The half-demolished administration building was dark. The only illumination came from the daytime lights filtering through gaps in the half-collapsed roof. Even that light lost its way among mountains of debris, an upturned floor, and fallen walls, fading as it went.

A place so dark and shadowy that anyone deliberately hiding would disappear from sight, only to emerge like a ghost upon crossing the occasional shaft of light. That was this administration building.

Clutching the gun I had looted from the corpse, I concealed myself in the shadows.

I had only one chance. I had to sneak in under cover of darkness and put an armor-piercing round into one of Kanisen's vital spots while his guard was down.

If I didn't kill him with the first shot, there would be no second.

Kanisen had once been a squire to prestigious knights, who had passed down their time-honored energy arts to him. And the first thing knights learned upon acquiring energy arts was bullet-repelling energy. With that wrapped around them, ordinary arrows and bullets were reduced to the sting of raindrops.

Even without bullet-repelling energy, a trained body wasn't something a bullet could easily penetrate. Unless I hit a vital spot, he would easily withstand a single round and come kill me.

That was why, despite their acknowledged usefulness, guns weren't considered particularly good weapons. Their significance lay mostly in giving ordinary people with nothing else a bare minimum of fighting power.

I focused as I stepped cautiously farther inside. Thoughts reached me from beyond the rubble. Kanisen was down on one knee, looking into a passage leading underground. Gamma was hanging from a single rope, investigating the underground passage, which had collapsed in places.

'I've figured it out! So this is how they built a floor in the bottomless pit! In that case, bombs at just two points could bring this whole place down!'

Hey, Regressor. Didn't you say this place would last another year or so? Looks like these people have figured something out. What are you going to do about it?

After blaming the Regressor inwardly, I sighed. What else could I do? If I wanted to live, I had to get rid of them all.

Fortunately, Kanisen was looking down into the passage. His mind held nothing but a burning desire to carry out this terrorist attack successfully. Good. At this rate, I wouldn't have to worry about being discovered. Once I had a clear shot, it would all be over. I took one cautious step.

'Hmm? Someone there?'

The downside of mind reading was that reading someone else's thoughts didn't actually make me any more capable.

The upside was that I could still read their suspicion before they acted on it.

Sensing Kanisen's unease just before he turned his head, I hastily ducked into the shadows. A moment later, his attention shifted toward the passage. He frowned and glared down it.

'Am I imagining things...? I'd like to investigate, but unfortunately, I can't leave my post with Gamma down there.'

Right now, Gamma was the only person capable of bringing Tantalus down. Without sufficient technical knowledge, Kanisen could do nothing on his own. Protecting Gamma therefore took precedence over everything else.

'Still, I set a simple trap in the passage. I'll know if someone steps on it.'

Oh, how very thorough of you. Setting traps along the way even at a time like this.

But once you knew a trap existed, its danger dropped to a tenth.

As I picked my way carefully through the rubble, I spotted a glinting thread at ankle height. It was stretched unnaturally taut.

Is this the tripwire you're counting on? Laughable. I carefully lifted my foot and started easing over it—

JINGLE, JINGLE.

A double trap?

It was a double trap.

Damn it. I'd skimmed his thoughts too carelessly. People here set double traps so routinely that they barely thought about it. That had thrown me off!

"Who's there!"

Kanisen reacted instantly to the bell. He was only a short distance away. If he charged over, he'd catch me immediately.

I had no choice. I thrust the gun around the corner and fired.

BANG!

Kanisen covered his face with both arms and closed his eyes. A textbook response to a gun. With bullet-repelling energy protecting his entire body, he would be safe unless he was hit in the face—particularly the eyes.

A knight dealt with a gun by protecting their body with bullet-repelling energy and charging straight in. Kanisen would have followed that manual to the letter.

If my bullet hadn't struck the passage leading underground.

"Urgh!"

Mocking his flinch, I seized the opening and hid among the rubble.

There was no reason to shoot his body when I knew it wouldn't work. Instead, to make him hesitate, I'd aimed toward the passage—specifically, the rope running across it. Right now, Gamma's life was worth more to him than his own.

"Boss?! What's happening?"

"Stay where you are, Gamma. Don't come up."

"What?"

"We're under attack. Stay hidden down there."

"Yes, sir!"

After delivering that firm warning, Kanisen rose. He gathered up the rubble around him, glaring into the distance.

'The rope tied to the pillar is supporting Gamma's weight. If it snaps, Gamma will be stranded underground after squeezing through that crack in the floor. I have to protect the rope.'

Thanks for explaining. So all I had to do was cut the rope. I'd shoot it with this gun, then run. Hitting such a thin rope would be difficult, but if I fired about five shots at the part tied around the pillar, one ought to hit.

'I'll pile up rubble to protect the rope. Then I'll go catch him.'

No, that's cheating.

Kanisen shielded the rope with overlapping pieces of broken steel framing and planks. It was a makeshift barricade, but it would stop two or three bullets. Damn it. I was screwed.

"Who are you? Identify yourself."

With his barricade complete, Kanisen took a step toward me, keeping watch in every direction.

Well. I was fucked. That was the conclusion I reached after careful consideration.

He was deploying his bullet-repelling energy at full strength. Even an armor-piercing round might not reach his skin. And if it did, it wouldn't penetrate skin protected by energy arts.

At this point, the gun was little more than a blindfold. Its bullets couldn't get inside him.

That left only one option.

"Hello, comrade. Is the escape plan going smoothly?"

I murmured as I hid deeper in the rubble. Kanisen flinched at a voice he had heard only minutes ago but hadn't yet grown familiar with.

Belatedly realizing who I was, he lowered his voice.

"... The laborer. What did you do to Delta?"

"I let him meet the fate awaiting him a little ahead of schedule. This gun is a keepsake he left behind. I tried firing it, and it has such a crisp report, doesn't it? He must have maintained it very thoroughly. Just like him."

"You bastard!"

Trembling with rage, Kanisen grabbed a nearby steel pipe and swung it viciously. A powerful, forceful sword stroke. Something crashed down beyond the rubble. If that hit me, it would snap me in half at the waist.

Still, while his skills let him knock down some rubble, he couldn't cleave through all of it like the Regressor. His senses were sharp, but compared with the King of Dogs, he was practically deaf. And unlike the vampire, who controlled the space itself, he couldn't hurt me without swinging a weapon.

He was stronger than me, but not something transcendent. Just on the level of a knight, a relic that had vanished into the past.

Ordinarily strong. Nothing more.

If that was all...

I moved, mocking him. I didn't need to hide perfectly. I only needed to stay out of his sight, somewhere he couldn't locate me.

"You didn't come to rescue anyone, and you made no preparations to escape. You intended to bring this entire place down from the start, didn't you?"

"You knew all along."

"Honestly, it's obvious if you give it a little thought, isn't it? Everyone knows the Resistance are moths drawn to a flame. Everyone also knows this is the bottomless pit, where you can enter but never leave. With two facts everyone knows, wouldn't there be something wrong with me if I didn't figure it out?"

"It was all an act. You deceived me completely, from the moment you saw me."

Anger filled his voice. Kanisen advanced, intent on tearing me apart with his own hands.

Not so fast. I fired again. He flinched instinctively—not from fear of being shot, but because he knew Gamma was my target and turned his attention that way.

Good. The groundwork was laid.

While he remained on guard, I moved behind the collapsed roof. Darkness surrounded us, and all the obstacles sent voices echoing every which way. Unless I spoke, even he couldn't pinpoint my location.

So Kanisen gritted his teeth and addressed me.

"Sending Alpha and Beta away was a trap you laid, too, wasn't it?"

'Answer me. Answer and reveal your location. That will be the end of you.'

His plan was painfully obvious, but I would gladly play along. I needed to talk, too.

"What are you talking about? I didn't lay that trap. Alpha, Beta, and Delta are dead, and even Gamma will die soon. But is that really my fault?"

At the sound of my voice, Kanisen strode toward me. Reading his movements through mind reading, I circled wide to keep my distance.

Now, the tactics were the same as any ordinary gun-versus-sword fight. I had to tear into him before he could follow my voice and close in.

The gun? It was no longer a weapon, but a tool. Like a magician's prop, it was merely a device to draw his eye and divert his attention.

"You're the one who sent them to their deaths, Kanisen. Aren't you?"

My target was Kanisen's mind. His heart was like a stone: hard, but cracked by the harsh weathering of the years.

If bullets couldn't pierce his body, I'd have to punch holes in his heart instead. Wasn't that how a mind reader fought?

"Don't you dare speak my name with that filthy mouth. They spent their lives, and they nearly succeeded. If not for you, they would have accomplished their mission."

"Don't talk about other people's lives with that filthy mouth. They would have died even without me. Blowing up Tantalus was a mission doomed to fail anyway, a thankless undertaking with nothing to gain even if you managed it. If not for you, they would have spent their lives on a slightly worthier, more honorable mission."

"You know nothing! How dare you!"

I read his field of vision. He was coming this way. Quieting my breathing, I crawled on my belly beneath an overturned table. In the darkness, Kanisen's gaze passed just to one side of me. Out of that dangerous position, I crawled beneath a fallen cabinet.

Now then. Ultimately, I had to defeat Kanisen. Otherwise, I wouldn't even be able to escape this place. How I would defeat him still required some thought, though.

Then I spotted the cabinet I had knocked over on my previous visit with Azi. The cabinet used to store clothing packets, where I'd found the instructor's uniform packet.

There had definitely been one of those in there. It wouldn't work on the Regressor, the vampire, or Azi. But on Kanisen, it would.

I carefully reached into the cabinet, took out a clothing packet of a slightly unusual shape, and concealed it in my palm. Hard, rectangular, and gray, the packet was as heavy as a mahjong tile made of steel.

Good. I had all the pieces now.

Time to use it again after all this time. The skill I'd shelved after finding legitimate work in gambling.

Pickpocketing.