Campione: Strongest# 484: The Signal

Everyone exchanged looks and answered with matching wry smiles of their own.

Locking down an international metropolis—the capital of a major country—for three days was already a miracle.

In truth, Haru knew just how absurd a feat it was.

If Alaya weren't fully cooperating, there wasn't a magus alive who could cover up what was happening here for even an hour.

"So as things stand, the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors under the Dark Six control still haven't made a move, right?"

Gweira mulled it over for a moment, then voiced the concern sitting on everyone's minds.

The Ancestors' power was no joke.

Haru had crippled a fair number of them already, but the ones left were anything but soft targets—any clash with them would come with real casualties.

The reason an old fox like Gweira brought it up first was obvious—he wanted to adjust deployments to keep the Wandering Sea's magi as intact as possible.

"The Dead Apostle Ancestors are our responsibility."

Lorelei's eyes flashed cold as she cut in without hesitation.

The Barthomeloi family had made a generational creed of hating Dead Apostles.

If not for Clock Tower politics, they would've been campaigning to exterminate them all outright.

Now that there was an official, large-scale opportunity to throw the Association's weight against them, there was no way she'd let it pass.

Unlike the Church, which emphasized unity and thus had fewer absurd monsters at the top, magi who focused entirely on strengthening themselves were far more dangerous in one-on-one combat.

Put it simply—Church knights were regular soldiers.

Magi were special forces.

So in any normal plan, the magi would naturally be used as spearheads, thrust straight into the heart of Tokyo's Dead Apostle nest.

The Association had seen this coming.

They just couldn't refuse.

With the danger of Mystery leaking and the world waking up to the supernatural, they'd had to hold their noses and drag their people to the Far East.

Gweira glanced helplessly at Lorelei, who'd all but tripped over herself to volunteer the Association as shock troops.

You're not afraid of the Church coming out on top after the war?

Even with all the tricks and survivability magi possessed, wading into a sea of Dead Apostles was still incredibly risky.

This time, the ones they'd called up were the Association's combat specialists.

If too many of them died, the Church—well-rested on the sidelines—would only have to nudge the board to flip everything.

Thinking that, Gweira turned toward Sion, who'd gone quiet the moment "Night of Wallachia" was mentioned.

"What about Miss Sion's opinion?"

"I support Lady Barthomeloi's plan."

Sion's voice came out soft but firm, violet eyes burning with naked hatred.

"…"

Gweira could only stare.

Haru could clearly see the veins standing out on the old gentleman's forehead.

It was clear enough—dealing with not one but two hawks on his own side was doing nothing good for his blood pressure, and only long-trained manners were keeping him from exploding.

Haru's lips curved upward, schadenfreude written all over his face.

He was probably the only one in the room who understood why Sion was willing to ignore the danger of being the spearhead and back Lorelei so readily.

The full moon currently hanging over Tokyo—the Thirteenth Dead Apostle Ancestor, Night of Wallachia—had been Sion's own ancestor before becoming a Dead Apostle.

When that ancestor fell, they'd taken the family's magecraft lineage with them.

Since then, Sion's house had been treated like trash in Atlas, falling from a high family to the brink of extinction.

If not for Sion's own genius and brutal effort lifting her up to become acting director of the Atlas Institute, the family probably would have died out completely in a few more years.

Knowing that the root of all that misery was sitting right here in Tokyo—of course she wanted in.

Given that both Atlas and the Clock Tower had knowingly sent obvious war hawks like Sion and Lorelei as their representatives, Haru could guess how badly the older generation of magi had been hit by Dead Apostle conversions.

If they hadn't taken serious losses, they wouldn't have signed off on this kind of lineup.

He felt his smile deepen.

War hawks were fine by him.

His own goal was to destroy the Dark Six—their aims didn't clash in the slightest.

Clap. Clap.

Haru brought his hands together.

The sudden sound snapped everyone's attention back to him.

Feeling all eyes settle on him, he spoke in a calm, even voice.

"Then it's settled. The Mage's Association will take responsibility for the Dead Apostle Ancestors under the Dark Six control—and act as the spearhead to kill as many Dead Apostles as possible, or drive them out of Tokyo for the Church's knight orders to finish off."

"No objections, I hope?"

He glanced at the three representatives across the table.

"The Clock Tower agrees." Lorelei lifted a brow.

"The Atlas Institute has no objection." Sion slowly closed her eyes, then opened them again, violet gaze hard as a blade.

"…Haa." Gweira let out a long, ghostly sigh. "The Wandering Sea concurs."

At that, Haru's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then we move in half an hour."

———————

Late at night in Reien Academy's dormitories, figures in black coats occasionally passed through the supposedly empty corridors, entering one dorm room after another.

Magi cast 'Sleep' spells on the dreaming students. This behavior created a certain misunderstanding for Haru as he watched from the spiral staircase.

While it was meant to prevent students from awakening and exposing the existence of mysteries, Haru strongly suspected that if not for needing to conserve magical energy for battle, quite a few high-strung magi wouldn't mind performing some... mana transfers... on those 'sleeping' girls.

Of course, such illegal activities would never be tolerated by Akiha Tohno, the academy's shadow administrator.

Walking down the corridor, Haru suddenly turned to look at Akiha Tohno and Fujino Asagami behind him, his face showing slight exasperation.