Freed from that strange gaze, Kudo Mitsunobu settled into a rare moment of peace and turned his attention back to Saegusa Mayumi.
Listening to Saegusa Mayumi murmur in her sleep, Kudo Mitsunobu smiled fondly.
He adjusted her position so she could sleep more comfortably. Once he was done, Kudo Mitsunobu closed his eyes to rest as well.
After a while, Kudo Mitsunobu drifted into a light doze without realizing it.
"Watch out!"
Kudo Mitsunobu and Saegusa Mayumi were jolted awake by a loud cry from Chiyoda, a second-year student.
At her shout, they and the other students who hadn't noticed the danger turned their eyes toward the highway outside.
A vehicle was coming from the opposite lane. It was an off-road vehicle, slightly smaller than the bus they were riding in. It was careening forward at an angle, scraping sparks from the road.
Someone yelled that it had a blown tire.
Someone else said one of its wheels must have come off.
There was a reason they were so relaxed.
As everyone knew, the two opposing lanes of a highway were completely separated, with a very sturdy guardrail in between.
Under normal circumstances, no matter what happened to the oncoming vehicle, it couldn't affect them. They had plenty of time to watch.
Then, all of a sudden, the large vehicle swerved straight into the guardrail and, with lottery-winning odds, landed right in their lane.
It was also somehow still moving at high speed and on fire as it barreled toward the bus, packed with the team's key players.
Many of the students cried out. A collision like that would certainly cause a major accident.
The three bus drivers were all seasoned professionals. They slammed on the brakes, and everyone pitched forward from the sudden stop.
A few students who hadn't fastened their seat belts bumped their heads and suffered minor injuries, but all three buses managed to stop in time.
"Get out of my way!"
"Disappear!"
The students on the bus stood up one after another, ready to use counter-magic to force the vehicle to stop.
"Idiots!"
Kudo Mitsunobu was stunned by their actions.
This situation would have been easy enough to handle, but if they all cast magic at once, without any coordination, and targeted the same object, their spells would interfere with one another. Not only might the magic fail, but they'd waste precious time that was already in short supply.
"Electromagnetic Field."
Kudo Mitsunobu cast a spell at an astonishing speed, but his target wasn't the off-road vehicle that was on fire.
The kinds of magic he knew wouldn't be much use in a situation like this. If he were outside the bus, he would have blasted the vehicle away with Atomic Ray. But now, he chose to interfere with the students on the bus.
Electromagnetic Field wasn't very practical. Its range was short, and it couldn't directly damage a CAD. At most, it could cause a CAD to malfunction for an instant.
But in this situation, it was the most suitable spell.
A momentary electromagnetic disturbance threw several CADs that were in the process of activating into temporary disarray.
"Jumonji-senpai."
Kudo Mitsunobu turned his gaze toward the person who could bring the danger to a complete end.
But what he saw wasn't the usual calm and composed Jumonji Katsuto. Instead, his face showed an anxiety that almost never appeared there.
"Damn it."
Kudo Mitsunobu wondered whether he should break through the window and blast the vehicle away by force.
"I'll take care of the fire."
The one who stood up to deal with the immediate danger was Shiba Miyuki.
She held a phone-shaped CAD in her hand, and her Magic Formula was ready. Seeing this, Jumonji Katsuto began constructing his Phalanx as well.
The moment Shiba Miyuki cast her spell, the raging flames engulfing the vehicle abruptly vanished.
This was Freezing Fire. It didn't instantly freeze the burning vehicle; instead, it put out the fire by cooling it to room temperature through precise calculations.
The moment the fire went out, Jumonji Katsuto unleashed the spell he had already prepared.
A wall of light reflecting seven different colors appeared in front of the runaway vehicle. The powerful impact crumpled it into a heap of scrap metal. Judging by its exterior alone, there was no chance the driver had survived.
"Is everyone all right?"
Once the danger had passed, Watanabe Mari quickly got up and checked on everyone aboard. Even those who were hurt had probably only hit their heads against a seat and ended up with a little swelling.
Nothing serious.
Kudo Mitsunobu glanced at the few girls gathered around Shiba Miyuki.
"Shiba Siblings did a great job," Kudo Mitsunobu couldn't help praising them.
"Ah, Miyuki did very well. Even I have to admit I couldn't have done better. But what does that have to do with Shiba-kun?"
Saegusa Mayumi asked, completely bewildered.
"Didn't you notice? The scattered psions on the bus were swept away in an instant. That was the effect of Cast Jamming."
Kudo Mitsunobu raised an eyebrow. He didn't think Saegusa Mayumi's ability to sense psions was so poor that she hadn't noticed the anomaly.
"I didn't realize Shiba-kun was the one who did that!"
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