Calamity vs Calamity

Calamities don’t fight each other.

While they had clashed in the beginning when they were unaware of each other, after several confrontations, the Calamities realized there was nothing to gain from fighting and avoided battles with one another.

Even when they happened to meet, they would either ignore each other or part ways after maintaining vigilance.

From Mad Magician’s perspective, this must have felt like a bolt from the blue.

After all, he had politely greeted the others only to receive an attack in return.

“…?”

A question mark appeared above Mad Magician’s head.

Looking down at his body that had been torn to shreds by the direct hit from telekinesis, Mad Magician pointed at themselves with one hand while waving the other high in the air.

Yuseong fired another telekinesis at Mad Magician, who was making comical gestures as if saying ‘It’s me, it’s me!’

Crack!

The ground sank as Mad Magician was flattened like a crushed bug.

Though anyone would think he was dead given his state, Mad Magician wasn’t dead.

Mad Magician, who got up while squirming, put his thumb in his mouth and blew, making his body that had become as thin as paper inflate back to its original form.

While Yuseong froze at this absurd sight straight out of a comedy animation, Mad Magician unwrapped the scarf around his neck and waved it around.

“…!”

Out of nowhere, a dove appeared from the scarf and flew toward Yuseong.

Whether seen with eyes or sensed with telekinesis, it seemed completely ordinary, but there was no way a dove summoned by a Calamity would be normal.

Yuseong imagined crushing the space, and the dove exploded instantly.

However, Yuseong could only be shocked at the scene that unfolded next.

Flutter!

All the feathers scattered from the exploding dove transformed into doves and flew with bullet-like speed.

Yuseong released telekinesis once again to burst the doves, but that wasn’t a good move.

Just like before, all the remaining feathers turned into new doves.

In the blink of an eye, one dove had multiplied into thousands.

‘It’s not just the numbers increasing. Their speed and durability are increasing too.’

Though tempted to test how far they could multiply, Yuseong exercised patience.

Unlike other Calamities whose abilities were clearly defined like firepower, durability, disease, or death, Mad Magician’s abilities were too varied to predict.

Though it seemed unlikely, there was no rule saying those doves couldn’t regenerate infinitely.

‘Let’s gather information while defending for now.’

Boom!

The doves exploded upon hitting the telekinetic shield.

Not a threatening level of power.

Not even enough to scratch the telekinetic shield.

However, before long, Yuseong noticed something strange.

“The explosions aren’t stopping!”

The feathers left by the exploded doves were turning back into doves and exploding against the telekinetic shield.

This was becoming an infinite loop.

Woong!

The space around Yuseong distorted, and the nearby doves turned to dust and scattered in the air.

“I didn’t expect to use this so soon.”

A technique that concentrates telekinesis to break down the target at the atomic level and make it vanish.

It was Brain Eater’s ultimate technique, but there was no other way to completely eliminate the feathers that served as the medium for multiplication without leaving any trace.

‘As expected, I can’t kill him with normal attacks. I’ll wait for an opening and then use a finishing move…’

“…Huh?”

Yuseong let out a stupid sound after clearing away the dust with telekinesis.

Mad Magician had vanished without a trace.

‘Did he run away?’

Yuseong’s heart nearly jumped out of his mouth when he instinctively spread telekinesis to gather information about the surroundings.

Mad Magician was above him.

‘When did he? No, how? The telekinetic shield wasn’t breached?’

The contemplation could wait.

Detecting Mad Magician’s movement of raising something long, Yuseong quickly twisted his body and shouted.

“Alice!”

Immediately grasping the situation, Alice completed scanning in an instant and flew at explosive speed to drive her fist into Mad Magician who was trying to swing his staff at Yuseong.

Mad Magician, who had barely managed to stop after flying with an exclamation mark above his head, looked back and forth between his broken staff and Alice before pretending to cry.

Instead of responding, Alice grabbed her beam sword and swung it at Mad Magician’s neck.

Slash!

Though Mad Magician’s head was separated from his body, Alice frowned with a hardened expression.

The severed head popped like a balloon, revealing a head wearing a white mask.

Beyond the flying confetti, Mad Magician swung a giant hammer toward Alice from somewhere.

‘I’ve won!’

An android built with cutting-edge technology combined with Tyrant’s arms that were comparable to S+ rank items in terms of physical power and defense.

In a direct confrontation, they absolutely wouldn’t lose.

Thinking this while faintly smiling, Alice’s eyes caught a strange sight.

10,000t.

Letters written on the side of the hammer.

It wasn’t difficult to guess what that meant.

But accepting that fact was a different matter.

‘There’s no way that’s actually 10,000 tons…’

Crack!

As the brilliantly shining blade of the beam sword was crushed and impact rose from her chest, Alice realized that the hammer Mad Magician had swung really did weigh 10,000 tons.

Though hit in the chest where Tyrant’s arms’ shock absorption option didn’t apply, Alice’s damage ended with just being knocked back.

This was the result of synergy between the defense barrier urgently created by the combat support AI and the android’s durability made with special metals.

“♪♫♪”

“W-wait a moment!”

Just as she was internally breathing a sigh of relief, Alice let out a cry of shock upon seeing Mad Magician take out a pen and write the number ‘0’ on the side of the hammer.

Mad Magician exaggeratedly shrugged their shoulders and brought down the hammer now labeled 100,000t.

Whoosh!

Instead of crushing Brain Eater’s brain, the hammer only cut through empty air.

Yuseong, sensing the situation turning dangerous, had lifted Mad Magician with telekinesis.

After kicking away the flailing Mad Magician, Alice immediately summoned all available weapons and unleashed all firepower.

“We can’t give him time!”

In terms of power or range, Mad Magician’s abilities fell short of other Calamities.

However, when it came to variety and unpredictability, Mad Magician was unmatched.

It was impossible to even guess what abilities he had or what he was capable of.

Even more astounding was that even using Eye of Truth couldn’t grasp the principles behind Mad Magician’s demonstrated abilities.

It truly was magic rather than sorcery.

‘I’ll end this in one blow!’

While Alice and Mad Magician were fighting, Yuseong released all at once the telekinesis he had been compressing.

As the waves of materialized telekinesis spread out, space began to distort.

Mad Magician, instinctively sensing danger, hurriedly waved the cloak he was wearing.

Mad Magician’s body, upon contact with the telekinesis, turned to dust and scattered.

However, neither Yuseong nor Alice lowered their combat stance.

They had noticed that the amount of dust was too small compared to Mad Magician’s size.

“4 o’clock direction! 510 meters!”

Yuseong, who had been constantly spreading telekinesis around the area since the first surprise attack, immediately pinpointed Mad Magician’s location.

Alice summoned a railgun and pulled the trigger, aiming at Mad Magician who was crawling into a box with only their upper body remaining.

Bang!

The mithril bullet, traveling at 7km per second, tore the box to shreds.

“…”

Mad Magician, who emerged from the box, had already returned to his original form.

Though he seemed completely recovered at first glance, the fact that his mask’s smiling face had changed to expressionless and his energy had weakened showed he had taken significant damage.

“I’ll prepare one more shot, so bind his feet!”

“Leave it to me!”

Deploying a pair of metal wings, Alice flew at full speed toward Mad Magician while continuously pulling the railgun’s trigger.

Mad Magician desperately resisted using all sorts of outlandish items and absurd abilities.

Rabbits that emerged from his hat collectively pounced on Alice, cards that shot from his mouth caused explosions, and he avoided attacks by separating his own body.

However, the difference in basic specs was too great.

Having realized after a brief exchange that Mad Magician was not an opponent to be taken lightly, Alice increased Dragon Heart’s output, and as a result, Mad Magician’s attacks couldn’t penetrate the barrier surrounding Alice.

Crack!

In contrast, each of Alice’s attacks was lethal to Mad Magician.

The railgun went beyond making holes in the body to completely blowing away body parts, while the beam sword and plasma weapons burned the cut surfaces to prevent regeneration.

The magic continuously flying from all directions was just a bonus.

“Alice! Dodge!”

Without hesitation, Alice flew up into the air at full power.

Using even the gravity control option of her Gravity Shoes, Alice instantly created distance, and the wave of telekinesis Yuseong sent out once again swept through Mad Magician.

“…!!!”

Mad Magician began thrashing around while letting out a silent scream.

Looking down at his body turning to dust and crumbling, Mad Magician hesitated before pulling out a doll from the air.

The body’s collapse stopped, and instead, a doll resembling Mad Magician turned to dust and scattered.

‘Tough one.’

Yuseong clicked his tongue.

To survive after taking hits from all sorts of cutting-edge weapons, magic, and telekinesis that breaks down matter at the atomic level twice – it was an unbelievable vitality.

‘But this is the end.’

Mad Magician’s presence had weakened incomparably from the beginning.

One more time.

Just one more kill and Mad Magician would die.

Woong!

Yuseong bound Mad Magician with telekinesis.

Beyond the mask, Mad Magician glared at Yuseong with trembling eyes before taking off his hat and starting to make gestures as if searching for something inside it.

At that moment, Yuseong felt an indescribable fear.

This is dangerous.

If Mad Magician was left like this, something terrible would happen.

Yuseong immediately drew up telekinesis.

“♪♫♬”

Even weakened, Mad Magician was still a Calamity that had made an entire world tremble.

Even under the pressure of telekinesis, he still had enough strength left to make simple movements like moving his arm, and Mad Magician finally succeeded in pulling something out from inside the hat.

And then a heavy silence fell over the battlefield.

Both Yuseong and Alice doubted their eyes for a moment.

They couldn’t help it.

What Mad Magician had pulled out was that shocking.

A rampaging murderous rabbit?

Infinitely multiplying explosive doves?

It was neither.

What Mad Magician pulled out was a girl.

However, not an ordinary girl, but one with a few words attached before her name.

“Ah! Where is this? Dorothy was definitely helping people who were suffering from monsters…”

Another Calamity.

Mad Magician had summoned Magical Girl of Death, Dorothy.

Translator Note:

Speaking honestly, I can’t really tell what is the gender of the Mad Magician. While I can assume the gender of Brain Eater by its description from the author alone. The Mad Magician, meanwhile, is not really describe as anything but just your typical magician that appears on circus. The lack of dialogue from the Mad Magician isn’t helping either lol. So, this is just my assumption, but I’ll be using he/him for the Mad Magician. It might or might not change later on the story.