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I watched her as she continued to strike down the enemies approaching from the front. I then swiftly turned to Roslia...

"There are more coming from behind. I'm counting on you."

Roslia had some long-ranged attacks too. Her spells weren't as powerful as Erin's, but she could easily take out smaller monsters on her own.

"Can you hold out here by yourself, Erin?" Roslia teased with a wicked grin.

"Shut up! It's not a problem!" Erin snapped back.

"You look like you're struggling to me..."

"I told you it's not a problem! I'm fine! Perfectly fine! I just look tired because I didn't get much sleep last night!"

"Isn't that excuse a little too forced...?"

I had to agree with Roslia's exasperation there. No matter how you looked at it, Erin was spent from using too much magic. This begged a question in my mind, so I turned to Neme, who was presently draped over my shoulder.

"Erin has Superior Mana Pool, right? So why is she so exhausted?"

Erin was blessed with unlimited magic energy thanks to her skill. With it, at least hypothetically, she should be able to cast spells endlessly... But she sure didn't look like that was the case right now.

"Simply casting spells is exhausting, stupid Note! That's just how it is! Neme will teach you in a way that even your silly brain can understand!"

Neme sounded pretty full of herself, but proceeded to unload an explanation that... made about as little sense as I expected. Oh well. I took a moment to review everything she said and try to piece it all together.

Apparently, there were three steps for a mage to cast a spell. First and foremost, they had to gather the requisite mana for the spell by drawing it out from within themselves. Second, they had to tap that energy somehow—usually by channeling it into a catalyst like a staff or crystal ball. And lastly, they had to convert that energy into a spell. Only when all three steps were complete could a mage actually unleash their magic.

This process varied from battle style to battle style. Whereas mages converted their own mana into magic, for example, priests and paladins used their magic energy to beseech divine power from on high. According to Neme, it was totally different. That was how they could heal people, enhance physical abilities, and even smite their foes. Since I wasn't a magic user myself, though, the distinctions were all pretty vague.

"But what you're telling me, Miss Neme, is that no matter how much mana Erin has, she still has to refine that mana and convert it into magic... and that's why she gets tired?"

"Exactly! That's what Neme was trying to say!"

So even if she has limitless magic, she can't use it limitlessly...

As I stood there nodding to myself, I suddenly noticed a disturbing presence. It was approaching from the front.

"What... What is that?" I muttered, alarmed and confused.

"What is what?" Neme asked in response.

"Can you see that?" I asked, pointing ahead of us.

"That black hazy thing?"

"Yeah. I think that might be the mid-boss."

I had my suspicions, and what I could detect via Enemy Search only fueled them.

"The mid-boss?!" Erin reacted poorly to hearing that word. "Nuh-uh! No way! I already have my hands full enough as it is!"

"Ooh? What was that? I thought you said earlier that you were perfectly f—"

"Note! Roslia's being mean again!"

"Don't go crying to Note! You're making me look like the bad guy!"

With that, they started glaring daggers at each other. I wished they wouldn't drag me into the middle of it...

Seriously. Trouble was closing in by the second. This wasn't the time to be joking around. My job was to diligently relay the information I detected via Enemy Search to the party. If I couldn't even do that, I was just dead weight.

Thus I ignored the girls and announced, "There's a school of smaller fish heading this way. Maybe ten thousand of them. They're weak individually, but they have the strength of a boss altogether."

"Now you're being mean to me too?!" Erin whimpered like an abandoned kitten.

"Have you no heart, Note?" Roslia asked coldly.

Don't hold it against me, ladies! This is literally my job!

"You know, Erin, if this is too much for you... we can always retreat," Roslia continued with a sly grin.

"I don't need your false sympathy!" Erin roared. "I can do this, damn it! Just watch me!"

"Goodness, and here I am trying to be nice. Don't you think that's a little rude?"

Jeez, do they get along or not...?

"Stop teasing each other and get ready for battle!" I barked.

"We are not teasing each other!"

"What part of this looks like teasing to you?"

Still griping, the girls reluctantly took their positions as the party fell into combat formation.

"Here we go!" Erin yelled, raising her staff that was now overflowing with magic energy. "Sweeping Bolt!"

When she incanted those words, a grating screech rang through the air. The high-pitched explosion pierced my eardrums and rattled my brain. The entire area was flooded with light. It burned my eyes and painted my vision white, temporarily blinding me. I could only rely on Enemy Search for now...

And it told me the fish were still approaching. The school had been thinned, but it had survived. Losing one or two thousand of its ranks wouldn't stop its advance. It was still headed straight for us—and fast.

"The mid-boss is inaudible to humans.

The priest had kicked up the saber with exquisite timing, but he couldn't stop to crow about it. The Sylphide fell. Shrinking back, the creature's body lost control of its tentacles. When the huge blob crashed onto the floor, it shook the ground. Unfortunately, the lower half of Abel's body was caught underneath it.

The sound of the priest's leg bones breaking echoed sharply.

"Are you all right, Father?" the terrorist sitting in front of the organ quietly asked. Abel couldn't answer; he was in severe pain. It felt like the lower half of his body was disappearing.

The priest was wounded from head to toe, whereas Kampfer was unharmed. If Abel had been in perfect condition, he still couldn't beat an opponent who'd bested Gunslinger. Kampfer didn't stop playing the organ, which was a clear indication of his confidence that things would go his way.

A small sound rang in his ear: "Hello, Abel?"

"Sister Noelle." Abel did his best to keep his voice calm and level.

"What's with hanging up on me, hm? What's wrong? Your voice is a little strange."

"No, it's nothing—probably, the radio is acting up." It would take twenty minutes to get from the city to the cathedral. Noelle couldn't help him, and he wasn't going to cause her to worry. Sweating profusely, Abel used all his might to continue in a calm voice: "I can hear your voice fine, Noelle. I'm okay."

"Really? You always take too much on yourself. I suppose you don't want to worry anybody, but that makes me worry more." Noelle chatted in her typical "big sister" tone. It seemed she hadn't figured out Abel was bluffing. "Don't do so much, Abel. Everybody's with you, including me. It's okay; we'll support you."

"Thanks. I'm not overwhelmed, so..."

"If so, then fine. As I was saying before, I found something interesting in the director's office: blueprints. There were also plans for an abandoned church. I didn't know it, but the Dominic Company used a dummy company to buy the Sagrada Familia. Ah, do you know the Sagrada Familia? It's a huge cathedral in the closed district."

He heard a rustling noise; Noelle probably was leafing through documents.

"Barrie was making large renovations to the church. He was changing the bells in the towers to customized echo boards. I wonder why? If it were going to be the company's headquarters, there's no need to deliberately renovate the bells."

A thought skimmed through Abel's mind. It had been nagging at him the whole time: How had they collapsed that station? They'd used neither explosives nor shells. Their weapon was something the eye couldn't see and the ear couldn't hear.

Abel looked down at the bell towers and groaned in amazement. "So, that was it!"

The eighty-eight bells that surrounded the church responded to each musical note played on the organ. The sound waves were concentrated and controlled electrically. The eighteenth tower amplified the sound of the bells.

The Sagrada Familia itself was a huge instrument.

"Noelle, get out of the city!" Abel shouted. Can she escape in time? Despair invaded his heart. He couldn't lose her again! "Noelle! The city is in danger!"

"Wait! There's one more page from the plans," Noelle said. "No way, that building is—"

"Never mind that! Hurry, get out of here!"

"Why are these plans in a place like this? Listen, Abel! Now—" Noelle's breathless voice suddenly was cut off.

"Noelle?" Abel didn't call out to his partner because he'd truly expected to continue their conversation. He simply couldn't bear the uneasy silence. "Noelle, what's wrong?"

No response from the earpiece—not so much as the sound of her breath or background noise.

Seized with a very bad premonition, Abel spoke in a shaky voice: "Noelle, please answer!"

Dimly, he could hear a low rumble.

A bomb? No, something different. It sounded like an unbelievably huge object was falling to the ground.

"Ah."

West of the city, where several banks and businesses were concentrated, dust was rising. Inside that smoke, a tall white building was sinking, as if unable to bear its own -weight.

"Matter has certain characteristics. Far lower than what is audible to humans, matter operates on low-range frequency waves." Wizard seemed indifferent to what he was saying. He didn't seem at all like a murderer who'd just robbed hundreds of people of their lives. "The 'Silent Noise'—the low-frequency resonance decay induction system—incorporated into this bell leads to the destruction of any structure within a targeted area. It's still in the experimental stage, but it seems to be effective. Yes, yes, the Tinker Bell System that you destroyed on Never Land Island is kind of a spin off of this."

The courteous explanation didn't reach Abel's ears, because the Dominic Pharmaceuticals building in the west still was collapsing.

As if triggered by that, buildings beside the Dominic Company office started crumbling. Like milk poured into coffee, white smoke billowed into the darkness of the town itself. Harbor and church, market and main street, ramshackle homes of the poor and mansions of the rich—everything was being destroyed. The work of millions of lives and a few thousand years was morphing into a mountain of rubble, destroyed by a low rumble. The reality was so harsh that it seemed surreal.

'"He who sees beauty is taken early by the hand of Death'— Plato. What did you think of this evening's performance, Father? I hope you enjoyed it." Wizard bowed respectfully.

In answer, Abel let loose an ominous scream, cursing the world. A tremendous spray of blood seemed to soak the very air of the church as the priest tore the Sylphide into tiny pieces.

Abel's hoarse voice echoed nightmarishly throughout the hall. "Nanomachine Crusnik 02 forty percent limited performance— authorized!" The priest's eyes were stained the color of blood.

Abel twirled a huge scythe, which had swords on either end of its handle. A blade as dark as night swung at Kampfer's head with such force that it pressurized the air. "How dare you? How dare you!"

Looking up at Abel's enraged eyes, Kampfer said seriously: "I'm very sorry that you seem to be displeased. This, too, was business." He stood quietly, placing both hands in his pockets.

Abel's scythe was stopped a few inches above his head, as if Wizard were standing behind an invisible wall. "Our next client wanted to see the power of Silent Noise in action. We gave him a demonstration."

"For that kind of thing..."

Abel's face had changed drastically. He was no longer the easygoing, people-loving, clumsy priest. He didn't look human, in any case. "You killed her... for that?"

He slowly lowered his blade using sheer willpower. Ripping apart the defensive electromagnetic Shield of Asmoday spread around Kampfer, Abel's jet-black weapon descended toward the crown of his enemy's head—fifteen inches, five inches, two inches.

Kampfer's voice was calm as he looked up at his impending death. "Indeed. You want to make the whole world your enemy."

The red-eyed monster froze.

"You want to make an enemy of the whole world all at once, don't you, Abel?"

He'd heard those words before. A soft voice. A kind smile. He'd once believed that everything in the world was filled with hostility, but that was a long time ago. He'd heard those words before...

"Where?" The scythe's terrible strength suddenly disappeared. "Answer me! From whom did you hear those words?"

"We'll meet again, Father Nightroad. No, I should call you Abel."

"Wait!"

Bowing, Wizard's shadow slinked away.

Abel came back to himself, but it was too late. Darkness had enveloped Kampfer's body. Abel's scythe swept downward; instead of spraying the terrorist's blood, it splintered fragments of the floor.

"It can't be. This kind of thing..."Abel fell to his knees on the floor, groaning.

There was no sign of anybody in the hall, which was now a ruin ruled by death and silence.