TR: Yuuji

ED: Zeraphin

FR: GAMplayz (forgot to ask his name)

Chapter 14-p2

 The bandit Vicky stood in front of us.
 
 I stopped my feet in a hurry. The kids following behind me also stopped.
 “Eh...why...?”
 
Phil looked at Vicky’s figure in confusion. The mouse that had been searching for the enemy was behind that figure.
 
 ----- I see. Damn…!
 Just after the rat had finished searching for the enemy, Vicky moved from his position!
 What impeccable timing…
 
 “Bad kids. Haven’t your parents ever taught you not to go anywhere without permission?”
 
 She smiled and, at the same time, clenched her fist.
 
 “But I'm not a good guy to preach, either.-------so I’ll punish you gently!!”
 
 She brandished her clenched fist.
 A ranged attack that could blow both Benny and me back into the jail.
—but now, it was nothing but an unreal story!
 
The moment her fist hit my stomach, I activated “Veiled wings of Freedom”.
Her attack was simply just a fist that’s being teleported. It was executed by creating a wormhole entrance on your hand and an exit to where you wanted to attack.
Vicky’s fist, which didn’t seem to have come closer to me, had certainly reached me---I could feel it.
 
 “Oh…!? What’s this…!?”
 
 Vicky’s feet floated off the floor.
 
 The moment Vicky’s fist hit my belly, I erased her mass.
 Of course, I wasn’t blown away.  
When a zero-mass object hits something, the resulting impact would also be zero.
 
 While Vicky was flapping around in the air, I shortened our distance. As payback, I decided to jump and kick her with all of my strength.
A few moments later, Vicky, whose mass had been restored, was blown away and crashed into the wall of the corridor on her back.
 I landed safely but began frowning moments later.
 
 “It’s so hard! That woman has steellike abs…!”
 Vicky’s abs were as hard as steel. No children would survive a hit that strong.
  “Withdraw!”
 
 Vicky’s mass has been restored, but her weight was still zero. So now, she was trying to spacewalk.
 While the Art was still working, I took Phil and went back to the way we came from. As we ran, I opened the map that I had memorized in my brain.
 
“-------All right! Over there. We’re going to that room!”
 
 After firmly searching for the enemy, we pull all the kids inside.
 In here, there should be enough space for a large family to hide in.
 
 “...Hmmm? It’s smaller than I thought.”
 
 The room was just like a storage room where garbage and various things were placed. So that is why it felt smaller than I had imagined from seeing it on the map.
 
 “We’ll be hiding here. Don’t go out until I say it’s okay. Don’t make any sounds, okay?”
 
 When I saw the children nod, I decided upon where to hide them.
 I hid with Phil in a rotten crate.
 In this darkness, all we could hear was each other’s breathing and heartbeat.
 
 “(Fuhehe!)”
 “(What’s with that laugh?)”
 “(This feels just like yesterday.)”
 “(...I’m not going to kiss you.)”
 “(I know~♪)”
 She said that, but Phil rested her head on the back of my neck while sticking her body with mine. She had already turned into a person obsessed with thoughts of sex…
 
My consciousness was slipping away to the fast beating rhythm when I heard a sound coming from outside that pricked my ears.
 …Footsteps.
 I heard the footsteps of a lone person.
 
 “~~~~♪”
 Humming…?
 I frowned.
 …I don’t have good memories of people humming.
 As the footstep approach, the humming sound becomes more and more clear.
 
 “-------- --------sse-no yoi yoi yoi♪”
 
 …Ha?
 
 
 
 
 
 “♪  We are bandits, we snatch away crying kids!~ ♪”
 “♪  Who will we pick, Who will we choose, Who will we aim for!~ ♪”
 “♪  La-nLaLanLanLanLanLanLan  ♪”
 “♪  La-nLaLanLanLanLanLan  ♪”
 “♪  La-nLaLanLanLanLanLanLan  ♪”
 “♪  LanLanLanLanLa…….  ♪”  
 
 Such…such a stupid song.
 This song is.  
This song is stupid; it’s a lie; it’s impossible, such a song like that------
 ------is disgusting.
 
 “(J-kun? What’s wrong?)”
 
 Phil’s voice startled me.
 Far away, I could still hear the humming song.
 But, that is-----
 
 “We are bandits, we stop the cries of crying kids♪”
 
 ----- It was the “A thousand feet up the Apls”, not a melody.  
 I took a deep breath.
 I silenced the beating sounds of my heart, and after that, I noticed Phil looking at my face with anxiety.
 
 “(Are you okay…? You’re making such a terrible face…)”
 “(Ah…I’m fine. Sorry)”
 
 I put my hand around Phil’s back and patted her.
 …It was no good to be traumatized at a time like this.
 She’s already dead.
 I had killed her.
 She----was gone.
 
 The footstep and the humming passed through the room and disappeared in the distance
 …The voice I heard this time, seems like it was of a man.
 Where did Vicky go?
  After looking around for a while, we got out of the crate.
 Benny and his friends also got out.
 We gathered together in that small, dark room.
 
 “J-kun, what should we do?”
 
 About Phil’s straightforward question, I think about it with my hand under my chin.
 
 “...To be noticed by Vicky is quite troublesome. If we’re noticed, no matter how much we run, we won’t be able to escape.”
 “So we have no choice but to hide while running away?”
 “That’s true, but how did she find out about our location? She shouldn’t be able to show up right before us when we’re moving, unless she knows where we are.”
 “Um, you’re right…how did she know?”
 
 There were no surveillance cameras or motion detectors here.
 Unless she could manipulate animals like Phil, she’d have to use humans to find where we were....
I wonder if any of the thieves had a Spirit Art like that -- for example, something like clairvoyance.
 
 …..Damn it. There was no point in thinking about it further.
 The only thing I knew is that no matter how we escape, Vicky is likely to catch us.
 
 “...How about we attack those three?” (とりょさん, idk this) [dunno what this means]
 “I don’t think that’s realistic either…we don’t have enough firepower right now.”
 “Is it possible to distract them?”
 “Even so, when they find out that it’s just a decoy, they’ll move instantly and put an end to our escape.”
 “Umm…nee, J-kun”
 “Huh?”
 “What about [teleportation]? what kind of thing she need to do to activate that skill?”
 
 That was a rather sharp question. I thought about it for a while.
 
 “...I’ve never read that book. Master doesn’t seem to possess the [Fathomless Pit] either…It’s just my guess but I think you’ll have to image where exactly you want to go.”
 “Isn’t that bad? There’s a chance that you’ll carelessly open it inside a wall…”
 “No, that won’t happen. [Fathomless Pit] is the ability to make [Pits] connected to different places…so the size of the pit that can be opened is determined by the size of what needs to be moved.”  
 
 The size of the pit seems to depend on the skill of the holder.
 If you’re an amateur, you’d be barely able to pass your fingertips through the [Pit].
 Vicky was able to make a pit that allowed her and Benny to pass though, which meant that she was a very talented person.
 
 “Umm…I see; according to the way of deciding the destination, you’re not completely [teleporting], are you? ”
 “Well, for example, when you’re in a narrow place that you can’t physically fit in, that woman will not be able to come out due to the size of the Pit being restricted.”  
 
 I wish there was a narrow path that only children could get in.
 Although, there was no ventilation system in this abandoned fort.  
 
No concrete solution was found through our discussion.
 After all, was there no way to find out how she discovered our location...?
 When I thought so,
 
 -----Kon, kon.  
 
 “Are you there--?”------What! That damn kid again…!”
 
 Vicky?!
It didn’t take me long to understand that we had been discovered.
 How did she know we were here...?!
 As I expected, she was somehow always aware of our location!
 
 “Damn it!’
 
 While Vicky was having trouble unlocking the door, I blocked the door by pushing crates and rubbish in front of it.
 
 “Open the door! You damn kid!!”
 
 She hit the door with a “Bang”! Causing the door to keep shaking again and again. With her ridiculous strength, this door won’t last any longer!
 
 “Let’s go outside!”
 
 As I said, we rushed to the wall located at the back of the room.
 Of course, there was no way out.
 Only the stone wall stood in front of us.
 But.
 
 I pushed hard against the stone wall with my hands.
 With just that, the wall shattered.
 For me, a stone wall is no different than a wall made out of straw.
 
 “Come here! Quick!”
 
I ordered those kids to escape while carrying the injuried
 The barricade and the door began to collapse. It was only a matter of time before Vicky got in!
 3 people left, 2 people left----.
 
 -----Bang, bonk, crash, the wooden door collapsed!
 
 The sound of the collapse was heard when there was only one person left.
 A female bandit stood at the door, laughing.
 
 “You think you can runnnnnnnnn from me?!”
 
 I gnashed my teeth when I saw that Vicky was approaching me. I stretched out my arm to the last one, Benny.
 
 “Give me your hand!”
 “Um…!”
 
 Between the stones that had lost their weight and were floating in the air, was my extended right hand and Benny’s extended left hand-----
 
Huh?
 
 --While lying on top of each other, I pulled Benny out.
 And now.
 I put the weight back to the stones that were floating around.
 
 “Tsk!!”
 
 Vicky bitterly clicked her tongue.
 The stone that had just regained its weight fell on the figure of the female bandit.
 The threat that was just close by was now completely buried in the rubble.
 …..but she was not the kind of person who’d be willing to die so quietly like this.
 
 “J-kun!”
 “Aah!”
 
 The kids and I started to run again.
 At the same time, I glanced at Benny’s face.
 
 ----a short while ago.
 ----Speaking of which, that time…
 
 I felt a slight sense of discomfort, and when I recalled my past, a line connected to my present reality.
 Based on that, I reinterpreted my own past.
 
 -----Perhaps.
 Perhaps…that was the case?
 Vicky, who had been accurately capturing our position.
 Spirit Art 【Fathomless Pit】.
 Female bandit “Bloody Tigress”,”Crimson Cats”.
 A complex and mysterious abandoned fort.  
 Torture bed.
 
 “(------Phil)”
 “(huh-?)”
 
 I secretly told Phil ------ while making sure that no one else could hear us -----.
 
 “(Use the rat and examine this abandoned fort---- I want every corner to be surveyed.)”