POV Swap – Rin

Rin blinked as the petrification disappeared.

Tobias pulled back his arm that still dripped parts of blood and was looking away from her. Rin found the room seems to have changed dramatically.

The previously bustling bar was now empty and abandoned. There were only four people in the room now. Two of which are stone.

Tobias had clearly acted and turned everyone to stone. Rin recognized the other stone person as the barkeep that had been in the other bar. With the bar filled up before, she hadn't noticed him. However, Rin couldn't exactly interrogate him while he was petrified.

Rin saw the tables were dusty and frowned as she looked over the now seemingly abandoned bar.

Turning to Tobias, Rin inquired, “What happened? How much time passed?”

Rin had only noticed being petrified for a moment before she'd awoken, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed. The dramatic change in the surroundings indicated it was not a small period of time, though.

Despite asking aloud, she knew it was unlikely Tobias would be able to respond. Rin found it strange that he would petrify herself and wait a long period of time before awakening her.

“Did some problem occur?” Rin inquired, clutching Tobias’ warm cloak around her shoulders. Tobias hadn’t taken it back after giving it to her, so she’d placed it around her shoulders and used it herself. Despite it being too big for her, she enjoying the feeling.

Tobias shook his head in confusion and spoke in his native language, but Rin didn’t understand him. Pulling out a pencil and paper, Tobias began writing.

Leaning over his shoulder, Rin read it to herself as he wrote it.

‘Can you understand this? Sorry, I accidentally petrified everyone. My petrifying gaze seems to have upgraded without my knowledge.’

Rin tapped Tobias’ shoulder and nodded.

That explains why he petrified her, but not why so much time had passed.

Rin was briefly confused at she could understand his writing and not his speech, but quickly accepted it. Grabbing the pencil and paper from his hand, she wrote down her own questions.

Tobias shook his head after looking over the paper she was writing.

Using the writing instruments, Tobias wrote that her writing didn’t translate for him before stating he was going to release Stanley.

Standing up, Tobias moved over toward Stanley.

Rin’s eyes flashed after staring Stanley’s petrified form and a plan formed in her mind. Grabbing him arm, she stopped Tobias from releasing him Stanley. Whilst saving over the latest, third save file.

[Year 2; Day 218]

This was the most vulnerable position that Rin had ever seen Stanley. He was incapacitated and completely unable to fight back. Whenever she’d fought him in the past, random events always stopped her from harming him.

Since Stanley currently wasn’t in a position where he could actually fight back, run away, or defend himself. This provided a unique and valuable opportunity to test his ability and whether he could be killed him from a vulnerable position.

If she succeeded, she would just reload and keep the save file in case she needed it.

The timestamp proved that nearly no time had passed while she’d been petrified, which leads to another series of questions… but Rin elected to ignore it to take advantage of this unique opportunity.

Saving was a necessary precaution because extremely strange things tended to happen whenever she’d attempted to kill Stanley in the past.

Drawing her sword, Rin swiped toward Stanley’s stone body to smash it. Tobias shouted in surprise, but Rin ignored it.

This was too valuable an opportunity to pass over.

Before her sword could strike Stanley, a gunshot knocked the sword out of her hand.

A young white-haired woman had entered the room from the stairwell and shot the weapon out of Rin’s hand, preventing it from hitting Stanley.

The white-hair woman saw the stone statues in the room. The woman turned livid and demanded answers, “What have you done to them?”

Furrowing her brows, Rin ignored the random interference. Similar interrupts always happened whenever she tried to kill him. Thus, instead of dealing with the woman, Rin moved to smash the statue of Stanley by hand.

“No, you don’t!” The woman fired another shot on the floor between the two of them. A magic barrier rose up from the bullet landing location blocking Rin from attacking Stanley.

Smashing into the barrier, it vibrated from the strength of Rin’s punch. Realized that she wouldn’t be able to easily smash the barrier, Rin clicked her tongue in annoyance and backed off toward her sword.

Even in this state, Stanley was still extremely annoying to deal with. Before she could reach her sword, another warning shot was fired at her.

“Don’t move. Who sent you?” The white-haired woman demanded, pointing the gun toward Rin.

Rin’s eyes flicked toward Tobias, who seemed completely baffled by this entire situation. However, judging by his positioning, Tobias was getting ready to intervene.

Rin swiftly knocked over a table and another gunshot sounded. Rin hadn't been hit and managed to hide behind it to block the opponent’s line of sight.

Preparing her bow, Rin shouted toward the woman and Tobias, “Do not get involved.”

Although Rin knew it wasn't likely that Tobias would understand her words, there was always the small possibility that he would. Actually, even if both of them heard and understood the message, neither would have cared about Rin’s words.

Tobias wouldn’t stand around as Rin got injured and the white-haired woman would never give her an opportunity from meaningless words like that.

As to be expected, the white-haired woman didn’t flinch even slightly from Rin’s meaningless words and instead knocked over a table herself for cover.

Tobias clearly realized the woman hadn’t noticed him, and utilized the opportunity to ambush her.

Moved beside the assailant, Tobias placed his dagger to her throat and gestured for her to drop her weapon while speaking in his native language.

Rin realized the situation had been dealt with and moved to grab her sword. Before moving over to interrogate the woman.

No doubt that there were countless coincidences that ended up with this woman arriving precisely at that moment to interrupt her. The annoying thing is that if Rin reloaded, the white-haired woman might attack earlier, later, or potentially not at all.

It was strange that Rin hadn’t heard her coming, but this entire building was rather strange. Dealing with this woman, however wouldn’t solve the underlining difficulty with killing Stanley. Still, if she was in this building, she might have useful information.

Gesturing for Tobias to back off. Rin pointed her sword toward the white-haired woman and demanded. “Who are you?”

“None of your business.” The woman spat out whilst glancing toward Tobias, refusing to drop her weapon or speak her name.

Rin grabbed the gun out of her hand and tossed it into the far corner of the room. “Shut up and answer the question.”

The woman stuck out her tongue in a mocking manner and ridiculed her, “Should I shut up, or answer the question?”

Not bothering with her nonsense, Rin directly punched the woman in the stomach and repeated herself. “Name, now.”

After recovering from the punch, the woman smirked and sarcastically replied with the name replacement for anonymous and unknown individuals. “Jane Doe.”

Rin’s language didn’t have an equivalent for a similar anonymous name and, even if it did, Rin wouldn’t have cared. She had only asked for a name to have something to identify her with. As for whether it was her actual name? Rin didn’t care that much about her to bother figuring that out.

Rin’s sword pressed into the woman’s shirt leaving a mark on her chest and a patch of ripped clothing. Blood dripped down the woman's skin and soaked into her clothes. Using the opportunity presented before her, Rin attempted to get some valuable information, “How many people are in the building? Miss Jane Doe.”

“Two million people.” The white-hair woman answered sarcastically with a purposefully ridiculous response.

Rin’s expression turned cold and her eyes glazed over at the woman’s answer. Rin pushed the blade further into her causing blood to drip down the woman’s chest. “Do you have a death wish?”

“Hmph, go ahead. Murderer.” She spat out, antagonizing Rin further. “I’d bet you’d enjoy it.”

Rin couldn’t be bothered to deal with her nonsense any longer and cut open her throat in a swift manner.

As the white-hair woman lay dying on the floor, Rin shook her head and muttering to herself, “I certainly didn’t enjoy it.”

In fact, she didn’t feel anything from killing her. Neither pleasure nor mental anguish. The action was as simple as breathing and was no different than killing animals or monsters to her.

Advancing toward Stanley once again, whilst stepping around the barrier the dead woman had put up, Rin slashed toward him.

Mid-slash, a flash of light appeared from Stanley’s location temporarily blinded Rin. Before her sword could hit him, Stanley’s petrified form had disappeared. He’d been teleported to some unknown foreign location.

Rin sighed at the sight. She’d been expecting something like this to happen.

Still, this wasn’t entirely pointless. She’d learned that Stanley’s ability was completely passive and didn’t contain any manual activation condition. It also only tended to activate to it’s fullest potential when his life was threatened.

Otherwise, it would’ve prevented the petrification process from ever occurring.

Turning around, Rin remembered that Tobias had been here. It took several minutes of observing the surroundings before she discovered him. He was quietly staring at the dead woman’s body.

Rin winced as she realized that she’d forgotten Tobias was here when she killed her. When Rin focused on something specific, it was easy to overlook his presence. Normally she made a point to avoid killing people in front of him. He didn’t react well to such events, even when he only heard of them.

“Tobias?” Rin carefully called out his name, attempting to gauge the extent of the damage.

Tobias looked up from his thoughts and glanced toward her, “Hmm?”

Rin swapped over to his native language and asked, “Are you fine?”

She only knew a couple words, but Rin knew enough to ask how Tobias was feeling.

“Yes… fine.” Tobias absentmindedly replied, clearly distracted.

Rin stepped toward him to comfort him, but saw him back up at her movement. Watching his instinctive retreat, Rin kept her distance.

However, his subconscious actions hurt… more than she realized.

Reload file 3.

Time rewound. Back to the moment that she had just stopped Tobias from saving Stanley from petrification.

Tobias stared at her with a questioning gaze. Clearly wondering why Rin had stopped him.

Rin bit her lip, and let go of his arm.

The reaction had been instinctive. Despite promising to not reload for such petty things, she still reloaded instantly after watching him back away in fear of her.

Backing away from Tobias, she stared at the staircase and took out her bow. Listening carefully, she didn’t hear anyone coming. However, considering that she didn’t hear anything last time, that didn't mean much.

Tobias noticed Rin preparing her bow for combat and also prepared for battle by taking out his musket.

Minutes passed, but nobody appeared this time.

Lowering her bow, Rin drew her sword and gestured to Tobias for him to stay here.

Entering the stairwell, she examined the surroundings before sitting down on the stairs and pulled Tobias’ cloak closer around herself to comfort herself.

She needed a moment alone.