Do You Think You Can Run After Reincarnating, Nii-san?

The Golden Boy: The Awakening of Talent

Chapter 15

Absolute Void

“Damn it… Those brats. Darting around like that…”

I was fed up. Me, the leader of the band of thieves known as the Crimson Cats, also known as Vicky the Bloodstained She-Leopard, had to waste so much time on some kids.

If they got away now, it would be a huge loss. The deal with ‘her’ was set for tomorrow morning. I had to catch them and finish the processing by then. Looks like I’ll be pulling an all-nighter.

I was irritated. Really irritated. I couldn’t shake this stress without wiping out a village or two. Or maybe…

Oh, I just thought of a good idea.

I heard there’s a very handsome prince. About the same age as those insolent brats, a prodigy, they say. He’s supposed to enroll in the Royal Academy of Spirit Arts in two years.

I don’t like geniuses. They live easy thanks to their talent, so they should suffer a bit for fairness.

So, the next target will be him. I’ll snatch him, toy with him, get a hefty ransom, and then sell him off. I can already picture the despair on those noble faces. That thought alone is worth a barrel of drink.

But first, I have to take care of the job in front of me. Who the hell is that kid? He’s not just any kid. Clearly trained. When ‘she’ told me to abduct him, I didn’t think much of it, but now… it stinks of trouble.

Ah, I hate this. Sticking your neck into unclear things is not the way to live long.

“…Huh?”

I perked up my ears. This ‘one’ has a quiet voice.

“Ah, I get it. You’re over there, aren’t you?”

I moved according to the information. Soon, I saw about ten kids in the distance. It’s them.

“It’s time to pay the piper, brats.”

If I keep pushing them, they’ll end up in a dead end. That kid seems to have the ability to nullify weight with spirit arts, but he can’t float all the other kids at once. If he could, he’d have done it by now. And the same trick won’t work on me twice. If he tries to fly again, I’ll shoot him down with my Absolute Void.

I licked my dry lips and walked down the hallway. I found the kid in the courtyard, with another girl by his side. But…

“Hey, kid.”

“What do you want, old hag?”

“Where are the other kids?”

Only two were here. When I last saw them, all the escaping kids were here. And they all fled this way… The brat looked at my frowning face and grinned.

“Who knows? Maybe they teleported?”

“….”

This kid… plotting something? Whatever his little mind is planning— I reached for my knife. The brat’s eyebrows twitched at the sight.

“Ha! I knew it! Your spirit arts only work on what you touch! That’s why you can’t float someone when attacked with a weapon!”

Anything that gets touched immediately floats, rendering them immobile. It’s a nuisance, so I’ve prepared for it. I just need to watch out for those short arms. Don’t take it personally. A pro doesn’t go easy even on kids.

“Then I’ll use a weapon too.”

With that— The brat drew a sword from behind his back. Did he get it from some storage?

The brat gripped the hilt with both hands and faced me. He’s no amateur. An adult’s sword should be heavy for a kid, but his spirit arts make it manageable.

I don’t like kids like this, destined for a bright future. I’ll ruin his life!

“Die!”

I thrust my knife sharply. —[Absolute Void]. I aimed to stab through the void into the brat’s gut.

“Disappear…?!”

The brat’s image blurred and vanished. No, my peripheral vision barely caught it. Shadows hopping around me. Fast. Sharp. Defying physics with sharp turns. Like a rigged casino roulette ball.

Another use of nullifying weight with spirit arts, huh. Well studied—!

I blocked the downward slash from above with my knife. Heavy. The weight returns only at the moment of attack. The brat grimaced slightly, then distanced himself and resumed high-speed maneuvers.

His handling of spirit arts is genius. But he’s still a kid. Lacks strength. If he were an adult, I couldn’t have blocked that strike.

Weight means strength. The brat’s fighting style utilizes this knowledge. Thus, it’s still developing. With insufficient weight and strength, his technique isn’t fully realized…!

Watching his trajectory closely— Combining intuition, I countered his slashes.

It wasn’t too hard. His speed was wild but comparable to stray dogs. I’m a backstreet dweller. Wild beasts are my sparring partners.

In yet another clash, I laughed in the brat’s eyes.

“What’s wrong? Repeating the same thing, waiting for something?”

The brat jumped back. This time, he didn’t speed up but measured his distance with the sword ready.

“Buying time? Keeping me busy so the other brats can escape?”

“Maybe.”

“Useless. Smart as you are, you know, I can always track you. Combine that with my Absolute Void, and it’s pointless how far you get.”

“Probably. But—”

The brat grinned impudently.

“If your Absolute Void still works, that is.”

…Wha…?

“Try it. Find the other kids and teleport after them. I’ll stop you with all my might, but go ahead and try. Free to test it, right?”

This kid… no way…?

No way… no way…!

Knows… my secret…!!

“Hey… Hey!”

I shouted towards where ‘he’ should be hiding.

“Tell me! Where are the brats now!? Hey, answer! Where did you go…!? Hey…! Hey!!

Where are you!? Where did you go!? Come out! Come out, Bennyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

◆◆◆――――――――◆◆◆――――――――◆◆◆

“I was deceived.”

With Vicky shouting for Benny—the informant—I told her, sword still pointed.

“You tricked us into thinking you could teleport anywhere, with Benny on the torture rack and suddenly appearing in a hallway you had scouted.”

But, I continued,

“Looking back calmly, it was odd. We didn’t see the moments of teleportation in either case.”

Benny fell into the bushes. When we were ambushed, the scouting was left to the rats. We didn’t witness either the disappearance or appearance due to the Absolute Void.

“Coincidence maybe, but consider this: ‘Vicky the ‘Bloodstained She-Leopard’ can’t teleport entire humans.”

The wormholes opened by the Absolute Void are said to be proportional to the user’s skill. Probably just enough for a fist, not a whole person.

“Wha… What proof do you have…!!”

With a twisted expression, Vicky glared at me.

“I can’t teleport humans!? Then what about the teleportation to the torture rack? Appearing in the hallway!? Without the Absolute Void, how—”

“It was a simple trick.”

“Huh?”

“The famous Crimson Cats leader using a cheap trick. Though I fell for it briefly, proving I was still a kid.”

“Wow, Ja-kun, you’re amazing!”

Phil chimed in cheerfully.

“I didn’t notice at all! That Benny’s dominant hand changed after being teleported…”

That was the start of this theory. Before teleportation, Benny threw a stone at Vicky with his right hand.

But afterward, he used his left hand to support an injured person.

And when escaping Vicky, he grabbed my arm with his left hand in haste.

After teleportation, his dominant hand switched. Unless ambidextrous, the only explanation is—

“Do you know the term ‘mirror twins’?”

“What…?”

“Twins born as mirror images, one right-handed, the other left-handed.”

Twins. Very similar but different people.

“Pushed into the bushes, Benny fell into the second tier of the torture rack, with his twin moving to the first tier. Making it seem Bennie teleported.”

A literal child’s trick. Although, Vicky wasn’t aiming to deceive us kids.

“Impossible…!!”

Vicky snarled and brandished her knife. I dodged the space-crossing blade with a backstep.

“Damn brat…!! Losing one or two informants means nothing!! Chasing a pack of kids is easy even without tricks…!!”

“True. The complex fortress takes time to traverse even knowing the way. Adults might catch them before they escape.”

“If you understand, give up and—”

“If they take the normal paths…”

Vicky swallowed her words.

“You… damn brat…!!”

“If you can’t teleport yourself with the Absolute Void, how did you suddenly appear in an empty hallway?

There’s only one answer—You used a hidden door we didn’t notice.”

Watching Vicky’s every move, I continued,

“When hiding in the storeroom, something felt off.

The room seemed smaller than on the map.

Probably any room felt the same. The rooms were actually smaller than depicted.

Or rather, the rooms on the map were drawn larger than reality.”

The map seemed accurate, but the rooms felt smaller.

Then what?

“This fortress has a lot of unnatural dead space between rooms. Not explainable by careless extensions.

It suggests—The fortress is full of hidden passages.”

Hidden passages—secret escape routes.

In other words, a man-made illusory void.

“In this complex and mysterious fortress, using a hidden shortcut makes it seem like you’re almost teleporting.

…Using this, you tricked your subordinates into overestimating your capabilities as a spirit magician.

You even used cheap tricks during the process to enhance your centripetal force, right?”

It was a strategy for a woman to lead a band of thieves.

Making herself appear to be a master of spirit magic.

Even frequently referring to herself as the ‘Bloodstained She-Leopard’ was surely for the same reason.

“You hid from your subordinates that you couldn’t actually teleport yourself.

You kept the existence of the hidden passage a secret.

So it’s natural to think this: if we use the hidden passage in reverse, we can escape from here undetected and ultra-safely.”

Once I got the idea, it was simple.

First, I had Phil mobilize a large number of rats to investigate the corridor where we encountered Vicky.

As expected, the entrance to the hidden passage was found.

Then I had the rats map the interior of the passage, and once completed, I had Benny’s brother, our insider, help guide Vicky.

If we could lure her out successfully, I would buy time and escape with the children through the hidden passage.

By the way, the hidden passage is destroyed in key places, so even if I let Vicky escape, she wouldn’t be able to chase after us easily.

“If you had told your subordinates about the hidden passage, you might have been able to catch them by now. This is the price you pay for making yourself look bigger with petty tricks, ‘Bloodstained She-Leopard’.”

“…So what?”

Vicky muttered, embodying resentment.

“Is it so bad to make myself look bigger? You, with your natural talent, wouldn’t understand! How much I’ve had to—”

“It’s neither bad nor interesting to me.”

Without the tip of my sword shaking in the slightest, I continued.

“No matter your circumstances, your past, or your inferiority complex, I don’t care.

I will never forgive someone like you, who treats people as less than human.

—I will kill every last one of you.”

A thick vein appeared on Vicky’s face.

Her hand holding the knife trembled.

“Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Screaming, she thrust her knife forward.

The thrust came through a wormhole, crossing space.

But—

The intent to kill was so strong that it was clear she was aiming for my heart.

I deflected the knife with the sword in my right hand.

The strong rebound from her full-force attack caused the knife to fly out of Vicky’s hand and roll on the ground.

“No more need to buy time.”

I wasn’t going to let an unarmed Vicky go.

I no longer had any resistance to killing people.

Because I had killed my own kin.

I had killed my only sister.

If it meant eliminating such evil that creates tragedies like mine,

I wouldn’t hesitate to kill.

“…Damn it…!”

Vicky’s face twisted asymmetrically, glaring at me.

She had no weapon in her hand, no means to block my sword.

I raised my sword, put strength into it, and swung down—at the same time, returning the weight of the sword,

“—Prepare yourself, brat.”

A powerful shock reverberated through the hand holding my sword.

—What?

It wasn’t just stopped.

It was repelled.

Losing my balance, I kicked the ground to distance myself from Vicky.

Her body showed no signs of injury.

But there was one difference.

Her fists.

On her clenched fingers—something silver was fitted.

Is that… brass knuckles…!?

Did she really repel the sword with that!?

That’s impossible…!

Even with the strength of a child, to deflect the weight of a longsword with a fist…

“…Didn’t expect to have to use this against a kid…”

Vicky positioned her brass knuckle-clad fist in front of her chest.

“I didn’t want to use it because it’s so exhausting…

It’s humiliating—truly humiliating!”

The moment Vicky showed the preparatory motion for a punch, I moved at high speed, erasing inertia.

With this, she shouldn’t be able to catch me———

“——Wh-What…!?”

A nasty sound, like cracking, echoed.

The source of the sound—

was my ribs.

“Urk.”

A voice I’d never heard before escaped from deep in my throat, and I was blown away.

Bouncing on the ground, I slammed into the wall.

I collapsed, limp.

“Ja-kun!”

I saw Phil trying to rush over, and I somehow managed to hold her back with my hand.

My arm had no strength.

Even so, I forced myself to rise,

“Ugh!”

A clot of blood spewed from my mouth, splattering on the ground.

It hurts… so much.

It’s painful…

Did this damage my internal organs…?

Am I… dying…?

“You talked big and ran your mouth off earlier, didn’t you?”

The female thief looked down at me, her previous demeanor replaced by a chilling gaze.

“Was it fun having things go your way?

Toying with adults, mocking them, feeling superior?

Did you think you’d win? Did you think you had won?

Did you underestimate me because I seemed weaker than you?

Shall I teach you something as an adult?

That’s called ‘complacency’. Did you know?”

Without moving from her spot.

Never relinquishing the advantageous distance.

The female thief, the ‘Bloodstained She-Leopard,’ Vicky said.

“Stand up, brat. Round two.

—I’ll teach you the terror of an adult.”

I stood up with unsteady steps,

A faint smile forming on my face.

…Ah. Please do teach me.

Before I drown in the unfair talent given to me.

So that I will never lament my powerlessness again.

—Be the cornerstone of my life, ‘Bloodstained She-Leopard.’