novelxo
Chapter 111: Stillness (2)
Her explanation over, Mira sat down on a nearby chair and took out a piece of black cloth rolled into a ball from her coat. As she unrolled it, it became a pair of leggings.
「Ah, those are mine!」
Saying with a shocked voice, Sasori’s eyes snapped to a corner of the room. There were two beds there, and a large opened bag was placed on top of one.
「Huhh… I’d swear I left that closed and on the floor.」
With a light trot Sasori went to the bed and looked at the bag. It was the one she used to store the bare minimum of clothes when traveling, and when she checked the contents she verified one of the leggings she had put there was gone. It was clearly the one Mira held while smiling suspiciously.
「This is also part of the demonstration. You didn’t notice I was looking through your bag, yes?」
Mira rolled it up into a ball again and threw it to Sasori, smiling satisfied with herself. The powers of a spirit of stillness extended to more than just a person, they could also conceal someone’s actions. But since Mira’s contract was still recent, it could only hide simple things like searching through someone’s bags and stealing their underwear.
「That’s amazing! I didn’t notice you doing that at all!」
Sasori was astonished hearing that uncommon stealth method, and that Mira had done all that while she was searching the room for her. Sasori was well versed in stealth methods, as well as how to counteract them, but even then as she searched through the room, she was unable to even sense Mira rifling through the bag.
Not just Sasori, but anyone she knew would be very shocked hearing of such a skill.
「I know I’m amazing. But wouldn’t you say this will make it easy to get inside that secret building?」
Sasori returned her leggings into the bag, then proceeded to close it and open it shortly after while nodding strongly. contemporary romance
「Yeah, I’m sure this will work.」
She took her underwear out from the bag again. Doing that was not an exaggerated motion, but it was very hard to miss regardless. If she had been fooled by it, she was convinced the spirit of stillness would be able to get them inside that fortified building.
「Anyway, was there any reason why you went for underwear specifically..?」
Worthramble muttered from a distance in an unsure voice, feeling awkward that his first job was to aid an underwear thief. Still, Mira and Sasori seemed quite happy with their conversation.
It was still late at night, but the streets were filled with light and people. Mira, Sasori, and Worthramble jumped from rooftop to rooftop, quickly moving through the city without anyone noticing.
Sasori took the lead, guiding them from the commercial district to the alleys, and from there to the slums which were filled with many appalling taverns. They were going quite far away from the center of the city. They reached what looked like a red-light district, and as they moved through it Sasori suddenly stood still while glaring at something.
Mira was about to ask what had happened when-
「You stupid baldie! Slaphead! I hate you!」
Sasori began insulting one of the adventurers walking a few steps in front of them. Due to Worthramble her voice could not be heard by anyone, but Sasori did not mind that as she added a few more insults.
「Ahh, that felt good! I’m loving this power.」
The adventurer walked past them, not noticing anything, while Sasori stuck her tongue at him to mock him.
「What’s gotten into you all of a sudden.」
Mira sighed as she said that, adding 「Come on, we should keep moving.」
「You see, that guy kept catcalling me yesterday. He even tried touching me, I felt so uncomfortable!」
Apparently that adventurer was another sex offender. Sasori frowned while thinking back to her experience and then glared at his back.
「Take this! You smooth headed baldie!」
Sasori picked up a small pebble from the ground and threw it to the man’s head with all her might. The moment the stone left her hand, Worthramble exclaimed a short 「Ah-」
The stone flew straight towards its target, hitting right in the adventurer’s hairless head. When it hit, the man quickly turned around. Sasori grinned thinking that he could not see her thanks to Worthramble.
「That’s quite the way to approach me. You really should learn to be an honest kitten.」
A slimy smile appeared on the man’s lips as he began walking straight towards Sasori.
「Huh? What? Why?」
Seeing things did not go as planned, Sasori began losing her composure. Meanwhile it was obvious what the man was thinking from his face as he began running towards her.
「I’ll give you all the attention you need, my little kitten!」
「Get away from me you freak!」
Sasori shrieked and ran away as fast as she could. She even used the acrobatic skills she had shown in the Libra Fortress, using everything she had to escape as fast as possible.
But the man would not give up so easily, and thinking faster than his appearance would suggest he plunged into the crowd of people in the most efficient route, slowly getting closer to Sasori.
「What are they even doing? Such a bunch of idiots…」
Mira muttered to herself as she saw the two vanish inside the red-light district.
More than ten minutes later Sasori jumped down from a nearby roof, looking thoroughly exhausted, but still watchful of her surroundings. Once she was protected by the veil of Perfect Suppression, the first thing she did was scream 「Why?!」 with teary eyes to Mira.
「You see…」
Mira explained what happened in simple terms.
Sasori’s attack had broken the barrier around them. Walking, talking, and hurling loud insults to random people were no issue for Perfect Suppression to handle, but any deliberate act done against a target outside the area hidden, or essentially interacting with someone who wasn’t hidden, just like Sasori had done, would reveal their presence and nullify the barrier.
「And that’s about it. If you do something stupid and needless that’ll happen.」
「Tell me that… sooner…」 𝒇𝓻𝒆𝒆𝔀𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝒆𝒍.𝓬𝓸𝓶
Hearing Mira’s explanation of the situation, Sasori hung her head in grief.
「I was planning on telling you before we reached the building, I wasn’t expecting you to do something like that on the way there.」
Their mission would only start in earnest once they reached the mysterious building. The trip there was simply for Sasori to experience a bit of what it felt to be concealed. She had gotten carried away, and thus paid for it.
They waited for a while until Sasori recovered her strength after running with all her might, and they resumed their night trip to the building.