Blood Runes

“...By the way, what are you planning to do about Alfar?”

“I went out of my way to prepare fake blood with which to fool her creator, so it would be irresponsible to just leave her,” Kanzaki responded smoothly.

There were a few different styles of rune magic, but most of the time, it was carried out with the process of deciding where to carve each rune, actually carving the runes, and activating the spell by pouring blood or some other dye onto the runes.

Kanzaki had gone with the method of dying the carved rune with blood.

She had used her wires to carve exceedingly shallow marks in Alfar’s body and constructed a magical trick to make it appear that blood was erupting out.

The tour guide girl looked impressed.

“Yes, if you see someone cut straight from her shoulder to her side, spew a red liquid all over the place, and then collapse, you would think she was dead, wouldn’t you? But from what I heard, you were a pretty good distance away.”

“In modern warfare, the methods of using runes have been simplified so they can be carried out quickly. I know of a magician that mass produces runes with a copier. In older times, my method might have been suspected as being a trick from the moment blood or some kind of dye flew out from the grooves I had carved.”

She had been up against a magician who had thoroughly arranged a method of using rune magic by constructing the runes with supercooled water and ice crystals. It was possible that he had forgotten such a basic fact because he was so used to using rune magic.

However, even after hearing the results, the shop owner still seemed in a bit of a bad mood.

“And where did you get this dye?”

“...Well...”

“It was your own blood, wasn’t it? You used it up almost to the lethal level, didn’t you? We’re heading to a hospital later. You can get a normal blood transfusion despite being a Saint, right?”

SS Kanzaki, Chapter 4, Part 11