<E3>, which activates ether perception, has its drawbacks.
It is bad at nonlethal attacks. Overwhelming speed brings the same level of destructive force with it. Use an attack without restraint on someone who is not a Demon King, and there is a high chance you will kill them.
And then there was Levi.
This sickly pale woman in an obviously cheap-looking hoodie did not appear to be a Demon King, at least. If she were a Demon King with a permanent ether enhancement, Sera’s blow would not have injured her arm. Hell, she probably would have dodged the surprise attack even from that position.
From that, I reached a conclusion.
She was not a Demon King. She was simply an ether-addicted Hero. Meaning she was a worthless piece of shit using an illegal quantity of ether. A criminal, sure, but not criminal enough that killing her would go unpunished.
“—We’re running. Pull out! <E3> is authorized!”
I shouted as I accelerated. What mattered was the image. To control the attack impulse surging up inside me, I had to picture something good.
Games with my shitty friends. Beer going flat. Half-assed junk food. I filled my mind with images of those good things in this world.
Levi closed in instantly. She reacted, as expected, and reached her uninjured left hand toward her waist. I could see the weapon hanging there. A one-handed sword, slightly curved. Judging by its shape, probably something closer to a machete.
Or maybe she had <E3> hidden around there.
Either way, I did not care.
“Run like you mean to live. The rest is your responsibility.”
After saying only that, I swung up the training blade.
The motion doubled as an attack. I struck Levi’s hand viciously as it reached for her waist, and felt the impact land. I probably shattered at least a few finger bones. For the moment, breaking both arms would be enough to make her useless as a fighter.
Levi grimaced and tried to get distance any way she could. She jumped back and rolled. Ideally, I would have liked to smash her legs too, but I did not pursue.
Could not, to be accurate.
Because a gunshot rang out beside me.
I accelerated my thoughts to the limit and looked that way.
“Aki. Too many openings.”
Yukine Indo was just shoving Shirogamine out of the way.
Barely in time, I would say. The man in the suit had a training blade in hand. He had struck Shirogamine with it, then fired a handgun he had apparently kept hidden somewhere.
That was what had happened.
The bullet missed, so that itself was not the problem.
The gunshot was.
“Nicely done.”
Levi muttered while rolling farther away to put more distance between us.
She was right. There was no way the security staff would miss a gunshot. Levi looked at me.
Blue eyes.
That was when I noticed it for the first time. At the collar of her hoodie, there was a badge shining gold. It had a bizarre shape. A monster with its face split in half, or something like that—strangely realistic—
No.
I cut that thought off.
I grabbed Sera by the collar and hauled her up. Her expression had frozen stiff, and her ability to process reality seemed to have completely stopped, so for now I shook her hard. I had no idea what else to do.
“This is no time to freeze.”
Only then did Sera seem to realize what situation she was in. She looked at me with a horrible expression, as if she wanted to unleash every complaint she had in her body—or maybe die of sheer embarrassment.
“Freeze? Who the hell is—”
“Remember this. People who freeze are easier to kill. Got it? Good. Move.”
Then I grabbed Sera’s arm and started running.
“Run.”
An alarm sounded somewhere in the distance. The situation was not good. In the instant we bolted, I caught sight of Levi getting up and glaring after us from the corner of my eye.
I had no attention to spare for Shirogamine and Indo. I dragged Sera out of the gymnasium almost by force.
“Cut it out, damn it!”
Sera’s voice shook as she cursed. Clearly she was furious.
Obviously, that was a lie.
“I can run. Let go. Stop—”
For the sake of her honor, though, I decided I would treat it as anger. I kept running down the hallway. The alarm was loud as hell. The security guards who had been dozing off were probably panicking right about now. This chapter was taken from novelping . com without permission.
I had thought this when we broke in, but the Academy’s security was not exactly strict. If we pushed through the gymnasium entrance, all that waited beyond it was a crappy courtyard and a wall that did not even have barbed wire.
“—I said cut it out!”
Sera showed fierce resistance again right after we got through the entrance. She thrashed so violently that I had to consider the risk of accidentally crushing her bones, so I had no choice but to let go in the scrubby trees of the crappy courtyard.
Sera stumbled to a stop.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
Her breathing was rough. It was dark, so I could not see her expression clearly, and not looking too closely was what you called mercy. Under normal circumstances, I might have teased her. But given the situation—and also, yes, because her dad was way too terrifying—I held back.
“I—”
“Don’t make me waste more effort. I’m irritated. Use <E3> now. Otherwise I’m throwing you.”
I cut off whatever Sera was trying to say, whether it was a complaint, an excuse, or something else entirely.
“Wait. No. That’s not it. I’m not—”
Sera still tried to say something.
So I had no choice but to grab her by the scruff of the neck. If I did not, I felt like I might hit her. The attack impulse was quietly eating into my nerves.
“Go. Now.”
I gave the order sharp and one-sided.
Sera bit her lip. Then she drove <E3> into the side of her neck and leapt away at once.
I made a point of not looking at her face.
About three seconds passed.
At last, I sensed a presence behind me and turned. The alarm was still blaring, but that was not what concerned me. A figure had slipped out from the gymnasium. A small woman with a fluttering hoodie and blue eyes.
Levi.
Since hiding seemed meaningless, I waited for her with the training blade in one hand. Once Levi stepped into the scrubby trees, she picked up even more speed. Her right hand had already drawn a broad, gently curved sword.
In old terms, it was the kind of weapon called a falchion.
Which meant her right hand had already healed. Her left fingers too, most likely. It was obvious she had used <E3>.
“So you came after me after all.”
I would have been happy if my prediction had been wrong.
Earlier, she had said she would trace it. I had no way of knowing the principle behind it, but there was a high chance she had some form of ether perception suited to tracking. And in fact, here she was, chasing straight after me.
The man in the suit not being with her was a lucky break.
So what now?
I let my thoughts run at high speed. My weapon was one training blade. The length was just right, but it was far too unreliable. Other than that, I had a stun gun, some homemade security spray, and a few other tools that were all pretty underwhelming against a wary professional Hero.
I should have brought my usual bastard sword. With that in hand, I was strong enough to surprise even myself.
But with the alarm screeching this obnoxiously, it would be hard to create an opening through conversation or distract her with words.
More importantly, the longer this took, the more trouble it would cause for me too.
Then there was only the ordinary option.
In other words, handle it with ability.
I made that decision and took a single step back, observing Levi as she charged straight in.
Her speed was beyond human. Grass exploded under her feet, crushed and scattered. That meant she had shifted into an attack motion.
I probably gave a bitter smile despite myself.
“You’re really trying to kill me?”
Levi’s curved blade whipped out from her right hand with a fierce slicing sound. From below, the blade traced a distinctive path, almost like it was rotating upward.
For a falchion, with its broad curved blade, one of its greatest features was cutting power.
Under no circumstances should you block it with a synthetic-resin training blade.
So I had no choice but to dodge.
Up.
“Hey.” Get faster updates on g.com.
With an instantaneous leap, I had landed on top of the wall. Levi was below me now.
“Let’s not. Fighting here won’t make either of us a single yen.”
Levi gave no response. She kept her stance low, holding the curved blade overhead as she glared up at me. Almost no emotion could be read from her blue eyes.
“It’ll be a pain if the security guards show up too, right?”
I did not give up on persuasion.
In reality, this situation had to be inconvenient for Levi too. I had taken the advantageous position “on top of the wall.”
This was one of the basic laws of conflict. Attacking upward from below was always a pain. She would also have to consider the possibility that I had some powerful weapon other than this training blade.
But nothing ever flows in a peaceful direction.
Maybe that was just how the Hero business worked. In any case, that was how it went then.
“I see.”
Levi’s warped, hoarse murmur reached me clearly.
“Your reactions are quite fast. Your ether perception is an enhancement type.”
She had nailed it.
As expected.
I was a little troubled and was about to answer with some suitable bullshit.
At that instant, Levi jumped.
The hell she did.
I obviously could not block with the training blade, so I was forced to knock her away. But the strength ether drew out was greater in women than in men.
As a result, I was blown back and fell from the wall down to the road.
“Hah.”
Levi gave a faint laugh.
I managed to break my fall somehow, and now Levi was the one looking down at me from the top of the wall.
“Now it’s reversed. However—”
Levi jumped from the wall. Her curved blade drew a distinctive path, as if twisting the air around it.
“I do not negotiate.”
This was extremely bad.
I accelerated my thoughts even further. It was not as if I had no way to break through. There was a sword technique my master had taught me.
But coming out of it unharmed would be hard. There was a risk I would lose one of my arms. And it was not guaranteed to kill her. Then should I use tools? Stun gun. Tear spray. Did I have time to pull them out and ready them?
That was not very realistic.
Fine. Guess I had to commit.
I had half convinced myself of that. Up to this point, I think I had been thinking with remarkable seriousness, for me.
But difficult situations tend to amplify themselves, and serious developments rarely last long.
My ears caught footsteps that were far too light.
My ether perception was all about knowing. So I knew the quality of the footsteps. I knew their speed. I knew that someone was approaching.
Put together, it left me extremely exasperated.
The small body of Levi descending toward me was struck by a bullet-fast figure flying in from the side—in other words, a girl.
A girl in a tracksuit, a girl who was always doing something absurd.
Aki Shirogamine sent Levi flying.
Levi was blown away without a sound and went rolling across the asphalt.
“Master.”
Shirogamine declared with perfect confidence.
“Your beautiful disciple has come to rescue you, so perhaps you could look a little happier?”
This had become a problem, I thought.