novelraw Chapter 30 : Chapter 30
Chapter 30 : Chapter 30
Chapter 30: Labyrinth
Thud!
Pieces of broken tiles scattered.
Ered sprinted forward the moment I landed on the first floor.
"W-What is it?"
I increased my output, leaving behind the clamor of passengers startled by the sudden commotion.
I overtook Marcus's private soldiers who were rushing out from all directions.
I spotted the back of Heni, who had just managed to exit the airport.
I rapidly narrowed the gap between us.
Now, it's about 30 meters at most.
No matter how seasoned a guard he may be, from a Prominence's perspective, it is merely laughable.
Heni kept glancing back even while fleeing.
"Kuh...!"
Heni looked back at Ered and expressed distress.
He was surprised because the gap was much closer than he thought.
Heni pulled something from his chest and threw it without delay.
Ting—
The object thrown at Ered bounced once on the floor.
Ered's dynamic visual acuity, maximized by the magic circuit, saw through its identity.
It's a flashbang.
I reflexively covered both eyes with my hands.
Flash!
Immediately after, a blinding light exploded.
It was so intense that even though I covered my eyes, they stung.
Thanks to the quick response, Ered's eyes did not go blind, but the problem was the ears.
A flashbang does not only emit a flash, as its name suggests.
A dizzying tinnitus rang in my ears.
No matter how much of a Prominence I am, I only have two hands, so I couldn't protect my ears as well.
While I was continuing the pursuit while tapping my paralyzed ears with my palms.
Another object flew in.
Hiss.
Smoke thickened in an instant.
This time, it's a smoke grenade.
'He's really struggling desperately.'
Ered immediately turned and escaped the range of the smoke.
Heni's figure shimmered through the gray smoke.
He was fleeing toward the snowy mountain.
'It's over.'
Ered let out a snort.
To crawl into a snowy mountain with such a steep incline.
Well, from Heni's perspective, there were no other options.
Once you left the airport, this area was nothing but snowy mountains and snowfields.
He must have chosen the snowy mountain, where there are many places to hide, in his own way.
Not that the result would change.
"Nothing else to throw? I need to prepare myself, you see."
"S-Shut up!"
When Ered spoke sarcastically, an insult immediately returned from Heni.
In the midst of that, whether he was out of breath, Heni was constantly panting.
"Why don't you just give up?"
"......."
Heni's pace gradually slowed.
It seemed he didn't even have the energy left to evade the pursuit.
He was busy exhaling labored breaths.
"Surely you don't think you can outrun a Prominence?"
"...A Prominence?"
Only then did Heni show a reaction.
'Did he not know until now?'
He must have been so busy running that he didn't even have the leisure to check Ered's identity.
"I see! Hahaha!"
Heni suddenly burst into laughter.
Has he lost his mind?
It was around that time that Lensis caught up with Ered.
"You've come quite far."
Ered harbored a doubt while looking at Lensis.
There's no way the top honor student of Redstone would arrive this late?
"Why did you only come now?"
"I thought my uniform would get dirty."
"What kind of nonsense are you talking about all of a sudden?"
"Chemical substances don't wash off easily once they get on clothes."
Only then did I understand Lensis's hidden meaning.
"...Are you saying you were keeping your distance because you didn't want to get your uniform dirty?"
"If I were alone, I would have pursued while enduring getting dirty. It was fortunate you were here."
Lensis, smoothing the stiff collar of his uniform with his hand.
I wanted to blow his jaw off.
'...Let's not even talk.'
Now is the time to focus on Heni.
"Why did you collude with the likes of Unnormal?"
"It was a decision for the prosperity of the Empire."
Ered frowned.
Prosperity of the Empire?
It's not even funny.
I didn't ask the question to hear that kind of nonsense.
"Who is the person who gave the instructions from above?"
"Do you think I will answer readily?"
"And you? Do you think you'll be able to exercise your right to silence until the end?"
"You'd better give up on the idea of threatening me. It won't work on me."
...It's certainly not an empty word.
Ered sensed that fact instinctively.
I have seen that kind of expression a few times in my life.
It's the expression of a person prepared for death.
'Does this mean he didn't move simply for a bribe?'
It's an action driven by firm conviction.
The problem was that the conviction was twisted in the wrong direction.
"This is going to be a long talk. You'd better accept your given fate obediently."
Ered pulled out handcuffs.
I intended to move to another place and interrogate Heni in earnest.
"Fufu. Fate, is it."
Heni laughed lowly while chewing over that word.
"Soon, an inescapable fate will appear for you all as well. I look forward to seeing how you react when that fate confronts you."
Heni, spitting out words of unknown meaning.
He had a relieved face.
Feeling as if he had let go of everything—
Swish—!
The sharp sound of wind caught Ered's ears.
Since it's a snowy mountain area, it wouldn't be strange to hear the sound of wind.
But this was far from a natural sound.
A sound like compressed air slicing through the air.
'It's a snipe.'
An instinctive certainty arose.
'Is that why Heni lured us to the snowy mountain on purpose?'
Immediately after lowering my upper body to avoid the snipe, Ered confirmed my guess was correct.
...To be precise, only half right.
Thud!
Heni's entire body began to tilt backward.
A hole had been drilled into his forehead.
'The target of the snipe was not us, but Heni.'
If I had known that fact, I could have prevented Heni's death.
Something that would have been entirely possible with the motor skills of a Prominence.
'...There's no use blaming myself.'
Time that has passed does not return.
I stared at the corpse of the deceased Heni.
Hollow eyes.
The white snow piled on the ground is turning red.
The target was just sniped right in front of my nose.
If he died from being hit by a gun, a faint smell of gunpowder should naturally linger.
I focused on my sense of smell, but not even a similar scent was detected.
'It's a blowgun.'
The sniper who killed Heni is undoubtedly that fellow.
'Concentrate.'
Judging by the gap between the heterogeneous sound that sliced through the wind and the time Heni was hit, the distance from the blowgun is not far.
Next is the mark etched on Heni's forehead.
Looking at the angle the wind pierced through, the sniper's location is....
"This way."
Lensis left a short word and dashed somewhere.
'He found the location already? Damn it. I'm one step behind him again.'
Ered followed him while clicking his tongue.
I passed the slope and climbed up a nearly vertical cliff.
I repeated leaps while stepping on protruding rocks again and again.
Tup.
Finally, I reached the end of the cliff.
"......."
The surroundings were silent.
The figure of the blowgun user is not visible.
It is a point where not even a minute has passed since hearing the gunshot until reaching the point expected to be the sniping point.
'He fled in that interval?'
...That could well be.
If he fled immediately after finishing the snipe.
In any case, the blowgun user is a fellow with excellent mobility.
'I caught up with the fellow with quite some difficulty in the garden as well.'
However, the snow-covered ground in this area was excessively clean.
Not a single footprint is visible.
'He fled while erasing his footprints one by one? Within just one minute?'
Even for a Prominence, let alone the blowgun user, that is impossible.
'Did Lensis miscalculate the sniping point?'
The guy who boasted a talent that would be counted among the best in Redstone's history?
I hated to admit it, but I didn't think he would have made a mistake.
'As expected, the blowgun user did not leave this place.'
Nevertheless, there is only one reason the fellow is not visible.
'The Invisible Man. That fellow is also here.'
Meanwhile, Lensis stood in place as if frozen.
Holding two twin swords in each hand.
He would also know about the existence of the Invisible Man.
Since the fellow's tracks remain clearly in the Beholder installed in the Alkaz Prison.
Since his master, Marcus, is very interested in Unnormal, he naturally would have mastered at least that much.
'It's time to end this persistent ill fate.'
Ered narrowed his eyes.
The quiet snowfield.
A cold and heavy tension crept in.
Whoosh.
The sky gradually turned cloudy.
The weather in the north has started to be fickle again.
Ered activated Double Time.
I strain my nerves.
I pulled my senses to the limit.
The freezing cold seeped through the uniform and attacked, but I did not let go of the thread of concentration.
The wind gradually grew stronger.
Snowflakes mixed in the wind scattered diagonally following the wind direction.
...Snow fluttering at a specific point stopped mid-air.
As if blocked by something invisible.
Dash!
Instinct moved before thought.
Ered surged toward that point while strongly pushing off the snow-covered earth.
Even amidst the dizzying blizzard, I fixed my gaze on the target without wavering.
Whoosh—
I swung the Arcane Sword, making use of the speed as it was.
At some point, a heavy sensation found the sword that I thought was slicing through the air fruitlessly.
Splurt—
Red blood scattering in the air.
"Keu-heok!"
I heard it clearly.
A scream groaning in pain.
The outline of the Invisible Man began to gradually appear.
Slowly, like ink spreading in water.
The part that appeared first was the hand.
Subsequently, passing through the forearm, shoulder, and chest, the entire body was finally revealed.
The Invisible Man's face was distorted with pain.
It wasn't just him.
The blowgun user was glaring this way while clutching his own shoulder as if resentful.
Ered intentionally cut with a long stroke of the sword.
So that I could inflict wounds on both fellows with a single blow.
"Keuk."
The Invisible Man and the blowgun user stumbled and knelt on the ground in turn.
The figure of Lensis, located on the opposite side with the two fellows in between, was visible.
Blood was flowing down the blades of the twin swords he held.
Lensis had not been sitting idly by.
He had reacted at the same time.
"How did you do it?"
Lensis tossed a question to Ered out of the blue.
As always, the subject was omitted.
"You are inferior to me in talent in almost every aspect. But just now, you reacted at the same time as me. Strictly speaking, you were minutely slower than me."
Lensis had an expression of surprise.
Even so, his pupils were just a bit larger than usual.
Still, that was quite a large change in expression for him.
"Did you think I'd just be chasing your tail forever?"
Ered spat out a sharp word to him.
Lensis's remark was a compliment if it were a compliment, but it didn't feel good at all.
'Minutely slower?'
His words would be true.
Lensis is not the type to belittle others even by lying.
That means even though I activated Double Time, I was one step later than him.
"We finally meet."
Ered approached the two injured Unnormals while pointing the Arcane Sword.
"We have a lot to talk about, don't we?"
He grabbed the hair of the Invisible Man and the blowgun user respectively and forced them to lift their heads.
The Invisible Man's face gradually distorted.
Ered thought it was because of a resentful emotion.
...But looking closely, he was laughing.
The laughter only looked distorted due to the pain.
"You're laughing?"
"As expected, were you the ones chosen?"
The Invisible Man finally opened his mouth.
The problem was that I couldn't understand it at all.
"What?"
"Congratulations."
Congratulations, my foot.
"Then I suppose we can move on to the next step now."
"Keep talking nonsense...."
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Ered trailed off in the middle of his words.
I heard a bothersome noise.
A sound like the second hand of a clock moving.
However, it was heard excessively loud.
Not something to be considered simply a clock—
'Damn it.'
I threw my body reflexively.
Boom—!
Before my body even touched the ground, a roar exploded and shook the earth.
My entire body, caught in the aftermath of the explosion, was pushed back.
Hot liquid drenched his face.
The explosion occurred right before my eyes.
It is the place where the Invisible Man and the blowgun user were.
The ground was hollowed out as an aftermath of the explosion.
The body parts of the Invisible Man and the blowgun user, torn to shreds, were scattered haphazardly.
Only then did Ered realize that the liquid that had drenched my face was blood.
I wiped it off roughly with my hand.
I discovered Lensis, who had fallen on the opposite snowfield.
He also seemed to have thrown himself the moment he detected an abnormality.
"The uniform I barely managed to maintain has become a mess."
Lensis frowned and brushed off the bloodstains on his collar.
'Self-destruction?'
Ered stood up while clicking his tongue.
They are much more vicious fellows than I thought.
He fell into thought while tidying his disheveled attire.
'Heni seemed to be waiting for something before he died.'
Did he perhaps know in advance that he would be sniped?
'Why did they eliminate Heni only now?'
They must have had plenty of opportunities to get rid of Heni without being disturbed.
Despite that, the reason they didn't eliminate him was that Heni was a person of that much value.
...That was what I had expected.
But....
'The blowgun user eliminated Heni without hesitation.
And that too, overtly in front of me and Lensis.
It can't be interpreted as anything other than him being anxious to show us the sight of Heni dying.'
Due to that reckless action, the Invisible Man and the blowgun user were eventually caught.
As a result, it was safe to say the two fellows made a stupid choice.
'...Is it truly a stupid choice? Or is all of this an intended operation? Just what does it mean?'
Ered's head throbbed.
It felt as if the more I dug into the incident, the more I fell into an even deeper labyrinth.