

v

“Recel! Retardis!”

Ferdinand’s cries echoed through the forest, among the groans that followed afterward. He found that his Recel-imbued shield could even redirect some magic in another direction. While he had suspected that was the case, no one in the party had magic skills that did direct damage, so he had yet to confirm his assumption.

Fireballs bounced off the shiny surface and ricocheted into surprised opponents whose mobility had been robbed by Tardis. Hammers of earth rebounded and slammed backwards instead. If the magic came at him with force, that force was redirected back to the caster.

Of course, simply doing tit for tat hardly made them worry too much. After all, they knew the strength of their spells, right?

The mages blinked as the moment of impact of their returned spells came with an unexpected surprise. The next moment felt like a trip into Hell.

“W-Why is everything on fire?!”

“H-Help! The ground is devouring me!”

Gideon chuckled from behind a tree far removed from the battlefield. He had spent frozen time collecting a bunch of sticks and rubbing them together. Scattering them all around the mage being struck by the deflected Fireball, they all combusted at the moment of impact, sparking a chain of blazes. Similarly for the Earth hammer, he had stopped time right as the attack was met. With a shovel in hand, he dug all around the casters until a neck-deep layer of loose dirt engulfed each one. Releasing time hammered them further into the ground.

Gideon created the illusion of a sea of flames from a countered Fire spell and buried the Earth mages in a makeshift grave. Since his actions were invisible, that left only the perception that Ferdinand’s counters had magnified their spells.

The ensuing panic of the situation kept them from thinking too hard about the trickery. Fright pulled the wool over their eyes as they were confronted by a hopelessly strong opponent.

“No… that shield is a work of the gods! We cannot win!”

Courage was shaken and strength left their wands. They turned tail and fled at the expectation of being overwhelmed by their own attacks.

Ferdinand looked down at his shield for a moment before looking off to the distance, where Gideon was waving. He sighed and equipped the shield to his back.

“I feel like I’m going to be on the butt end of bad business when I return to the shop. Better start thinking up excuses to keep the power hungry at bay.”

v

Roze stared at the blond knight before her, his sword raised and ready to strike. She knew that a confrontation with the knight captain had been planned, but it hardly seemed like a fair match.

At least, if the match weren’t fixed beforehand…

“Hasta Glacialis!”

Roze looked down, seeing a large glacier appear on the ground before her where she had been standing a moment ago. A crackle echoed in her ears and traces of someone touching her lingered, the effect of Gideon moving her a small distance in the blink of an eye. It was a brief enough discrepancy that her mind almost ignored it, but it was enough to dodge Rafaello’s attack.

She playfully kicked the glacier with her foot, as instructed by Gideon. In the next moment, the entire structure shattered and exploded, invoking an awe of surprise from those witnessing the duel. Yet again, it was caused by an invisible helper moving in sync with her.

It was a show designed to convince Rafaello’s followers that Roze was even better than their great champion.

The knight captain feigned a look of surprise. He brought his sword up to call forth giant icicles to skewer his opponent. But as they came at Roze, she shouted “Accelerare!”

The entire crowd watched as the icicles instantly reversed and flew back at Rafaello, who cried out in anguish as the barrage of attacks had been reversed on him. He was brought to his knees from his own attack, a sight that made his underlings shiver in fright.

In reality, Roze hadn’t cast a spell. Her shout was a signal for Gideon to catch each one of the spears and aim them back toward Rafaello.

With the knight captain ‘injured’, Roze sauntered up to him with a cheeky swagger, her face trying to hold back her reservations about this whole farce. As Gideon had said, she only needed to follow her role – that of giving a good show. With a deep breath, she held down all her embarrassment for this single moment.

A foot lashed out, catching Rafaello in the chin. Though her strike barely had any strength, he was thrown straight up before crashing to the ground. Mouthing an unpleasant curse at Gideon, she placed her foot right on Rafaello’s head and turned to the shaken audience.

“Is that all you got? I don’t have time to waste on something worthless like you.”

Roze felt herself die a little from the cheesy line. However, the crowd had eaten it up. Seeing that their captain had no chance at all, they had no problems saving their own hides.

She waited a minute for the coast to clear before Gideon appeared next to her, clapping.

“Bravo! My Time enchantress has conquered the powerful Rafaello Segurio and her entourage has routed his forces. And with that, we have bought ourselves plenty of time to think about what to do next.”

“Why do I feel like this is going to come back to bite me? There’s only so much before they realize everything was so fake.” Roze rubbed her temples at the thought of expecting someone powerful enough to challenge her next while holding that kind of impression of her.

Rafaello, who had been pretending to be unconscious, sat up and grinned.

“I made sure that this was a personal campaign, fueled by the hatred of extremists. Records show that good effort was made to discourage such a vendetta, but as their superior, I had no choice but to tag along to make sure they did not get into trouble. Because they did not act in official capacity, it would be shameful of them to even mention such a failure to our lord commander.”

“What about you? Won’t you get in trouble?”

“A contingency plan had been prepared should anyone fall in battle. We were to convey that bandits had made a surprise ambush, leading to a retreat before dealing with the situation. As such, few questions will be thrown when stragglers make their way home after a long recovery.”

“Tsk, tsk, Raffy. Such a big cover up just to play sick for a vacation in this world. No doctor’s note required.”

“A vacation? I suppose one could call it that. I see it as an opportunity to gain an upper hand upon my return to the kingdom.”

He stood up and began to undo his armor, letting it drop to the ground. He pulled out a slip of paper that had been tucked in an inner pocket.

“Your talents, Gideon, cannot be trifled with. Slipping these instructions for a convincing duel brought me a sense of mental intrigue. As such, I shall travel with you as this ‘Raffy’ you call me to learn your ways. My skills are at your command.”

Gideon extended his hand for a shake, which Raffy accepted. At that moment, Milipitas and Ferdinand arrived at the scene, completing their travel party.

“Let’s head for my hometown. We can resupply there before making the final stretch to the ancestral ruins of Time,” Raffy added.

“Won’t it be strange if people find out that a captain of the Guard Mages is traveling with us?” Roze wondered aloud.

“A simple issue to resolve.” Raffy’s hand glowed, reaching up to touch his face. When he brought it down, a different face looked back at them.

“Illusion magic, formed by ice?” Milipitas stared keenly with eyes full of curiosity. She reached over to touch it, but Raffy stepped back.

“Ice can be formed in such a way that light defracts and changes my appearance. Those of my clan are proficient in using magic in such ways, but touching it will disrupt the balance.

“Your clan?” Roze asked, but her question was overshadowed by Gideon pointing at his helmet.

“Don’t you need to take that off?”

“Indeed.” Raffy pulled off his helmet to reveal that he wore a cloth hat underneath it. It covered the top of his head and along the sides, showing off no more than his helmet had before.

Roze’s previous question hung on her lips, but seeing Raffy’s strange choice of headgear underneath the armor made her forget it altogether.

“Alright! We have everyone assembled for anything that’ll come our way!” Gideon struck a beat as he marched forward with excitement. A bad song ensued.

“Is Gideon normally like this?” Raffy asked.