It was a race against time! If I were to be discovered, I’d be their next target. The reason I stayed still and didn’t make any attempt to get away was simply because I feared that “hidden danger.” Additionally, I didn’t think that it was a good idea to poke my nose into their problems, especially when the situation had escalated to this.

I decided to just silently observe and watch while tweaking things with [Programming].

Just in case, I gathered some more pebbles and coded them with increased acceleration like before. These code-imbued stones, I decided to call “stone bullets.” Thinking back, I was curious whether [Developer Interface] could work on them— And it did!

Stone bullet (modified)

A small rock that has been imbued by [Programming] with ten times the acceleration when propelled at high velocity.

Ah! I feel like testing this out. But not now… I put the stone bullets inside all my pockets and kept creating more—

“Ngh…” Lightheadedness suddenly struck my head, and my whole body felt weak. I must have overused my Vocations so much that it gave me a backlash… there were already signs of it after using [Programming] a few times.

At that moment, I heard someone shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!” and saw that Leon was unleashing an endless barrage of sword strikes at the assassination leader.

“Shit!” The leader took a defensive stance and held his shield in front. He was the strongest among the people here since he had a D+ evaluation. In fact, his “STR” and “VIT” stats, which both seemed to stand for “strength” and “vitality,” even eclipsed Leon’s, respectively.

As for the ranger, he had been shooting arrows nonstop. But the arrows were either blocked, dodged, or Leon simply didn’t give a shit when those hit him. The difference between them and Leon was worlds apart.

Unexpectedly, despite being pushed back, the leader smiled full of malice. “Alright, you forced me. Ain’t a Silver-ranked adventurer for nothin’, eh. Let me tell ya: After havin’ fun with her, we fed her to a thorn boar. She died a slow, gruesome, painful death.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine. I knew that they weren’t good people, but to think that they would go so far…

“Aaaaah!! You dare! I’ll kill you!” Leon’s last rational thought seemed to have snapped, and he swung his longsword toward the leader.

S-Stop! That’s a trap—! I wanted to warn him, but not a single word could escape the confines of my mouth. I could only stare with wide eyes and an open mouth, like a chicken being held on its neck to be slaughtered.

“Shut up and die!” A voice that I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman appeared.

When Leon’s longsword was about to reach the leader, he stopped— Wrong, it was more of him being forcefully suspended in his tracks; a dagger pierced the back of his chest, protruded out even, and blood began to trickle down. Because of the bushes, my vision was obscured from the view of the one that stabbed him, but this was the “hidden danger” I worried about.

“Aa…? N-No… I can’t die… yet!” Gritting his teeth, Leon quickly stabbed his longsword into his chest, which in turn pierced an invisible being.

It was effective, as a man clad in black surfaced from a dark shadowy gas like a ghost, extreme hatred in his eyes. Still, this was beyond reckless however I saw it. I couldn’t imagine doing what he’d done if I were in his shoes — being so fierce.

“Nghah! Argh…! You!” The man in black clenched his fist as if grasping the air, and suddenly a pitch-black dagger appeared and stabbed Leon’s nape.

It didn’t matter how ferocious Leon might be, he still fell to the ground, lifeless. Wh-What kind of…

“Gurgh…! You mutts! Stop gawking and help me!” Because their bodies were connected by the longsword, the man in black was also dragged down to the ground.

The leader approached the man in black and helped him. “Sir Shadow… Why not act sooner? We lost a member and an idiot. Haven’t we agreed beforehand?”

“You dare quack at me?! Chickening out in the corner, not moving an inch, and you dare?!” A hair-raising tension spread from him, his eyes bloodshot, the man in black named Shadow seemingly unhesitant to kill his accomplice.

“Eep. Uh… I—”

“Enough! No need for explanation. Clean this place up!” Once the sword was taken out, Shadow disappeared, sinking back into the shadows just like how he appeared for the first time but in reverse.

“Hey, ranger. Is there anyone in the vicinity?”

“Hmm? Let me see…”

Did I get discovered? I didn’t dare peek at them for fear of being discovered.

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The ranger did possess [Ranger Sense] as his Vocation. So, I put both of my hands over my mouth and tried to minimize any body movement as much as possible. But, alas, my heart was beating faster than ever.

“Find somethin’? Can’t leave any trace, so leave no stone unturned.”

“Nope. All clear, very clear.” Somehow, their footsteps were gradually going the other way.

Whew. Am I safe now? My guts were telling me to run as far as possible and forget everything that I saw here. The ominous feeling had drenched me in a sweat bath. Now that the hidden danger was gone, I had a chance to leave by creeping away.

Without warning, a pair of legs stood before me and blocked my path, accompanied by a voice. “Where are you going, little mouse?”

I looked up and saw that it was the ranger.

“Ugh…!” Sweat covered my hands; I couldn’t help but turn away and avoid his gaze with unutterable fear pulsing all over me. “No… I just… Yes, I got lost. Uh… Um, would you mind showing me the way out of the woods, kind sir?”

“Lost?” The ranger kicked the tree next to him hard. “Don’t treat me like a fool, brat!” The air around me became heavy and almost suffocated me; I’d never felt such pressure.

“I-I swear I didn’t see anything, nor have I anything to do. Just let me go.” I silently put my right hand in my pocket, ready to go all out.

“Well, maybe. Sorry, but the dead tell no tales. Maybe not if you turn into an undead, but I’ll make sure that such a thing won’t happen.” The ranger took out a dagger and came close to me. “Blame yourself for being an interloper. Rest assured, though, I’ll give you a swift and painless death.”

Like hell, I’d accept that! In an instant, I threw a stone bullet on the ground near his feet. Then smoke made out of a mix of dirt and dust covered the surrounding area. Not wasting the chance, I began sprinting to the forest.

“Fuck! Cough! Cough! What’s with this smoke? Cough! My eyes! There’s dust in my eyes!”

“What’s going on there?!”

I ignored everything and kept running and running while also throwing the stone bullets one after another. They weren’t ordinary stone bullets, but something that had another set of conditions, where when they hit something hard, they turned into light-weight dust. Wherein the strong impact of the pebbles made the dust float and cover the air.

Since velocity alone wouldn’t be enough to cause dust-covered air, I basically spent the whole time trying to figure out the right formula. After all, if I added too many conditions, the stone pebbles would break into countless pieces. This was something that I’d found while experimenting, an inspiration that came from lots of games I’d played before.

“You won’t get away!” The leader swung his ax in front of me, missing me by a hair’s breadth, and made a crack on the ground.

Holy crap! Coupled with his [Great Strength] Vocation and high strength value, my heart almost stopped over his sudden display of strength.

“Oh, shoot!” Feeling the hard texture of wood on my back, I clenched my hoodie.

“Hehe! Cornered now, brat?”

“Ugh…” I clenched the pebble in my pocket and made a throwing position, trying to be brave. “You want some of this?”

“A pebble? That must be the one that causes the smoke. Hmph! So what?”

Was my calculation wrong? I believed he was a coward— I mean, overly cautious.

“Well…” I threw the stone bullet, and it hit the unsuspecting assasination leader right in the chest. The stone bullet had such high velocity that it pierced his chest like a bullet, but it was stopped and rebounded when it got three to four centimeters in.

I was confident that the stone bullet would be enough to kill me, but this bearded man in front of me was an exception.

Ngh. Dang! The backlash from using that hurt my hand a little. There would need more adjustment, but I had no time for that now.

“Argh! It hurts! You little—!” Despite the wound on his chest, he took a step forward, taking an offensive stance.

“There… There’s more where that came from.” I scooped out some more stone bullets from my pocket and raised my hand.

“Naive! Like the same trick will work twice.” He lifted his ax overhead, ready to chop my neck.

“Do you think I only have one trick up my sleeve?”

“What?!” In a moment of hesitation, the leader flinched and hoisted his shield. As expected.

Without hesitation, I threw the pebble at him and swiftly tossed another one right below his right foot. The first one was just a run-of-the-mill pebble, the second one though…

“Mud? Why does the ground turn to mud?” The leader’s right foot up to his knee was trapped in the sticky mud, unable to be pulled out.

I was able to alter the composition of the ground thanks to [Programming]. At first, I didn’t think that it would work perfectly, but it did.

“See ya!” I made a quick getaway; staying here would just be trouble since I couldn’t do anything to him.

“Damn you bastard!”

I continued running into the forest, although I must’ve circled around the area as I stumbled across someone’s headless body. That’s… Angelico’s body… and a sword. Angelico’s sword was lying on the ground, and it was still in good condition, so I took it with me along with the scabbard.

No matter which direction I ran in, I continued traversing the forest. “Escape” was the sole thing on my mind. The moment I got too slow, the notion of being captured and killed renewed me with energy. I had never felt this tension before, having my life on the line.

“Huff… Puff… Ho… How many… Ugh… kilometers have I run? Haa…” My legs were sore from running so far. I quickly slid under a canopy of a tree to take a breather — well, I tumbled into it clumsily, to be more accurate.

The cool wind rustled the foliage and brought me a pleasant air.

All of a sudden, not even a minute had passed, a bristling wind before the sound of wood being impaled interrupted my moment of respite. Almost immediately, like a punch of a metal bat, a sharp pain assaulted my left shoulder. It was horrible! The pain!

“Arrgh!! It hurrrrts! It hurts so much! Wh-What is this?!” By tracing the razor-sharp shape, I found that it was— “An arrowhead?! …B-Blood?” I grimaced upon glancing at the source; an arrow had pierced the tree and partially stabbed my shoulder.

“Damn! If not for my eyes… The next one will be right between your eyes.”

“H-How?” There was no reply, and I didn’t wait for one. With wet eyes, I gritted my teeth and pulled my left shoulder from the arrow tip. “Urgh…!”

Right away, I started running for my life again. This time I didn’t know his exact location, so all I could do was throw the dust-filled stone bullets to the ground to buy some time and hopefully prolong my life. To make matters worse, there was a small cliff right ahead, blocking my path.

The cliff appeared to be a ravine as it was small, but the bottom couldn’t be seen, it was very dark as if leading to an abysmal depth. I got cold feet and stopped not far from the edge of the ravine… The feeling of being chased constantly made my head go blank, and my legs gave way, tumbling me weakly to the ground.

“Out of tricks? For someone weak like you, you sure are slick. Put me through a hell of a lot of trouble!!” The ranger had his bow nocked with an arrow as he strode out. More likely than not, the chase across the forest had made him so pissed off that he came straight at me.

His eyes were red, he must have rubbed them because of the dust getting in until they were like that.