2
The Lord’s offices.
The inside of the facility was more or less empty.
Even the guards from Special Division I generally stood watch from outside and rarely entered the Lord’s office.
“Basically, we’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”
The hallways were silent.
Jhin, who leaned against a wall, peered at a screen in his hand. It flipped through different images of feeds coming from surveillance cameras all over the Lord’s office.
There were enough for all the floors, 239 cameras in total.
The footage was divided into twenty-four images that were all shown for twenty-second intervals before switching. In other words, the entirety of the Lord’s office could be seen in about two hundred seconds.
“No changes. No intruders. Actually, even if there were one, the Special Division I guards outside would notice first.”
“…Yeah.”
Next to Jhin, Mismis stared up at the ceiling.
She held a comm in her hand.
She checked it nearly every minute but hadn’t received any new information from headquarters.
“Still waiting for news on ex-commander Shanorotte?”
“…Yeah.”
Mismis only silently nodded at Jhin’s blunt question.
Shanorotte was somewhere within a military base.
Headquarters had confirmed that the ID she had stolen was already inside a base from its electrical signal.
“What is Noro planning…?”
“Definitely nothing good.”
Jhin never turned away from the security footage.
“The base is too big. It’s the perfect place to hide…but we know what Shanorotte looks like, too. She won’t be able to saunter around the base at least.”
Yes.
Just like Jhin said, even if she was on the base, it wasn’t as though she could accomplish anything here.
All the surveillance cameras suddenly turned off.
“What?!”
Mismis, who had been looking up at a security camera, saw the light that indicated the camera was functioning turn off.
“Jhin?!”
“Of the 239 cameras, 181 turned off. The ones that are still on…”
“There are fifty-eight!”
“Now twenty-seven. Even more turned off.”
Jhin put the screen away into his breast pocket and pulled out a comm.
He quickly worked the monitor.
“A power failure… Multiple cables at the base just so happened to cut out without warning.
“How about dedicated emergency generators?! Risya said that the Lord’s office has a separate powerline from the base, so—”
“That’s also malfunctioning. But the cables should be buried underground.”
Jhin was silent for a while. He was looking at the page dedicated to the base’s maintenance management system.
“I got it. The emergency generators aren’t malfunctioning because of the cable. It’s because of unusually high voltage.”
“Uh…”
“It’s like when lightning strikes and breaks a computer. The high voltage took out three of the seven emergency generators.”
Lightning.
The lightning strikes Shanorotte could unleash flitted through Mismis’s mind.
“This is bad, Jhin! If this is happening because of Lightning astral power, then the person behind it is—”
“Well… It’s not all that simple.”
Jhin shook his head.
“The generators have got SPDs—surge protective devices. These electrical surges are pretty common when lightning strikes. The base’s maintenance management department would’ve made sure to have some preventative measures for these situations.”
“S-so the SPDs failed?”
“No.”
As Jhin looked at the monitor, he clucked his tongue.
“The surge was higher than what the SPDs could handle. I’ll put this in a way you’ll understand. The lightning strike was a little stronger than what they expected, so the countermeasures didn’t help.”
“……Huh?”
Something felt off.
Shanorotte’s astral power was only strong enough to knock a single person unconscious.
For a spy, that was more than enough, of course, and it was dangerous at point-blank range…but it shouldn’t have been more destructive than natural lightning.
“Then this electrical failure is different?”
“Like I said, it’s not so simple.”
Jhin pushed away from the wall.
He scowled in irritation.
“This is probably Shanorotte’s doing.”
“What? B-but Jhin, how do you know that?!”
“The base’s security cameras are all down and there are only four emergency electrical generators left. On top of that, the electrical lines were cut, so it’ll take a while for power to be restored. Those are the exact conditions Shanorotte needs to do whatever she wants.”
“B-but the electrical system failure—”
…couldn’t have been caused by Shanorotte.
Mismis had started to say, but in that moment…
They felt an explosion from below that shook the Lord’s office.
“Wh-what was that?!”
They heard a shrill warning alarm go off.
The astral energy sensors that were still barely holding on were blinking a striking red color. It was the first time they were seeing this in the Lord’s office.
“That was pretty fast… So she’s prepped to do this, then.”
Jhin quickly strode down the corridor.
He put his comm away into his breast pocket and took his gun, which had been hanging from his shoulder, into his hands.
“Let’s go, boss. It’s the first floor of the Lord’s office. Shanorotte is here.”
“Whuh…?”
“Mizerhyby from the Hydra has the power to make others’ astral powers stronger, right?”
“Wha?!”
That was right. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
Even if Shanorotte’s astral power was weak, if it was powered up to its maximum potential, she could create a lightning strike more powerful than a real bolt of lightning.
“Right now, our defenses are focused on the astral power research facility, Omen. She’s using that as an opening to attack us solo. That’s what’s going on.”
“B-but all on her own…?”
“She doesn’t care about her own life. She just wants to land a blow on the head honcho.”
In other words…
Shanorotte’s aim was to kill the Lord.
That was exactly the type of thing a witch would be obsessed with.
Shanorotte was part of the Zoa’s faction, which wanted to burn the entire Empire to the ground. She had likely realized something.
Once Lord Mask fell, she knew that her dream would never come to be.
In that case, she had decided to cast aside her own life in order to kill the Lord.
“Then that explosion we heard below us…,” Mismis said.
“There are two possibilities. She either clashed with the guards outside, or she’s already—”
The silver-haired sniper suddenly came to a stop.
A gigantic door around the corner had been blown off as though someone had blasted through it with a superpowered laser beam.
“No…way …”
Mismis was so shocked she could barely speak.
She felt her cold sweat dripping down her face as she held her breath.
“This isn’t something a single astral mage could do with Lightning…”
“She’s not the Shanorotte we knew. We should operate under the assumption she has as much power as a Lightning purebred type.”
Jhin jerked his chin forward.
The remnants of the door smoldered.
The trouble was that the area ahead was split into two paths.
“Right or left, which way did Shanorotte go? She must’ve chosen one—”
“Jhin…”
As Jhin looked down the two paths, Mismis hesitantly continued. “The surveillance cameras aren’t working. If she gets away here, then we won’t be able to track her down… So we should split up and look for her.”
“That’s too dangerous,” Jhin replied immediately, not hesitating for even a second.
However, the silver-haired sniper still slowly turned around.
“But it looks like you knew that already. So why’d you propose it?”
“Well, I…”
She placed her fist over her chest.
Her legs quivered slightly. She stared at her knees.
“There’s something I still want to say to Noro. But I think if we’re together, she might be too on guard and won’t listen.”
“And you think she’ll be more relaxed if she’s just around you?”
“I think she looks down on me. So if we meet, I don’t think she’ll use her astral power or try to shoot me.”
“…”
Jhin went silent.
Before he could say anything else, Mismis gave him a reassuring nod.
“But that’s all right. As long as she’ll listen to me…!”
“You can do what you like when you find her, boss. But you’ve gotta call me right away, and you’ve only got until I get there. I don’t know how many dozen or so seconds that’ll get you, but if it doesn’t work out, then give up.”
“Okay!”
“Turn on your comm’s transmitter.”
Jhin headed to the right.
Mismis headed to the left.
Shanorotte had chosen one of these paths. She would be right there in front of one of them.
“Noro…where are you…?!”
Mismis’s footsteps echoed as she ran.
She had no idea where Shanorotte could be lurking. It wasn’t the best plan to make her movements known while not knowing where Shanorotte was, but Mismis was okay with that.
It was fine if Shanorotte looked down on her.
That Shanorotte thought of her as someone who would do something this careless.
Because then she might stop and listen to what Mismis had to say, even for a moment.
“Norooo!”
“Heeey, Mis! You called?”
Her heart skipped a beat.
It couldn’t be.
How could Shanorotte have found her so quickly? It had happened so fast that Mismis wasn’t even ready yet.
“Hmm? What’s wrong? Why’d you suddenly go silent?”
“…”
“Oh, this? I caught him just earlier.”
Shanorotte held a man by his collar in one hand. He dangled in the air as she lifted him up.
He was a black-haired, middle-aged man with a mustache. He was slightly large, even for a man, and probably weighed twice as much as Mismis.
Even for an ex-commander, she had to have incredible strength to hold him up with one hand.
But who was she holding?
It was the Lord’s body double.
He was the Lord Yunmelngen who would show up on TV, in magazines, and in front of the Imperial people.
Shanorotte didn’t know who the real Lord was.
That must have been why she had attacked the body double and captured him.
“He’s a fake, isn’t he?”
“Guh.”
“Ah-ha-ha. You don’t need to hide it. Even I never believed the guy on the TV was the real Lord. I caught him so somebody would spit out the location of the real one. That’s all.”
Thud…
The body double fell to the ground at her feet.
Shanorotte didn’t even look at the man as she smiled and squinted.
“Since they’ve set up such a strong-looking man as the fake Lord, maybe the real one is a weak old man? Or maybe just a young kid? Also, Mis, you were promoted to Special Division I? Congrats.”
Mismis shuddered when she saw Shanorotte’s inhumanly cold smile.
“In other words, you know who the real Lord is, don’t you?”
“…”
“I’m so glad that we bumped into each other. I mean it. I’m not lying about how I feel. After all—”
Shanorotte placed a hand on her chest.
She bent forward as though to be at eye level with Mismis.
“I was prepared to die instantly at the hands of a Saint Disciple the moment I got in here, but instead I came across an idiot like you!”
“Huh!”
An intense sound rang out through the space as Shanorotte charged forward.
She rushed at Mismis with the force of a beast.
Mismis used everything in her power to leap back, but they had both taken action at the same time. Shanorotte’s larger physique meant she also had longer strides.
One of them charged and the other retreated.
For every step, the distance between them shrank by a meter.
“Ah-ha-ha. You’re so adorable, Mis! You think you can get away from me like—”
Shanorotte spun around.
She had felt a strange presence at the four-way intersection of the hall.
It was a bipedal mechanical soldier. It wore a massive armor covering, reminiscent of the Object, which could withstand multiple astral power attacks and bullets.
Over thirty of them stood in the hall.
“Oh? Looks like the security system is up to snuff here. But……”
Bzzt.
A flash of lightning appeared from Shanorotte’s right hand.
The moment Mismis realized what she was seeing, Shanorotte created dozens of lightning bolts thicker than a human torso and a laser beam concentrated at the center of the bolts that flashed as it shot off.
“Could you not get in my way?”
As she cleaved away parts of the hallway, she also slashed through the security cameras and astral energy sensors on the ceiling.
She blasted away every single one of the mechanical soldiers and scorched the back wall black.
“No way…”
Appalled, Mismis looked over the scene.
The lightning bolt had been bigger than what should have been possible.
The flash of light had filled the entire corridor. No one could have avoided being hit if they’d been in Shanorotte’s path.
“What do you think, Mismis? Impressive, right?”
Shanorotte turned around.
She held up her right hand as if showing it off as it continued to crackle.
“Oh, but I won’t use it on you, of course, Mis. I need to get the Lord’s location out of you, after all. I’ll torment you with little zaps one at a time.”
“Ah! Noro, please listen to me!”
She glared back at Shanorotte, who looked down on her.
She knew it.
Shanorotte really did look down on her. Shanorotte didn’t even see her as a threat. That was why she would listen to what Mismis said. She was so sure that Mismis could do nothing to her.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Noro…”
“Hunh. Okay, I’ll give you twenty seconds. But you only get to talk.”
“…”
She stared back at the eyes that looked down on her.
“Even I think it’s odd, but I still don’t think of you as an enemy, Noro…”
“Hmm?”
“So please stop! You are amazing right now, Noro…but the Empire isn’t so weak that your infiltrating the Lord’s office will actually hurt it! You’re throwing away your life, Noro! It’s difficult to watch!”
“…Hunh? Are you an idiot?”
The blond witch openly showed her disdain.
Deep wrinkles formed on her forehead.
“Look. You guys think I’m a witch, so that’s why I stole an ID from an Imperial forces member, snuck into the base, and came here for the Lord’s head. What’s the point of you trying to change my mind? Oh, I get it, this is your roundabout way of telling me to surrender.”
“But it’s not. That’s not true, Noro.”
“What isn’t true?”
“I just…can’t hate you, Noro…”
“Even though I loathe Imperials?”
“…”
She knew.
Shanorotte Gregory was born and raised in the Nebulis Sovereignty. She had trained as a spy under the Zoa household and had snuck into the Imperial forces knowing she might die.
She had done it for all her kindred.
She had done it all to destroy the Empire.
Mismis knew that the smiles they had shared since military school had all been fake.
“You hate Imperials, Noro?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“What about astral mages?”
“What about them?”
She blinked in surprise for a moment.
Then Shanorotte gave her a large, cheerful nod and a smile.
“The astral mages are my precious comrades. Unlike you.”
Of course.
Of course she would say that. To her, being an Imperial or an astral mage was mutually exclusive.
“Then…I’m one of your comrades, too!”
“What?”
There was no point in talking now.
Mismis just silently and quickly pulled off her jacket. With her shirt exposed, she used the momentum to tear off the self-adhesive bandage on her left shoulder.
Light overflowed from it.
The green astral crest on her shoulder was exposed.
“I’m the same as you, Noro! I’m an astral mage… I became one.”
“Wha?!”
Shanorotte’s face froze.
The truth that had been thrust before her was so unbelievable that her heart stopped for a moment.
“How…?” Shanorotte murmured.
To her, astral mages were born the way they were. She couldn’t fathom an Imperial like Mismis awakening as an astral mage.
But there was one exception.
“Oh, I get it now.”
She let out a sigh.
Irritation came over Shanorotte’s face.
“The vortex.”
“…Yes.”
“You didn’t jump in though, I bet. You must have slipped or tripped into the hole.”
“That’s why I wanted to tell you… I don’t think of you as an enemy, Noro.”
She held her left shoulder.
Even as she tried desperately to hide it, the light overflowed through the gaps in her fingers.
“Ever since I ended up in this position, I’ve come to understand a little of how you felt, Noro. I know how suffocating life in the Empire feels.”
The Empire was a place where witches weren’t allowed to live.
Astral energy sensors were everywhere, and if they reacted, Imperial soldiers would rush in.
Ever since this happened to me…
Even my home in the Imperial forces’ barracks feels like a cage for a witch.
She had no idea when the sensors might go off.
She had no idea when the Imperial units or her coworkers might find out about it. She had no idea how they would look at her. Just imagining it chilled her. It was as though all the blood in her body would freeze over.
“Once I realized that, I wondered what I would even do from that point on…”
As an Imperial forces member, the Sovereignty would despise her.
As an astral mage, the Empire would hate her.
She had ended up in such a position that she didn’t belong in either country.
“So as an Imperial soldier, and as someone who used to work with you! I can’t help but think of you, Noro, since you’re an astral mage!”
The closest person to have ever been in her position was Shanorotte.
“So please, Noro! I don’t want—”
“I take back my words.”
A bullet grazed Mismis’s left shoulder.
“Ow…” Mismis yelled when she felt pain the like of which she’d never experienced before.
Her astral crest had been hit.
It had only been grazed. The very center of her green astral crest had split and oozed a drop of red.
“No…ro…?”
“Say, Mis, I think that I hate you even more than Imperials.”
It was an Imperial forces gun.
The former commander fidgeted with the gun with experienced hands. She had likely stolen it at the base.
“Must’ve been so nice for you. You’ve got excellent subordinates working for you and a smart superior officer looking out for you. They spoiled you rotten until you got to where you are now.”
“Huh?!”
“You get on my nerves! Each and every one of your tepid words!”
Shanorotte flexed the finger on the trigger of the gun she held.
While trying to withstand the searing pain in her left shoulder, Mismis lunged. She tumbled into the four-way cross of the corridor and hid behind a corner of it.
“Gah…?!”
All the nerves in her bones from her head to her toes screamed in pain.
Her bones felt like they were burning.
She couldn’t move and collapsed like she had lost all control over her body. She had felt this pain once before.
“Too bad for you, Mis. A wall can stop bullets, but not my lightning bolts.”
Thunk.
Shanorotte threw aside her gun; it was out of bullets.
“Oh? What’s wrong? Why are you lying there? You did all of this to make friends with me, didn’t you?”
Mismis’s vision grew hazy. In front of her, Shanorotte leaned forward with her arms outstretched. She acted as though she wanted a hug.
“Come on, Mis. If you walk over here, I’ll give you a hug. You like me, don’t you? Then I’m sure you’ll be able to stand up.”
“…”
“What’s wrong? You can’t get up? Then you definitely are—”
“Don’t test me…”
“?”
“No matter how much of a fool you make of me…I can’t bring myself to hate you, Noro.”
Mismis gritted her teeth.
She just barely held on to her fading consciousness as she tried to lift herself using her arms.
Her limbs twitched. She couldn’t get up. She was face down on the floor and couldn’t pull herself up.
But she was able to look at Shanorotte with the eyes she was barely able to move.
“Noro…I don’t want to talk to you like this… Please…”
“That’s enough.”
The atmosphere in the place changed.
Mismis heard a crackle. Lightning curled itself around Shanorotte’s body like a snake, converging on her right arm.
This was a real Lightning bolt.
That was what Shanorotte’s eyes told her as the former commander stared down at her like she was something dirty.
“I’ll find the Lord myself. I don’t want to see your shifty eyes or yappy mouth anymore.”
“Huh?!”
“I’ll zap you out of existence. By using my maximum power.”
Her right arm glowed a golden yellow.
The Lightning, which was as strong if not stronger than natural lightning, came down with Shanorotte’s hand. An earsplitting screech followed it…
……
………Huh?
But instead of the roar of Lightning, Mismis heard the voice of the Wind.
So E lu emne xel noi Es—accept me.
She wasn’t sure when or where she had heard it.
It was curious.
Shanorotte’s Lightning was so close and roared so loudly.
But she felt the rustle of the Wind was much louder.
That was because…
She heard the sound coming from within herself.
“Commander, have you heard the voice of the astral power before?”
Deep in the past, after promising to deliver Sisbell to the Sovereignty, the princess had asked her that question.
But…
Why had she remembered that at a time like this?
“You must hear something when your mind wanders, yes?”
“That is when you will awaken as an astral mage.”
When her mind wandered…
She would hear a voice? And awaken?
So E lu emne xel noi Es—accept me.
Sez nemne Es tury—I will give you a blessing. Uhw kis melras wop kyel eis pheno—a power that connects you to her.
E ema evoia fert Ez lihit—you will become everything you want to be. Xel cia miel bie shel—I will fulfill your wish.
She felt something violently sweep over her.
The green glitter of light whirled from Mismis’s left shoulder as it filled the corridor in the Lord’s office.
It felt warm.
The gust as gentle as a spring breeze eddied as the lightning raged.
“Huh?! Is that Wind?!”
Shanorotte, who was an experienced astral mage, realized this was Mismis’s astral power.
Wind?
But there were all varieties of Wind. There were squalls that turned wind into razor-sharp gusts that would slice through an opponent, or the queen’s blasts that could scatter an enemy.
Or was this type of Wind a barrier?
She couldn’t see Wind. Attempting to identify it would be exceedingly difficult.
However…
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! You’ve got the perfect astral power for yourself, Mis!”
Shanorotte gave her a charming smile.
She fired the lightning stockpiled in her arm at Mismis, unleashing the greatest blast of power she could.
“Wind is slow to invoke, just like you! So buh-bye!”
And…
Nothing happened.
“…………Huh?”
The Lightning astral mage doubted her eyes.
The raging lightning that seemed to represent Shanorotte’s mind flickered out as soon as it touched the current filling the corridor.
It had vanished?
No, it was almost as though the wind had gently caressed the lightning and made it go away.
The lightning had seemed to subside like a bawling child being comforted by a gentle mother.
The lightning had quieted.
“……Huh? Th-this isn’t a joke!”
Shanorotte came back to her senses and once again invoked her Lightning astral power.
The lightning collected in her hand and she fired at Mismis, who remained on the ground. First one shot, then two, then three.
All of them fizzled out.
As the glittering wind touched them, they flickered into gentle flashes of light and disappeared.
“What?!”
Shanorotte was speechless and stood there without saying a word.
All of this was beyond her wildest expectations. She had been bewildered by Mismis’s transformation into a witch, but even more so, she couldn’t believe this peculiar astral power.
Could this astral power quell the destructive impulses of other powers?
She had never heard of such a thing. She didn’t even know of any similar examples.
It must have been exceedingly rare. In addition, it had so easily quelled her lightning bolts, which had been strengthened to the point they rivaled a purebred type’s powers. This astral power must have been strong enough to be on par with a purebred type.
“How…?”
She staggered.
The shock robbed her of all her strength. Shanorotte leaned against a wall.
“How could an Imperial like you get astral powers like that?!”
“Is that what you think? I think it was actually inevitable.”
Far off in the Lord’s office, someone bemusedly muttered some words, but Shanorotte could never have heard them.
“The citizens of the Sovereignty have a bad habit of believing they were chosen by the planet.”
The Lord’s offices.
They were inside a structure made of five towers, in the very top of the center structure on a level called the Heaven of Insight and Nonsight.
A charming and androgynous voice with a sagacious tone filled the space.
“Even the Sovereignty’s beloved founding Nebulis siblings were once Imperials. It’s not odd at all for an Imperial to end up with some slightly rare astral powers.”
Clack. Clack…
The silvery beastperson sat among dozens of board games, amusing themself as they sat on a tatami mat.
They were playing both sides of the boards.
The Empire and the Sovereignty. They moved the pawns labeled as such of each side in alternation all on their own.
“This feels nostalgic…”
Lord Yunmelngen’s large eyes narrowed into slits. They looked up at the ceiling as if they were reminiscing.
“Commander Mismis… The green astral crest on her left shoulder… I was surprised when I saw it, too. Since I’ve seen it once before, deep in the past.”
Long, long ago, when the Lord had still been a crown prince, the citizens of the Imperial capital had been showered in an inexplicable energy that had come from deep underground. Soon after, Imperials began to find marks appearing on their bodies.
“Ahh, no, it was Crow who saw it. He simply described it to me.”
“Alice?!”
“A green mark shone on his sister Alicerose’s left shoulder.”
The Nebulis sisters were twins.
They had led a mass exodus of astral mages out of the Empire.
The older sister, Elletear, was called their Founder.
The younger sister, Alicerose, had become the first queen of the Sovereignty and had left behind three children who started the royal lines: the Lou, the Zoa, and the Hydra.
Incidentally, unlike Eve, Alicerose had almost never been documented to have used her astral power.
“Alicerose’s astral power was the Gift of Wind. She had the ability to quell other astral powers that had grown worked up. She could dilute the effect of combative astral powers and offset them.”
Yunmelngen lifted a piece off a board.
This was the Sovereignty’s queen.
Yunmelngen placed it on top of a soldier on the Empire’s side.
“This is likely the embodiment of her wish for the astral power not to be used for battle. It’s the first Nebulis Queen Alicerose’s astral power.”
Yunmelngen still remembered it.
The day the Imperial capital had burned.
“Knock it off, everyone!”
“We’re just trying to leave the country! Please, listen to us. No one wants this war!”
In the world that was filled with gunfire and shrieks, only Alicerose called for peace and begged in front of an Imperial soldier.
She loved peace more than anyone.
“Shall I say it again? I think it was actually inevitable. When the Lou, Zoa, and Hydra bloodlines are vying against their own family for the queen’s throne, why would she leave her astral power to them?”
Yes.
The power of the former Imperial and first queen had not gone to any of her progeny.
Her astral power had chosen an Imperial whose circumstances were the same as Alicerose’s had once been.
“You can’t be serious!”
Lord’s office, third tower.
In the corridor filled with the eddying and glittering air current, Shanorotte screamed with such force her lips seemed as though they were about to split.
Every lightning bolt she created was neutralized.
But Mismis’s powers couldn’t be limitless. Naturally, they had to have a range, and Shanorotte was sure there would be other weaknesses in the power, too. Then again…
“I’m no scientist. I never planned on studying astral powers!”
She leaped toward Mismis.
Then she grabbed Mismis by the throat and heaved her small body up.
“Guh… Ah…!”
“Ha-ha! You’re so cute, Mis! You don’t have astral power that prevents anyone from hurting you! It’s just the astral power that can’t be hurt! But it sure isn’t useful now!”
Shanorotte felt certain now that she was strangling Mismis.
Mismis’s astral power was no threat.
Even if Shanorotte couldn’t use her own astral power, she could still fight. She could use guns or even her fists. Shanorotte was so much larger than Mismis, she practically looked like an adult alongside a child.
“Would you prefer it if I strangled you like this or beat your face in?”
“ ah eii ”
“Oh, Mis? Am I crushing your throat so bad that you can’t even talk?”
“Huh!”
Mismis’s eyes opened wide.
She grabbed at Shanorotte’s wrists, which gripped her throat.
“I…don’t need to…win alone…”
“What?”
“As long as you can’t use your astral power, we’ve won!”
A gunshot rang out.
Blood sprayed from Shanorotte’s right thigh and right shoulder.
Only two bullets had been fired.
They had come from far down the corridor.
“Agh!”
“Two shots. Since you hurt the boss twice.”
The sound of footsteps echoed in the corridor as the sniper with silver hair approached them.
“First at Mudor and now here. Seems like there won’t be a third time, though.”
“Jhin!”
After being thrown to the ground, Mismis coughed and stood up.
Shanorotte gritted her back teeth as she watched, then she pulled an egg-shaped object from her breast pocket. She couldn’t use one of her arms. As she held the object with her functioning hand, she pulled a pin from it with her teeth.
“A hand grenade!”
The silver-haired young man pulled Mismis’s hand and tugged her back.
At the same time, there was a flash.
The stun grenade, made for the purpose of quelling mobs, erupted with a loud bang and flash. Once Jhin and Mismis raised their heads, Shanorotte had disappeared.
Ahead of them, they saw a trail of blood from her dragging her leg that continued down the corridor.
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