“Out of the way!”
Tatsuya spoke in a sharp and angry tone.
The men were staggered by the force contained within Tatsuya’s voice, and the crowd split into two halves.
This was not the effect of a magic that affected the mind.
The men’s bodies reacted faster than their minds when they heard the roar of a creature far more powerful than themselves.
Tatsuya walked briskly in a straight line.
He didn’t even need to push his way through the crowd of men.
No one obstructed Tatsuya’s way. No one even stretched a hand towards him.
“Minami.”
Standing in front of the magical barrier, Tatsuya called Minami’s name.
“Yes, Tatsuya-sama.”
Minami responded to his voice while keeping the barrier active.
“Can you move while keeping that barrier up?”
“It is possible.”
Tatsuya should have known that Minami was capable of that. Minami took it to mean that Tatsuya was concerned about her present condition.
“I see. Then follow me as you are, you three.”
Tatsuya turned around. As he looked from one side to the other, the Humanists, frightened of that gaze, took one or two steps back.
“W-What are you doing! Jamming team, one more time!”
As expected, the Antinite rings were given to the most proficient members selected from among the group. At their leader’s shaken voice, the men gathered up the courage that had been broken by Tatsuya, poured Psions into their Antinite, and released Cast Jamming.
However, the structure of the Psion noise could not be maintained for even half a second.
Tatsuya just turned around while looking annoyed. He didn’t even wave his hands.
That was all it took for the cast jamming to lose its effectiveness.
It was a Psion noise that could inhibit all kinds of magic.
It was not something chaotic that was made by chance.
The noise from Cast Jamming was a wave pattern of Psions that followed a complicated set of rules in order to take shape.
As long as it has a structure, it cannot escape Tatsuya’s ‘Decomposition’. Even more so if it was simply a bare information body. Against Tatsuya, the Cast Jamming that could neutralize magicians didn’t even slow him down, so forget about it being a trump card.
“What!?”
The bearers of the rings shouted in dismay.
“Don’t falter! Once more!”
The fanatics’ leader repeated his meaningless order.
Tatsuya didn’t even turn around anymore.
As expected, the noise that impeded magic didn’t even last for half a second.
Cast Jamming was not a continuous emission of noise. It was a repetitive invocation wherein each burst of noise occurred before the previous one faded away.
It was a property of Antinite to convert the Psions injected into it into jamming waves that were released. However, continuously injecting Psions without the help of a mechanical device, like the one used in flying magic, is difficult even for regular magicians. This was why Cast Jamming was only used intermittently.
For non-magicians who were not used to controlling Psions, even injecting enough Psions to produce an effective jamming wave would take a considerable amount of mental concentration.
The noise was quashed as soon as it was invoked.
After doing this twice already, these young people did not have enough training to be able to immediately repeat it for a third time.
Tatsuya stopped walking and had the other three people go ahead of him.
They were already outside the crowd of Humanists.
“Minami.”
“Yes, Tatsuya-sama.”
“Well done. You can release the barrier now.”
Minami obeyed Tatsuya’s words and cancelled the barrier magic.
“Miyuki.”
After hearing Tatsuya call her name, Miyuki replied, “Yes, Onii-sama”
with a meek voice.
“Go back to school with the both of them.”
“Yes, certainly.”
Miyuki gave Tatsuya a graceful bow, put a hand each on the backs of her underclassmen, and urged them to head back to First High.
At this point, the leader of the Humanists regained his senses.
“W-What are you doing! My comrades, do not allow those wicked people to escape!”
However, that only served to bring them to an unfortunate conclusion.
The group of Humanists ignored ?? no, avoided Tatsuya, and ran past him.
However, not one of them managed to take more than three steps ahead.
There were a total of fifteen men. Not all of them started running at the same time. At that time, only a third of the group, that is five people, had started to run. And now, the only ones who remained on their feet were the two-thirds who had not yet started to run.
Needless to say, the person who had caused one-third of the group who were guilty of capturing people and attempted violence (regarding their act of capturing people, it could be said that they were caught red-handed) was Tatsuya. However, this was not due to his magic.
The first person to step forward received a fist to the solar plexus and fainted while experiencing immense pain.
The second person was struck in the temple by the base of Tatsuya’s palm as he attempted to take a second step.
The third person had his neck grabbed from behind just as he took his second step, and was pulled backwards.
The fourth person received a blow to his chin as he was taking his third step.
The fifth person had his wrist grabbed as soon as he took his third step, and fell on the road after spinning one full circle in mid-air.
After experiencing Tatsuya’s barrage of fluid techniques, none of the men were able to get off the ground, let alone stand up.
“You bastard! Do you think you can get away with such violence!”
The leader of the ruffians threw a selfish outcry at Tatsuya.
To this, Tatsuya replied with a smile filled with hostility, provocation, and ridicule.
“I was just preemptively stopping an attack on women. The data captured by the street cameras should prove that these people attempted to assault female students of First High.”
Tatsuya deliberately directed his gaze at the camera installed on one of the streetlights. He then turned to the leader of the Humanists with a smile filled with scorn.
Even from afar, it was clear that the leader’s face had turned red.
Of course, this was not because he had realized the folly of his actions and felt ashamed. It was due to rage.
As expected of a fanatic, his eyes became bloodshot from his madness and he screamed while pointing at Tatsuya.
“Finish this guy off first! Divine punishment!”
His lackeys shouted “Oh!” with raised spirits. Rather, it blended into a strange clamor.
Their bodies understood that they could not stand against Tatsuya, and automatically withdrew.
However, their minds had been poisoned by fanaticism, and they were unable to comprehend the danger signals called “fear” that was being sent throughout their bodies.
“Realize your sins!”
The young man who was standing in the front ranks attempted to assault Tatsuya. He was holding a collapsible baton that had already been expanded.
Tatsuya used his left hand to strike from the inside at the man’s descending right hand. His sword-like hand hit the fingers holding the collapsible baton.
“Aargh!”
The baton went flying out of the young man’s hand. He bent forwards and cried out in pain while holding his right hand.
Tatsuya’s extended his right hand towards the young man’s face. He wasn’t moving at a speed that was too fast to follow. Rather, he was moving quite slowly.
From the side, Tatsuya thrust his thumb at the area directly below the man’s ear.
The man ceased his cries of pain and his body crumpled to the ground.
“I’m warning you. If you keep attacking me, I can’t hold back.”
Without even sparing a glance at the young man sprawled at his feet, Tatsuya said so while looking around at the ruffians.
He didn’t mean these words as a provocation. These were words of warning.
After Miyuki’s safety was assured, Tatsuya had calmed down. He lost the will to proactively engage in violence.
Of course, that didn’t mean he would try to avoid a fight. If he was attacked, he would surely neutralize his opponent. The reason he said those words was mainly in order to provide an alibi for the cameras that were recording the situation.
However, the people he said those words to took it as provocation.
“Stop messing around! You’re just a tool!”
The leader of the Humanists thus acted in a detestable manner. However, his comrades were secretly exchanging looks amongst each other. At this point, the fear of fighting was starting to overcome their blind faith.
Even so, they didn’t try to flee the scene. They had yet to recover enough to make sound judgement calls. They weren’t under the impression that they would be given pardon for attacking a magician, rather they hadn’t come to realize they were inferior in a fight.
This stalemate would probably work in Tatsuya’s favor. On the way here, he saw that a crowd had formed near the police box as well. It was probably to stall the police. However, it was around time for the police to start showing up.
“The police will be here soon. Why don’t you just run away? You perverts who attempted to assault women.”
Tatsuya gave them a warning once again. This time, however, it seemed like he was inciting them. Tatsuya himself didn’t see any reason to be careful of how he worded his sentence.
The fanatics easily flew into a rage.
“This brat!”
The leader let out a shriek as he himself rushed to attack Tatsuya.
Tatsuya narrowed his eyes at the weapon he took out from an inside pocket of his jacket. It was a stun whip that was approximately fifty centimeters in length. By passing electricity through it, not only would it produce an electric discharge from the tip, but it could also become more resilient and take the shape of a flexible leaf spring. However, once the switch was turned off, its state would change to something similar to a leather belt that could be wrapped around one’s hand or body, allowing it to be carried discreetly and unnoticed from the outside.
This was the cane sword developed by Erika’s family (A club made from shape-memory alloy that transforms into a short sword). It was just beginning to be adapted by the police, and was not yet commercially available to the general public. It wasn’t something that could be obtained unless you had connections with the police or the manufacturers themselves. Perhaps, he had stolen it from a policeman.
Investigating this could yield interesting results. While thinking of such things at a corner of his mind, he dodged the stun whip that was being swung down. Along with taking a step, he spun his body and got behind his ‘enemy’.
From his opponent’s perspective, it must have seemed like the weapon passed right through Tatsuya’s body.
“Over here.”
Tatsuya called out to the young man before he could discover Tatsuya’s location.
The Humanists’ leader spun around in a panic. He must have thought that he would be attacked in return if he didn’t do anything. He recklessly waved the stun whip about.
Tatsuya raised his arm and pretended to block the whip. Just before the whip made contact, he withdrew his arm.
To begin with, Tatsuya had already retreated beyond the range of the stun whip. The exaggerated attack from an unstable position ended in failure, and the young man lost his balance and fell on his behind.
Tatsuya let out a chuckle. It was not meant as an insult. Rather, at least, Tatsuya had no such intention. He just naturally laughed after seeing this display of excessive clumsiness. Tatsuya had no intention of deliberately insulting the young man before him, but he also didn’t have any obligation to control his expressions out of consideration for his opponent’s feelings.
It couldn’t be helped, even if the leader of the Humanists took Tatsuya’s chuckle as an insult.
“I’ll kill you!”
However, he had gotten into a fit of excessive madness. What’s more, the young man’s hostility wasn’t restricted to his words alone. He threw the useless whip aside and stuck his right hand into his coat pocket.
Just as his hand left his pocket, Tatsuya’s right leg moved at lightning speed.
Tatsuya stomped down on the fanatic’s right hand instead of kicking it away.
Tatsuya’s heel swung succinctly downwards and knocked the weapon out of the fanatic’s hand.
Instead of putting his right foot back on the ground, he shot it forwards.
After taking a front kick on his face, The Humanists’ leader’s head snapped back and he fell down forcefully. It wasn’t clear if he lay there without moving due to the impact of the kick, or because of the extreme impact inflicted on back of his head the moment he fell down.
However, even if he had been hit at a bad place, the police probably wouldn’t blame Tatsuya.
Lying on the road was a small gun with two barrels positioned one above the other. Even now, at the end of the 21st century, the palm-sized gun had continued to inherit the name ‘Derringer,’ and this was the latest model of it. Of course, for regular civilians, carrying around one of these was a crime with no room for excuses.
In fact, the Humanists were the ones who were in a daze as they looked at the gun lying on the road. All of them who were standing and were conscious had a look of disbelief on their faces. It looked like they never imagined that their leader was carrying a gun.
Tatsuya turned to look at the remaining fanatics.
All the fight had gone out of them. Not only that, it appeared that they didn’t even have the energy to run away.
Tatsuya judged that the matter was done and relaxed his fighting stance.
However, his expression immediately stiffened as he turned around and prepared to fight.
“Onii-sama!”
He didn’t even need the warning from Miyuki, who was watching him from the end of the street, he had already finished his preparations to use magic.
The leader of the Humanists was standing up.
He was supposed to have been unconscious. Even now, he didn’t look like he had regained consciousness.
Although, that was a trivial issue.
What Tatsuya had reacted to was not an outward abnormality.
The expressionless Humanist had both arms outstretched, and a SB ?? a so-called spirit, was floating over them. No, it was more appropriate to call this ominous purple flame an ‘evil apparition,’ instead of a ‘spirit,’
or so Tatsuya thought.
“Miyuki, stay hidden!”
“Yes!”
Rather than because of Tatsuya’s command, Miyuki retreated from the corner of the street because she was frightened of his menacing attitude.
Tatsuya stuck out his opened hand. A violent stream of Psions were released from his palm.
The purple flames that were hovering over the fanatic’s hands were erased by the gale of Psions.
Gram Demolition. After being hit by this non-systematic magic that was said to be one of the strongest counter magics, this was the obvious result.
“What!?”
However, a startled cry escaped from Tatsuya’s mouth.
That was because the flames of the evil apparition once again flickered on the fanatic’s hands.
It was definitely not impossible to reactivate a magic right after the magic sequence has been blown away by Gram Demolition. Gram Demolition simply struck the target with a high-density stream of Psions. Its effect ended as soon as the stream of Psions stopped. The effect of erasing magic did not persist.
However, recreating the magic required early preparation on the part of the caster. No matter how fast the magician was, they couldn’t omit the step of building the magic sequence. Even people with ‘supernatural abilities’ who didn’t need an activation sequence couldn’t overwrite a phenomenon without a magic sequence.
This process was not detectable within this man.
(This power is not his. A third party is supplying him with SBs) The spirits, no, evil apparitions were being delivered to the young man’s hands by a different caster, ignoring the limits of physical distance and moving along the connection formed by ‘association.’ In short, this meant that the anti-magic faction had become underlings of Ancient Magicians. The person might have had the magic cast upon them without their notice. In fact, the probability of that was high.
Tatsuya once again erased the flames of the evil apparition ?? rather he didn’t actually do that. A person who initiated violence against Magicians because of a terrorist attack presumed to be carried out by Ancient Magicians was, in fact, under the influence of an Ancient Magician. There was no way that this could be a coincidence. Tatsuya used these flames as a foothold, and focused his “eye” on the real body of the caster.
“A-A Magician!?”
“Leader is… a heretic!?”
Seeing the fireballs floating over the young man’s palms, his comrades groaned with shocked voices.
The flames this time weren’t something that only Tatsuya could see. The SB that had been summoned by ?? or rather, had been forcefully pushed onto the young man, took the shape of a purple flame. Since the flames were stained with a dark color, it wasn’t possible to see what was happening to the hand underneath. Perhaps, it didn’t just look like a flame, but also possessed the physical properties of it.
“Uh… Uwaaah!”
The young people who were supposed to be his comrades ran away in all directions like a nest of disturbed spiders.
Tatsuya didn’t chase them. Or rather, there was no need to chase them.
At that moment, the purple sphere burst open.
Instead of a large flame, it became compressed into a small fireball and shot out, then it multiplied into around ten fireballs of the same size, which scattered from the young man’s hand.
The fireballs could not penetrate into buildings. Forget the walls, even the purple flames that came into contact with the window glass vanished without leaving a trace.
However, the trees by the roadside that came into contact with the fireballs were charred black and looked like they would break at any time.
No, the word ‘charred’ was probably not the right way to put it.
The parts that were exposed to the purple flames were dried out and became black with decay. The effect wasn’t like applying a high temperature to them, rather, it was more like their warmth of life was being seeped away.
What would happen if a human came in contact with these flames?
Tatsuya shot down the fireballs that came at him with Gram Demolition—but only the ones that headed directly towards him. He couldn’t deny that he had focused too much of his attention on discovering the true identity of the caster, and as a result, he was falling behind in neutralizing the magic.
Looking at the results, the fireballs weren’t aimed and fired at a particular target. The fireballs that Tatsuya didn’t shoot down passed on either side of him and flew off into the sky. A portion of them also rained down upon the young ?? comrades ?? subordinates.
Several of them let out screams in what could be described as agony in death.
Tatsuya didn’t turn around, but behind him, there was a mysterious phenomenon of human bodies undergoing localized desiccation. Rather than becoming dried out and mummified, only the portions of the body that were hit by the purple flame appeared to be experiencing rapid aging.
Tatsuya didn’t see this condition as it occurred on their bodies, but he recognized that it would be dangerous to ignore this magic. Although he felt that it was a little too late, he cancelled his tracking of the caster and switched his focus to obliterating this magic.
If this magic was being summoned by the leader of the Humanists, then the matter would have been settled simply by knocking him unconscious. However, this young man was just being used as a medium to launch the magic. Besides, it wasn’t possible to knock out someone who was already unconscious. The only thing you could do was to kill them.
That might have been the most efficient way to settle the issue. It was possible that the enemy could control the corpse and use it to relay the magic, but Tatsuya’s method of killing turned flesh into dust. No corpse was to be left behind.
However, he couldn’t use that method now. It would count as excessive self-defense no matter how anyone looked at it, and would only serve to needlessly incite the mass media.
(…The caster who is using the purple flame magic won’t be able to send SB’s here unless he uses that man to relay it.) If the caster could freely launch fireballs at this location while staying hidden somewhere, he wouldn’t go to the trouble of using that young man as a medium. If he made use of other fanatics as well, and created a free-for-all fight, he might have been able to injure Tatsuya.
(There must be some reason why he has to use that man in particular.) ??For instance, he might have a sign carved into him that would serve as a marker to turn him into a medium.
Tatsuya thought of this and focused his ‘eye.’
(This is in the way.)
Once again, Tatsuya used Gram Demolition to blow away the flames hovering over the young man’s hands.
The purple flame SB Magic was reactivated immediately.
(??Found it.)
The seal was carved into the young man’s hand. It was a pattern drawn by Psions that pierced the back of his hand and ran onto his palm. Even momentarily extinguishing the flames was enough for Tatsuya to see through the trick behind relaying the magic.
There was a tattoo drawn on the back of the man’s hand. A pigment similar to his skin color was used to try to hide it. It had a different pattern from the engraving magic that Tatsuya was familiar with, but it had similar properties that allowed one to produce a magical effect by running Psions through it.
Ancient magic still had the edge when it came to such versatility. While thinking of such pointless things, Tatsuya used ‘Decomposition’ on a portion of the tattoo.
Some of the pigment was removed from the center of the tattoo, which was so complex that it seemed impossible to have been drawn by hand.
The pigment was separated from the underlying layers of the skin by the use of decomposition magic.
The last two purple fireballs that shot towards him from the front were shot down using Gram Demolition. By distorting the Psion pattern that served as a marker for the magic relay, it became impossible to remotely operate the SB magic.
The tattoo must have also served to remotely control the leader of the Humanists. The man froze like a statue, his body sitting on the ground with his torso erect and both hands sticking forwards, before falling over backwards.
The young man didn’t get up. It looked like he was really disabled this time.
Tatsuya waited for ten seconds, then relaxed.
From the corner of the street, the voices of policemen could be heard, yelling, “Nobody move!” Tatsuya, at least, did not think that they were useless for arriving after the matter had been settled.
He looked at the trees on either side and furrowed his eyebrows. He then looked back at the condition of the fanatics, and let out a small sigh.
Tatsuya was honestly glad that the policemen didn’t get caught up in the fight. All the policemen stationed in police boxes near the Magic High Schools were magicians who were trained in physical combat, but it was doubtful whether the policemen from the one near the First High School train station could have defended against that SB magic, or neutralized it.
Tatsuya complied with the order to “not move” and stood motionlessly at the same spot. There was no reason to move about now. He didn’t need to move his body to follow the trail of data.
He had obtained the necessary information from the tattoo, which had been the enemy magician’s magical medium, while he decomposed it.
Tatsuya was now following the enemy’s trail in the information dimension.
The effects of the magic had already worn off, but the person who had come into direct contact with the caster and acted as a medium for the magic was lying just a few feet away. In gathering data, there was both temporal proximity, since the magic had been used recently, and spatial proximity, since the medium used to remotely activate the magic was close by. There was also a cause-and-effect relationship formed due to the fact that Tatsuya himself was the target of the caster’s magic.
With so much information to work with, and the fact that information related to the magic was close at hand, it wasn’t hard for Tatsuya to track down the owner—in other words, information on the magician.
He was here because he acted on a vague premonition that something bad was drawing closer to Miyuki. It wasn’t due to his search for Gu Jie, so finding a clue here was a complete coincidence.
It was because of this that Tatsuya had no intention of letting this chance slip away, even if he had to take some risks for it.
Right now, the search for the terrorist by the Ten Master Clans was at a dead-end. Even the Yotsuba Family were unable to uncover any new clues, so people were now starting to get impatient.
However, it wasn’t like Maya was demanding results from him, and Tatsuya himself felt little, rather, no impatience at all. He thought, in private, that it was alright to leave Gu Jie to the police or the Information Division. He also thought that the activities of the anti-magic faction were, to some extent, unavoidable.
It was an irrefutable fact that to non-magicians, magic was as dangerous as a weapon or a bomb. Magicians in their vicinity armed themselves with magic, so it was only natural for unarmed citizens to try and keep them at a distance. Tatsuya felt that this couldn’t be helped, and the only option was to give up and accept it. ??Until just now.
If an enemy magician was taking advantage of the hatred and fear of the anti-magic faction towards magicians in order to use them as pawns, he couldn’t ignore it. Though, perhaps, he hadn’t realized that he himself had become a “magician’s pawn,” but in his case, he was more of a “tool” rather than a “pawn.” On the other hand, from the perspective of a hostile observer, there wasn’t any real difference between being a “pawn” and “tool.”
A wristband with white and red stripes was around the wrist of the Humanist who was used as a magic relay device earlier. It was proof that he was a member of “Egalite,” a lower branch of the national anti-magic organization “Blanche” that Tatsuya had a deep history with.
Controlling Blanche from the shadows was Zhou Gongjin, and Gu Jie commanded Zhou Gongjin. Tatsuya had heard this from various sources.
Looking at the chain of command, the members of Egalite had been pawns of Gu Jie from the start. However, it seemed that the closer one got to the top, the more they resonated with the ideologies of humanism ?? or perhaps, brainwashed ?? and were included in the organization.
This leader didn’t look like he was acting when he shouted about the creed of humanism, either.
As expected, they were being duped. The tattoo used to relay the evil apparitions was probably placed on him without his knowledge.
It would be dangerous if people armed with guns and magic infiltrated unarmed groups of demonstrators again and attacked Miyuki, like what happened just now. That was what Tatsuya was worried about. If he could constantly stay by Miyuki’s side, there would be nothing to fear, but until he captured Gu Jie, he couldn’t do that. Due to the mission, there would be times when he would have no choice but to work away from her.
In order to carry out his mission of exterminating the terrorist, he had no choice but to feel the fear of exposing the one he loved to acts of terrorism. It wasn’t just limited to terrorists. Even if his opponent was a criminal organization, or on a larger scale, a civil war, or even an international war, it would result in the same sense of irony. The only difference between war and terrorism was the whether or not direct attacks on noncombatants were permitted. Perhaps, it was right to say that war and terrorism meant different things only in the modern times because some people differentiated between combatants and noncombatants. Although, it was a different matter, whether or not that rule was always followed.
Still, Tatsuya didn’t have the option of stopping his search for Gu Jie.
Even if he withdrew here, Miyuki’s safety wouldn’t be assured. In the end, the only option that he had was to find Gu Jie as soon as possible and suppress him. There was no other way.
He divided his consciousness into two parts, and sent one half into the large ocean of information. The other half was on the lookout for anyone who might attempt to harm Miyuki, as the other followed the trail of the magician, who had used the purple flame magic.
Information was always attached to an event. If something underwent a change, there would always be traces of information left behind to indicate the “event of a change.” This didn’t change, even if magic, a “technique to manipulate information,” was used. Even information manipulation designed to wipe out the information would leave traces of its own. Even if they tried to paint over the fact that “SB was used,”
even if they used ink of the same colors as the background to overwrite the black ink, the unnatural shade of color would remain behind. In addition, although faint, it would not disappear and could still serve as information about the event.
(…There.)
Information about the magician floated up into Tatsuya’s field of vision.
(It isn’t Gu Jie, but…)
The information that Tatsuya perceived was unfortunately not that of Gu Jie, whom he had encountered in Zama. If the person he had encountered after tracking the information had been Gu Jie, he could have just used Mist Dispersion from here and the matter would be settled. If he could only ‘see’ him clearly, physical distance was of no consequence.
(At this level of clarity, maybe I could gain some detailed information on his location as well?)
One after the other, Tatsuya “read” the information about the magician at the distance. His name was Oumi Kazukiyo, his pseudonym as a magician was “Dollmaker,” and his current location was in Kamakura at…
(Tch!)
All of a sudden, a drastic change was introduced to the information that he was observing. In order to avoid damage from that backlash, he reflexively cut off the connection. Tatsuya’s vision returned to what was observed through his normal sight. The distance between him and the oncoming police had barely changed since he shifted his perception to the information dimension. Less than one second had passed.
(In other words, he killed him as soon as I destroyed his magic.) The change in information was a transition from the state of being alive to death. Tatsuya had began to track down the information a little over ten seconds after destroying the purple flame magic. This was just about the amount of time it would take for a person near the magician to realize what had happened. It was a coincidence that he had been killed while being observed by Tatsuya, but the killing itself might have been premeditated. One of the reasons he could think of for the falling out was that the enemy knew he had the means to track down information, or that they had inferred as much.
“He’s a troublesome opponent…”
Tatsuya let out a sigh a he raised his hands and showed a posture of submission to the approaching police.
Perhaps he could no longer afford to nitpick over his methods.
That’s what Tatsuya thought.
In Oumi Kazukiyo’s mansion, Gu Jie finally began to reflect upon the fact that he was running out of time as he gazed upon the corpse of the owner of the house whom he had just killed.
The reason why Gu Jie killed his friend, an Ancient Magician, was because he had sensed a retaliatory technique. It didn’t fit into any category of magic that he knew of, but he sensed the intent of someone backtracking along the trail of the SB Magic that had been used and was approaching at a frightening speed.
Almost reflexively, Gu Jie had killed Oumi, and thereby cut-off the trail of magic. However, he wasn’t confident that he had managed to entirely block off the enemy’s technique. Even though the risk of being exposed to counter-magic was abated, Gu Jie thought that there was a possibility that his location had been revealed.
He had sensed Tatsuya’s “gaze,” but Gu Jie didn’t know that it was an ability capable only of seeing, not attacking. However, after spending nearly fifty years living a life on the run and conducting his secret feud, Gu Jie was immediately able to detect that momentary observation in the information dimension. ??It was hostility directed towards him.
“I had originally hoped for one more day and night, but…”
Gu Jie murmured as he gazed towards the next room where two human bodies laid. One of these bodies had more potential than any other body he had handled before. It was enough to make Gu Jie feel that it was a waste to use it as a disposable pawn. If he had just one more day, he wouldn’t have had to turn it into a soldier of death ── not a soldier who was prepared to die ── a literal undead soldier. Instead, he could have turned it into long-lasting Generator.
“It’s a waste… though being too greedy is foolish as well.”
Gu Jie shook his head as if to dispel any lingering regrets, then moved towards the next room while holding the elaborately decorated dagger, which he had used to take the life of his old friend, the Ancient Magician, Oumi Kazukiyo.
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