Shadow steps huh? It uses some pretty creative programming to make it work. I was wondering how that guy always disappeared from my line of sight.

Apparently, the magic first spawns a mana-observer to monitor all the blind spots of a single target.

The magic then strengthens the users legs and automatically moves them out of the target’s line of sight.

It’s kind of fun to discover the mechanisms behind all these magics, kind of like discovering a magicians tricks. Even rat-man himself probably had no idea why his opponent couldn’t see him after he activated shadow steps.

All in all, this magic seems really useful under certain circumstances, but I can also immediately spot a couple of weaknesses.

One being that the observer only takes the target’s eyesight into consideration. Another one being the speed of movement. Using shadow steps will make you practically invisible for your target, but it doesn’t make you that much faster. No wonder it took a while for rat man to attack me after activating the magic, it’s not instantaneous.

Besides those two points, the most glaring problem would probably be the fact that the magic is basically useless against a group of enemies since the observer only takes the blind-spots of a single target into consideration…

After analyzing the cartridge for a while I decided to try it out, but it wouldn’t activate. Weird, the magic should still consume mana, even if there is no target, but I don’t feel like any mana left my body…

Wait… goddamit, I forgot that I still have a laughable mana-pool…

After some googling with the search term: ‘shadow steps’, I finally found a site with some information on it.

It makes the user invisible for a single target, blah blah blah… Oh right here! Apparently it ‘only’ costs 300 mana per second to use…

Fuck, it’ll take a day or so before I finally cultivate a mana-pool that large. On the bright side, the site categorizes the cartridge as rare, and shadow steps seems like a pretty useful magic for one-on-one duels… I might as well keep it?

I’ll program my blank orange cartridge as a more universal movement magic, to compliment shadow steps… Something that’ll make me faster, a lot faster… It also shouldn’t cost too much mana if I want to use it in the near future…

In the near future huh? I’m already thinking about the assassination job… Well, I can at least listen to Miss. Izumi’s conditions and rewards first before deciding, right?...

*SIGH* I can’t believe I’m seriously considering murder… What have I gotten myself into?...

…

After contemplating my situation some more I decided that thinking about it won’t change anything, I’ll just listen to what Miss. Izumi has to say tonight.

I head to the kitchen to grab some breakfast, or well, I guess some lunch? It’s already 1 o’clock.

“O-Oh hey Reo, f-finally up?”

“Hey Juniper, yeah, finally managed to get out of bed ha ha…”

Ughhh… that was awkward… Juniper also looks a bit more shy than usual… guess she is still embarrassed about our little ‘groping’ session… Well, it would be weirder if she wasn’t, she was drunk at the time and normally not that daring. Still, I can’t stand this awkwardness between us.

“Look Juniper, about our ‘drinking session’, I wanted to sa-“

Before I can finish, she cuts me of:

“D-Don’t worry about that Reo, we both had a bit too much to drink… I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression or something, you probably don’t even like me like that, ha ha.”

Oh… Looks like she did regret her actions after all… That sucks, I kind of hoped that she also enjoyed that night… No, it’s better this way, I first have to sort out my own feelings…

“R-Right… It was nothing special… Sorry if I took things too far.”

“N-No, you didn’t do anything wrong Reo! I-If anything I was being presumptuous…”

Well, at least I’m glad we discussed it. We can both move on now. Hope it won’t be too awkward between us though.

…

Fuck nobody’s talking, it’s definitely becoming awkward between us! Let’s try and break the ice.

“J-Juniper, is it okay if I ask you a difficult question?”

“Of course Reo, you can ask me anything!”

Thank god, there it is, her usual kind and motherly aura.

“R-Right, I also asked Sara this question actually, but I’m curious what you think.”

She kind of looked disappointed when I mentioned Sara’s name, guess those two aren’t such good friends after all.

“A-Anyways, I was wondering what you thought about… Well, to put it bluntly, what do you think about murder? Can you justifiably take someone else’s life?”

“No… I don’t think you can.”

That was a rather abrupt answer...

“B-But what about if the person is a really bad guy? What if you have to protect someone or save a friend?”

“No, those are just excuses, there’s always another option.”

“But don’t you think that’s a rather naïve viewpoint? Some people can’t be change-“

“NO REO! LIFE IS PRECIOUS! YOU- You can’t just decide who deserves death and who doesn’t… Murder only proliferates more murder…”