Chapter 73: Sudden Intruder

Ascending to the top of the roof, I track down some life essence. If there really are suspicious individuals, there should be a couple of unfamiliar life essence from people I don’t know. It also seems like I wasn’t wrong in thinking that as there are three black-cloaked individuals on top of the roof. Since none of their life essence are familiar to me, it looks like I haven’t encountered any of them before.

As I’m currently hiding behind a shadow ball while levitating1, I should be invisible in the cover of the night unless they take a really good look at me. The cloaked individuals run soundlessly on the rooftop, occasionally stopping and putting their ears against the roof, seemingly probing underneath as they continue moving along.

And the place they stopped at was right above Adan’s room. The Iglesio mansion is a three-story building with the dining hall and the reception parlor occupying the first floor, the guest room and old man Kent’s study occupying the second, along with the library, Adan’s bedroom and personal space and so on. Considering that they headed to the spot where Adan’s room is with near absolute certainty, it seems like Adan is their target.

「In that case, I suppose I’ll have to do my part as a bodyguard then.」

Quietly muttering so, I activate my magic. The cloaked people dropped a rope from the roof, seemingly planning on infiltrating from the windows, and one of them swiftly climbed down the said rope.

「Ahh, that’s pretty dangerous, you should stop there for your own sake.」 「Ahvi!? Bibivivibi!?」 「Ah-ah, told you so.」

It looks like the man descending from the rope didn’t notice the “Thunder Ball” I set up beyond that spot and ended up touching it. Well, while he should be feeling the zap and be immobilized for about a day, it’s not magic that would kill him.2 My warning was ignored, but it’s not like I’d lose something from him doing that, so it’s none of my concern.

The remaining two on the rooftop give no attention to their twitching companion, not even shooting him a glance, and only vigilantly draw their weapons while surveying their surroundings. They’re probably checking whether I’m only by myself or if there’s other people around them. They’re really underestimating me, aren’t they?3

「Are you sure you should be looking around like that? Having just one hand isn’t any hindrance in using magic, you know?」

As I said so, I made the shape of a gun with my left hand and took aim at one of them.4

「”Burn”」

With a somewhat playful tone, I activate that magic. That same magic that I’ve used many times ever since I’ve arrived in this world. At this point, controlling it is practically second nature to me and now that I’ve got a grasp of how to fuse two different magic as well, adding a different magic to it is simple to do.

Upon impact, the “Burn” magic spread while burning the target’s clothes and binding his limbs. That’s right, the magic I fused with it is the capture magic, “Bind”. Being formless, the flames can easily bind their target no matter what state they’re in. I have complete control over the magic power, so the binding flames won’t end up burning the target. Well, I did set it so it’ll burn a bit if they struggle too much though.

「Now then, you’re the only one left. What now?」

Just as I asked, the last remaining guy threw a knife at me. While I blocked it with “Wall” in the nick of time, it seems like the guy escaped, since he’s already gone from my vision.

Since he’s nowhere to be seen on the rooftop, he probably escaped by jumping off the roof. I saw the cloaked guy running on the ground below and was about to shoot him with magic from behind, but I stopped. After all, even without needing to do that, I have an awfully reliable partner on my side.

◆◇◆◇◆

「Good grief. I heard that you’ve captured some intruders, but are you mad?」 「Haha, I have no excuse at all.」

As I reported that I captured three black-cloaked intruders, old man Kent got extremely angry at me. If you notice an intruder, fighting is unnecessary, you should have left it to the manor guards, he said. He scolded me, reminding me that I already lost my arm and was by no means in perfect condition, and asked what I was going to do if anything more had happened.

I could’ve defended my stance, but he was only worried about me, so I decided to accept the scolding. Though, they did hire us under the pretense of being bodyguards, so I can’t just not do that part of the job.

Ah, that’s right. The third guy was captured by Urania, who also noticed the intrusion. While I thought that the guy was awfully fast at running, Urania easily overtook and captured him. She told me that ever since she learned how to manipulate magic power with the grimoire, her physical capabilities have improved too.

I don’t have any idea about the relation between the two, but since magic power flows inside the body, maybe learning how to manipulate it improved her physical conditioning as well? Investigating this might just show us something interesting.5

「Regardless, as interrogation isn’t a part of our job, I suppose we should hand them over to the town guards tomorrow morning then.」 「Is that really okay?」 「I have no clue on what you’re worried about, but if we arbitrarily do our own cross-examination, we might just invite unneeded inquiries instead.」 「Is that how it is?」 「That is how it is.」

While I’m definitely not convinced, I can only pray that the town guards aren’t connected to the cloaked guys’ boss and we aren’t raising some cliché flags.