Chapter 374: Chapter 374: An Overconfident Alice

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Blue feathers scattered in the sky.

“Dodged?”

Watching the bisected Alice Kuonji dissolve into a shower of blue feathers, Touko Aozaki’s brow furrowed, her expression grave.

Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash!

The sound of shattering glass suddenly echoed behind Touko. Sensing a presence behind her, she spun around.

An unharmed Alice stood behind her, her gaze cold. At her feet lay the shattered remains of numerous Banquets of the Night.

“…A wind-aspected rune as gentle as a breeze. Miss Touko, it seems your skills have gotten rusty.” Alice’s voice was a mask of indifference as she mocked Touko.

The Aozaki family’s magical attribute was ’wind.’

To mock Touko’s wind blade was to mock her inability to even master her family’s inherited magic. Coupled with the fact that Touko had not received the Aozaki family’s Magic Crest, in a way, it was a double-barreled insult.

“A golden cicada sheds its skin type of fairy tale familiar? This is the first I’ve heard of such a rare thing in a fairy tale familiar.” Ignoring Alice’s mockery, Touko’s attention was now focused on the death-substitution magic Alice had just used.

’It’s a good thing I prepared a death-substitution familiar in advance and dodged that one. Now, Banquet of the Night has been used. It’ll take some time for the environment to meet the requirements. So—stall with words.’

—————

Alice half-closed her eyes, her mind racing.

“Yes, it doesn’t work 365 days a year, but it’s one of the oldest fairy tale familiars. I’m also very puzzled. But ’being killed’ is indeed the only thing it’s good at,” Alice said softly.

As she spoke, a blue robin let out a dissatisfied chirp and began to circle her.

The bird’s chirping was like a recitation of the ancient ballad “Who Killed Cock Robin,” but to Alice, it sounded more like a curse.

As an old fairy tale familiar, the robin had its pride.

To hear its master disparage it was to invite a protest.

“Speaking of which, there is such a ballad. But this special ability, you can’t use it continuously, can you? Even if you can…” Touko used her voice to attract Alice’s attention. Halfway through her sentence, her gaze sharpened, and she glared at the robin circling in the air.

Chirp!!!

The robin, which had been circling and protesting to Alice, its wings suddenly shuddered, and it wobbled and fell into the snow, leaving a bird-shaped crater. It had passed out.

It was lucky it was snow—or it might have been the first fairy tale familiar to die from a fall.

“…So useless.” Alice’s voice was a cold reprimand. It was because the robin was so stupid as to not even be wary of the enemy that she held such contempt for this old familiar.

“Well, let’s start over. I have things to do. You’ll stop here, Alice. Anyway, in this park, which is covered in ’sun,’ you’re powerless…” Touko’s lips curved upwards as she offered her terms of surrender.

She had calculated it all. The sun rune, which was targeted at the concept of night, had suppressed Alice’s Fairy Tale Magic. The specially chosen park environment prevented her from using her powerful fairy tale familiars. It could be said that this was now a ’checkmate’ situation.

Alice lowered her head slightly, her eyes half-closed as she looked at the ground. “That’s not necessarily true. Though I still can’t deal with your Mystic Eyes, but—”

’It’s time.’ As she spoke, Alice thought to herself.

A gentle female voice began to sing from underground.

The singing grew louder and louder, until it broke through the surface and reached the ground.

—————

Rumble—! Rumble—! Rumble—!

An earthquake, a common occurrence in this country, suddenly erupted. The ground trembled, and the once-solid earth seemed to melt.

A huge stone finger shot out from the ground, as if a behemoth were awakening.

“—??” Touko, sensing this, made a split-second decision and activated her Mystic Eyes at the dark figure before her, trying to decide the battle in an instant. But it was too late.

“Ooh—!”

A dull roar suddenly sounded.

A huge arm shielded Alice, blocking Touko’s line of sight. Unable to see, the Mystic Eyes were naturally ineffective. And just like that, the Mystic Eye magic Touko had painstakingly constructed was easily blocked.

“How did that thing appear? The conditions aren’t right!!!” The sudden turn of events made Touko lose her composure. She seemed to have transformed into the hot-tempered Aoko, and she cursed loudly.

The Giant of the Bridge.

One of the Witch’s Great Three secret treasure familiars.

The other familiars all required Banquet of the Night as a prelude. Only this familiar required a natural river to be activated. Touko remembered clearly, this park in the city center had no rivers.

“—There is a river. Though a pitifully small one.” As if hearing her question, Alice bent down slightly, her eyes half-closed, and gestured for her to look at her feet.

Touko quickly looked down and saw her long leather boots, which were soaked in water. Her face instantly darkened. It was the natural stream of water from the melting snow. Though exceptionally small, it did indeed fit the concept of flowing water, i.e., a ’river.’

“The earlier shattering sound, and the pile of Banquet of the Night fragments on the ground… I see. You used my ’sun’ rune, which was inscribed on the floor, didn’t you?”

Touko said, her voice calm, her expression cold.

The activation of Banquet of the Night would cause the sun rune to resist, which would generate a momentary high temperature, thus melting the snow and artificially creating the scene of melting snow.

—————

’The rare fairy tale witch was not to be underestimated.’

Touko thought to herself.

As Alice and Touko talked, the Giant of the Bridge finally revealed its full form. It was a huge stone statue, sixteen meters tall.

Its body, constructed of hard rock, possessed only a few hundred tons of mass and immense strength. A modern magus had plenty of ways to deal with rock.

However, if this rock itself contained nearly two thousand years of mystery, the crushing weight of that mystery would drive a modern magus mad. Converted into a Heroic Spirit, it would have a B-rank magic resistance, ignoring all modern magic and modern weapons.

This was a huge monster that could not be dealt with by modern magic or modern technology. It was also one of Alice’s greatest trump cards, the personification of London Bridge—the Giant of the Bridge.

The appearance of the Giant of the Bridge made Touko sigh helplessly.

In a head-on battle, her magical means were completely ineffective. This was a monster she couldn’t solve. Though she was helpless, Touko had not a single shred of fear. And this was also seen by Alice.

“Your trump card, is it that wolf? The one you contracted with your hair.” Alice said impassively.

Hearing this, Touko was instantly bewildered.

After a long moment, she looked at Alice with a stunned expression. “You know it exists?”

’You know and you still don’t run?’ Touko swallowed the rest of the sentence.

“Mm, I know. Your hair, wasn’t it used to contract it?” Alice said, glancing at the Giant of the Bridge, her voice flat.

Touko, whose attention was focused on Alice, naturally noticed this small gesture and instantly understood Alice’s thoughts.

She bent down, clutching her stomach, and burst out laughing.

“Hahahaha~ So, Alice, you’re no different from those nobles in the Clock Tower who think their bloodline is so superior. There’s a limit to being self-righteous!!”

She understood Alice’s thoughts. Or rather, she had seen many people with this kind of ’arrogant’ thinking. To think that the familiar she had forcibly contracted with her twenty years of accumulated hair was definitely inferior to the witch’s thousand-year-old mystery, so she was fearless?

But who said that contracting a familiar had to be forced? Couldn’t she use deception?

Touko lost interest. She straightened her back and looked at Alice with indifference, as if she had lost interest in her. She snapped her fingers.

“Come out and play, Beo.”

“Awoooo—!!!!!!”

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