[Activating the skill Magic Barrier.]
The magic bullet the man fired struck the barrier and vanished.
[Switching the prosthetic form to the Lightweight Alloy Power Gauntlet.]
The gauntlet struck the man square in the solar plexus, and he groaned and staggered.
Taking the opening, I grabbed the man by the collar and slammed him to the ground.
"Keheok!"
Having subdued the man, I picked up the mana stone gun that had fallen on the ground.
"Where did you get this thing?"
Magitech engineering might be the trend in Revendale, but not just anyone could make mana stone tools.
Which meant there was no way this man had made this gun.
"Talk. Who gave you this weapon?"
"Keugh, you think I'll just talk because you tell me to?"
Of course he wasn't going to listen to words.
[Lightweight Alloy Power Gauntlet -> Colt Magnum Revolver]
Click-clack.
The man's face stiffened at the sight of the revolver, then, seeing the empty cylinder, he looked incredulous.
"Hah, what are you going to do with no bullets? Hit me with it?"
"No."
[Activating the trait Mana Sovereign.]
I filled the empty cylinder with magic.
[You have obtained the skill Mana Bullet.]
I knew this would work.
Watching the magic fill it right before his eyes, the man panicked and put both hands up.
"W-Wait, I surrender, I surrender! Please, just spare me!"
I searched every pocket of the man's clothes, but nothing in particular turned up.
Just as I was tying the guy's hands behind him, Dorothy arrived late.
"Huff, huff. You're really fast, Mr. Enon. Did you catch the thief?"
"I caught him and tied him up. And he had this on him."
"Hang on, this is a magitech weapon. How does he have something like this?"
"We'll find out by interrogating him now."
We sat the bastard against the wall and started questioning him.
"First, let me ask you one thing. Do you know that a mana stone went missing from a generator in District 6 yesterday?"
"Wh-What generator? I've never been to the factory!"
"I never said it was a factory generator."
"...It's him, all right."
Realizing his slip of the tongue, the man tried to make some excuse, but we didn't listen to a word of it.
"Then one more question. Where did you get this weapon?"
"You've got the same kind of thing, so why are you asking?"
"Quit babbling nonsense and answer my question."
The man hesitated to answer, but at the sight of the revolver's muzzle, he finally opened his mouth.
"The guy who told me to steal the mana stones gave it to me instead of a fee. I don't know who made it or who the client is either."
The man didn't particularly look like he was lying.
Mistaking me for his contact, and the contact changing meeting places again and again, suggested they were deliberately hiding who they were.
'So they don't plan on giving anyone a chance to pick up their trail.'
But there was still a chance.
"When's your next meeting?"
"...The contact should be arriving any minute now."
"Good. Then go back to the auction house and meet your contact."
"W-Wait a minute. You can just catch him yourselves!"
"The contact's meeting you; how would we know who he is?"
"Keugh...."
We untied the man and brought him back in front of the auction house's restroom.
We took up spots near the man and kept watch on him.
But even as time passed and the auction house was about to open, no one approached the man.
"Did he give us a fake meeting place?"
"He wouldn't have lied. The contact probably got to the meeting place first, saw us chasing him, and ran."
Maybe I should've waited a little longer instead of talking to him right away.
It was my mistake to simply assume they'd come to sell the mana stones at the auction house.
In the end, the auction house opened, and only three people were left in the lobby: Dorothy, me, and the man.
"Doesn't look like they're coming, so I can go too, right?"
"What are you talking about? We didn't even catch your contact, and you're a criminal, plain and simple. How can you so brazenly ask to be let go? If you have some other information, though, I'll consider it."
"If I tell you some other information, you'll really let me go?"
"If you're of help, it's possible."
When I said that, Dorothy, beside me, whispered in my ear.
'Is that really okay?'
'Just watch.'
The man thought something over carefully, then soon opened his mouth.
"From what I heard, they're commissioning something from other people besides me too. And I snuck a peek at the guy's notebook, and I saw 'District 6 tomorrow' written in it."
"I see. You didn't misread it, and you're not lying, right?"
"It's the truth, I'm telling you. But if you catch the guy, don't tell him I told you."
"Of course. Then off you go. Oh, and take this back with you too."
I gave the man back the mana stone gun I'd taken from him earlier.
"R-Right. Then I'm out of here!"
The moment he got the gun back, the man hurried out of the auction house.
"Wait a minute, Mr. Enon, you're really just letting him go? Then how are we going to track him?"
To Dorothy, who shouted in alarm, I answered calmly.
"Miss Dorothy, do you think this is the first time that man's taken a job?"
"What are you getting at?"
"Normally, you wouldn't put a weapon like that in the hands of someone you'll use once and throw away. Above all, if he's skilled enough to take a generator apart, they'd keep giving him jobs."
Dorothy, who'd been puzzled by my words, wore a look of realization.
"They've met plenty of times, so they must have set a place to meet in an emergency too!"
"Exactly. Now we follow that man. He'll have to go tell them he's been caught."
I got up from my seat with a faint smile.
"Now we just have to follow the path he so kindly shows us."
***
Chasing the man, who'd already run a long way off, wasn't hard.
All I had to do was follow the thread left by the magic of the mana stone gun he carried.
"So that's why you deliberately gave the gun back. I got scared thinking you were just giving it back."
The thread left where magic had passed didn't last long, so I quickly followed its remaining traces down the road.
"This direction... it's toward District 11. I knew it; meeting somewhere with lots of people seemed weird."
"He probably went to the auction house to see whether the mana stone had sold well."
"Then the mana stone's already been sold at the auction house."
"We lost one mana stone and got better information in exchange, so it worked out."
Soon we spotted the man far down the road and slowly followed behind him.
The farther down into the underground zone we went, the filthier the surroundings got and the darker the atmosphere.
After we'd followed him for quite a while like that, the man turned into a narrow path between buildings.
Dorothy and I followed the man down the path, and just as we neared the end, a voice came from the direction of the passage's entrance.
"Why weren't you there at the meeting time? Don't you want your money?"
"It's not that; some other bastards showed up and dragged me off."
"...Some other bastards? Did you find out who they were?"
"No, they weren't cops, at least. I fed them some info, and they gave me back my weapon and just let me go."
Pressed to the building's wall and listening, I poked my head out slightly and caught sight of the two.
And I could see the contact's face harden.
"...And right after that, you came straight here?"
"Of course I did. I had to tell you somebody else caught on to the job."
"Hah... you stupid bastard. You only know how to handle machines and nothing else."
The contact sighed, then pulled a mana stone gun from inside his coat and shot the man straight in the head.
BANG!
With a bullet hole in his head, the man collapsed helplessly on the spot.
"Come out now. I know you're around here somewhere."
Calmly wiping the blood from his gun, the contact spoke.
He was quick on the uptake, as expected; he'd noticed we were tailing him.
'What do we do?'
'First, hide off to the side, Miss Dorothy.'
Leaving Dorothy by the wall, I showed myself to the contact.
"He said 'bastards,' so why is only one of you coming out? Where are the others? Hiding somewhere, I suppose?"
"You don't need to know that. Wasn't he a pretty useful underling?"
I pointed at the corpse of the man I'd been talking to until just a moment ago.
I'd never seen a corpse in person before, but if anything, I was far too calm.
I couldn't tell whether it was because the situation still didn't feel real, or for some other reason.
"Underling? Don't make me laugh. In my organization, only one person keeps underlings. This bastard merely shortened his own life; he was nothing else."
I knew there'd be an organization behind this.
More importantly, to think only one person kept underlings.
An illegal organization should have a more clearly defined hierarchy than anywhere else.
"On what business have you followed me?"
"Well... I just took a little job, but it seems to have gotten pretty big."
"Hah, just a simple hired hand, then. Then I'll show you one last mercy. Go back quietly and tell your employer you failed the mission. Then you'll keep your life."
In a word, it meant don't come any closer and get lost.
"Well, thanks for the consideration, but I have my own circumstances too."
"You'd volunteer for death even when I'm sparing your life. What a stupid bastard."
With that, the contact's muzzle turned toward me.
BANG!
'Not falling for that twice.'
[Activating the skill Magic Barrier.]
[Activating the skill Mana Bullet.]
Having blocked the bullet, I raised the revolver and struck back.
But the contact dodged my bullet with a quick movement.
I doubted my eyes at movement beyond human speed, but the same went for the guy.
"...You have something similar to mine. Where did you get it? It's not the one this bastard had. Well, you're going to die anyway, so I don't need to know."
As if he had no intention of talking any longer, the contact threw off the robe he was wearing.
What his robe had been hiding was none other than a mechanized left arm and both legs.
'A machine man?'
But before I could even sort out the question, the machine man's legs bent.
Tat!
He'd figured out the mana stone gun was pointless and chosen close combat.
It was a decision that made me feel, instinctively, that he was far more skilled at fighting than I'd thought.
BANG! BANG!
I fired, but he nimbly dodged the shots and thrust out his mechanical arm.
[Colt Magnum Revolver -> Lightweight Alloy Power Gauntlet]
When his fist glanced off my Magic Barrier, I swung the gauntlet into his side.
"Keuk!"
He hadn't expected to have his attack blocked, let alone be countered, so the guy's face crumpled.
"What the hell are you?"
"Didn't you just say you weren't curious since you're going to kill me anyway?"
[Lightweight Alloy Power Gauntlet -> High-Tensile Steel Wire]
The wire I fired at the guy didn't hit him, but it lodged in the wall behind him.
When I reeled in the wire like that, my body shot forward in an instant.
Mid-flight, I switched back to the gauntlet and slammed it into the bastard's stomach.
THUD!
[Lightweight Alloy Power Gauntlet -> Genocide Alloy Blade]
I drove the blade into the prosthetic of the guy, who'd flown into the wall and collapsed, pinning the bastard to the wall.
Maybe bitter at losing the fight, the guy glared at me fiercely and shouted.
"You, where did you get a body like that? Don't tell me you got it from that person?"
"Stop asking questions and answer mine. What are you people? And what are you trying to do by stealing mana stones over and over?"
At my question, the machine man suddenly burst out laughing.
"Hahahaha! You think I'll answer so easily just because you pinned me down once? And don't think I'll lose this easily. I'll make you regret daring to get this close to me."
In that instant, the guy took something out of his pocket and threw it on the ground.
Then a pure white smokescreen spread around us, blocking all sight.
'Where do you think you're going?'
Using Magic Sight, I could tell the bastard had fled in the opposite direction, but he was running away far too fast.
'Chasing him any further will be hard.'
When I looked at where the guy had been, the prosthetic I'd driven the blade into was left behind, torn off.
To think he'd talk like he was about to counterattack and then run away cowardly like this.
Should I call it being good at reading the situation, or just being slippery?
"...What? He ran away? Coward!"
Dorothy, who'd been hiding off to the side the whole time, came out and spoke.
"So what do we do now? The guy got away, and that man... he's dead, so there's nowhere left to get information...."
"No, it's not as if we got no information. Miss Dorothy, did you see what that man looked like just now?"
"Yes. I saw. He had a prosthetic like you, Mr. Enon, and even his legs were mechanical. Wait a sec... don't tell me."
Answering me, Dorothy stopped mid-sentence as if something had come to mind.
In Revendale, countless engineers pursued their own fields.
Simple machines, clockwork devices, and so on; there were countless fields, but there was one field so advanced that few dared to take it on.
"Sir Aitz Molton."
The most outstanding figure in the fields of mana stones and prosthetics that replace the human body, and an important character in the game.
"He'll know something."