The Girl Who Hacked The Magic System

"It's been a long time since we last did a mission together, huh?"

Yaci, Kwarah, Yawarete, and Ingela readily agreed, while Lovelace seems to be in a more pensive state.

"Yeah! War has made us lead our own troops in battle. But I missed these times with just the six of us."

"Fully agreed with Yaci! And if it's to help Lovelace regain her memories, I'm really happy to join!"

"I'll ask this for the last time. Are you sure you want to join, Ingela? The paladins will probably excommunicate you the first thing as soon as we enter the temple."

Lovelace has also given Yaci permission to share with Ingela the secrets of her origins, so she is up-to-date with our motivations for going in.

"Of course! I never expected the system to last this long, honestly. I thought that it would be cut off right at the beginning of the campaign."

"Right. Lovelace, all good on your side?"

"Yes… I'm sorry, my heart is a bit heavy with what I might…"

She looks a bit downcast and doesn't even manage to finish her sentence. So I step forward and embrace her, which is followed suit by all the others.

"Lovelace. You are not alone. You have all of us with you."

"…"

"And you will never be alone again. Look at how many people like you and admire you nowadays. It's not just us. So, even when we die, you'll always be able to make new friends."

"Yes, and you'll have to endure us already gray-haired pushing you to make new friends."

"Hehe. Yaci is right. We won't abandon you. Ever."

"Thank you, Aurea, Yaci, everyone. Thank you… You are right. And it makes me remember how that woman always cut short my interactions with other people."

"She did?"

"Yes, she often told me that all I needed was her and would throw a fit every time I was a bit friendlier with someone."

"That's mental abuse and manipulation 101! Luckily, you're not with her anymore. We're the ones here with you."

"Yes, Aurea. I see it now, thanks to you… and everyone else here. So many good friends. Thank you all. Now, let's go!"

"Lesssgoo!!!"

Ingela seems to be very fired up with this temple assault thing.

:::

The portal leads us directly to the nave of the temple, from where one of our agents had taken a bit of a bench before the war began.

It's the sundown mass' time, so the paladins are congregated here, praying, with the higher ranking of them ministrating the mass.

We arrive already on the offensive. While the others go for the ones praying, I go straight to the minister.

It's a performance we trained together to exhaustion several times before and even already executed a couple of times with other teams.

The moment I step out of the portal, I look for the minister on the pulpit and cast an empowered and devastating lightning bolt on him.

But one thing I've learned from RPGs is that paladins are often tank classes, and from what my friend De Arlanda told me, the same holds true in this world.

Attacking them here, at their moment of prayer, means that their guard is lowered. But still, their HP pool is through the roof.

That's why I'm not surprised that the minister is still standing, even though he received the lightning bolt on his chest.

And he's already casting a spell… which I'm glad is the useless excommunication one.

I let him cast it as I run to close the distance between us. The spell hits me before I reach him, but its effect does nothing to me.

I can't be excommunicated, after all. I was never baptized in the church to begin with.

My access to the system comes from Oya, not from Juno.

I reach him right after he concludes his spell, and, without slowing or an audible chant, I use my taser aria on him.

He lets out a painful cry and jumps back.

Damn, this guy is tough. He received two electrical discharges of huge magnitude right on his chest and is still on his feet.

And the place where he jumped to has his shield leaning against the wall, which he picks up.

Kudos to you, guy. I can't remember the last time I faced an opponent that forced me to use the creature appraisal on them.

I don't have the luxury of time to look through his sheet in detail, but a glance is enough to see that I've downed his HP by one-third and that he has HP regeneration skills.

And the shield is bad news, as it improves the user's resistance to elements to an insane degree.

And the shield still works as a shield against physical attacks.

"That's a nice shield you have, paladin."

"Thank you, heretic. It's a family heirloom."

"Isn't it a bit too heavy, though?"

"Heh, I train with it every day."

"No, really, I mean it. Isn't it getting heavier and heavier?"

"Ungh… What's this?"

"Hehehe. Everything that rises is doomed to fall. Such is the law of gravity."

I'm using a gravity aria this very moment, increasing the weight on the shield. I'm maintaining it limited to the shield because I don't want to cause any damage to the temple structure.

I mean, we're going underground here. I don't want the ground to fall on our heads while we're there just because I went too overboard with a spell here.

"The only law is the goddess's law!! O holy maiden…"

"Nope!"

I knew already that he was going to cast some sort of spell on himself to deal with the heavy shield, which is now glued to the floor, so I had already unsheathed my sword.

I'm a mage, but this is a war. Of course I would have a sword with me during a battle. And I even practiced swordplay at the Academy!

I shove the sword into his open mouth before he can finish the chanting. I know that I wouldn't be able to produce a killing blow, but this should be enough to at least interrupt him.

With his free hand he also unleashes his sword and tries to hit me, but I jump back in time.

He has the mouth free again but is too busy spitting blood to start chanting again, so I cast another gravity aria on him.

This one is pulling his body away from the shield, horizontally. He looks like a person in the middle of a hurricane in those cartoons I watched as a kid.

The shield's weight anchors him on the ground, while the gravity pulls him away from the shield. For the first time since my opening arias he is losing HP faster than he is gaining it.

"This is getting painful, isn't it?"

I tease him, getting close by. The pull of the horizontal gravity on him is around 3 g. The mere fact that he's still struggling is a testament to the power of the Adventuring System.

I walk calmly, sliding my finger on his arm that holds the shield, until I arrive at where his head is.

"Your goddess is not here, dear paladin. I am. So, the laws at work are mine to weave."

Time to end this charade.

I slice his head off with a nice cut of my blade. He was already weakened because of the gravity forces, so the head comes off cleanly.

I then undo the gravity spells on his shield and body.