The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 191: [Boss Fight] Steam Rain (9)

“Move!”

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It was a charging pattern. Vermel shouted towards the corridors, but the sound was drowned out by the rain.

Puff, puff! Tortoise snorted through its nose. It soon stamped the ground and charged. Now it wasn’t rain that fell from the sky but water bombs.

I have to stop it somehow...!

Vermel latched onto Tortoise. It was passing the central fountain. This was his chance. He summoned a new staff and smashed the core embedded in the fountain.

Craash!

[All status effects removed.]

[Mind control magic removed.]

The System Window announced the end of the chaos. This should prevent some of the aftermath.

However.

“Kuwaaaaaahhh─!!”

Tortoise scattered vacuum waves as it ran rampant. Vermel’s body hit the ground and then flew in the air repeatedly. The arms holding onto it felt like they were going to tear off.

Tortoise tearing up the place. People parting from the world with screams. Resigned mages.

The golems Heerlein sent over crumbled after a few short charges. It wasn’t easy to aim with the rocket due to how it kept moving, either. Freyr was now busy dodging Tortoise, let alone attacking it.

“Uwaah!”

Aether grabbed Freyr and ran. Freyr’s hat came off again but she didn’t care.

Right now, it was more important to save this friend than the whole beastkin thing.

It’ll be annoying if Jǫrmungandr throws a fit.

Aether narrowly dodged Tortoise’s attack. In that instant, her eyes locked with Tortoise’s melted one.

Tortoise growled through its teeth. Although it couldn’t talk, it was still an intelligent being. Glaring at Aether with cold eyes, it stretched open its jaw.

Shwaaa! Murky, dirty water gushed out of Tortoise’s mouth.

It, too, shared the properties of ‘Steam Rain’. It was dangerous to normal people, but Aether twisted her mouth like she found it absurd.

“Such impudence.”

To not recognize its superior and blast a water cannon at them.

Aether took the rocket that Freyr was using. In any case, it was made of ferromagnetic material. Although it was a bit heavy, it would be perfect as a throwing material.

[Eightfold Way Third Form ─ Tesla]

[Advanced Elec Magic ─ Railgun]

Aether casted a magnetic force that was trillions of times the magnetic field of Earth. The surrounding water molecules dissociated in an instant.

Fshhhhhh! The rocket launcher broke straight through the water cannon. A spiral trajectory was drawn around it.

The trajectory was a reverberation of sorts, and that alone was enough to deal an additional blow. The water cannon that had been heading towards Aether and Freyr scattered backwards like an alpha particle that had bounced off a gilt.

But they were still hit by some of it. Aether covered Freyr and protected her, a few drops splashing her face and hands.

“Hey, you alright?”

“.......”

“Did you get splashed? Show me your face!”

“...I didn’t.”

Aether didn’t turn her head, and Freyr couldn’t afford to worry about her any further, either.

“Kugh, kuhugh....”

Vermel was on the verge of passing out.

His entire body had become tattered from hanging onto Tortoise since earlier. His knees were banged up and his hair was a mess.

His whole body was bruised; it was difficult to find a spot that wasn’t.

Creak! Creeeak!

“Augh.......”

While Aether and Freyr were dodging the attacks, Vermel hit the ground several times.

And as his consciousness was starting to fog up–

Be-be-beep!

[SYSTEM : The enchantment time of Ironproof Potion is almost up.]This message popped up.

“...Shit.”

Thirty minutes were almost over already. The rain was still falling. He also wasn’t going to be safe from the rain at this rate, so he had to wrap things up as quickly as possible if he didn’t want to become a Beast.

“Ughhh, arrrghhh!”

Vermel barely held onto his fading consciousness and attempted the best effort he could make.

Claaang!

Scree, scree!

He scraped out all the soft parts with his staff. No, it’d be more accurate to say he cut them out.

With everything he had, he smashed the outer shell. Like an axe mark in a tree, the crack on Tortoise began opening up.

It was easier than he thought to open up a wound that had already been made. Vermel sliced up Tortoise’s belly with yells.

Even with its hard shell, Tortoise couldn’t help but roll over. Its belly was exposed at an angle. Inside the dark belly, there was a mash of tangled electrical wires like mating garter snakes.

A foreign object that could be seen amongst those wires.

That’s.......

Aether’s brows furrowed. The EMP generator she had made was in there.

So that’s what it was.

Was it because they were from the same country? Aether realized what Vermel was telling her to do even without him saying it.

Amidst the confusing thought process because of the separated personalities, Aether lit another stick and focused her mana.

[Eightfold Way Third Form ─ Tesla]

She used the same magic once more.

This was the turning point–either see the happy ending with Vermel while in control of the body, or screw it up and get banished.

Aether kept saying to herself–I have to go back. I have to go back. I must get back to my world.

To see her one and only family. To get the paper she didn’t finish published in the PRL. And come to think of it, she’d even made plans to go to the APS conference, fuck.

There were still a ton of things to do when she got back. But why did she have to go back? Because that was her home. Wasn’t this my home?

Damn it.

She deployed a magnetic field. Pzzt! A current began flowing through the solenoid of the pulse generator.

One amp, a hundred amps, a hundred million amps.... The pulse wavered and shot forth at the sudden change in current.

The pulse had  no color, taste, smell, or any shape. The intangible poison that one might read in martial arts novels was right here.

“Gaaaahhhk─!!”

Tortoise screamed while spitting steam. Oil was dripping from its eyes. The face had melted completely, leaving only the skeleton, and mucous that looked like liquid nicotine was leaking from its belly.

Boom! Vermel’s world flipped. The sky became earth, and earth became sky.

Tortoise stomped the ground with a ferociousness like never before. That was what most lifeforms did, struggling the most desperately before they died. And it wasn’t much different for the machine Vanta Tortoise, either.

[SYSTEM : The enchantment item soon will no longer be in effect.]

[SYSTEM : Beginning countdown.]

[10.]

Vermel chewed on his lip. His head was throbbing, and the end of his nose stung.

[9.]Sores appeared on his tongue, and he bit down on it all the more. He had to keep it together no matter what.

[8.]Even his forehead was feeling sticky. Splat! Vermel touched his head while splayed on the ground. Blood full of carbon dioxide was trickling down his cheek.

[7. 6. 5.......]“Ughh....”

He groaned, then shook off his thoughts along with the viscous blood within three seconds.

[4.]Vermel opened the Status Window and ran. Tortoise’s health bar showed. Good, it was dying.

[3.]Run. Run. Run all the way to the corridors.

[2.]Just then.

“Pshuuuuu.”

A sound like a whale opening up its blowhole. An ominous feeling nudged at his back.

Vermel sensed an unspeakable terror as he was running like crazy.

This sound is.......

The past flashed before his eyes, a kind of prediction of the future.

I’m dead.

The thought flashed through his mind.

I can’t believe this is happening at the end.... This is bullshit......!

Even if he tried to turn around and block it, it wouldn’t work. There were people behind him, and he was out of mana. And even if he did manage to block it somehow, rain was still falling. It was either that he turned into a Beast and died, or died from being blasted by the water cannon.

[1.]Damn it, if only I had an Elemental......!

The countdown was coming to an end. Panic painted Vermel’s face.

He was almost at the corridor. Vermel stretched out his hand as much as he could. But whether he did or not, it was enough for him to get hit and die from the water cannon.

[Hey, what about him!]

[Aren’t the humans going to do something?]

[Excuse me, Master. Why don’t you do something about it!]

The Elementals shouted, but the crowd that had been watching the dying Tortoise in a daze couldn’t do anything. There just wasn’t enough time.

It took time to cast magic. The fastest they could do it was in a second or two. On the other hand, Tortoise, who had been creaking like it was about to die, took about half a second to ready the water cannon and fire it.

“What is it suddenly...!”

Rumble!

Freyr at least reacted as fast as she could and raised up a dirt wall around the whole corridor.

Shwaaaa! A black waterfall gushed out of the ruined mouth.

The distance between Vermel and Tortoise was about fifty meters. Vermel’s fingers latched onto the corridor, but it was a little too late.

[0.]

[The time is up.]

[The enchantment effect of the Ironproof Potion is now removed.]“Kuhugh...!”

The tip of his feet began to feel hot. His skin was turning into iron. He didn’t see it, but he could tell.

Is this the end....

He suddenly regretted the past. If only he had been more aggressive then.......

Tap!

A soft hand grabbed Vermel’s arm.

“...Huh?”

Vermel’s body was yanked like he was being lifted off the ground. He went ‘uh, uh’, letting out dumbfounded noises. In that time, the girl who’d pulled Vermel’s hand shot forward in reaction. Vermel tumbled all the way to the middle of the corridor that was the center of the safe zone.

In contrast.

The girl’s form disappeared like a shot arrow. She flew at least forty meters at once. A tenth of a second? It took even shorter than that.

A split second. The girl slammed the caliper into the ground. Her hair and shoulders became drenched from the heavy rain.

Why, is this one doing such a thing–

There was no reason. Just, her body had jumped forward automatically.

And.

Kuoooooo─!!

Before she knew it, Aether was struck by the water cannon.