“Huh?”
“What’s going on?”
Shinichi’s voice was a lot firmer than he’d thought. Rinko and Nobuhiko stopped moving and turned around.
Although Nobuhiko looked at Shinichi’s back suspiciously, he put down the bag anyway.
And then as if on cue, ‘she’ quietly jumped out and looked around.
“Shinichi… kun?”
Rinko was confused by the sudden change in Shinichi’s aura, but she still hadn’t noticed it.
The oddity mixed in the normal scenery of the department store that Shinichi was looking at.
And then without any hesitation, Shinichi took a random hard item and threw it.
Shinichi’s eyes were already locked on the suspect.
“A-All of you be quiet! Right now this pla— Gyan!?”
The suspicious man was about to yell something, but something hit him square in the jaws.
The unexpected impact shook the man’s head and knocked him out in one hit.
Coincidentally, the thing he held in his hand rolled over to the other customers.
“…Huh?”
“A-A gun!?”
When the customers realized why the man was carrying that, they all jumped out of the way.
But only a few of them believed that the gun was real.
More people gathered to ask what was going on than to flee.
“Tch.”
Damn crowd getting in the way… As Shinichi spat that he clicked his tongue.
At the very least they should realize that it’s a real gun from the sound of the material and the weight.
Of course, that was an unreasonable thing to demand from a normal person, but Shinichi didn’t have the time to notice that.
Something else had caught his attention.
What was reflected on his eyes was not just one person.
“How dare you, you brat!”
“Can’t you see this thing!?”
“Eek, kyaa!!”
They had friends with them. The men all took out the same gun from their bosom and waved it around.
The customers who saw that up close ran away like spiderlings.
It was then that the customers finally realized that these were dangerous people in front of them.
Everyone was busy trying to be the first to get away. Because of that barely anyone saw what the boy did.
The man pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
But before the man could hurt anyone, a fist filled his vision and knocked him out.
“W-What!? Why!?”
The boy was no longer in the place where the gun was aimed at, and instead one of their friends got punched in the face.
He didn’t even have the time to say anything before falling onto the ground. The other man who saw what happened up close could only cry gibberish.
He couldn’t even aim his weapon at the boy who was clearly their enemy and was able to approach his friend in the time it took to pull out a gun.
“Amateurs! Should’ve learned not to act so suspiciously first!”
The boy spat out in a threatening voice one would not expect to hear from someone of his age as he quickly knocked out the next man.
The only reason he noticed these people was because they were acting strange.
Anyone who has received instruction on morals in Japan and possessed even a little bit of spirituality in them would not be able to act normal when carrying a ‘weapon to kill’.
Fear, nervousness, excitement… Even the people at Falandia were the same.
And for a country such as this where weapons were such a distant matter, it was even worse.
“D-Don’t move!”
“Don’t push your luck, kid!”
That’s why Shinichi wasn’t the slightest bit afraid when the remaining two members aimed their guns at him from a distance.
To hide a tree, plant it in the forest. To hide a person, have him blend with the crowd — Or so the saying goes, but if there is something overly ‘different’ in nature, such an act will only net the opposite effect.
These men were amateurs and too inexperienced in what they were about to do.
When it comes to such people, what one needs to watch out for isn’t the weapon in their hands, but their erratic behavior.
“Hey, what are you planning on doing with that?”
That’s why the only things on the boy’s face were disgust and scorn.
Nothing was easier to see through than humans who have been taken by their emotions.
“Don’t be stupid! If you move I’ll shoot—!?”
“W-What is this!?”
One of the men yelled in anger in response to that mocking voice, but when he looked at his gun, his expression ‘also’ froze.
His gun had been frozen along with his hand. He couldn’t feel anything.
Their hands were literally frozen.
“Kyukyukyu.”
In the midst of their confusion and fear, a small organism appeared before them.
Fox-like features, multiple tails, and fur like gold.
There was a coldness mixed in with its breath, though it seemed it was intentionally showing it off.
There was also purple lightning and fire on the tails swaying behind it.
“A-Amaryllis!?”
Yes, there was no doubting it.
That untouchable creature that could destroy a country on its own was right before them.
Regardless of its age, that was not an opponent they could take on even with a gun.
But of course, even that has already been sealed.
“H-Hey! I never heard about this!
They said it was a simple job! Just use the gun and scare them!”
“Don’t talk. Don’t move. Don’t breathe—”
“Eek!?”
“What!?”
While they were focused on ‘her’, the boy approached them.
By the time they heard his voice from behind, they were taken down with a knife hand without even being able to turn around.
Upon being hit at the neck, the two men couldn’t even cry out before collapsing.
“—Shut up and sleep.”
Not a hint of satisfaction nor relief could be seen on Shinichi’s face as he looked down on the five armed men that had fallen on their faces.
It was eerie how hard it was to read that face seemingly void of emotion.
But what was more was—
“…Something like that, I guess. No one got hurt. Good job, me.”
—the person himself was praising himself for holding back.
Although all of the men had been knocked out, none of them had any visible wounds.
But Shinichi immediately regretted it after nodding to himself triumphantly.
“To think I would be on the receiving end of the same gaze twice in a day… Is this excessive self-defense too?”
He had held back a lot too.
He was so precise it was like running a thread into the eye of a needle.
But people still gave him that same look from earlier.
Tl Note: Site ran into a major problem yesterday, but it should be fixed now. Let’s pray it doesn’t come back.
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