Chapter 27
Chapter 27: Polite Retreat
Weitz had to gather his spirits.
He had to admit that he had indeed underestimated the girl on the stage earlier. He had originally thought she was just a delicate, powerless rich young lady without any means to defend herself.
But the heavy objects floating and suspended beneath the theater’s ceiling now hung high above his head, and Weitz had nowhere to hide in this enclosed space.
The girl might possess some kind of extraordinary ability to manipulate matter. She had lured Weitz to the theater to force him to reveal the location of the Blood Wine Society’s secret warehouse, clearly coming prepared.
But that warehouse was the gang’s property, filled with potions and treasures that outsiders must never know about. Most lower-level members didn’t even have the qualification to know of its existence.
Once the items in the warehouse went missing or were damaged, Weitz would have to answer to the moneylenders. All the blame would fall on him alone. Weitz knew very well that the Blood Wine Society’s revenge and punishment were far more terrifying than death itself.
In other words, Weitz could never tell this girl of unknown origins the warehouse’s location and entry method. The Blood Wine Society’s debt collectors hadn’t fallen so low as to bow down to some little girl.
Since she had revealed her weapon, it meant the girl was ready for battle. Weitz was too lazy to waste more useless words on her. The alpha wolf of the Black Water District never howled before devouring and tearing apart its prey.
He suddenly thrust his five iron fingers into the chair beside him. Steam burst forth and transmission shafts rotated. Under the mechanical’s terrifying gripping force, the chair immediately shattered into pieces.
Weitz extracted a half-meter-long steel core from it. He straightened the iron nails embedded in it to increase its lethality. The Guardian potion had given him the talent and qualities to become an excellent warrior. Any object in the hands of a Generosity pathway Extraordinary would become a handy and extremely threatening weapon, as if they were naturally skilled at this.
Seeing him assume a hostile stance, the girl still stood in place. “Then negotiations have broken down,” she said with lowered eyes and a dejected tone, as if deeply regretful.
This meant the battle would officially begin.
The bricks and stones hanging above Weitz’s head indeed loosened in response, whistling as they suddenly fell. The trap the girl had set began to bare its fangs.
He sprinted desperately toward the stage, relying on the powerful physical functions granted by the potion to barely dodge the wooden chairs and rocks that kept falling and smashing down along the way, reaching the stage’s base in just a few seconds.
Weitz finally climbed slowly onto the stage. No more stones fell here—the girl hadn’t hung those dangerous things above her own head too.
Nor had she let all the suspended heavy objects fall to completely block Weitz’s advance route. Counterintuitively, she still held back.
“I thought you were some unfathomable Extraordinary. Turns out you’re just a naive girl who knows nothing of the world.” Weitz found it amusing. He lowered his voice. “I’ll be straight with you—don’t expect to get anything out of this mouth. Having me betray the Blood Wine Society? I’d rather die!”
The silver-haired girl blinked. She seemed somewhat surprised, yet didn’t show it too obviously—
Funis indeed hadn’t planned to be lethal from the start.
Her surprise was due to the resolute attitude and determination Weitz displayed. However, Funis didn’t know that Weitz only dared not leak secrets because he feared the Blood Wine Society’s revenge and punishment, not because of the noble sentiments of firm will and readiness to die that she imagined.
The Caesar Trading Company had some connections with Cesya. Funis had borrowed the company’s reputation and letterhead to fabricate a fairly passable lie. The theater was still under the troupe’s name and had no connection to the Caesar Trading Company whatsoever.
Fortunately, her plan had been quite successful.
Weitz had entered the grand theater alone as envisioned, and Funis had sealed the only entrance and exit, eliminating the possibility of outside support.
The greedy old wolf coveted the fat meat, not knowing he was slowly stepping into the hunting ground marked out by the hunter.
Since he valued the Blood Wine Society’s secrets more than life itself, Funis decided to fulfill his wish.
After all, this was just a running dog of the gang—extortion, murder, robbery, all kinds of evil. Funis had no need to show mercy anymore. As for the warehouse’s location, she could go find the remaining debt collectors. Among six people, there would surely be at least one spineless coward.
Weitz gripped the steel core tightly and slowly paced around, sizing up and testing Funis.
He really couldn’t see what was extraordinary about this girl. She was petite with slender limbs, looking like she’d blow away in the wind. Any normally developed adult wouldn’t take such a little thing seriously. Using full strength against her would even be suspected of bullying a child.
But Weitz was an utter villain and scoundrel. As long as someone dared to provoke him or look down on him, he wouldn’t easily let them go even if they were a baby.
Brief consideration.
Weitz lunged forward to seize the initiative.
Raising the steel core high, he smashed down, pure power pouring forth—this was how warriors of the Generosity pathway should be.
What a pity about that delicate, beautiful face. Weitz felt that even the highly praised princess of the Columbo Kingdom couldn’t compare to the girl before him in terms of appearance alone.
The extraordinary characteristics possessed by Guardians enhanced Weitz’s physique and strength. The heavy blow chopping down from overhead was enough to match more than three times the full force of an adult man. Combined with the string of rusty iron nails embedded in the steel core, if the girl took this hit head-on, her skull would surely shatter and her flesh would become a bloody mess.
The steel fell with such speed that it tore visible arcs through the air, the sound of breaking wind sharp and piercing.
But Funis remained calm and composed, as if all the noise around her had nothing to do with her.
She lightly raised her eyes.
Her pale purple pupils were like an ancient well without ripples.
Weitz, in the midst of swinging down his weapon, inadvertently met Funis’s gaze. Some indescribable intimidation—that was nearly suppression on the mental level—came from a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl.
A moment’s carelessness, just in that instant when his thoughts drifted.
The steel core in Weitz’s hands didn’t hammer against any flesh or bone. The unstoppable inertia caused his hands to sink heavily into the stage floor, with broken wood chips and debris splashing up.
Funis had dodged.
The round toe of her white and shiny Mary Jane shoes was less than an inch from the deep pit created by the heavy blow. The silver-haired girl had merely lifted her skirt and gracefully stepped back one step, and Weitz’s attack that he thought would surely hit had missed.
The deep pit collapsed in the wooden floor had a diameter of a full half meter. The Guardian’s strength was truly astonishing—he could cause such terrifying destructive power with just a steel core.
But no matter how great the power, if it couldn’t hit its target, it seemed absurd and laughable.
Yet it had been such a fast, such a fierce attack. Weitz hadn’t even seen Funis’s movement clearly. It was as if God had suddenly reached out and cut away the frames from his memory—abrupt and unnatural.
Was it luck? Or some other reason?
Weitz didn’t understand.
Because it was simply impossible for humans to insert a segment of high-speed movement between two static poses. Funis’s seemingly effortless small step back made this battle-hardened debt collector break out in cold sweat.
The cylinder rotated.
In the moment of silence, the sound of the trigger being pulled was particularly clear and piercing.
Her gaze was indifferent and without warmth. Funis, who should have been looking up due to her petite stature, now looked down from above, the golden gun barrel coldly pressed against the back of the man’s head.
“My turn,” she said.
She wasn’t as sweet and delicate as her appearance suggested. The girl was essentially a hunter who wouldn’t give her opponents any chance to catch their breath. As long as someone dared show even a moment’s weakness under her gaze, killing intent would follow immediately.
And now, Weitz was full of openings.
The hammer struck down. The revolver’s barrel spat hot tongues of flame. At this almost point-blank distance, the bent-over Weitz couldn’t possibly dodge. If he did nothing, his skull would definitely be pierced by the bullet.
But for a Guardian, Weitz actually had options other than dodging.
The generous knights of the Generosity Academy could use their flesh alone to resist the slashing of swords on the battlefield. That was an extraordinary characteristic that could make the skin and bone strength of a certain body part temporarily equal to marble in a very short time.
Localized hardening.