"Ah!!"
A woman's startled cry rang out.
"..."
Amid the flames, Stiyl Magnus, standing outside the door, was the first to hear the cry that clearly belonged to Index. Then, to his surprise, he quickly realized that the flames inside the dormitory—the ones that had just struck down his enemy with an explosive attack and a high-speed flaming sword, his "Gift to Bring Giants Pain"—were changing into something entirely different even as they burst apart.
"This..."
Worried about Annie, Index had never expected that the explosive "Flame Sword" attack the genius magician had just unleashed—the "Gift to Bring Giants Pain"—would be so easily dispelled by the little girl in front of her.
And she was certain that Annie hadn't used any magic or supernatural power at all. She had simply used her strange talent for controlling flames to control them—or, rather, to "command" them?!
"A-Annie! How did you...?"
That strange power to control fire, that flame ability the other party had called an LV5 power... To Index, it seemed to be another form of magic entirely. Or perhaps the other party's very existence was magic, or another manifestation of magic?
In any case, Index couldn't find a more reasonable explanation among the knowledge contained in the 103,000 grimoires in her mind! Now she was curious and astonished, and more than anything, baffled. She couldn't understand what kind of ability could let someone control fire with such overwhelming authority.
"Mm!"
"This... This is an unexpected result, all right! Heh! Though, now that I think about it..."
When the sound of the explosion died away, Stiyl saw the two people in the room. The little girl who had been mouthing off hadn't been hurt at all. Instead, she had simply reached out and drawn in all the flames that had been about