A few days had passed since Claud returned to Licencia. It should have been a normal morning, one that didn’t brook concern, but unfortunately for him and a whole lot of people, this morning was anything but normal.

Jogging through the alleyways of Licencia, Claud controlled his mana expenditure gently. The City of Trades, like any other city, had a darker side, but with the establishment of the Moon Lords, this darker side should have been suppressed and controlled. All sorts of policies had been enacted to allow for even illiterate people to function in their artificial paradise, with charity events like food handouts full swing in their territory.

These little things didn’t come easy to the administration of Licencia, but to its lawless underbelly, it was but a flip of a palm. While the Nightfall Palace needed accountability in everything it did, the same couldn’t be said for the Moon Lords, which gave the latter a formidable advantage in being…nice people.

He actually hadn’t known all that much about those charity events, save for the fact that they were already being planned for a launch by the time he got back.

Claud shook his head as he rounded a corner. They were doing good things, so why did people see the need to sabotage their kindness? Granted, he should have taken a more intimate role in helping to plan those events, but why would anyone do such a thing?

Why?

He couldn’t quite get over the image of a sobbing Farah as he continued his chase. The countess was kneeling in front of a crowd of poisoned people, trying to administer aid the best way she could. Fortunately, he was actually around, and had immediately removed his Pendant of Poison Warding for these people to wear, but there was only so many he could save.

Schwarz and Lily had dragged her away to protect her, and a runner had been sent to Count Nightfall to ask for help. Lily, Moons bless her decisive heart, had immediately gathered everyone on duty for an interrogation, but one of their subordinates had broken into a mad dash away before the investigation could actually begin.

Claud could not risk losing that person, and so he gave chase.

Clutching the pendant, which had been depleted of all its charges today, Claud whirled past more listless people, who were lying down on their backs and staring up at the sky. He could see a figure fleeing from him, and as Claud continued to chase, a rational part of him noted that he could very well be running into a trap. This was clearly a pre-planned poisoning, and at the end of the road, there were probably going to be people waiting for him there.

To carry on was suicidal. Dangerous. Crazy. Words like these flitted through his brain, but Claud could not forget both the earnest plea in Lily’s expression as she looked at him and the anguished sobs of Farah. It didn’t gel with him, not one bit. If doing good led to negative outcomes, he would be the first one to stand up against such a world.

Touching the mask on his face, Claud took a deep breath and began to reach out to his mana circuits. Blue light flashed, and the wind howled as his body began to move at speeds impossible to normal people. At the same time, the world seemed to slow around him, enabling Claud to narrowly avoid anyone in his way.

This was the first time he’d used mana openly in the city. Fortunately, he had taken the liberty to wear a cloak and change his identification factors before he used mana, but such an action definitely had its risks. However, Claud knew that if he failed to catch up to his target, he would almost certainly walk into a trap.

“Necessary, eh?” Claud mocked himself. The fact that he chosen not to pursue with mana until he changed his identification factors was indicative of his cowardice. “But I am a coward. Always then, always now.”

Leaving those words to linger in the wind, Claud closed the distance rapidly. Within seconds, he had all but caught up to the target, but before the master thief could strike, a shadow flashed towards him.

One of his innumerable defensive artefacts lit up, deflecting the small dagger. The sound startled his quarry, and the man he was pursuing turned back on reflex.

Time froze as Claud looked at the man.

He was one of the Moon Guards, someone Dia had trained to fight. They were generally entrusted with maintaining security around Moon Street, but the last time Claud checked, none of the Moon Guards had such an…expression on their face.

If he could even call it an expression, that is. A mask of granite looked back at him, and for a moment, the master thief couldn’t help but wonder if his quarry was actually alive. There was nothing — absolutely nothing — in those eyes of his, and as Claud faltered from the sheer shock, his target lashed out with a roundhouse kick, following up with multiple spear jabs that left afterimages in its wake.

Bones cracked as the kick bounced off his persistent defences, but the shock that followed rattled Claud. The rebound from the kick had broken both his target’s legs and left him reeling despite his defences, which was a testament to just how mighty that strike was. What was more alarming, however, was the fact that the man had ignored his broken leg to suppress Claud with his spear, as if pain was nothing to him.

“Is it possible for someone to be this strong?” Claud wondered. “Maybe it’s Super Strength or something, but…”

He didn’t have much time to think about the whole thing, however. Despite the man’s clearly broken right leg, he was still able to stand and brandish his spear expertly. Claud’s barriers held fast under the assault, but the enemy was so skilled that he couldn’t quite do anything with his many knives.

“Rodrio,” Claud murmured. “Why are you doing this? What’s wrong with you?”

The abnormal way the Moon Guard was acting right now made him uneasy. Vacant eyes, a super-human ability to withstand such crippling pain…this clearly wasn’t the vanilla Rodrio he knew about. Mana-users were far better equipped to handle pain than normal people, and yet, Rodrio could stand normally, despite having a broken leg.

Rodrio did not reply, but the will to kill him was ebbing out of Claud. His intuition told him that there was something completely wrong with one of their Moon Guards. Killing him would not do anything whatsoever.

As the emotionless man drew a sword, Claud took out a small ball, which was attached to a stick. The small ball ignited and shot upwards as he broke the skillstick, detonating a few seconds later in the sky. With this, he would be able to summon reinforcements from both Count Nightfall and the other members of the Moon Lords.

However, if he let Rodrio get away, all this would be wasted.

With a practiced motion, Claud took out one of his barrier artefacts, called the Dome Shield. Its effect was to project a dome all around him, but like skillstrips and skillsticks, one could actually amplify the effect of such artefacts by infusing mana into them. The master thief hadn’t expected to do such a thing with a defensive artefact anytime soon, however, but that was how life went.

Infusing half of his mana into the artefact, Claud tossed it skywards. The man’s eyes tracked the flying artefact, but to Claud’s relief, he didn’t move to attack it. The Dome Shield activated in mid-air, and with its enhanced strength, the dome it projected became a lot larger.

Something like a jolt ran through Rodrio as the artefact landed. The dome shield it projected now covered the two of them, in a manner that made Claud think about a food cover to protect against flies. With this artefact, Claud had trapped himself with the abnormal Rodrio — while this meant that it was going to be a one-on-one fight, the problem was that this was a one-on-one fight.

“I must be crazy,” Claud muttered. “To fight with someone, without a homefield advantage…”

Checking that all his defences were up and running, he withdrew a short baton. Claud had gone to all this trouble to trap Rodrio with him; using a knife would run counter to just about everything else he wanted to do. It would not do for him to kill the perp through blood loss or something.

Rodrio charged him a moment later, forcing Claud to defend. The advantage of using a more solid and shorter weapon was its greater manoeuvrability, and as a mana-user, his reflexes were far more solid. Even if his strength couldn’t match up, the master thief could at least parry the incoming strikes.

There was a terrifying, blank focus in those eyes of Rodrio’s, however. Paired with Rodrio’s spearmanship, Claud found himself perpetually on the backfoot, but for opponents like these, there were always ways to make an opening.

Mana surged into his right arm, and with an empowered swing, Claud smashed aside an overhead slash. Claud swiftly followed up on that small opening by kicking out with his right leg.

Rodrio met Claud’s kick with a kick of his own, and a sickening crunch followed as both legs smashed into each other.

The master thief didn’t know what his opponent was thinking, but that was probably the stupidest thing Rodrio could have done. In that instant where leg met leg, Rodrio was forced to take a step back, but his right leg, which had been completely shattered, couldn’t bear his weight anymore. He fell backwards a moment later, his right leg at an unnatural angle.

Rodrio’s spear clattered onto the ground, marking the end of the fight.

Clearly, whatever had made Rodrio able to ignore pain had also deprived him of his ability to actually think properly. For that, Claud was thankful, but it would have been better if whatever abnormality that had driven Rodrio to poison the food used in the charity drive hadn’t occurred to him in the first place.

Letting out a small sigh, Claud walked over to Rodrio. A sword flew directly at him as he approached, but his supernatural reflexes enabled the master thief to dodge it entirely.

“Don’t resist…is what I’d say, but you can’t hear me, can you?” Claud murmured. He looked up at the edges of the impromptu barrier, where hooded figures were standing at the edge. One of them raised a hand slowly, and Claud flinched as an icy chill ran down his spine.

For a moment, he had the feeling that those hooded fellows were going to attack this impromptu arena of his, but before they could act, what sounded like an army came charging towards him.

Those fellows slunk away at that sight. Claud wanted to chase, but a Moon alight was better than three in the night. Rodrio was their main clue for this entire fiasco, so it made absolutely no sense to abandon him to chase after shadows.

“Right, my disguise…what now?” The master thief did not want to expose the fact that he was a mana-user to more people than was necessary, so instead of dispelling his disguise, he racked his brain and waited for the reinforcements to arrive.

It was time to put on a good show.