Chapter 24: The Boss of the Thieves

Chapter 24:
The Boss of the Thieves

 

WELL, THINGS weren’t looking good. After investigating Ahgalga’s skills with Editor, it was clear that any changes were going to require heaps of LP. His most irritating skills, C-Grade Level Break and Faithful Short Sword, required well over 2,000 LP to undermine. It might have been that way because he heavily relied on them, or maybe he just had a particular affinity for them.

B-Grade Short Swords and Pillar of Fire were no better. But it did look like I could do something with his Night Vision and C-Grade Pocket Dimension…

“Don’t you get it? I’ve always carved my own path in life. Don’t get too cocky just because you took out my men.”

Ahgalga finally seemed to be done telling his life story. He grabbed his knife again. I could sense his renewed hostility.

“I’ve grown bored of talking. Ready to die?” He growled and threw his knife at me. It flew over my head, but I couldn’t rest easy. The blade was definitely coming back.

“Don’t take your eyes off the prize.” Ahgalga swished his arm around and I saw flashes of metal with each movement. He was throwing multiple knives. I couldn’t tell where they were coming from—they just seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“He’s using his Pocket Dimension,” I said when I realized.

It was getting harder to avoid the knives. Emma and I had our guard up, knocking them out of the air with our own blades. Throughout all this, Luna kept firing at Ahgalga, but he read the trajectory of her shots every time and dodged each bullet with the least amount of movement possible.

“Is that all you got, my dear intruders? Entertain me more! Try to threaten my life!” Ahgalga threw five or six knives into the air while Emma and I tried desperately to knock them away.

We were too slow.

“Oh no!”

One of the blades pierced the toe of my boot. If it had been just a fraction of an inch further up my foot, I would have had a real hard time moving.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! That panicked look is my favorite thing in the world.”

Luna’s attacks couldn’t even disrupt Ahgalga’s concentration. He just laughed. He was terrifying.

“Aaah?! My hair pin!” Emma looked absolutely enraged as one of his knives knocked off her hair pin. She quickly retrieved it, glaring at Ahgalga.

“Why so mad, little girl? That thing doesn’t even look expensive. It’s just some cheap trinket.”

“The price isn’t what makes it valuable!”

“Then what does?”

“This is…it’s…”

Emma’s fists trembled, but standing still like that put her in danger—one of Ahgalga’s knives was aimed right at her throat! But she nimbly lifted one of her own daggers and slapped it away. I’d never seen anyone slap a knife before…

“This is a treasure I got from Noir! I can’t put a price on it…well, if I really had to, I’d say it was worth ten billion rels, no, ten trillion!”

The indignant Emma charged at Ahgalga. She might have been worked up, but she still had her wits about her. She cast Run Like the Wind, but without backup, fighting Ahgalga in close combat was rough.

“Hyah!”

Once I’d knocked the last flying dagger out of the air, I frantically worked on Editing Ahgalga’s Night Vision. I decided to change “vision is improved in the dark” by removing “improved” for 300 LP. It wasn’t that expensive, so I didn’t hesitate. Since the removal of that word invalidated the whole skill, it disappeared.

“Ngh! Wh-what?! Why is everything so dark?”

While Ahgalga faltered, Emma kicked him with all her might. He fell back but quickly regained his balance. Even partially blinded, he had no trouble blocking Emma’s strikes and continued to watch for Luna’s attacks too. He even managed a counterattack against me.

“It was you, wasn’t it?! I knew you were acting funny.”

“You caught me!”

More knives flew and I tried mimicking his technique. I pulled a knife out of my Pocket Dimension and threw it. With the aid of my Throwing skill, I hit the mark. The two knives clashed into each other and toppled to the ground.

“Interesting. This is going to be a fun match.”

I had no interest in a head-to-head confrontation. I wanted to tweak his Pocket Dimension skill next, but I only had 500 LP left, and I’d need all of it to do any Edit I could think of. So basically, I’d have to die. And if I pulled out some money to use my LP Conversion skill, Ahgalga would probably use the opportunity to attack.

Instead, I tried adding a line to his Pocket Dimension skill description: “sometimes fails.” It cost me 200 LP. It wouldn’t perfectly undermine the skill, but hopefully, it would give me the edge I needed.

Good enough, I thought, but my successful Edit wasn’t without its tradeoffs.

With my LP down to 300, I took a serious hit to my physical condition. My master told me before that, if I left my LP in this reduced state for too long, it’d also reduce my lifespan.

I dropped down on one knee, but I endured and threw another knife. Ahgalga sparred with Emma with his left hand, danced around Luna’s bullets, and kept throwing blades in my direction with his right.

I had to concentrate. That was key. I had to keep up with him. I got my chance on our third volley. Ahgalga made a practiced throwing motion, but nothing came out of his hand.

That was my chance! While he was thrown off, I threw a knife and nailed him in the arm.

“Guhhh…”

With that, I finally did some meaningful damage. Emma followed through and landed a debilitating slice on his other arm. Now both of his arms were disabled.

“This is what you get for being bad!” she shouted.

“Sh-shut your mouth, little girl. I still have my legs.”

“Then how about we do something about those too?”

Luna fired off an Energy Shot, hitting him in the legs. With such severe wounds all over his body, even someone like Ahgalga couldn’t remain on his feet.

“Give up already.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna be in for some serious pain otherwise.”

“…”

Ahgalga didn’t seem to care. He just looked up at the moon. The only thing that got a reaction out of him was Luna.

“We don’t intend to take your life,” she said. “We’d rather you live and make up for your crimes.”

“Make up for my crimes?” Ahgalga snorted. “Of all the evil people I’ve met in my life, none of them could manage that.”

“That’s no excuse not to try. Plus, even those people will ultimately be judged by the gods.”

Her beautiful words converted Ahgalga… Yeah, just kidding. He spat on the ground and glared.

“The only one who’ll be judging me is me. And don’t you forget it.”

“Luna, look down!”

The ground Luna was standing on started to burn red. Luna leapt to the side and in the next instant, a pillar of raging fire shot up toward the sky. She would’ve been done for if it had hit.

Ahgalga likely hadn’t used that spell until just now because it took a lot of magic. His breathing was ragged, but he still didn’t seem concerned and fired off a second spell.

“Don’t you think you should use that power to help people?!” Luna cried as she fired an Energy Shot with all her might. It just grazed Ahgalga’s stomach. She collapsed before she even saw where it landed. She’d used too much magic and knocked herself out…

“Ha ha ha, you’re worthless after all. You’re all too soft to make a point.”

“Soft? But you’re severely injured.”

“She coulda hit me in the heart, right? But she just grazed my side. She probably thought another hit would kill me. What a sweet girl, sweeter than honey.”

“That’s because, as I said, we aren’t here to kill you. Come on, Emma.”

I didn’t think Ahgalga could move anymore, but just to be sure, we pinned him from behind. He must’ve been in serious pain, but he kept talking.

“You’re wasting your life to save others? Come on, pipsqueak, your skills and magic are for your own use. I know you agree.”

“I…I won’t hesitate to use my power to save those close to me,” I said.

“Ha! I see you’re sweet too!”

“Noir, get off him!”

“Guh!”

A glowing red circle had formed on the ground. I hadn’t expected Ahgalga to use Pillar of Fire right there. I mean, he was inside—

Just as we got back, he burst into flames.

“Ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha! Perfect! Just perfeeeeeect!”

The fire stretched up toward the moon. I couldn’t believe it. He kept laughing as his body burned and didn’t stop until he died.

In the end, Ahgalga was just a villain. But I couldn’t help feeling that if his circumstances had been different, he might have become a great hero.

I couldn’t respect his choice of actions, but I did want to learn something from his unbreakable spirit. That determination was something I was particularly lacking in.

With the tension broken, I felt like I was about to collapse. I would have fallen face first into the ground if Emma hadn’t supported me. “Used too much LP, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Just hang in there, I’ll do everything I can.” She wasn’t lying about that, either. She laid my head in her lap and stroked my hair and showered me with kisses. “Still feeling bad? Then how about this.” Emma nibbled on my ear.

“Why did you go for that?!”

“Well, you did it to me before, remember? I always wanted to get you back for that. Really makes you go weak in the knees, huh?”

“Ahhh, I think that’s the opposite of what we want right now.” I felt all the energy drain from my body but, at the same time, energy coursed through me. When I checked, I had earned several hundred LP. “You’re incredible, Emma.”

“Yay, it worked! As a thank you, I want you to popularize this phrase.”

“What phrase?”

“All you need is a best friend!”

Was she trying to antagonize every lonely person in the world?

I might have recovered, but Luna was still on the ground, so we hurried to her side. Luna was always so beautiful and collected, but when she had one of her seizure attacks her eyes rolled back in her head.

“H-he’s…so scary…”

And she would say exactly what she was feeling. She must have been scared to death of that Pillar of Fire. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to be physically injured. When we told her what became of Ahgalga, she even looked sad. “Oh. I was hoping I could change his mind…”

“I think you could’ve tortured him and he still wouldn’t have budged. You’ll probably have a better chance with the other thieves.”

“Yes, you’re probably right. The kidnapped women are waiting for us, too. We should head back.”

“Yeah.”

It was a hard fight, but we had at last defeated the band of thieves, and we returned to the hideout to catch our breath.