Published: January 22, 2026
Gary turned around to see who had stabbed him.
"—Stig…!? What are you doing…!? I’m an executive of the cult…!"
The man called Stig wore a refreshing smile as he spoke.
"To be precise, you would be recommended as an executive if you had completed the orders given to you, right? Right now, you are not an executive. Please stop lying."
Gary tried to argue, but blood spilled from his mouth, making it hard for him to speak properly.
Seeing this, Stig's smile deepened as he spoke again.
"Anyway, this was a relief. I didn’t want to bother thinking up an excuse after dealing with you. I must thank you for your loose tongue. Now that I have a justified reason to eliminate you, please die."
With that, Stig twisted the blade piercing Gary and pulled it out forcefully.
Gary lost support and collapsed on the spot, spewing a large amount of blood from his chest and back.
"…Aren’t you comrades?"
His voice trembling with anger, he asked Stig.
"What did you say?"
"I asked if he was your comrade!!"
"Me and this guy as comrades...? Please stop. Even as a joke, it’s humiliating to be said that such a fool is my comrade."
Answering my question, Stig stepped on Gary’s head lying on the ground, wiped the blood off the blade with a cloth, and stored it in his storage magical tool.
Despite just having taken a life, Stig showed no sign of any emotion, which made me increasingly uncomfortable.
"…Do you have no heart?"
"Hahaha. You say funny things. Of course, I don’t have such a thing."
"…I see. I understand well now. The cult really is a gathering of the worst people!"
Instantly, I used gravity manipulation to increase the gravity where Stig stood.
The gravity was so strong that he struggled to even lift his arms, restraining him.
Immediately after, I channeled mana into a technique I had constructed in my mind and activated magic.
Fire javelins surrounded Stig from all sides and attacked.
In response to the scene, Stig let out a small sound, "Hmm..."
Although the fire javelins avoided vital points, being pierced and exposed to high temperatures would not be harmless.
Yet, Stig’s expression changed to boredom, and he brought his right hand up to his chest despite the increased gravity.
When Stig opened his right hand with the palm facing upwards, the fire javelins suddenly altered their trajectory toward his hand.
As the fire javelins approached him, they lost their shape and finally transformed into flickering flames, as if burning in his palm.
"You don’t seriously think you can incapacitate me with such a childish trick, do you?"
Stig clenched his right hand, and the flickering flames vanished without a trace.
"…"
I didn’t answer Stig’s question and instead focused all my attention on his every move.
I instinctively knew that moving recklessly would lead to a counterattack, and cold sweat trickled down my cheek.
Just as he said, I didn’t expect to trap him with the current attack.
I thought he would respond to it in some way.
That’s why I planned to approach and restrain him while he dealt with the fire javelins, but there was no opening at all in Stig’s earlier movements, and seeing such an unprecedented phenomenon, I couldn’t move an inch.
It was clear that Stig did something to change the fire javelins into mere flames.
However, he showed no sign of using a magical tool or a supernatural ability.
Unfamiliar phenomena usually involve supernatural abilities.
Yet, my intuition said this was not caused by a supernatural ability.
To put it simply, magic is the phenomenon that occurs when mana executes an order called a technique.
This current phenomenon felt as if the orders given to the mana were forcibly overwritten, interfering with mana by some law different from magic.
I felt like I knew that law.
It was on the tip of my tongue but something was blocking it.
To prove that, the more I thought about this phenomenon, the more a haze seemed to cloud my mind and a headache grew worse.
Thanks to the seal release (calmination), not only my physical abilities but also my senses have become quite sharp now.