Free Web NovelChapter 57: Interference [2.]
Meanwhile, inside the alleyway, the situation was rapidly reaching its conclusion.
One of the bandits stepped forward with a disgusting grin on his face, casually twirling a dagger between his fingers as he approached the silver-haired girl. At almost the exact same moment, the second bandit shifted his footing, intending to move closer as well.
Then something strange happened.
Perhaps it was a tiny miscalculation. Perhaps it was bad luck. Or perhaps fate had simply decided to play a cruel joke on them.
The first man’s boot landed directly on a crushed metal can lying on the ground. The can rolled beneath his weight, causing him to lose his balance. Startled, he instinctively reached out to steady himself, but in doing so crashed into his companion.
The second bandit stumbled as well.
Instead of helping each other recover, the two became entangled.
Both men lost their footing completely and fell.
Unfortunately, neither had released their daggers.
For a split second everything seemed to slow.
Two falling bodies.
Two sharp blades.
Two perfectly unfortunate angles.
Then...
Puchi!
Puchi!
The daggers plunged straight into each other’s throats.
Silence immediately descended upon the alley.
The two bandits froze.
Their eyes widened.
Shock spread across their faces as they stared at one another, neither capable of understanding what had just happened. Blood poured from their wounds while their mouths opened and closed soundlessly.
A second later their bodies collapsed heavily onto the ground.
Dead.
At the entrance of the alleyway, Kael stared at the scene with a blank expression.
He blinked once.
Then twice.
"...Damn."
He rubbed his forehead as though trying to confirm he hadn’t imagined what he had just witnessed.
"You’ve got to be kidding me."
Even now he struggled to process it.
He had expected Interference to be useful.
But this?
Two enemies accidentally stabbing each other to death?
That was far beyond anything he had expected.
The more Kael thought about it, the more terrifying the ability became.
He hadn’t attacked.
He hadn’t moved.
He hadn’t even entered the alley.
All he had done was tug on a single thread among countless possibilities, and reality itself had arranged the rest.
To anyone watching, the bandits had simply been idiots.
Nobody would suspect another hand was involved.
Nobody would know they had died because someone had manipulated probability from the shadows.
For a moment Kael almost felt like a puppeteer.
Not the kind who controlled strings attached to limbs.
The kind who controlled fate itself.
Suddenly the enormous mana cost didn’t seem nearly as unreasonable.
A grin slowly spread across his face.
An incredibly smug grin.
"Killing enemies without moving an inch."
"Saving a beautiful girl in distress."
"And looking cool while doing it."
He folded his arms and nodded to himself.
"Yeah."
"I’m pretty amazing."
The grin widened even further.
For several seconds Kael stood there shamelessly admiring his own greatness before finally coughing awkwardly and regaining his composure.
"Ahem."
"Anyway."
"Problem solved."
With that, he turned around and resumed his journey home, completely unaware of what was happening behind him.
Back in the alleyway, the silver-haired girl stared at the corpses lying on the ground.
For a few moments she remained silent.
Then her expression suddenly changed.
Her lips puffed into a pout.
"Aww..."
She crossed her arms dramatically before kicking one of the corpses.
The body rolled slightly.
The pout on her face deepened.
"That’s no fun."
"I was going to play with them a little longer."
There was disappointment in her voice.
Not fear. Not relief.
Disappointment.
The atmosphere around her shifted completely.
The frightened damsel from moments ago vanished without a trace.
The trembling girl backed against the wall was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, an unsettling gleam appeared in her eyes.
A dangerous gleam.
One that made the dead bandits seem more like victims than villains.
Before she could continue sulking, another voice echoed through the alley.
"I told you to stop playing around."
The silver-haired girl rolled her eyes.
"You’re no fun."
As soon as the words left her mouth, her appearance began to change.
Silver hair rapidly shifted into crimson red.
Her youthful features matured.
Her figure changed.
Within moments the seemingly helpless teenage girl had transformed into a breathtaking red-haired beauty.
The transformation happened so naturally it was almost as though reality itself had accepted the change without question.
The newly arrived woman ignored her complaints entirely.
Instead, her gaze settled on the corpses.
"This was your doing?"
The red-haired woman snorted.
"What do you think?"
"I’m not a lunatic."
"They literally fell and stabbed each other."
The newcomer stared at her for several seconds.
"You expect me to believe that?" fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
Her gaze slowly shifted toward the entrance of the alleyway.
Toward the exact location where Kael had been standing moments earlier.
A frown formed on her face.
"I sensed something."
Immediately, all traces of playfulness vanished from the red-haired woman’s expression.
"What?"
"A strange magical fluctuation."
The newcomer’s eyes narrowed.
"And I also sensed the presence of that person."
The red-haired woman’s eyes widened.
The atmosphere instantly grew heavy.
"That person?"
The newcomer nodded.
"That person."
For several moments neither woman spoke.
"But he shouldn’t have appeared yet," the red-haired woman finally said.
The newcomer shrugged.
"Then perhaps the information we received wasn’t entirely accurate."
As she spoke, invisible waves spread from her body. Her senses expanded outward, searching the surrounding area for the mysterious individual whose aura she had briefly detected. freēwēbnovel.com
Unfortunately, she found nothing.
Not even the faintest trace.
It was as though the person had vanished completely from existence.
Eventually she let out a quiet sigh.
"As expected."
The red-haired woman frowned.
"You couldn’t find him?"
The newcomer shook her head.
"Not a trace."
Her gaze lingered on the empty street beyond the alleyway.
"To completely evade my senses..."
A complicated expression crossed her face.
"That really does sound like something that person would do."
Meanwhile, completely unaware that he had become the topic of discussion, Kael continued walking home.
Suddenly his nose twitched.
"Achoo!"
He rubbed it absentmindedly.
"Who’s gossiping about me now?"
After thinking about it for a moment, he simply shrugged.
Whoever it was probably had excellent taste.
After all, there was quite a lot worth talking about when it came to him.
The thought immediately improved his mood.
With a satisfied smile on his face, Kael continued down the street, blissfully unaware of the ripples his actions had already begun creating.
