The moment I smiled at the redhead girl, she and her companion started running away. I never even noticed she was with someone the whole time we talked before I turned back time.

...

...

...I want to chase them. A mouse shouldn't turn her back to a cat! And a toy should not try to jump out of the window while getting away from her new master!

Oh, the woman broke the glass with her sword and jumped down. It's the 3rd floor! Will they be ok? Oh, she landed just fine with the midget in her arms, princess carry style. Cool. Guess she's some kind of a warrior but I also sense some magic being used... Strengthening charm? Probably. Wonder what else can she do.

But to think the little redhead was so happy to become my follower before and now ... Well, if they want to play then let's do it. I like games after all. I'm coming to catch you guys! I mean girls. Whatever. I flew out of the newly broken window using levitation magic and slowly started to drift in their direction - I don't want to ruin the fun by trying too hard but I cannot lose such a fascinating person after meeting her, even if she doesn't remember it!

Right. She doesn't remember meeting me! Our talk! She thinks I'm a complete stranger! Well, no wonder her guardian yelled something about assassins after I smiled at them. But is my smile really that terrifying?

Damn, this woman is a fast runner. Even with a kid in her arms, she moves like she's in a marathon or something. I might have underestimated Blackhill - so many exciting things happened here! Bandits, assassins, guns, a new device and a mysterious girl. Maybe we could stay here a bit longer after all? Right... We! Lucy! I left her in the castle!

...

...

...

...

...I'm sure she'll be alright. After my threat, the king won't dare to put Lucy in danger. No way in hell. Lucky~~

I have something else on my mind at the moment. The woman suddenly jumped on top of the building and started running on the roofs. Perhaps she's not too smart - after all, I'm flying right now. I would rather stay on the ground level to try to lose my opponent in narrow streets and not show myself in plain sight. Should I get a little more serious? Meh, it's only a game, let's just enjoy it. It's funny thinking about what they'll do next.

Hm? I feel like someone's forming a spell nearby. Well, I have better things to do than checking every little charm that's made... or not. A moment later the woman suddenly stopped and turned around, letting me see the midget with a glowing, bright ball in her hands that she quickly sent in my direction. I immediately recognized the blinding, middle-ranked spell from my 86th tome, called 'Luster'. Its main purpose was disorienting and delaying the opponents, which was a nice idea when someone stronger than you was following your trace.

What to do? Should I just quickly destroy the spell before it explodes, redirect it in their direction or have some fun and let them think they can escape?

...the answer is obvious. I let the light blind me for a few seconds but even after it stopped I still only saw white lights. No matter, I can just strengthen my hearing and smell instead and I'll still know exactly where they are. But they wouldn't know about it... Hehe, this is exciting.

This isn't the first time I was moving without using my eyes, during my 19 years of life I experimented with many, many disadvantageous situations and being blinded was one of them. Instead, all of the noises I heard now were intensified to the point that some people would turn deaf immediately. Of course not me, there is nothing better than using my 'Resistance' spell, hearing and smelling variant, which protected me from any harm while using the 'Strengthening' - 2 senses variant. It's weird that people think that every spell can only be used in one way when you can change them in so many ways! You don't need to apply mana to your whole body to move faster nor do you need to coat the skin of your ears in magic to hear better - you guide all of it inside, without wasting a single drop of it where it doesn't need to be to achieve the desired effect. Is it easy? Definitely not, extensive knowledge of biology and superb control of mana are the basic requirements to use it effectively. Or extremely good instinct, like in my case. Unfortunately, biology was always one of the few things that were quite hard to understand and remember for me so I simply decided against learning it - and so far I came across no problems that weren't solvable without this kind of specific knowledge. There are always ways around it after all!

I was expecting an attack but got a big surprise instead: The girls actually dug into the ground using some sort of artifact (magic tool) and started to go deeper and deeper underground! Dangerous! I couldn't smell them like this and if they got far enough I wouldn't be able to hear them anymore either! This must be their triumph card which they used against all those previous assassins after them but you can't fool me!

'Spacial barrier' 'Digging Shoes' 'All-clean' 'Mana Detector' 'Heal' 'Earth Binding'

In a short moment, I cast multiple spells: 'Spacial barrier', an advanced space barrier that would partly cut me out of this dimension, thus allowing easy movements in the ground. 'Digging Shoes' allows me to dig into the earth and travel through it with the help of 'Earth Binding' which moves the ground in front of me to my behind. 'All-clean' will leave me without any additional smells or dirt that could get on me while I travel and simple 2nd tier 'Heal' was used on my eyes to see the world perfectly again while I dispelled the 'Strengthening' at the same time.

Equipped like this, I also disappeared underground, with 'Mana Detector' activated as a way to follow after the quickly escaping toys. Their artifact was emitting so much magic that even a kid could easily follow their trail, not to mention me. It most likely takes a long time to charge it for the next time it's needed so it must be something they use as rarely as possible. Hmm. Found another thing that seems quite interesting. I can't wait to see what else is going to happen after I get the Midget to travel with us from now on!