Part 5
Having gone their separate ways from Asuka, Izayoi and the others were completely different from Asuka’s behavior as they held their breaths while surveying the situation.
Kasukabe Yō hid behind a pillar of the palace and pricked her ears up to search for any disturbances in the vicinity.
After some time, Yō gave a little start and gave the others the look.
“Someone’s here, hide quickly.”[18]
She gave the warning in a strained voice. Although the person remained to be seen, but it didn’t mean that the sound or smell would be erased. The highly sensitive senses of Yō were the only effective measure against the Gift of Invisibility.
Crouching low like a wild beast, Yō launched an attack on the unseen enemy.
“What….How’s that possible?!”
A surprise cry escaped the mouth of the opponent before a quick and fierce blow on the back shaft of his head was landed by Yō.
Immediately, the knight fainted from the blow without ever understanding how his position was seen through. And a helmet rolled off from the knight as he fell forward to the ground, causing the figure of a knight to materialize from the previously ‘empty’ spot. Seeing that, Yō made a conjecture:
“This helmet should be the Gift of Invisibility.”
“Here, ochibi-sama. Take and wear it.”
“Wah!”
Izayoi had picked up the helmet and jammed it onto Jin’s head. Instantly, Jin’s figure faded away without a trace.
Being the Game leader of the [No Name], it would have been an immediate loss for the [No Name] if Jin were to be spotted. Hence prioritizing his safety would be the first thing to do.
Upon confirming Jin’s invisibility, Kasukabe Yō nodded her head.
“As expected, the Gift of Invisibility is the most important piece to the clearing of the Game. After all, even with much caution, it wouldn’t rule out the possibility of being spotted by one of the guards. As long as there’s a few guards placed along the stairs that lead to the depths of the Palace, there wouldn’t be a chance of clearing it.”
“The opponent seems to have limited the number of people who held onto the Gift of Invisibility as well. I guess that’s to prevent it from being stolen by the Participants that easily……there we will at least need another… of course the best possible situation would be to have two more, but……” Izayoi was hesitant with his words.
Amongst the three of them, only Jin and Izayoi were required to proceed to the deepest part of the Palace.
If they could acquire another one for Yō which meant three in total, that would be for the best but if there were times that greed would lead to the downfall of plans.
“Oi, ochibi-sama, change of plans! Kasukabe and I will be fighting those Invisible guys, give me the Gift.”
“Ah……okay.”
Jin passed the Gift to Izayoi. Before wearing the helmet, he reaffirmed Yō’s thoughts.
“If we continue to drag out the small skirmishes before the final battle, it will just continue forever. The main focus is Laius, so I can only apologize to you.”
“Don’t mind it.” Yō shook her head.
As long as she moved around in plain sight, she should be able to lure an enemy that had the Gift of Invisibility but at the cost of Kasukabe Yō’s qualification to challenge Laius. However, they should not allow this sort of thing to cost them their opportunity to obtain victory.
“Sorry about that. Looks like I’ve taken all the best parts. Although I may seem like this, but I’m really thankful to Ojou-sama and you. For it doesn’t look like I can clear this Game alone this time round.”
“That’s why I said pay it no mind, we will make sure to collect it from you later.”
Yō promised in a monotone that she would surely ask for the debt to be paid.
And that almost made Izayoi laugh out loud but now wasn’t the time for that.
“Ochibi-sama, go and hide. Even if you die, don’t let yourself be found.”
“Okay.”
Izayoi’s figure vanished and the two of them left the shadows of their previous hiding place to run around in the White Palace.
“Found them! It’s the no name Community’s little girl!”
“With this, there will only be three of them left!”
“Good! Capture that girl! Use her as a hostage to lure all the others out of hiding!”
The knights rushed towards Yō but they were sent flying out of the white palace by an unseen Izayoi.
“What a bother!”
The knights that were sent flying screamed as they crashed through several layers of wall , continuing to maintain that speed of the Third Cosmic Velocity to fly to the end of the horizon.
As usual, Izayoi sure didn’t hold back on his opponents.
“How is it, Kasukabe, have you found them?”
“No…… Asuka’s making a lot of noise and the others are clamoring loudly in their battle against her, it’s a little……..Woah!”
Just then, Yō was suddenly flung back to strike on a wall without any warning. Izayoi immediately gave a kick in the direction where the attack most likely came from but there didn’t seem to be a response.
But what’s stranger was the fact that even with Kasukabe’s sharp senses, she had not noticed the approach of the enemy. Even for Izayoi, to actually be unable to sense the person who managed to come close, that’s an unusual situation.
And there was only one possibility that Izayoi could come up with.
(Could it be…… that someone’s not using a replica but is using the real thing?)
Yes. Not only erasing the figure of the person but also the smell, heat, sound. A Gift that could completely erase the presence of a person.
There’s a knight who holds that Gift obtained by Perseus in the Greek myths……which holds the power of Hades, and−
A Gift that’s able to assassinate even the Gods had crept up on them and now lurked somewhere nearby.
(Tch! This sure is tricky. If my helmet were to fall off by accident, I would be disqualified!)
When Yō had been attacked, Izayoi had been completely unaware of the enemy’s presence. The presence was secondary to the fact that he didn’t even catch the earlier action of the enemy’s attack.
And since there’s the rule of ‘do not be spotted’, this was an enemy whom they had to avoid with care.
“Oi! Kasukabe, let’s retreat temporarily!”
Izayoi gathered Kasukabe Yō who was on the floor into his arms but the unseen enemy seemed to have expected this move from him as an attack was launched at Izayoi. As long as Izayoi moved to pick up Yō who was visible, the enemy would naturally be able to grasp the position of Izayoi. And as Izayoi was knocked flying by the impact of a huge blunt object, he quickly clamped his hand over his helmet while clicking his tongue harshly.
“That was dangerous! The helmet almost fell off! What a bastard! In fact, I had wanted to return a blow but it seems that I truly can’t feel the presence at all! Should I just start hitting at random?”
“No. Wait.”
Yō who may have suffered a blunt trauma on her lungs went into a painful coughing fit before recovering enough to ask Izayoi to stop. She had been struck by quite a heavy blunt weapon and to be conscious despite that injury was quite a feat in itself. But as expected, it must be quite painful to her.
However, there was a look in her eyes that seemed to hint that she had gotten onto something good.
“How is it? Is there a way?”
“Nn. But it might be overheard. Let’s just run for now.”
Izayoi nodded as he picked up Yō once more. And at his movement, his back was immediately knocked once more by something like a blunt weapon. However, for Izayoi who couldn’t even get hurt from a battle with a Snake God, this was totally not a fatal blow at all.
Using his strength to twist his upper body while lashing out with his foot, he finally kicked something like a blunt weapon.
The Blunt weapon that fell from the Invisible knight was of an alarming size, a metal mallet of the size of a grown man. If it were just Izayoi himself, it wouldn’t be much per say. But that metal mallet should be strong enough to destroy the helmet replica. Picking up the metal mallet, the knight hid his movements once more and continued to pursue Izayoi and Yō.
“Beside the cloisters, wait in the corner. Go.”
Izayoi ran straight for the cloisters located at the West Side of the White Palace before stopping at the destination to place her down.
“Next, just attack the spot that I point to you on my signal.”
“Well, that’s fine by me, but are you able to sense the enemy?”
Yō nodded her head and Izayoi’s expression turned into one of surprise.
The enemy’s elimination of presence was perfect. Izayoi could only think of a be hit and return a hit method but Yō seemed to have a secret counter measure and that made him very interested in her method.
“Very well. Compared to using luck, directly exposing the opponent seems to be more interesting.”
“That’s what I think too—get ready.”
Izayoi faced his back against Kasukabe Yō. Since they were in a corner of the cloisters, the opponent could only launch his attack from either the left, right or front. Izayoi also heightened his senses as he lay in wait.
Just then, Izayoi felt a Tinnitus[19] at his ears. This is because, though Izayoi might not be as good as Yō in terms of hearing but his senses were far better than normal people and that allowed him to recognize that frequency of sound waves.
(That sound wave……Oh, I see, so that’s how it is?)
Seeming to have understood everything, the corners of Izayoi’s lips curved upwards in a slight smile.
—The invisible knight used the Gift of Hades Helmet to completely erase his presence. This Gift, which was created to assassinate the Gods, could hide the user’s heat signature, smell and even sound. Even if up against a visually poor snake that used its sensitive heat probe organ ……it will not be able to capture the user’s location.
(The enemy’s at a position of ten meters away observing the situation, there’s no problem, he doesn’t seem to have taken notice yet.)
However, this Gift of Invisibility had a fatal weakness.
This Gift’s ability was to make one transparent rather than completely permeable.
For example, the sound waves emitted by dolphins or bats and submarines which copy that with a sonar function to rely on the reflected sonar waves to explore the area. That would be able to counter this Gift of Invisibility.
(……! Coming!)[20]
The invisible knight may have thought to directly score a hit as he launched his attack on Yō from the left.
He’s the elite of [Perseus], and was a knight who was strong enough to obtain the legendary Gift. It would seem that he would be the key figure in the prelude of the battle with Laius.
His pace was heavy and fast as he shortened the distance between them in a moment and had raised his mallet up high.
“Left, strike now!”
Kasukabe Yō gave a shout and reacting to her shout, Izayoi released a fist in that direction.
Although there wasn’t any sound from the part that the fist connected with, there was the feeling of something like an armor shattering under the impact, causing Izayoi to be aware of the knight’s presence in that empty space before him.
“Wuo……oh……”
And a painful moan escaped from the empty space. Izayoi jumped onto the Invisible knight and pulled off his helmet.
The Invisible knight was none other than the trusted aide who always stood beside Laius, awaiting orders.
Izayoi spun the helmet while commenting with a smile:
“Oh…..Impressive that you can take that blow. Although I did hold back, it was still supposed to blow you to the end of the horizons.”
“……Hmph. Then, that must be a praise to our armor.”
The trusted male aide’s words were beating around the bush in praise for Izayoi’s fist was just that heavy and violent.
Even though in the face of a knight, who had challenged many Games in his lifetime, a battle seasoned knight, one blow was all it took to make him admit defeat.
“If it were a lucky strike due to randomly thrown punches, it would be a different matter. But this is a strike that defeated the Gift of Invisibility head-on, impressive. You guys do possess the right to challenge Laius-sama.”
The knight sank to his knees and crumpled on the floor. Grabbing the Gifts of Invisibility, Izayoi and the others rushed towards the depths of the Palace.
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