The walk home took longer than Reinhard expected.
The Royal Auction House was on the other side of the city, and by the time he left, most of the streets were already quiet.
The glow of storefronts reflected off the pavement as he walked with his hands in his coat pockets.
Reinhard was in a good mood.
He’d spent nearly all his money on Emily’s research, but he didn’t regret it. If the research contained even a small clue about restoring her Gnosis, the money had been worth it.
He smiled. Emily’s going to like this.
He continued walking, then his expression changed slightly. His senses began focusing on the heartbeat and breathing of someone behind him. Then the hostile intent flashed before it faded away when he turned the corner.
And then it reappeared again.
He didn’t turn around, simply slowed his pace. The footsteps behind him slowed as well.
Interesting.
He then spread out his mana sense to feel the man’s mana as clearly as if he were looking straight at him. The distance between them hadn’t changed in the last two blocks.
"Three blocks," Reinhard murmured. "Three blocks, and he hasn’t even offered to buy me dinner."
He glanced at a shop window as he passed. His reflection looked back at him: dark suit, long coat, sunglasses, and he paused just long enough to fix his collar.
Quality control. Still perfect. If someone wanted to follow him, they should at least get a good view.
A few steps later, he quietly activated Fooling and let the mana spread around him. The illusion kept strolling down the sidewalk with the exact same confident walk, while the real Reinhard slipped sideways into an alley and leaned against the wall to watch.
The man trailed the illusion for a few more seconds, then raised his hand. A sharp burst of mana tore through the air and punched a hole straight through the illusion’s back, and the fake Reinhard crumpled to the pavement.
Reinhard’s eyebrows rose above his sunglasses. He tried to kill me?
His gaze dropped to his fallen illusion, sprawled on the sidewalk with its limbs twisted at an awkward angle. But I would never fall that ugly.
He’d expected a robbery, or maybe a kidnapping. He hadn’t expected someone to try to kill him without even saying hello first, and that made him much more interested.
A blue window appeared in front of him.
[Investment Opportunity Available.]
His eyes narrowed slightly.
[Target: Emily Ashcroft.]
[Objective: Follow the individual and retrieve the remaining Gnosis recovery research.]
[Difficulty Grade: D.]
[Success Probability: 55%.]
He looked at the man, then back at the System window. Remaining?
He suddenly remembered the collection he’d purchased at the auction. He hadn’t actually gone through the research yet. But if Akasha was telling him to retrieve the remaining information.
Then there had to be something the collection didn’t contain. So what I bought wasn’t the whole thing.
Out on the sidewalk, the man crouched beside the illusion and patted its coat, then its pockets, then its coat again.
He looked up and down the street, checked under a nearby bench, and finally stood up with his hands on his hips and let out a long, miserable sigh, the sigh of a man who was about to get yelled at by his boss.
Then the illusion faded, and the man stared at the empty pavement where the body had been, took one full step backward, and hurried away without looking back.
Reinhard pushed off the wall. "Poor guy." He started after him. "His day’s about to get so much worse."
...
The man moved quickly, avoiding the main streets and taking smaller roads through the older part of the city. Reinhard followed from a distance. He didn’t need to get close.
His Magic Sensing let him track the man through walls and buildings. And the experience granted by the System made the process feel almost instinctive.
At one point, the man spun around and stared hard down the street behind him. Reinhard, standing twenty meters back beside a street vendor, calmly paid for a meat skewer and took a bite.
The man’s eyes passed right over him and kept going.
"Tailing is hungry work," Reinhard told the vendor, who nodded as if that were completely normal.
The man finally stopped in front of an abandoned building, looked around one last time, and slipped through the rusted front door.
Reinhard finished his skewer across the street and studied the broken windows and peeling walls.
"An abandoned building. Very original." He tossed the stick into a bin. "Even the bad guys can’t afford rent in this city."
He circled around the side instead of using the front, found a broken window, and slipped through it without making a sound.
The inside was dark and thick with dust, with old furniture shoved against the walls. He moved through it slowly until his senses picked up several sources of mana gathered in one room, and he stopped behind a doorway.
Four people stood around an old wooden table with a thick folder resting on top of it.
"Did you eliminate the buyer?" asked the one who seemed to be in charge.
"Yes," said the man Reinhard had followed. "But he didn’t have the file on him."
"Did you check his pockets?"
"I checked everything. And then his body sort of... went away."
The leader stared at him. "What do you mean it went away?"
"It kind of faded."
"People don’t fade!"
"This one did!"
Behind the doorway, Reinhard pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.
"This is troubling," said a third man, rubbing his temple.
"We never should have let that collection reach the auction," the leader muttered.
The fourth man yawned loudly. "Does it matter? The important parts were never in the auction collection anyway." He nodded at the folder on the table. "They’re right here."
"Even one record getting out is trouble. We were told to erase all of it."
His eyes narrowed. So that’s it.
One of the men opened the folder. "Anyway, where should we send this?"
"I haven’t gotten a buyer ready yet."
Oh? Then I don’t need to worry.
[Investment Objective Completed.]
[D-Grade Investment Successful.]
[Calculating Returns...]
His eyes lit up.
[Reward Calculation Complete.]
[Legendary Skill Obtained: Danger Intuition.]
[Effect: Allows the user to instinctively perceive the direction and trajectory of imminent attacks.]
[Limitation: Perception does not guarantee evasion. The user must still possess sufficient speed and control to respond.]
He blinked, then smiled. That sounds useful.
Then came the next notification.
[Additional Reward Granted: Full Body Physical Enhancement.]
[Effect: The user’s physical strength, speed, durability, and recovery have been permanently enhanced beyond normal human limits.]
The change hit him instantly. His muscles tightened, his bones felt denser, and every part of his body grew lighter and stronger at the same time. He clenched his fist without thinking, and the old cabinet he was leaning against let out a long, loud creak.
All four men turned toward the doorway at once.
Reinhard stayed perfectly still.
"...It’s an abandoned building," the yawning man said eventually. "It creaks."
The others slowly turned back to the table, and Reinhard let out a silent breath. Thank you, yawning guy. You’ll be the last one I punch.
Another notification appeared.
[Additional Reward Granted.]
[2 Years of Mana Reinforcement Experience.]
[Effect: Grants two years of practical experience utilizing mana to reinforce the body.]
The knowledge flooded into his mind—how to reinforce his muscles and bones, distribute mana efficiently, and concentrate exactly where he needed it.
Reinhard flexed his fingers.
He could suddenly feel every part of his body more clearly.
A final notification appeared.
[Additional Reward Granted.]
[4 Months of Mana Infusion.]
Mana immediately surged into his Gnosis. His eyes widened slightly at the sensation, his Gnosis absorbing the mana at an astonishing rate, steadily becoming denser and more powerful.
Then the System disappeared, and a new window opened.
[Investment Opportunity Available.]
His grin widened.
[Target: Emily Ashcroft.]
[Current Value: C+]
[Objective: Kill the four individuals responsible for suppressing Gnosis recovery research and obtain the remaining Gnosis recovery information.]
[Difficulty Grade: C.]
[Success Probability: 70%.]
Reinhard looked at the four men, adjusted his sunglasses, and stepped into the room. "Yo, is this the secret club meeting? Nobody sent me an invite, but I figured the dress code was abandoned building casual, so I came anyway."
Three of them snapped into motion at once. One drew a short sword, another gathered mana into his palm, and the third dropped into a stance.
The man Reinhard had followed didn’t move at all. He only stared with his mouth hanging open. "Wait... didn’t you die?!"
"I did, and very rudely too." Reinhard brushed some dust off his sleeve. "You shot me in the back and didn’t even let me finish my walk. Who raised you?"
The man’s face twisted in pure horror, and the leader smacked him on the back of the head. "Pull yourself together!"
The man in the fighting stance studied Reinhard carefully. "You’re an Awakener?"
"Apparently. I only found out last week, so please be gentle."
"Impossible!" the follower shouted. "Unless..."
"Who cares?" the man gathering mana snapped. "Kill him!"
The follower attacked first, launching a blade of compressed mana straight at Reinhard’s head.
Reinhard didn’t think about moving.
He simply knew where the blade would go, and his head tilted just enough for it to whistle past his cheek and bury itself in the wall behind him.
So that’s Danger Intuition.
He smiled. "Okay, I like that one."
The leader lunged at him from behind. Reinhard felt the strike before it came, ducked under it, caught the man’s wrist, and pulled. The leader’s own momentum threw him forward straight into Reinhard’s rising knee, and the impact sent him crashing through the wooden table in an explosion of splinters.
"What the..."
Reinhard looked down at his knee with genuine surprise. "Wow. Sorry, I’m still breaking in the new body." He looked at the leader groaning in the wreckage. "That one’s on me."
The others stared at him.
"You really are an Awakener," the stance man breathed. "What rank?"
Reinhard thought about it. "Let’s just say higher than yours and leave it there, because you look like the type who would cry about it."
"Don’t mock me!"
A volley of mana bullets ripped across the room, and Reinhard was already moving, sliding left, then right, then dipping low, every trajectory laid out in his mind before the bullets even left the man’s hands.
"You keep aiming for my face." He leaned back as one passed an inch from his nose. "I understand the temptation, I really do, but no."
He slipped between the attacks as the short-sword wielder rushed toward him. Reinhard stepped forward instead of back, caught the man’s arm, and twisted.
Crack.
The man’s shoulder dislocated.
"We’re already doing that?"
A kick sent him crashing to the floor. Before he could recover, Reinhard was already on top of him. A few heavy blows were enough to leave the man unconscious. The yawning man tried to run, but Reinhard already appeared next to him.
"Leaving already? I promise you would be the last I punch."
He caught the man before he reached the door and punched him. The man flew backward and crashed to the ground. Silence filled the abandoned building, and all of them were dead.
Reinhard turned toward the wooden table and picked up the records that had never reached the auction.
A blue System window appeared in front of him.
[Required Information Obtained.]
He looked at the notification, his smile returning.
[Reward Calculation Beginning...]