I attacked her by surprise.
I pierced her heart from behind with a knife I’d bought at a shop right at closing time.
I killed her.
At least, it seemed that way at first. A half-transparent barrier enveloped her from all sides, though. The knife stopped a fraction of a centimeter from its mark.
This is Ravi’s…
“Dispell.”
The barrier broke, but she’d already retreated several yards.
“…”
I’d let a once-in-a-lifetime chance escape. It ate away at me.
“Roland.”
Still, Almelia looked relieved.
As though the tension in her had snapped like a thread, she collapsed to her knees. I supported her, and we both moved back.
“You did a great job,” I praised.
I stroked her head as she lay unconscious.
I’d been watching Almelia fight, waiting for the chance to end things in a single blow…but it hadn’t worked.
“You really are Slade.”
“…It’s been a while, Amy.”
“Did you go all the way to Moyes’s house?”
“No,” I said.
“Bad boy,” she replied. A hint of a suggestive smile crossed her face. Amy was still as beautiful as I’d remembered. “So you pretended to fall for my trap, but you were actually watching the hero this whole time? And you were waiting for a moment to kill me.”
“Exactly,” I answered.
After realizing it was a ploy, I should’ve gone back to protect Almelia. But if I did, she’d be running from Amy for the rest of her life. I’d been worried about how well she’d do against Amy, but we’d trained enough for her to keep pace without using her skills.
“So you’re the one who taught Ravi—Ravishia—how to use her skill.”
“Who was that again?”
“The girl whose ability you used to block my attack.”
“Oh, the Barbatos mage.”
It seemed she’d finally remembered.
“She was a good girl, very diligent.”
“You taught me about my power, as well.”
“I’d do that much for anyone, Roland. You’re not that special.”
Right, she would. That was how she operated…
“It looks like your skill was stolen once.”
A fortune-teller had told me that.
Amy likely borrowed skills for a short period of time, losing and returning them to their owners after a while…
“I saw you activate my skill many times. How did you like using Unobtrusive?”
“It’s a loser skill—a big old loser.”
She’d said the same thing the last time, back when she probably copied my skill.
On my third mission, she’d used a recovery ability of some sort, leading me to believe that was her skill. I’d been wrong, however.
“I guess that’s what it’d look like from the perspective of someone with a skill like Duplicate,” I remarked.
I’d heard of the skill in passing, but this was my first time seeing it brought to bear. I couldn’t believe someone I knew had it.
“It’s the greatest skill in the world.”
“So then…when you adopted me from the orphanage…”
“Exactly. I kept you until your skill manifested and used Skill Detection on you. If a skill seems useful, I copy it. If not, then it’s good-bye.”
“…You keep calling mine a loser skill, but it seems like you’ve really taken a liking to it.”
“The usage makes a big difference.”
Of course.
Seeing Amy again after so long brought a scowl onto my face, while nostalgic memories surfaced in my mind.
The house in the mountains. How she had sent me flying, kicked me, thrown me, knocked me out during training. Many, many times. Through the springs, summers, falls, and winters.
Amy was a gigantic wall… Even now, she seemed to loom larger than me.
She was my origin, the one who’d made me.
Victory was mine so long as Almelia survived…but I couldn’t let Amy escape.
“And now you’re a guild worker… Why? The two of us are supposed to live in shadow, lurking beneath the world forever. We don’t belong anywhere.”
“…”
“Roland… Don’t disappoint me.”
Amy made a move, and I took a step forward.
I activated Unobtrusive, using everything at my disposal to kill her.
“I know what you’re planning!” She invoked some other skill.
When Amy pretended to approach me from behind and instead closed in from the front, she appeared to take joy in my surprise.
I collided with something. I wasn’t close enough to reach Amy with a dagger, much less my hands. It was heavy as a mountain and large, too.
A rainbow-colored ripple expanded out from whatever blocked me. This was Victor’s Invincible!
Amy must have killed him.
“How’s that? The ultimate automatic defense.”
It seemed she wasn’t aware I’d broken through it once.
I activated Unobtrusive.
I dashed in front of her, then behind, and to her right and left, invoking my skill in quick succession.
My moves were instant so that she’d lose sight of me. Tracking me wasn’t easy. That’s probably why she called upon an automatic defense ability in the first place.
I needed to kill myself, my feelings toward Amy—everything. I had to be a blade, inorganic.
I willed everything to disappear.
I attacked from the left. Invincible didn’t react. The blade was going to connect!
From the corner of my eye, I saw Amy panicking slightly.
“Tch!”
A quick response, as always. She kicked my hand gripping the knife.
I didn’t mean to, but the force of the blow knocked it from my grip. The gray blade glinted in the moonlight.
She knew what I’d attacked with, and as for her… Well, there was no point in trying to guess what weapon she carried.
Fortunately, I’d picked up the knife she’d thrown at Almelia. I brought it out from behind my back, swiping up, but only managed to graze Amy’s bangs.
“Roland, you used to dazzle more, but your flame has grown dim. When I left you, you would have ended things with that strike. You’ve become weaker.”
She had to be right.
I invoked Unobtrusive again, and Amy vanished at the same time.
I couldn’t help but click my tongue, never realizing how annoying my skill was until witnessing it for myself.