Arcadia's Ignoble Knight: The Sorceress' Knights Tournament

Chapter 50

Decoding the runes on the barrier was harder than Elincia had thought it would be. She wasn't well-versed in ancient elvish. Her mother had been teaching her how to read it, but she'd never finished learning before the revolt that had caused her to flee from her home. Despite how difficult it was, Elincia still did her best.

Ancient elvish was a runic based language. Rather than letters, they used symbols which, when combined together, formed meanings and concepts. A good example would be combining the rune for fire with a conjunction rune, like the runic symbol for douse, and following it with water. In the native tongues of man, such a combination would mean "To douse fire using water."

As she studied the runes, Elincia picked out many that she recognized on sight. "Contain," "all," "power," and "people." There were only eight runes being used, and even though she didn't recognize the other four, she could use process of elimination and logic to figure out what they were.

"To indefinitely contain people with power over others," Elincia said as she finished analyzing the runes. "That's what these runes are designed to do."

"You're sure that's what they say?" Lady Aakarshana asked, sounding skeptical. "I don't wanna put a rain on your parade or anything, but if you're wrong, then all of us are going to die by messing with this, right? I rather like living, so I hope you're positive about this."

Runes were not something that people could mess with lightly. If someone didn't know what they were doing and tried to disrupt a runic array, there was a good chance that the backlash would kill them. As this particular spell was a barrier that kept them from leaving, should someone mess with it without knowing how to break it down, then everyone within the barrier would die.

In a situation like this, Elincia could not help the feelings of uncertainty that welled up inside of her. If she was wrong, everyone would be killed. Their lives were in her hands. That kind of responsibility was not something that she'd ever had, nor was it something she ever wanted to have. However, in this situation, there was no other choice.

"Yes," she said, "I'm sure."

"That is good enough for me," Lady Akane said, holding a hand to her lips and smiling.

"Agreed," Lady Aakarshaka said. "In either event, we have neither the time nor the option of deliberating further."

Lady Aakarshana clicked her tongue. "Oh, whatever. Fine. But, if we all die from this, I'm blaming you."

"It seems a decision has been made," Lord Fuzen Taiga murmured.

"Indeed." Headmaster Stratello nodded.

"Karen," Lady Sylvia said, "do you have anything that can break this barrier?"

Standing up from where she sat, Karen held out another object, which looked like a small metal sphere.

"This should work," she said. "It's a device made specifically for the purpose of disrupting magical spells." She tilted her head. "I had originally created it to break down the magic circuits used by magical technology, but I've just finished modifyingit based on Elincia's decoding to break down this barrier. I did so by—"

"Yes, yes," Lady Erica interrupted with an air of impatience. "We understand that you're very proud about your invention. Now, could you please use it so that we may escape from this confinement?"

Lady Karen glared at Lady Erica, but she seemed to understand the importance of haste. Pressing several buttons on the small sphere, she threw it into the air. Light flared from the object as it crashed into the barrier. The light, a dark blue, splashed across the golden energy like liquid, and soon enough, the entire dome was colored like the ocean.