Okay…

Situation report: It has been around ten minutes and approximately fifteen shadowy figures are standing menacingly outside the building surrounding. I’ve blocked the main entranced with nearby furniture and created wards that should slow them down when they choose to attack.

It seems that maniac from earlier has friends. They haven’t made any moves to enter the building, seemingly content with surrounding the building ominously… although that could change at any moment.

This could be troublesome. He assessed my strength earlier and still decided to design a trap.

Still, I’ve barely showed him a fraction of my abilities. I work best with preparation and they’ve given me plenty of preparation time. They should’ve chosen to attack the moment I noticed them.

“Come on, we’re heading up to the second floor.” I ordered, poking at the scammer merchant’s back with God-hunter to speed him up.

I’d cut apart the rope tying his legs together, but kept his hands tied up because I don't trust him. He’d be useless in combat anyway, unless I gave him my gun… and that’s not happening.

“Relax, I’m going!” He urgently replied, moving faster than before. “Can untie my hands?”

Well… it probably wouldn’t hurt. Why not? He can’t do much, but he might be slightly helpful.

“I guess…” Before I could move to untie him, God-hunter interrupted me.

He probably used his ability to influence your thoughts, don’t untie him.

Frowning, I stopped and I thought it over.

Despite thinking mere moments before that I shouldn’t untie him, I was going to untying him when he asked.

Mental abilities are extremely annoying.

“What did I say about unprompted questions?!” I annoyingly stated and threatened him again, “Don’t use your ability on me again or I’ll kill you.”

“I meant no harm.” He said quieting down at my outburst, “I might be able to help. They’ll kill me as well if they get chance.”

What do you think God-hunter? Should I untie him?

Since when did you care about his life? Shouldn’t you be making more preparations and checking to ensure they haven’t entered the building?

Good point. There’s way too much to do. Worrying about him is a waste of time.

“Just move. We’re starting this fight on the second floor.” I urged, “If you want to help, you can inform me when they enter the building.”

I checked earlier and this building has a total of three floors and a roof. Plenty of space to defend against foreign enemies.

The first floor is currently lined with wards that create water below freezing and others that produce fire.

Sadly, I couldn’t create too many magical wards. Warding mainly uses natural environmental mana, which makes it almost impossible to create many wards in one location as they will interfere with each other (with potentially explosive and catastrophic consequences).

... Actually, explosive and catastrophic consequences might be useful in the current situation.

Shaking my head at the thought, it’s too unpredictable to bet on. It might explode or it might simply fizzle out.

Dubbing that as plan E for explode, I took out my musket and moved toward the window.

Preparing to shoot someone with my musket, I immediately noticed a problem. The number of shadowy figures has almost doubled.

Something’s wrong… a murderer shouldn’t be able to collect this many people.

Tsk… did he use shapeshifting to convince a guild to attack with him or something?

Waiting any longer would be a bad idea. My preparations were almost finished anyway. If I wasted more time and let the number of people to grow, the situation would only get worse.

Musket trained on one of the figures below, I shouted out the window, “If you don’t disperse immediately, I will open fire.”

None of them made a sound and only ominous silence filled the air.

Screw it, I already warned them. If this is a misunderstanding then I promise to apologize to your corpses.

Holding down the trigger, the musket began to vibrate with power. When it had acquired a decent amount of power, I aimed toward a shadowy figure.

BANG! I released the trigger and a beam of light shot out of the musket burrowing into the stomach of the shadowy figure.

Although I couldn’t see their faces or any distinguishing characteristics of the figures, I could spot a hole appear from the bullet in a shadowy figure’s stomach. Which only made it more surprising when none of them react to their wounded ally before, on some unseen cue, they began advancing toward the building.

Watched dumbfounded as I realized that the hole in the shadowy figure’s stomach filled up seconds after receiving it.

Ah… I miscalculated.

They aren’t human. They’re likely some type of summon. I need confirmation.

Rifling through bag, I pulled out a mana light that I’d left in my bag and threw it toward the shadowy figures after activating it.

The light revealed the shadowy figures to be just that… Shadowy figures. They seemed to be made out pure blackness with no facial features or distinguishing characteristics.

Creepy… Almost certainly some type of summoning ability. Fighting them is probably pointless. Even if I manage to kill one, the summoner can always summon more. I need to find the summoner.

“What the hell are those thing?” The merchant asked horrified while staring at their completely empty faces.

“Summons presumably.” I deadpanned while stowing my gun.

There’s not enough information to find their weakness… They seem to be made of shadows, so they’re potentially weak to light? They didn’t seem bothered by the mana light I threw at them earlier though...

Calm down, Tobias. Try analyzing them.

Right! Damn, I should’ve done that earlier. I panicked and completely forgot.

{Shadow Soul – Slightly weak, can regenerate in darkness.}

Slightly weak… They’re only considered slightly weak in comparison to me and they can regenerate in darkness.

What kind of overpowered summoning ability is this? They are only slightly weak than me, yet he can mass summon them?

Screwing fighting them, I need to escape first and find the summoner’s location. There’s no time to lose. My gun is useless in this situation.

I need a plan of escape… my eyes turned toward the merchant.

They should be tracking him somehow. He should make decent bait and slow them down.

“Sorry. You’ve outlived your usefulness.” I cut apart the ropes tying together the merchant’s hands and I tossed him out the window in one swift motion.

I had no idea if that will work, but abandoning him is the best option to temporarily drawing their attention. He shouldn’t die that fall. Whether he’s able to escape from those summons or not… that’s up to his own luck.

Moving up the building, I rushing up toward the roof and searching the surroundings buildings for an escape route.

Even the nearest building is too far to jump. Hearing liquid splash about as my wards activated below, I forced my thoughts into overdrive.

Teleportation is impossible. It’s still on cooldown.

There’s no rope left. I used it to tie up the merchant.

Uh…. The levitating stone plate! I still have that from the Dream Realm.

Summoning the levitating object out of the wristband, I placed it on the floor and had it expand. Standing atop it, I saw the shadow souls approaching from the stairwell.

Levitate! I attempted to force the levitating stone plate into the air. However, the stone plate didn’t move. It stayed firmly on the ground.

Shadow souls began rushing toward me.

Damn it! The Unnoticed, you’ve also failed me.

There’s no time for this. How exactly does this thing work? Come on, levitate already! Slamming my foot on it; it finally sputtered to life and began levitating.

Finally! I immediately ordered it to fly away in its fastest speed.

Unfortunately, the levitating plate wasn’t made for speed and it barely managed to make it off the roof before the shadows had caught up.

The three nearest shadows jumped off the roof attempting to climb aboard.

Two of the shadow souls managed to make it aboard the plate. They both silently took combat stances at the edge of the stone plate with some type of shadow weapons in their hand.

The third shadow soul took an impromptu fast-travel to the ground and splattered into millions of little shadow pieces on impact.

I quietly stared at the double shadow souls with God-hunter in hand, waiting patiently for them to make the first move.

If they waited long enough, the levitating stone plate would reach the nearest building and I should be able jump over and to store the plate in the wristband. The sudden disappear of the ground beneath them should cause them to fall to their deaths.

Sadly, the shadow souls didn’t seem to have any intention of wait and both charged toward me.

The nearest one stabbed toward me with a dagger.

I dodged, grabbed his arm and pulled him in front of the strike of the other shadow while stabbing God-hunter into its heart.

Unfortunately, the shadow remained unharmed from both the friendly fire and damage done by God-hunter. The attacked shadow promptly began attempting to disarm me by holding the God-hunter in his chest.

I couldn’t pull God-hunter out of the shadow soul’s chest due to its grip on my arm, nor could I use my other arm as it was busy trying to prevent the other shadow’s dagger from stabbing me.

What are you doing!? Devour its soul, God-hunter! Now, please!

I mentally yelled, as I used the shadow soul to block another attack.

It tastes really yucky though… like extremely stale bread with mold and bugs surrounding it? Can’t you find another way?

Are you kidding me?! This-really-isn’t-the-time!

I moved to dodge another strike, but the secondary shadow soul managed to stab deep into my right shoulder.

“GET OFF!” I yelled, kicking the shadow soul that injured me off the levitating plate.

Unfortunately, I’d weakened the strength holding the other shadow’s arm to accomplish that feat and the other shadow soul used the opportunity to turn the knife on me.

I held the dagger at bay, until it began using both hands to push down on the dagger.

I attempted to reciprocate, but found little strength in my right arm. The wound isn’t regenerating! Damn it. God-hunter, hurry up and devour him. Do you want me to die?!

It's too disgusting.

The dagger slowly inched toward my neck and I did the only thing I could think of to change the situation.

I stored the levitating stone plate in my inventory, and summoned the tough shield in its place.

With the floor unexpectedly disappearing below him, the shadow soul no longer had enough leverage to continue pushing toward my neck with the dagger.

Utilizing the newly summoned shield, I managed to prevent my neck from acquiring an unwanted new hole.

Flipping over mid-fall, I used the shadow soul to soften the landing. The impact from landing shattered the shadow soul into many pieces and caused my legs to jolt in pain.

Picking up God-hunter from the floor, I brushed dirt of myself and examined the wound on my shoulder.

Ouch… the pain is far more than normal. There seems to be something supernatural applied to the dagger that's slowing my recovery. Normal wounds would disappear after a few seconds.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised he found a way to cause more permanent injuries. Still, I hadn’t expected him to discover a method to slow recovery in less than a day.

Checking for any more shadows in the immediate vicinity, I found none. Nor had any of the three shadows that had fallen recovered.

The shadows are probably still in a building nearby or chasing after the scammer, we should leave before they get chance to attack.

When shadow shattered into many pieces, that should mean it’s dead… or it might just take them a longer to regenerate from shattering.

Knowing my luck, it’s probably the later.

Well, they also seem to be weak to blunt type damage. My legs are sore from the fall, but I am otherwise unhurt. At least, I learned they’re weak to blunt damage from this escapade.

Oh, yeah… and thanks for absolutely nothing, God-hunter. What the hell was that?

You were fine. It worked out in the end!

We could’ve both died! Need I remind you that our souls are connected. If I die, you’ll completely revert back into the empty shell of a knife from when I found you.

Aren’t you always going on about how Rin can reload and save you if you die? Why is it any different this time?

There is a difference between taking risks to grow stronger and active sabotage. You were in a clear position to deal with the enemy, I trusted you to deal with it and that almost got both of us killed.

You don’t have a clue how terrible its soul tasted. I wanted to puke being in its proximity, nevermind eating it. You’re asking for the impossible.

Before I could argue, four shadows emerged from the building that I interrogated the merchant. They spotted me and began rushing toward me whilst I ran in the opposite direction toward our apartment.

I don’t have time to argue with you, God-hunter. We will have a lengthy discussion later. For now, we need to reach Rin and the apartment.

Shadow creatures, especially ones this powerful, should be significantly weaker or disappear entirely during the day.

We’ll hide up in the apartment and wait until daytime. The system’s protection should prevent unauthorized entry if we keep the door closed.

Fortunately, I moved faster than the shadow creatures and I hadn’t traveled far when searching for an abandoned building. The entire journey back only took a couple minutes.

When I arrived, I quickly entered and locked the apartment door behind me before the shadow souls could arrive.

Phew… I’m safe. While the system protection doesn’t stop unauthorized people from leaving, it does have measures to prevent forceful unauthorized entry.

While the measures are not all-powerful, the system protection along with the sizeable barrier I set up earlier should be enough to delay them until morning.

Damn, my shoulder hurts and doesn’t seem to be healing on it’s own.

Laughing briefly, I realized that I’d finally be getting medical treatment from Rin.