Chapter 42

Chapter 42. Dragging Out Time

So he took my bait. It was inevitable for logical people to take the bait. After all, there was no reason to fight someone who couldn’t die. Logically speaking, it was better for him to aim for the source of the power that made me close to immortal. In other words, he would be better off trying to kill the saint and Necro. From here, I could tell how much the Thief had ‘seen’. Till now, everything worked out for him. After all, if things didn’t go like this, he wouldn’t have even attempted something like this.

Killing Necro would take at least several hundred nukes.

He would revive as long as there were corpses a hundred kilometers away from him, thanks to his power. The same applied for the saint. It would be exceedingly difficult to take down the immense amount of health that she has. If you failed to take her down at once, she would use her magic to heal herself back up. Realistically, attempting to kill me was the best solution. If you know you can’t kill someone, you don’t even try to kill them. The defeat of the Thief was made almost certain thanks to this.

I just had to do well at this point.

I stopped in front of a crosswalk as I walked towards the hotel. The scenery around me reminded me of a modern city— high-rise buildings and cars everywhere. It was as expected of a city built by people from different worlds. This was probably created using different powers in conjunction with each other. The signal turned green, and a significant amount of people began to cross the street. I walked leisurely as I carefully looked at the man walking towards me from the other side.

His name was Douglas.

His clothes were quite the sight. Despite having worn a suit, he had knuckle dusters on his hands, and he even had protectors for his knees and elbow. He seemed to give off an impression of someone willing to destroy anything that came his way.

…He’s an enemy.

We were getting closer now. Douglas muttered under his breath when we reached within arm’s length of each other.

“This world is beautiful, and weak. Almost like glass. [Fragile World].”

A halo formed above his head, signalling that a power had been used. The people on the crosswalk immediately realized what was happening, and began to run. The man attempted to punch me, but only managed to touch my shirt instead.

The shirt shattered like glass.

“Ah…!”

This ability was dangerous. I couldn’t rely on the saint’s ability to save me this time. I tried to increase the distance between the two of us, but Douglas ran in towards me immediately. As I thought, he’s looking for a melee battle. But his chance to kill me was gone already since he missed his first strike. I took out a shotgun from the vault, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Douglas flew back from the power of the buckshot. There was no blood. It seemed that he had some kind of an armor on his body. And he also managed to reduce the damage by turning all the bullets into glass. Douglas rolled backwards as he fell to break his fall, and ran towards me again. He was trying to get close to me desperately, but I had no intention of helping him.

And his weak point was quite obvious as well.

I shot below Douglas’ feet. The bullets went right through, and thousands of cracks began to form on the floor.

Shatter!

The concrete floor shattered like glass, and Douglas fell right through. If he could treat the world around him like glass, the same logic applied to the ground below him as well. I could tell that this was the case due to the fact that his heels didn’t have any protectors.

Well, this won’t be enough to kill him though.

I took out all the barrels of oil from the vault, and threw them into the hole. All ten barrels. After doing this, I lit a lighter and threw it in as well.

Fwoosh!

A huge fire soared out of the hole, and a horrid scream dug its way out for a short second. Those trapped in fire don’t die because of the heat. They die by suffocating on the massive quantity of carbon monoxide in the air. Even if Douglas manages to escape the fire by digging a hole in the wall, the carbon monoxide would get to him.

Well, he did manage to successfully waste some time.

The other four killers should be going towards the other two at this point. They won’t die, but they might suffer quite a bit before I get there.

Well, I suppose I’ll just have to trust their titles as the world’s strongest wizards this time, I guess?

I shrugged, and checked my wristwatch. It was 9:50 AM. By the time the Thief gets trapped in the hotel, his death becomes completely certain. No matter what he does, this becomes absolutely certain. I used Heart of Gold, and checked on the delivery times.

There were a hundred items that were to be delivered in a water tank at 10 AM directly located at the ceiling and the basement.

And in a few minutes, the barrier would be activated. The same kind that was used to trap Romeo Smith. A type of barrier that allowed people to come in, but not get out. Since there were pipes set up below the hotel, there was no need to put a hose around the building this time. I left the rising tower of black smoke behind me as I walked to the hotel.

*

A man that was said to be able to fight civilization on his own, Uras. The one thing he wore as a muscular giant of 2.7m was a rugged pair of pants created out of a wild animal’s hide. He, a brave class as well as an irregular in this world, was the one known as the Caveman.

“Finally, time to do some work.”

Weeds began to sprout from the marble floor under him when he walked. The staff of the hotel had already all evacuated. He reached the center of the hotel lounge, and clapped once. Every device in the hotel halted at this point.

Pshhhhh.

The CCTV turned off, as if it had run out of energy. The next to go was the elevator. The lights in the building all turned off, leaving only the emergency lights of the exit signs to light up the hallways. All this was caused by Uras’ power, <Death of Civilization = The Allegory of the Cave>.

Tadadadada!

Necro’s corpse dolls that had come down from the second floor began to shoot at Uras. But the bullets all stopped in midair before they reached Uras, and fell down on the floor. It didn’t stop there, though. The bullets began to grind against each other— eventually turning to dust. Uras let out a thunderous laughter.

“Pa-hahaha! How annoying. These damn flies! Why don’t you get to work as well, little lady? You should do your contractor proud.”

A ripple appeared on the floor of the jungle-like hotel lounge. A young woman popped out of the marble floor, as if she was exiting a body of water.

<Orderless> Chaos.

She had put gloves on her feet, and shoes on her hands. The appearance of this strange individual who even wore shirts and pants oppositely instantly got the attention of the corpse puppets. Bullets spilled out of their guns towards Chaos. The ones who should have been getting hurt was Chaos, but strangely enough, the ones falling down were the corpse puppets. This was because her power, Orderless, was reversing the results of their attacks.

“Boo~ I was working so lazily, and you tell me to be even lazier. Boo~ I wouldn’t have worked anyway even if you didn’t rush me.”

She was even speaking in opposites. Chaos put her hands on the floor with a pout. A halo appeared over her head, and the first floor of the hotel became enveloped in a strange light.

Kii, gigigigi.

The appearance of the floor changed accompanied by the sound of metal being altered. The first floor of the hotel turned into the second floor, the sixth floor turned to the fourth, and the ceilings and the floors of floors three and seven were reversed. Some floors were rotated 90 degrees, and others combined with different floors to form a maze. It was almost as if someone took apart the hotel and rearranged it as he saw fit. At this point, it would be impossible to escape the hotel because it constantly changed form as it saw fit.

“I didn’t work. Scold me more, idiot.”

Chaos rolled forward, and walked towards the front desk doing a handstand. The wooden desk began to twist and crack into a multiple different shapes. No, to be more specific, a certain part of the desk was twisting and spinning like a wheel on a slot machine. From an elevator to a bathtub, from a bathtub to a casino. She was changing the hotel’s structure as she saw fit, until she got what she wanted. After switching the hotel around several tens of times, Chaos stopped once an emergency staircase appeared. Uras began to move once Chaos gave him the signal.