"Trace—on." (TL:dawg)
[—Haniel.]
Muttering a self-hypnosis incantation under his breath, Shido thrust his hand into his pocket, using his Angel to transform his smartphone into sothing else.
A flashbang.
Quietly pulling the pin, Shido tid his throw perfectly just as the enemies lunged.
The very next second, the entire alleyway was engulfed by blinding white light and a deafening explosion.
"Wh-What happened?!"
"Ah! My eyes! I can't see anything!"
"Where is Itsuka Shido?!"
The Nibelcole, suddenly blinded by the intense light, instantly fell into chaos.
(Now's my chance.)
Snapping his eyes open, Shido didn't let this opportunity slip. Relying on the physical enhancent of Gabriel and the high speed dash of Raphael, he forcefully broke through the Nibelcole's encirclent.
"Ah! He actually got away!"
"Damn it! Don't run if you're a man, Itsuka Shido!"
"Only an idiot wouldn't run!"
Hearing the curses hurled at him from behind, Shido roasted them back, pushing his speed even higher.
So, what should he do next?
While sprinting through the streets, Shido frantically thought of a plan.
Even though he had temporarily shaken off the Nibelcole, the danger was far from over. These were pseudo-Spirits created by Westcott using Beelzebub. As long as his mana didn't run out, he could keep churning them out infinitely. Even if the Nibelcole behind him couldn't catch up, it wasn't hard to imagine running into ambushes further down his path.
He had to keep dodging the Nibelcole while simultaneously making his way toward Yutsuki's location.
Fortunately, elite Wizards like Ellen and Artemisia weren't here. While the Nibelcole were incredibly annoying, their individual combat strength wasn't exceptionally high. As long as he made sure not to get surrounded and overwheld by sheer numbers, Shido was confident he could hold out.
Just then, the figures of several Nibelcole appeared right in front of Shido once again. Without a word, they fired mana bullets at him.
Shido hastily dove into a roll, hiding behind a stone pillar of a shopping mall.
"Hmph, idiot. Do you really think hiding behind a pillar makes you safe?"
Seeing Shido's action, the Nibelcole scoffed.
"Beelzebub - Yeled!"
With the Nibelcole's call, a fleet of paper airplanes ford from Spirit power materialized around her. Under her command, they swerved right behind the stone pillar.
—BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Following a series of violent explosions, the reinforced concrete pillar collapsed with a crash. A massive pile of rubble buried Shido, turning the spot into a makeshift tomb.
"Haha~ He's definitely blown to bits now."
"So tiring~ To think we had to put in so much effort."
"Can't be helped, it's all for Father."
"Wait? This corpse... isn't it a bit weird?"
Staring at Itsuka Shido's body under the rubble, the Nibelcole noticed sothing strange. The wounds didn't emit the white healing flas described in the intel, nor did the body bleed like a human's. Rather than a living creature, it looked more like an inorganic mannequin.
—Poof!
Suddenly, with a comical popping sound, the Shido before them transford into a plastic statue of the white haired grandpa from a fast-food chain.
The Nibelcole's eyes widened, and they roared in unison.
"We got played!!!?"
—Shido, don't just hide behind cover because you're scared. The durability of normal buildings can't withstand attacks from Spirits or Wizards. Also, pressing your back against a wall only limits your own line of sight. That false sense of security will only get you killed. But, if you think about it the other way around...
"The enemy can't see you either."
Recalling Yutsuki's teachings, Shido couldn't help but smile bitterly in admiration.
"Sorry, but I don't plan on falling for the sa trick twice."
With that, Shido turned and darted deeper into the alleyways.
...
"Hmph... More resilient than expected, Itsuka Shido."
At the sa ti, inside the office of the DEM Japan Branch, Westcott sat in his CEO chair with his legs crossed, flipping through Beelzebub with great interest.
Because of the interference from Rasiel, not only had Beelzebub's search efficiency plumted, but the data retrieved wasn't as comprehensive as before. As a result, while Westcott could confirm Itsuka Shido's location, he couldn't imdiately see exactly what he was doing. That was why the Nibelcole had been fooled by Shido's little trick.
"Well, I suppose we can only review that later."
Scratching his head helplessly, Westcott adjusted his mood and continued tracking Itsuka Shido's location.
According to Beelzebub's tracking, although Shido's general direction of movent hadn't changed, he avoided the wide, open main roads, choosing instead to move through the complex web of narrow alleys between the buildings.
Westcott felt a bit disappointed. If Shido had moved to an open area or flown into the sky, he could have just sniped him directly using the Bandersnatches.
"However, in a way, this is just digging your own grave."
Westcott ordered while checking the map routes of Tengu City.
"Nibelcoles at D9 and E1, flank Itsuka Shido from both ends of this alleyway."
[Understood, Father.]
However——
[Eh? Father, Itsuka Shido isn't here.]
"Hm? This is..."
Westcott saw that in a straight alleyway with both ends blocked off, Itsuka Shido, who was originally running toward the exit, suddenly turned around. Ignoring the solid walls, he phased right through several buildings, shaking off the Nibelcole once again.
...
"Phew... Shook off another batch."
Shido sighed in relief. The zipper-like doors he had opened on the walls stitched themselves back together and returned to normal under the power of Haniel.
During his training in the virtual world, Shido had naively thought he could use his familiarity with Tengu City's complex alleyways to shake off Marina.
In reality, the mont he confidently arrived at the exit, he was beaten to a pulp by Marina, who had been waiting there for a long ti.
Thinking about it carefully, the maps in the virtual world were all recreated from data by the Fraxinus. As an AI, how could Marina not know the terrain structure perfectly?
Having learned from his mistakes, he naturally wasn't stupid enough to think he could shake off the Nibelcole that easily. Instead, he deliberately left them with the impression that "Itsuka Shido will obediently run down the path", before using Haniel's power to phase straight through the buildings.
(I didn't expect the training to actually co in handy.)
Saved once again by his training experience. Thinking of this, Shido couldn't help but sigh. If Yutsuki hadn't forced him through that seemingly absurd training, he would have been dead several tis over by now.
(Yutsuki should be here soon... Phew... Calm down... It's not the ti to relax yet.)
Shido slapped his cheeks hard to warn himself. Back then, it was exactly because he let his guard down, thinking he had survived the ti limit, that Marina pulled off an extre counter-kill in the final few seconds.
And unlike the virtual world, if he died here, he was dead for real.
"Aoi~ Aoi! Where did you run off to? If you can hear , answer !"
Just then, a voice suddenly caught Shido's attention. Looking in the direction of the voice, he saw a middle-aged man in his forties, running down the street out of breath, shouting with a face full of frantic anxiety.
An ordinary civilian?!
Shido widened his eyes in shock.
(You idiot, don't yell so loud!)
Seeing the man drawing so much attention to himself, Shido couldn't help but scream internally in panic.
Sure enough, the Nibelcole roaming nearby were quickly attracted by the sound and gathered around the middle-aged man.
"Hm... Who is this guy?"
"Well~ He's definitely not Itsuka Shido anyway."
"No mana or Spirit power reactions. Just a normal human."
"Whatever, he saw our faces. Let's just kill him."
The Nibelcole made the decision casually.
"What's... wrong with you girls?"
Looking at the young girls floating in the air, the middle-aged man stood frozen in place, his mouth wide open, looking completely bewildered.
After all, to his knowledge, aside from the natural disasters known as "spatialquakes," this was just an ordinary world where Wizards and Spirits didn't exist.
Without missing a beat, a Nibelcole pointed her index finger at the man's head and fired a Spirit power bullet.
"—!!!!"
[—Raphael—tatron.]
Completely ignoring the risk of being discovered by the enemy, Shido used a speed bordering on teleportation to appear right in front of the man, blocking the Nibelcole's attack.
"Are you okay?"
"Ah... A-Ah... Yeah..."
The man still hadn't processed the situation and could only nod blankly.
Seeing Itsuka Shido jump out on his own, the Nibelcole showed expressions of pleasant surprise.
"Ah! Finally found you, Itsuka Shido!"
"Scurrying around like a rat! Making 'us' lose face in front of Father!"
"We absolutely won't let you escape this ti!"
In a flash, hundreds of Nibelcole gathered from all over the city, surrounding Shido so tightly not even a drop of water could leak through. Countless points of Spirit light filled Shido's vision, locking onto him with deadly intent.
"Ratziel!!"
[Received—Limiter Released—Spirit Power Barrier fully deployed.]
Shido hurriedly erected a hemispherical Spirit power barrier. The next mont, a hail of mana and Spirit power attacks bombarded the exterior of the barrier like a torrential downpour.
(This is bad if it keeps up.)
Shido thought to himself.
Although with his massive reserves of Spirit power, he wouldn't be exhausted by the Nibelcole's attacks, he also couldn't move easily. If this dragged on and a Wizard like Ellen arrived, it would truly be a desperate situation.
(Furthermore—)
Shido glanced back at the middle-aged man. The man's legs had completely given out from witnessing this scene that defied all common sense, and he was kneeling on the ground, pale as a sheet.
(Ratziel, where is the nearest shelter?)
[—Seventy ters directly beneath the host's position.]
Surprisingly close if we're only looking at physical distance, Shido thought with a wry smile.
"—Michael."
With Shido's call, the key-shaped staff Angel appeared in his hand.
—[Lataib].
He thrust the staff downward into empty space. Soon, a door half a ter in diater opened before Shido's eyes. Below it, he could see a large crowd of citizens taking refuge in the shelter.
(Thank goodness, it worked.)
Shido quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Honestly, it wasn't that Shido hadn't thought of using Michael to escape earlier. But during his tests in the virtual world, he realized that it took about two to three seconds from activating the ability to the door fully opening. While practically very short, in the middle of combat and evasion, that was a fatal opening.
Moreover, the teleportation accuracy of the door had so issues. If he teleported to a location within his line of sight, it was fine. But if he tried to teleport sowhere he couldn't see, even with Ratziel's assistance, the door he opened would occasionally result in errors where the destination was different from what he imagined. And the further the distance, the larger the deviation.
Knowing this, Shido naturally didn't dare to recklessly use an Angel he wasn't proficient with at such a critical mont.
"Hurry up and get in. It's too dangerous here!"
Shido pointed at the door, urging the man to jump in quickly.
However, the middle-aged man didn't enter the door. Instead, he crawled over to Shido, asking with frantic urgency.
"Aoi! Have you seen my daughter?! She's in elentary school, and she has a small calico cat with her. We got separated during the evacuation!"
"Aoi..."
Hearing the middle-aged man's description, Shido instantly thought of the little girl with the cat he had run into right before DEM launched this attack.
"Could it be... Aoi! Where are you?! Don't leave Papa alone!"
"Wait! Calm down, mister! It's too dangerous! You'll die!"
Seeing the man suddenly crawl toward the edge of the barrier, Shido quickly grabbed him.
"Let go! I have to find my daughter! If anything happens to Aoi... I don't want to live either!"
"Calm down!!!"
[—Gabriel.]
"...?! Uwaaaaaah!!"
Under the influence of Shido's voice, infused with Spirit power, the desperately thrashing man instantly cald down as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over his head. Seeing the murderous Nibelcole outside the barrier, his face paled, and he hurriedly scrambled back.
"Mister, it'll be fine. I'll help you find your daughter. So, please go evacuate first."
Patting the man's shoulder, Shido said solemnly.
The man looked at Shido with a gaze full of doubt.
"Just... who exactly are you?"
Hearing this, Shido replied with a wry smile.
"Just a normal high school student."
"I'm sorry... Please, you have to save Aoi."
Nodding heavily to Shido, the middle-aged man finally turned and jumped into the [Door].
Once the man had finally left, Shido let out a long sigh of relief and closed the [Door].
[Shido, can you hear ?!]
Just then, Yutsuki's voice rang through his earpiece.
"Yutsuki, where are you right now?"
[I'm standing by not far from you. I'm glad I could reach you, what's your situation?]
"Honestly... things are looking pretty bad."
Assessing his current predicant, Shido answered with a bitter smile.
[It's fine, the fact that you held out this long is already amazing. I'll cover your escape now, make sure to follow my instructions.]
"Wait, Yutsuki, before I escape, I need to find soone—"
"Yeah, yeah~ Stop! Stop! Excuse , Nibelcole-san~, could we call a quick ti-out?"
Right at that mont, accompanied by a light, cheerful voice, the frantic attacks from the Nibelcole outside the Spirit barrier suddenly ceased.
Then, Ai Mulian, equipped with her silver white CR-Unit, stepped out from the ranks of the Nibelcole.
"...!?"
Shido's pupils violently contracted.
"Say~ How about we have a little chat? Itsuka Shido."
Pressing the blade of her sword against the neck of a little girl, Ai Mulian flashed an amicable smile, speaking in a thoroughly friendly tone.
User Comments
0 comments from readers