(untitled chapter)
"Why are you late? I told you not to enjoy yourself all by yourself..."
The footsteps that had been approaching halted.
A brief silence followed.
She cast a glare at the newcomer.
A man with a mischievous grin on his face, as if he were about to become a yakuza, stood there.
Two more followed behind him.
The yakuza who had been approaching slowly and she locked eyes.
Briefly, the yakuza glanced at the bound man on the ground and growled.
"You were the one, weren't you?"
Instead of answering, she shifted her gaze beyond the yakuza.
She scanned the surrounding crowd's armament.
Run? That was an option, but it was the last resort.
Ultimately, it had only been three hours since she arrived here.
From an informational standpoint, she was inferior to those guys no matter which way she ran.
Even if she fled, she would be captured easily.
Excluding the one who had been bound, there were three in total.
Armament could not be checked, and she was unsure whether any cyberware was present.
Was it possible? With that doubt in mind, she gripped the electric shock device in her hand tightly.
She had experienced it even before reincarnation. This was not the first time in real combat.
Yet, the irritating part was that the place she was in now was not the real world.
Any means that had been impossible before were now emerging without anything strange about it.
Fortunately, from the outside, there were no weapons at all.
All she had were pipes and wooden clubs.
If she suppressed them all at once with the electric shock device, wouldn't the problem be solved?
'No, I don't even know how long this old electric shock device will hold out…'
The only action had been activating it once earlier.
Even that had been remembered as not outputting properly.
It seemed like it would stop working after a few more uses.
But even without that, the idea that she would lose never entered her mind.
It was because the added traits and stats she had gained did not seem inferior to the yakuza in front of her.
"Ah… Did I have a party? Yeah, I guess I was talking too much."
"You—"
"Well, the problem is your mouth."
She kicked the bound man's body.
She cut off the variable that would appear when she released the bind.
She prevented him from rising again.
The yakuza twisted his expression and shouted.
"This bastard! Catch that brat!"
At the same time as the yakuza and his companions rushed forward, she leaped too.
While running, she grabbed a trash bag like lightning and swung it.
The bag tore, and the contents spilled out.
The scattering garbage pile blocked her vision.
The man who had been rushing toward her crossed the garbage pile and charged.
Her trait, [Fighter], flared with a wide grin, eyes flashing.
She endured the flying wooden club and pipe, tilting her body left and right while evading the fists.
Bang! With joy from the bone-rattling pain, she grabbed the pipe and yanked it hard.
The Fighter's ability supplemented. The exaggerated physical ability pulled the man along.
Laughing wildly, she stabbed the electric shock device into the man's neck.
In that fleeting moment from the rusty iron lump to the current flowing out.
Magic surged, then ebbed, and the current flowed to the tip of the electric shock device.
In that instant, she witnessed the process flowing endlessly slowly at the same time.
A massive explosion swept through her mind.
It was the aftereffect of witnessing a world she had never known before.
It was the awakening of latent power sleeping in her body, blooming another sense.
The five senses humans possess. And the added sixth one.
It was the sixth sense, and the third eye that saw the world in another direction.
In that moment of realizing that it flowed everywhere in the world and was the foundation of all things.
The concepts defining the world trembled, and the horizon of thought widened further.
Now, the world she was seeing was completely different from the world 'he' had seen until now.
With endless enlightenment, her body trembled.
With overflowing inspiration, the time that had slowed like slow motion flowed again.
Compared to the long reality, the awakening moment was merely an instant.
While packing the overflowing inspiration into a corner of her head, she pushed the unconscious man's body aside and reached toward the man who had dug in close.
Crack! The man who had gritted his teeth desperately evaded the electric shock device.
Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye as the brain-screaming sound echoed in the void.
The wooden club the man had thrown away struck her hand. The wooden club hit her hand back, and she dropped the electric shock device from her hand.
"Get out!"
A yakuza behind her leaped over her neck.
He had joined in knowing there was no danger in his hand.
But the electric shock device had lost all meaning now.
At the moment she saw the phenomenon, she had already grasped the result and the process.
When she had stored the technique in her eyes, learning had no meaning.
Her transcendental talent allowed most things to be possible even with just a part of it.
The magic moving in the realm of instinct, not reason, assembled the technique.
The faint idea that had seeped from her mind matched perfectly with the magic at that instant.
The technique assembled like rolling gears, and she realized her idea into the world.
Learning that began and ended at the same time completed the technique.
A miracle of the world unfolding from a single fingertip.
The technique engraved on the magic tool had left the inanimate object and functioned in a human hand.
Before even 0.1 seconds had passed, lightning flashed at the end of the completed idea.
With a grin, she pulled the yakuza's arm wrapped around her neck as if tearing it off strongly.
Whoosh!
"Kuguguguguguguk?!"
She bent her upper body and threw the yakuza's body.
In the moment the wooden club and the yakuza's body overlapped and canceled.
She planted her foot and reached toward the man beyond.
The man desperately leaned his body back to avoid her hand.
Her hand stirring the air sent brain-screaming sounds, bursting current in all directions.
"Ma, magic…?"
The man who had fallen on his butt was startled and began to run.
She did not miss it. She immediately grabbed a pipe and chased after the man's back.
The man, perhaps because of his panic, was slow.
Thud thud thud!
She ran at full power and swung the wooden club at the back of the man's head with both hands.
Crash! Precisely hitting the man's back of the head, the man rolled his eyes and collapsed.
The battle was already over.
She dragged the three unconscious people in front of the bound man.
The man who had kicked her groin had not yet fainted.
Instead, tears were streaming down his face due to pain.
It was all right either way.
'What should I do with these guys…'
She could have just left. But the grudge was irritating.
If she abandoned them and later came with even more of them, what would happen?
She did not know if such a thing would actually occur.
The probability of not encountering them in another district was high.
But one thing was certain: the probability of not encountering them was not zero.
She understood how deep human grudges could be.
After some thought, she searched the guys' bodies and stole their wallets.
The cash inside totaled 105,600 credits. She broke the unknown cards and threw them away.
While looking around, she found something like plastic or string.
Since they were torn, there was nothing usable.
She had no choice but to pick up the pipe.
"First, I should break their legs a bit."
If she could not tie their legs, she would at least make them unusable for a while.
At least until she got out of here so she would not encounter them again.
She gripped the pipe and lined up the three guys' legs neatly in a way that was easy to break.
Crunch!
She left the back alleys and walked a little on the street.
Passing through the slum, she found a hotel located a little away from the bustling area outskirts.
Currently, the place she was in was District 57. In the huge city with 57 districts total, it was the district at the end number.
As such, overall management was not properly done.
How many crimes had she seen while coming to the hotel?
It seemed the police were not moving properly here either.
Perhaps if the word to fully express this city was the slum, that would fit.
Instead of her torn clothes, she wore the man's clothes and entered the hotel.
A lobby that could be said to be somewhat cleaned caught her eye.
Would this level of cleanliness and safety be guaranteed?
She looked around, but it did not seem too bad. If a commotion occurred, would she not be able to see the visuals?
At the counter, she reserved one room. 100,000 credits for two days.
Thinking of the motel at 10,000 credits per four days, it was highway robbery.
'But it's a bit dangerous to actually go to the motel.'
She had not searched for a motel either.
But the motel here seemed like a place where cleanliness and safety would not be properly maintained.
What was the point of talking about safety in a place that didn't clean?
To guarantee at least minimal safety, it would be better to reserve a hotel instead.
It would be convenient if the added credits were just thought of as protection fee.
She was sorry for the money, but since it was easy money from the beginning, she had no attachment.
She reserved one room and took the elevator.
Crossing the corridor, the moment she opened the door of the designated room and entered, her vision darkened and her body dropped heavily.
The sensation as if she had placed a rice sack on her body suddenly.
It was after securing a safe haven that the backlash of the battle struck.
Although the battle had been short, the result of being hit with a weakened body was not light at all.
She felt tension releasing, vision becoming hazy.
Staggering, she leaned against the wall and entered the bathroom.
She barely supported herself on the sink and endured.
Her hands trembled as she removed her clothes.
Clear bruises from blood remained on her arms. It was from being hit by the pipe.
Checking her body along her wrists, there were many wounds overall.
Some were from today, but most were wounds she had continuously had since before.
'Was my original condition always like this…'
What had been nothing for a while might have been due to excitement.
She turned on the water while shaking off the thought of perhaps lying down for a while.
She washed her face, covered in sweat, and raised her face.
The moment she saw her own appearance reflected in the mirror, she stopped breathing.
"……"
There was a woman in the mirror.
A woman with eyes that smiled twistedly enough to give her the creeps.
Upon reflection, the excitement of the battle had not yet subsided.
Immediately upon realizing that, something cold crawled up her spine.
"……Trait."
The trait she had added was affecting her mind.