The World Is Mine For The Taking

The next one seemed to be Morifuji, and judging from the way she was standing there, she looked considerably more nervous than the others.

She looked a little bit afraid, to be honest, and I couldn’t really blame her for that considering what had happened to Sakai who had already gone before her.

I had no idea what exactly she could bring to the table, but Lilia had already told me that she was just as strong as the other four, so I figured I would take her words as gospel for the time being.

There was really no reason for me to doubt Lilia about something like this.

If she said Morifuji was strong, then Morifuji was probably strong.

The question was simply what kind of strength she actually possessed.

"What is your specialization?" I asked her while looking over her from head to toe.

"I-I mainly use magic," she answered nervously, her voice slightly shaky as she tried to keep herself composed. "I am highly proficient in Fire Magic, so most of my abilities are focused around that."

I see...

A magician, huh?

Well, that certainly made her someone who could be extremely useful during a war.

Magic users were incredibly valuable on an actual battlefield because they could attack from a distance while also affecting a large number of enemies at once.

They had access to attacks with a large AOE, or area of effect, which meant they could potentially kill dozens of people with a single attack if they were positioned properly and had enough mana available.

That kind of ability could completely change the flow of a battle, especially if the magician was strong enough to keep throwing those attacks out without immediately exhausting themselves.

A single powerful magician could potentially wipe out an entire group of ordinary soldiers before those soldiers even had the chance to get close.

Of course, that was only true if there weren’t any barrier magicians around.

Barrier magicians were essentially the natural counter to offensive magic users, since their entire purpose was to defend against attacks like the ones Morifuji specialized in.

If an offensive magician threw a massive fireball at a group of soldiers protected by a strong barrier, then all that destructive power could end up being wasted.

That was why large-scale battles between magic users weren’t always as simple as whoever had the bigger attack automatically winning.

There were plenty of factors involved, and barriers were one of the most important ones.

Even then, however, the strength of an offensive spell was still proportional to the strength of the barrier protecting against it.

If the attack was powerful enough, it could break through the barrier anyway, although doing so would require considerably more power than simply attacking an unprotected target.

On the other hand, if the barrier magician was strong enough, then the offensive magician might have to spend an enormous amount of mana just to damage the barrier in the first place.

In other words, having powerful offensive magic didn’t automatically mean someone could dominate a battlefield.

They still needed enough mana to keep fighting, enough control to avoid wasting their attacks, and enough experience to understand when they should actually use their strongest abilities.

Morifuji seemed to have the first part, at least to some extent.

The rest was something I still needed to determine.

"Considering that you’re a magician, I want you to use your most powerful attack against me," I said.

"H-Huh? A-Are you sure about that?" she asked, looking at me like she wasn’t entirely certain whether I was serious.

"I’m sure," I replied without changing my expression. "Don’t even think about hesitating, just like that girl did earlier."

I wanted to see everything she had.

There was really no point in asking her to hold back when the entire purpose of this assessment was to determine how useful she could actually be.

If she had some powerful ability that she was too afraid to use, then I needed to know about it.

If she couldn’t control that ability properly, then I needed to know about that too.

"O-Okay," she finally said, although the nervousness in her voice hadn’t disappeared.

She stretched one hand outward before slowly closing her eyes, apparently trying to focus her mind and gather her mana.

Her breathing became slower as she concentrated.

I could feel the magical energy beginning to gather around her, and the atmosphere around her gradually became heavier as more and more mana accumulated.

It seemed like she was drawing mana directly from her reserves and concentrating all of it into her hand, preparing to unleash a massive Fire Magic spell.

The amount of mana she was gathering continued increasing, and after watching her for a few moments, I realized that she seemed to be putting almost everything she had into this one attack.

She was literally draining her own mana reserves just to create one enormous explosion.

That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing if she was confident that she could finish the battle with that attack, but it would become a serious problem if she failed to defeat her opponent.

A magician who spent everything on their opening attack would be almost useless afterward.

She was probably hesitant to make the spell any larger because there was a good chance she could lose control of it.

If that happened, the explosion wouldn’t exactly care whether the people around her were enemies, allies, or completely innocent bystanders.

She could potentially end up killing a large number of people inside the area, and considering how much mana she was gathering, the resulting explosion probably wouldn’t be something anyone nearby would want to experience.

After a short while, she finally released the spell.

The massive fireball shot toward me with incredible force, roaring through the air as flames surrounded its surface.

The sheer amount of magical energy contained inside it was impressive for someone of her apparent level.

Even though she had hesitated and released the fireball somewhat prematurely, the attack still carried enough destructive power to completely disintegrate everything in this area.

A normal person probably wouldn’t even have had time to react before being reduced to ash.

I immediately canceled it with nothing more than a snap of my wrist.

The fireball vanished almost instantly, leaving behind nothing except a brief wave of heat that disappeared moments later.

"H-Huh?" Morifuji said, staring at me in complete disbelief.

She looked at the empty space where her attack had been only moments earlier, then looked back at me as though she was trying to figure out whether she had somehow imagined the entire thing.

The spell itself had been surprisingly powerful, especially considering how much mana she had poured into it.

Even though she had hesitated and released the fireball somewhat prematurely, the magic itself was powerful enough that it could have easily disintegrated everything in this area.

Yet it didn’t even scratch me.

I had stopped it so effortlessly that it almost felt unnecessary for her to have bothered attacking me in the first place.

"Again," I said.

Morifuji stared at me for a moment without saying anything.

Her expression changed slightly as she seemed to realize what I was asking her to do.

She hesitated before finally opening her mouth, and the answer that came out was considerably quieter than her previous response.

"I-I can’t... I can only do it once," she admitted.