「Either way, first we bring the perpetrators into the bloodbath that awaits them and then conduct a thorough investigation that doesn’t condone any injustice whatsoever within and without the business field. I’m already in an unsteady position, but it’s doubtful as to whether even the next guildmaster will fully regain that trust. Still, we have to try. I am truly sorry for pushing all the work I should have done onto you, of course……」
Seeing the guildmaster make this overly sincere statement, Rainy secretly remarked to herself that yes, in the end, this man was still a Lorren resident.
「For now, I’ll continue investigating various things. If I find any information that would be of value to you, I will send it your way.」
「Okay. Please. It really does hurt to know I cannot give you any special reward……」
「It’s an order from the higherups, so no problem. This is also part of the salary.」
Lightly waving a hand at the guildmaster, who still seemed to be apologetic, Rainy quickly vanished from the room right after. Seeing her go off, the guildmaster muttered with a grimace.
「And I also need to strengthen the intel on my end……」
Reflecting on the fact that their internal conditions were probably being leaked, the guildmaster began his work for the time being.
「……They’re doing a sloppy job at tailing.」
A little while after leaving the trade guild, Rainy caught onto five different people following her as she made that remark. Unlike in Darl when she had pretended to be a regular person, Rainy was currently masking her presence only partway, which should be a clear-cut hint that it’s a trap, so if Rainy were in their position, unless there was a really good reason to do so or her preparations or chances of victory were slim, she could guarantee she would not be fooled by a trap like this. Not to mention, they had walked recklessly into this trap with no precautions. It was at this point when her opponents’ level was made clear.
Also, their method of tailing was so laughably bad that nine out of ten bystanders watching could say 100% for sure that they were tailing someone. Usually when you purposely go along with someone’s lure, you make sure no one knows your location as you let only your target know they are being pursued, displaying your ability to your opponent and applying pressure. The opponent would also generally pinpoint the pursuer’s location and apply pressure in return, pretend to give them the slip, and go through all sorts of tactics, but Rainy’s opponents showed no signs of even trying those things.
In other words, no matter how you evaluated them, these were the actions of dim-witted amateurs.
(I’ll shake them up a bit.)
While this was a half-baked quarry, she had gotten her fish on the line, so why not play around for a bit? In that line of thinking, Rainy took a very suspicious action and headed into the back alleyway. Once she had confirmed they had followed her in, Rainy turned on the motorbike that was now her companion and speeded through the deserted back alleyway in one swoop.
(If they can keep up at this speed……)
Despite having accelerated up to 60 kilos in a moment, the distance between her and the presence of these amateur pursuers neither increased nor decreased. In this world, other than a few exceptions like Overaccelerate and its startup time, unless you had a golem carriage you were not going to reach this kind of speed. By this point it was clear that her pursuers were not entirely humanoid.
Doing what she could to lead them in a direction where there weren’t any people, Rainy searched every aspect of her adversary. If they could move at this speed, Rainy had a pretty good idea as to what precisely their identity was, but she had no confirmation so she wanted to make sure.
(Should be ready pretty soon.)
Finding an alleyway where she could put up a good act of being thoroughly cornered, Rainy jumped in without hesitation. Checking her side mirror to see this group of individuals who she had just lured in, Rainy inwardly grinned.
「Dark God Templar, confirmed.」
Reflected in the side mirror was a group of men in a fusion between devil-type monsters and humans. They were not running on the ground, but flying with their membrane wings. That was apparently the secret to their speed. One of them was the leader who had supervised the group that had tried to meddle in Azuma Workshop’s affairs.
「We’ll make that rat snooping around us pay with death.」
At the same time as those unsophisticated, unappealing words, the men scatter shot mana bullets. Skillfully slipping through all of those bullets, Rainy rushed into the blind alley. The walls came closing in more and more.
「Ha! So she has given into despair and lost her mind!」
Sneering at Rainy, who had already gotten on a crash course for a wall at a speed that couldn’t be stopped, the men scattered some more mana bullets. Lightly ignoring them, Rainy raised the bike’s front wheels and slammed into the wall with a wheelie.
The moment that the large bike specially made by Hiroshi made contact with the wall with its front tires, it rebounded on a grand scale and seemed to be losing its balance. Skillfully regaining balance with the bike, Rainy turned it and then took out a magic pistol from the bike, firing out a large amount of bullets to keep the men in check.
The men were now quivering at the impossible movement Rainy had made and quantity of high powered bullets she fired out subsequently, but Rainy did not relax the speed even a bit as she stowed away the pistol to take out a knife from the sheath at her back waist specially made for her, pouring in mana and activating its special functions. Swinging the knife four times in an almost throwing motion as she passed by them, Rainy stabbed deeply through the mens’ necks one by one.
「Wha!?」
In the blink of an eye, the men turned pale when they realized that four of their number had been killed. Not reacting to this in any particular way, Rainy put away the knife as she used the neighboring building’s wall to vault the bike up in a three dimensional maneuver. If all she needed to do was take everyone down, that could be arranged in a single moment, but that wouldn’t be enough to secure an information source. She had to keep at least one of them alive or it would be a waste.
「Birdlime Bullet, open fire.」
「W-Wait!」
Using the wall to accelerate (and without using the flying option in the slightest), Rainy soared through the air to launch a merciless pursuit. As he frantically tried to say something to stop this, the man found a birdlime bullet between his mouth and nose.
「Hardener, open fire.」
「Hey, we said to wait……!」
Ignoring the man’s drivel, Rainy landed the bike on the ground with the back wheels, changing direction as she pounded the hardener into birdlime bullets to solidify them.
「Debuff Net, open fire.」
「Gah!? 逃げられん!」
「Binding Barrier, expand.」
「Damn it, you planned all of this didn’t you!」
「Bamboo Mat Rope.」
The men lost all capacity for mobilization when the bike’s missile launcher fired special warhead after warhead. Even Barold Second Form had nearly lost all movement when faced with these projectiles, so this wasn’t something that mere templar underlings could handle.
「……I wanted to do some splendid stunts, but these dudes are lacking……」
Rainy expressed dissatisfaction at how quickly she had defeated the men. The bike had flight and speed capabilities and she wasn’t even able to put them to proper use. Honestly, had she been off the bike this would have been settled in five seconds, but even on the bike the fight time was barely any longer because these people were just too weak.