I was about to let Falce-san lead me away—after she had just finished burying Laguna-san alive—when the ground beneath us suddenly fractured.
"...Tch. By my calculations, it should have held for at least three minutes," Falce-san muttered. "I suppose the rumors that she has been training lately are true."
"Pwah! Falce! You—were you actually trying to kill me!?" Laguna-san roared. She burst forth from the earth, shattering the ground that had turned as hard as iron only moments before.
As Laguna-san shouted her protest, Falce-san met her gaze with a chillingly detached expression.
"Trying to kill you? I did that precisely because I knew it wouldn't be enough to hurt you. If I were actually trying to kill you, I wouldn't bother with a frontal assault. I would rely on trickery—poison, most likely. Of course, I cannot create a poison that could kill you by bypassing your resistances outright, but I could still exploit a gap in those resistances to dull your movements, even if only slightly. In that opening, I would bind you with Nature Magic, overload the area with as many Sealing Formulas as possible, and then cast you into a Space Isolation Barrier to starve you out. That would be my highest-percentage play. Even you need food and water. Whether you have supplies in your Magic Box or superhuman endurance, several decades in total isolation would eventually do the job. I would spend that time pouring every drop of my strength into maintaining the barrier from the outside. It would be a battle of attrition, but since I cannot best you in a fair fight, I would have no other choice."
"...Alright, look, I apologize for teasing you! Just stop talking about your 'serious' murder plans. You're actually scaring me!"
She sounded terrifyingly sincere. After acknowledging that Laguna-san was the stronger combatant and that a direct victory was impossible, the Sage had clearly spent time working out the perfect execution method. If she managed to spring the trap, it felt like it would actually work.
"It sounds like a method that might actually be effective against Laguna-san," I noted.
"Laguna is weak against Space-Time Magic," Falce-san explained. "A Space Isolation Barrier is an ideal countermeasure. However, in a normal situation, I would never find the opening. Those barriers are most vulnerable the instant they are cast. Against Laguna at her full strength, she would simply crush the spell with high-density Magic Power before it even manifested. That is why she would need to be sealed first."
"That is only because I am so lousy at Space-Time Magic," Laguna-san grumbled. "Anyone skilled in the art could interfere with the barrier. Spells where the caster stands outside are notoriously weak to internal pressure... Lady Lilia, for instance, could probably shatter it from the inside without breaking a sweat."
"Her instinct for Magic Power manipulation is beyond genius," Falce-san added. "She would likely dismantle the Sealing Formula before it even settled. I truly envy her ability to intuitively perceive the weakness in any spell. If I had to face her, I think I would be forced to commit entirely to long-range warfare."
"No, Lady Lilia isn't that easy to handle," Laguna countered. "She has Time Magic. She can close the distance of an average long-range attack in a heartbeat, reducing the range to zero. The absolute bare minimum requirement for even starting a fight with her is being able to survive a single blow from Lady Lilia's swordplay."
"She is utterly unreasonable. A true Genius of Combat. She counters trickery almost as soon as you deploy it, and she can perfectly mimic and master any formula she has seen just once. If she had been born in the era when we were traveling, the Demon King subjugation would have been a trivial affair."
Before I knew it, the conversation had drifted entirely into a strategy session on how to deal with Lilia-san. Falce-san seemed to have already forgotten her annoyance at Laguna-san’s teasing, and the two were chatting like old friends again.
Still, hearing two of the world's strongest figures—former members of the Hero Party, no less—speak so highly of Lilia-san’s talent was staggering. Then again, Alice did call her a "Bug of the World." It was starting to make a lot more sense.
"...Wait, we are getting sidetracked," Laguna-san said, pulling the conversation back. "If you want lunch, just come to the castle. I want to reward Kaito for his help anyway, so I will have the kitchens prepare a feast. Besides, I am far too nervous about letting Falce loose in the city, even with Kaito as a guide... Honestly, I am worried that if they parted ways within sight of the Royal Castle, she would somehow miss the gate and end up in a different country entirely."
"Now look here, isn't that being a bit excessive?" Falce-san protested. "I admit my sense of direction is... lacking. I won't argue that. But I am not so incompetent that I cannot reach a building that is literally right in front of me!"
"Didn't you tell me during the Six Kings Festival that you weren't confident you could reach the Central Square, even with that massive tower as a landmark?" I asked.
".........No, I mean, I believe I said I had about a thirty percent chance of making it."
If her failure rate was seventy percent even when her destination was in plain sight, I could certainly see why Laguna-san was so determined to keep her under close supervision.
Serious-senpai: Lilia is at a level where even two of the strongest humans in existence admit they have no choice but to try and overpower her head-on, because no amount of planning will work.
???: Seriously, underhanded tactics are useless against someone in the Lilia-san Class. Even if you found a poison that worked, her body is so unreasonable it would probably just generate the necessary antibodies the second it hit her system. I mean, I can do that too... for that matter, no poison currently in existence works on me or any of the other Six Kings.
Serious-senpai: Well, you're a monster, too...