v1c3 - 5

Toru understood it as such that in short it was a “hand.”

A magic that created and wielded a massive <Invisible Hand>. That’s why it could switch between effects like “catching” or “throwing.” It was all within the “hand’s” functions. Likely, “probing by touch” was one of those functions too. That’s why the lord couldn’t distinguish intruders from servants.

No more than that, the lord couldn’t use “two hands” simultaneously during this magic. Only one “hand” was available. That’s why the objects he’d lifted fell to the floor   when he caught Akari’s shuriken. But this was only a limitqtion on performing “two actions” at once as if it was the same action, he could do it simultaneously, like when he tried to hurl multiple objects at once.

(In other words—)

Dodging the various objects flying at him, Toru thought.

(A matter of attention, or concentration?)

No matter how outrageous the magic, its control ultimately relied on the mage’s will.

Conversely, actions the mage couldn’t perceive couldn’t be controlled.

The magic didn’t seem to attack autonomously.

“Scampering about—”

“Slow, huh? Just a mage, after all.”

To the lord’s irritated words, Toru threw back a provocative retort.

“Shut up, you saboteur scum!”

Boom! The air roared.

It should have been an invisible strike but Toru, with <Iron-Blood Transformation> active, could perceive it visually. He saw the heat generated by air friction. Toru dodged it effortlessly and closed in on the lord.

But—

“Ngh!”

The lord pulled back his “hand”—no, dispelled it momentarily, then remanifested it at his side.

Toru’s strike, however, was deflected before reaching the lord.

No matter how much he attacked, he couldn’t touch the lord.

Worse still…

“—Now then. Checkmate.”

Suddenly shifting to a confident expression, the lord said.

“Don’t you see? You’ve been cornered.”

……

Toru remained silent but he roughly understood what the lord meant.

A long, straight hallway. No branches, no turns at the end. In short, it was a dead-end path. Toru now had nowhere left to retreat and it was  the chance where the lord just only needed to thrust his “hand” straight forward.

That alone would fill the hallway completely, charging through to slam the pitiful “thief” against the back wall, crushing him to death.

“Then die thief, rest assured I’ll kill that failure-to-die after you.”

“Failure-to-die? You mean Chaika?”

“Chaika? Ah right, that was the girl'a name, wasn’t it?”

The lord flashed a sadistic smile.

“It seems you’re tagging along without even knowing what she is. Pathetic. A saboteur, after all—if you can’t choose a master, you’re just a stray dog, an outdated, useless relic.”

“You ain't half wrong,” Toru said. “But I’ll correct you on one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“That this isn’t checkmate.”

……

The lord furrowed his brow.

“What bravado. Fine, it’s time to die—”

“Saboteurs,” Toru muttered. “Aren’t the same as swordsmen or knights.”

The moment those words reached the lord.

The floor beneath the lord’s feet—the hallway’s boards—suddenly collapsed crumbling.

Toru had been carving notches with his twin swords while fleeing. Of course, that alone wouldn’t cause an immediate collapse. But Toru, realizing from the start that the lord was herding him into this dead-end hallway, had predicted the lord would eventually thrust his “hand” to fill the corridor.

Naturally with such a strike would strain the ceiling, walls, and floor.

“Nuoh!?”

Reflexively, the lord used his “hand” to stop his fall.

But this was pointless.

Even with <Iron-Blood Transformation>, Toru couldn’t cut through an entire second-floor to first-floor ceiling with short swords. The lord had merely broken through the floorboards. That alone wouldn’t incapacitate anyone but a fool.

In short—this was a setup to distract the enemy from the start.

—!

The lord noticed the short sword inches from his face.

Toru had thrown it.

The lord redirected his supporting “hand” to block it.

The sword was knocked upward—and then.

“Nuah!?”

What the lord saw next was another short sword.

It was a decoy for the decoy. Flying from behind, nearly on the same trajectory as the first, the weapon slipped past the “hand” raised to block the initial sword, piercing the lord’s left shoulder.

“Guoh…!?”

The lord groaned.

From his shoulder—and the ceiling—the two short swords snapped back to Toru’s hands in the next instant. He’d pulled the fine steel threads tied to their hilts and with a snap, the swords settled into Toru’s hands.

And then—

—!?

The unease Toru had kept feeling vanished.

The lord realized it too—and his eyes widened.

“You…?”

“Looks like Chaika and the others smashed your <magical staff>.”

……!

“That girl’s a mage too!?”

“Hm?”

Toru furrowed his brow at the lord’s shocked shout.

This lord seemed to know Chaika—but apparently didn’t know she was a mage. Toru thought it might be a mage connection, but that didn’t seem right.

And then—

“Toru!”

From behind the lord—at the hallway’s corner—Chaika and Akari appeared.

“Withdraw. Withdraw! Objective. Achieved!”

Chaika said, holding up something like a glass vial which  seemed to be what she’d been searching for, but—

“Got it.”

Toru kicked off the floor, leaping over the lord, who was slumped, clutching his pierced shoulder.

“You…!?”

The lord, apparently surprised that Toru didn’t finish him, turned with a shocked expression, but Toru ignored him, sprinting down the hallway to join Chaika and the others.

“Time to escape, Akari, use smoke bomb.”

“Understood, Nii-sama.”

Nodding, Akari pulled a smoke bomb from the pouch strapped to her lower back.

Toru and Akari hoisted Chaika under their arms and sprinted full speed.

Escaping the mansion was a bit of a struggle.

Using smoke bombs to mislead the gathering servants’ eyes, Toru and the others bought time until the explosives they’d pre-set detonated. Of course, the explosives Toru and his group had mixed and prepared weren’t in large quantities, but they served to divert the attention of the mansion’s occupants, especially the guards, in the opposite direction.

Be that as it may—

“…What a mess.”

Having escaped all the way to the tree-lined street, Toru let out a sigh.

He’d already deactivated <Iron-Blood Transformation> along the way. Staying in <Iron-Blood Transformation> for too long would put damage his body. The technique could typically be sustained for only a few minutes at a time.

That aside—

“It ended up a total mess. We managed to escape, but still...”

According to the original plan, they weren’t supposed to confront the lord directly.

It more seemed the lord had mistaken Toru and his group for somebody else and was lying in wait from the start.

“By the way, is that what you were looking for?”

“Yes.”

Clutching it tightly to her chest, Chaika turned to Toru and revealed the object, which was a transparent cylinder, crafted from glass or a crystal-like material.

Inside it—

“This. Important. Must retrieve.”

With a glimmer of joy, Chaika held it up, unveiling its grisly contents, which was an unmistakably human left wrist was what sealed within.