Magic That Wouldn't Respond

There was no time to think.

The invisible resistance from the world's rules, that damned fate—neither mattered as much as a living, breathing Erza, who might plunge into hell the very next second!

Only one thought remained in Jiang Bai's mind: Find Erza! Protect her!

He ran home like mad, his small body bursting with unprecedented strength, carrying him even faster than the adult hunters beside him.

But the moment he reached the village entrance, he came to an abrupt halt.

Jiang Bai froze in place, as though a spell had rooted him to the spot.

The scene before him was a living hell.

Flames devoured the familiar wooden houses, while thick black smoke and the acrid smell of blood flooded his nostrils.

The villagers' corpses lay sprawled across the ground. The faces that had smiled and greeted him only yesterday were now frozen in terror and unwillingness to accept their fate.

And in the open space at the center of the village were Erza, Simon... all the village children...

No, Kagura wasn't there, but every other child had been tied together with thick hemp ropes, like lambs awaiting slaughter, their faces covered in tears and fear.

"A... A Fang..."

A broken cry of grief, sounding as though it had been forced from someone's throat, rang out beside Jiang Bai.

It was Uncle Rob.

His eyes were bloodshot as he stared at a woman lying in a pool of blood not far away.

That gentle woman was his wife.

Before he had left that very day, she had stood at the door, waving and telling him to come home early, saying she had meat stew for dinner.

Now that gentle, smiling face was covered in blood and dirt, its eyes wide open and lifeless.

Amid all this carnage, Jiang Bai's gaze remained fixed on the bound children.

He scanned them quickly, his heart in his throat.

There she is!

Erza!

She's still alive! She's tied up, and she's crying, but she's still alive!

The instant he saw that Erza was all right, uncontrollable joy and relief burst over Jiang Bai like a flood through a broken dam, sweeping away all reason.

Thank goodness...

But that thought lasted only a tenth of a second.

When his gaze fell again on Uncle Rob's devastated face beside him, all life gone from it in an instant, a powerful sense of his own baseness and shamelessness welled up inside him.

He... was actually relieved that Erza was still alive.

At a time when Uncle Rob, who cared for him and treated him like family, had just lost the woman he loved.

"Aaaah—!"

Uncle Rob's cry of grief turned into a heart-rending roar. All that remained in his once honest, kindly eyes was blood-red madness.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you beasts!"

He wasn't the only one.

When the hunters who had followed them back saw their families lying in pools of blood, their last threads of reason snapped.

"My son! My son's still in there!"

"Fight! Let's fight them!"

Eyes red, they picked up woodcutting knives and hunting bows from the ground and roared as they charged the mysterious black-robed figures standing beside the children, like beasts driven into a corner.

"Don't go!"

Jiang Bai's mind reacted instantly. It was a trap! They were throwing their lives away!

He had no time to stop them all, so he instinctively grabbed hold of the clothes of the person closest to him, Uncle Rob.

"Uncle Rob! Don't be rash! They're strong!"

Jiang Bai shouted with all his strength.

But the strength of a six-year-old was insignificant before an adult consumed by hatred and despair.

"Jiang Bai! Get out of the way!"

Uncle Rob didn't even look back. He simply swung his arm.

A tremendous force tore Jiang Bai's grip loose with ease, and he landed on his backside.

He could only watch as Uncle Rob and the usually kind and amiable villagers charged, full of rage and despair, down a road to certain death from which there was no return.

Faced with the villagers charging at them in thunderous fury, the members of the Black Magic Cult didn't even raise an eyelid. It was as though they were looking not at a group of desperate men, but at moths flying into a flame.

One of the black-robed figures, their leader, slowly raised a hand.

There was no chant, no magic circle.

He merely grinned viciously at Uncle Rob and the others at the front of the charge, then gently waved his hand forward.

The motion was casual, as though he were shooing away an annoying fly.

"Pfft—!"

An invisible shock wave erupted in an instant, carrying destructive force.

The charging men couldn't even scream before their bodies were struck as if by an invisible sledgehammer and hurled backward.

In midair, streams of blood sprayed from their mouths, staining the dim yellow sky red.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Bodies crashed heavily to the ground, their weapons scattering with crisp, desperate clatters.

The charge, so full of grief and rage just moments ago, was reduced to deathly silence with a single wave.

The sudden, overwhelming slaughter seemed to mute the entire world.

That deathly silence was soon pierced by a heart-rending cry.

"Dad—!"

Among the bound children, Simon had watched his father Rob, that mountain of a man, knocked away as easily as a falling leaf and left motionless in a pool of blood.

Tears and despair instantly covered his square little face, and he let out that cry with all his strength.

At the village entrance, Jiang Bai, who had just been flung aside, and Erza, who was bound with the other children, also saw the hellish scene.

"Uncle Rob!" they both cried.

The two children shouted in unison, their voices full of disbelieving horror.

As for Kagura, when the chaos had first begun, the quick-thinking Erza had risked her life to hide her in a large water vat in her own courtyard, allowing her to escape the first search by sheer luck.

Jiang Bai didn't want Uncle Rob to die.

That thought seared itself into his heart like a red-hot brand.

He struggled to his feet and looked at the lives that had been so vibrant moments ago, now lying in pools of blood. An unprecedented sense of helplessness and anger erupted in his chest like a volcano.

Useless!

I'm utterly useless!

I knew the story, and I had incomprehensible power, yet I could still only stand by and watch the tragedy unfold before me!

Where was the power that had crushed the wolf's head in the forest?

Where was the "special and powerful" supernatural aptitude the Internship System had spoken of?

Why, when I needed it most, was it as dead, completely unresponsive?!