[The Escape of the Grotesque]

A grotesque-shaped demon-kin ran through the night; by the time they stepped into the light of the streetlight, their figure had returned to that of a red-haired youth.

The name of the demon-kin was Yang Lan.

For him who used to belong to the Thieves Guild, to say that the city inside the wall was his own garden was no exaggeration.

Something such as making his way through the city without being seen by anyone was a piece of cake.

“Iya~, to think Diva-sama lost in a frontal fight. But well, she ditched the compulsory combat training after all, so it’s a reasonable result, huh.” (Yang)

Yang began to walk down the trees-lined street while playing with his loot, Ethel’s rosary.

It was a time when people had already fallen asleep. There wasn’t even a single figure of a person on the trees-lined street.

Yang begun to cook up what to report to the ‘Black Sword’ in his head.

He built a subtle ‘excuse’ to put all the blame for the failure of the operation on Luisina in particular.

The ‘Black Sword’ still had a use to him, and in any case, they had items he wanted to collect.

For Yang, who had no place to go, even outside the wall, being cut off due to a failure that was not his responsibility was something he wanted to be excused from.

The success rate of this operation had dropped significantly, to begin with, because their time for mastering their powers as demon-kins was cut down by nearly half a year.

It was perfectly logical that the one who was responsible for it was not him, but the ‘Black Sword’ who made that decision.

However, if he were to simply point that out, he would end up incurring needless animosity.

Therefore, Yang decided to elaborate the content of the report in the direction that ‘the cause of the failure was the negligence of Luisina who could not fully control her power as a demon-kin’.

“Now, it should be about time we meet up, however.” (Yang)

Yang muttered and scanned the surroundings with his eyes.

Originally, there was another demon-kin with camouflage ability participating in this operation.

They were a liaison who confirmed the progress of the operation and the movement of the knight order and reported them to the organization.

And in the worst case, it was arranged that they were to bring them to withdraw to the base by using his ability ‘Landscape Assimilation’.

With Yang having escaped, they should get that the operation had failed. If that was the case, that demon-kin should be lurking in this area.

Therefore, Yang decided to search around——to leave the place as soon as possible.

He made that decision in less than one second.

There was no basis to it. Just that, he ‘got a bad feeling’ for some reason.

But Yang did not doubt his intuition.

He knew that the more experienced a person was, the more often they would unconsciously caught the information of the surroundings and made some sort of decision. And that was known as intuition.

Yang kicked off the ground even without having the time to transform back to his demon-kin form.

When he rushed into an alley, he kicked up the walls of the buildings interposing the alley in a zig-zag manner, climbing up to the roof.

His intuition warned him that he had to escape from the place as soon as possible, no matter what, even if that would make him stand out a little.

“You don’t have to hurry like that, y’know?”

“——!?” (Yang)

Responding to the voice calling out to him, Yang pulled out the sword he had hidden and turned his body toward the owner of the voice.

In that momentary movement, a low metallic sound rang out, and the blade of the sword that Yang was holding fell to the floor.

“The youngsters these days sure are vigorous. To not hurt your back or something when turning around that suddenly really makes me jealous.”

Beyond Yang’s line of sight, there was a man on the roof of the building across the alley.

He carried an ōdachi on his back, and in his hand a straight sword that he had seemingly just unsheathed.

The straight sword was tinged with heat for some reason, its blade dimly glowing red.

(Wait, wait, wait, what the hell is the ‘Sword Saint’ doing here!?)

The distance between them was about 10 m. And the straight sword that the ‘Sword Saint’, Sanuki Shoichiro, had in his hand was about 70 cm in length.

Even counting the length of his arm, the distance was still about 9 m, did that mean that he had the ability to cut off only the blade of his sword at such distance? Something like that was unimaginable to Yang.

In any case, knowing that did not change the fact that he had fallen into a desperate situation.

The true strength of that ‘Sword Saint’ was unclear, but it was clearly superior than his.

Could he win if he transform into demon-kin form…no, it was better to think that he might not be able to put up a fight.

Yang knew that he himself was strong. At the same time, he also knew that there was a top above the top.

He knew for sure that there was an unbridgeable gap between their strength, whether it because the difference of their talent or the quality of their effort.

Additionally, he knew that ‘tools (items)’ were one of the means to bridge that gap.

Yang immediately thought about the tools he had and the actions he had to take against the ‘Sword Saint’.

(Calm down. Many options will open if I run away. There are many people stronger than me in the base, so as long as I can lure the ‘Sword Saint’ there and have them to be decoys, I should be able to shake him off.)

There was no way that the ‘Sword Saint’ was in such a place by chance.

Since he had destroyed his sword at the first strike, that meant he had no intention to kill him, however, he clearly had no friendly intention.

That was precisely why he gave top priority to running away now. Since he did not know the purpose of the ‘Sword Saint’ and what it entailed, what will happen to him if he were caught was a mystery to him.

“——Fuh!” (Yang)

“Oops.” (Sanuki)

Yang threw a piece of paper from his sleeve.

On it engraved some characteristic patterns.

Sanuki’s straight sword shook slightly.

Almost at the same time, the flying paper was cut off, and the effect of ‘Feng Shui Charm: Black Tortoise’ was activated with that as a trigger.

‘Feng Shui Charm: Black Tortoise’ was an attribute-bestowing item.

There were four types of it, which imitated the four divine beasts, and each corresponded to ‘fire’, ‘water’, ‘wind’ and ‘earth’.

In the original game, ‘Frontier Academia’, the means of granting attributes to people other than yourself were limited, and the ‘Feng Shui Charm’ series was the most popular of those means.

The Black Tortoise thrown by Yang was an attribute-bestowing item corresponding to ‘water’, and the target of this item would be bestowed with ‘water’ attribute for a certain period of time.

As a result, it counteract the ‘fire’ attribute of Sanuki’s ‘Flame Sword’, reducing its firepower.

Of course, Sanuki also knew the existence of ‘Feng Shui Charms’.

Therefore, Sanuki wondered if Yang was trying to improve his survivability, even by a bit, by reducing his attribute advantage.

Since it flew toward him, he tore it reflexively, but that did not stop the activation of the item; Sanuki inwardly regretted, he should have scraped off the pattern engraved on the surface of ‘Feng Shui Charm’.

“Oh?” (Sanuki)

The water that came out of the ‘Feng Shui Charm’ gathered around him.

Then, it shined brightly once, before something like a bluish-white aura rose from his body.

It was proof that Sanuki was bestowed an attribute by the ‘Feng Shui Charm’, he tilted his head, not knowing the intention of Yang who used the item originally used for one’s allies and oneself to him——three silver flashes flew toward Yang’s vital points. The slashes flew as thought the distance between the two did not exist.

Struck on the momentary gap when he was about to take the next action, Yang rolled onto the roof due to the impact.

However, the feedback was strange. When Sanuki, who felt that way, jumped to the roof across and approached Yang, he saw him slowly rose up.

Sanuki was a little impressed by Yang, who had no scratches on his body after receiving his slashes and had a fearless smile despite sweating bullets.

Apparently, he was not just a common thug, he thought.

“Hou, you could defend against that just now, huh. Well, this is a surprise.” (Sanuki)

“It’s a shame, but your attack doesn’t work on me. I got a business to attend to, so I hope you can let me go.” (Yang)

“Well, well, don’t be in such a hurry. At least, show me more of your magic tricks first, ‘aight? At this rate, I ain’t gonna be able to sleep at night.” (Sanuki)

Don’t be ridiculous, you shitty geezer! – Yang cursed inwardly.

He couldn’t even grasp the initial movement of the slashes he took head-on, even though it was from quite a distance, and he only came to realize that he got slashed after being blown away by the impact.

He was sure that he would be chopped up in an instant if his magic tricks was broken.

He fortunately succeeded in creating this situation by ‘misusing’ the ‘Feng Shui Charm’ that was supposed to be used on oneself on his enemy. It would definitely not work twice.

(‘Perverse Water and Sky Barrier’, a twisted item that blocks attack of other attribute than water by the opponent that was bestowed with water attribute! No matter what, I need to get to the base while ‘Feng Shui Charm’ is still in effect!!)

The colorful and delicate wooden necklace hanging from Yang’s neck was a legendary item, which was classified as the highest in rarity, the ‘Perverse Water and Sky Barrier’.

However, in the original game, there were only few cases where this item could be used despite its high rarity; among players, it had no value except as a collection.

The reason was that, regarding the effect of ‘significantly reducing the damage of attack with attribute ‘other’ than water of an opponent bestowed with water attribute’, there was a problem which was ‘there were almost no opponents appearing in the game that attacked using attribute contrary to their own attribute’.

A fire-attributed dragon did not breathe out water, an earth-attributed golem did not swing a wind-cladded fist.

Unlike ally characters whose attribute of attack depended on their skills, most of the enemy characters in the game, monsters or demon-kins, attacked with attribute innate to themselves.

There were only a very small number of humanoid type boss characters who could properly use two to three type of attributes to attack.

Due to that sort of environment where ‘there were almost no enemies who attack with attribute opposite to that of their own’, bringing out the effect of ‘blocking attacks of other attribute than water by the opponent that was bestowed with water attribute’ was truly an perverse (twisted) concept, therefore, as a matter of course, it could be said to be a junk item.

However, that was only the case in the game.

In the real world where ‘Feng Shui Charm’ could be used not only on allies but also on adversaries, this item had transformed into a flawless, powerful item that could roughly neutralize opponent’s attack.

If the physical attack resistance obtained by demonization was added on top of that, Yang could possibly obtain an iron wall defense that even the blade of the ‘Sword Saint’ couldn’t penetrate.

However, that story was only limited to the defensive aspect.

No matter how ‘undefeatable’ Yang was, as long as he could not defeat the ‘Sword Saint’, he would eventually run out of resources and collapse.

That was precisely why Yang, without getting complacent, without getting ahead of himself, directed his whole body to escape.

“Idaten’s Hagoromo’! ‘Sky Soaring Bridge’! ‘Pegasus Wings’!” (Yang)

Along with transforming into his grotesque form, Yang used one item after another to increase his abilities.

Wings grew out of his back, a hagoromo that accelerated all of his movements cladded his body, and a path of cloud that ignored all obstacles emerged in the air, which he stepped on.

Yang had the cloud path he had ran through melted into air so that his adversary, Sanuki, couldn’t make use of it, and provided the shortest route only to himself.

“Wanna play tag? It looks fun, my heart throbs, unbecoming of my age.” (Sanuki)

Staring at Yang, who was running with all his might with a desperate expression on his face, Sanuki properly counted to 10, before putting all his strength in his legs, and ‘disappeared’ from the roof.

No, he didn’t disappear. He traveled a distance of several tens of meters with just one stride.

His movement speed created an illusion that he disappeared.

(What the!? Just how crazy his physical abilities are!?)

Yang, who had created a third eye behind his head with the head equipment ‘Back Eye Vision’ that greatly increased his own evasion rate, screamed inwardly at the movement speed of the ‘Sword Saint’ that seemed like a teleportation.

Fortunately, thanks to the cloud path, and the roofs on his escape route being separated by some distance, Yang was slightly faster in terms of speed.

At this rate, he could get the ‘Black Sword’ at the base involved as he had planned, but it would be foolish to be thinking that optimistically.

There was no way his opponent, who was hailed as the ‘Sword Saint’, could be such an easy opponent.

While running away, Yang took out one item after another and used them toward Sanuki.

Sanuki cut through Yang’s means, such as poisonous fog, acid rain, curses from summoned beasts, and traps that he used without trying to hide his desperation, with the straight sword in his hand. A feat which drove Yang to be more impatient.

(Now then, I am driving him to his nest, just like the boy told me to, but I wonder if the lot called the ‘Black Sword’ really exist. Well, the surrounding guys seem to be satisfied with just this guy alone.)

While swinging his straight sword, Sanuki sensed some ‘shadows’ pursuing further behind him.

Sanuki moderately drove Yang while sensing the existence of the Thieves Guild that had begun to move based on the information provided by his disciple.

Yang Lan who was desperately running away and the ‘Sword Saint’ who chased him leisurely.

The escape drama, where the difference in ability between the two parties was so great, and could be said would made those who watch it feel bad, began.