It had already been a few days since the talk with the bears. Since that day, their plan to catch the thief had slowly taken form. Since then, they would build more and more traps with the support of several stall owners every day in the morning.
Seeing what they were doing, some of the other stall owners actually started to copy them from the second day. Though everything their traps did, was catching some unsuspecting commoners.
What they would do for the rest of the day was staying on the lookout until the market closed again. These days had been very stressful, especially for Alice who preferred moving around to of sitting all day long on a roof. And it didn't get any better when she saw the guy only for him to disappear a moment later in the crowd.
It had been especially during those moments that those dark emotions flared up and every time it became harder for her to calm down again
One of the few moments of relief had been when she witnessed how a merchant got caught in his own trap. Completely tangled up in his own net and floundering about on the ground like a fish on land, he made Alice laugh for the first time in a while.
The only really good thing was that she got to know the boys better during that time. Forster was of all of them the longest time a part of the guardians as a founding member, as well as the best be it in a fight or at stealing. His only flaw was that he couldn't talk due to the injury, so besides the things that they had experienced together, no one knew anything about him. He had a very calm personality and acted mostly as a supporter from the back while being a bit of a teacher to everyone. Still, in the end, he was one big mystery.
After that, came Alex, as the very first non-founding-member and the current acting leader. He could always keep calm and had the group well under control, giving Alice the impression of a dependable and experienced leader.
After Alex, came the two brothers Eric and Gale. While Gale was very intelligent and the one who helped Alex with drawing up tactics as well as taking care of their groups' relationship with other territories, he had a pretty weak body and couldn't do much when it came to fighting. Eric, on the other hand, was the only one besides Forster who could beat Alex in a direct confrontation. But, almost as if in exchange for that, he was a little slow in the head most of the time and let everyone else do the thinking but faithfully following the commands he was given.
The next person that had joined them had been Gardos. Although he didn't look like much at first as he didn't have any area he excelled in, he was a very hard worker with the stamina to support it, being the Jack-of-all-trades of the group.
The last two people were a guy called Kyle that had gone over to the bears sometime before Alice a come and the one who had been a member for the shortest time, Jayden. He was a guy with a pretty arrogant attitude as well as being a big braggart, which seemed to also be the reason why the Cats had thrown him out, but since he could support all his claims with the actions, he had still found his place in the group.
At that moment, Alice heard a loud commotion somewhere from her left. Expecting it to be some poor commoner that had fallen into some trap again she didn't react instantly, only when she saw that the trap was at one of their own did her heart jump a bit in expectation.
One reason was that their traps wouldn't get triggered as long as one acted according to common sense, making them pretty safe for normal people. The other was that the consequences were rather... severe.
That idea had actually been one that Alice had come up with some time after Gardos explained to her how most stealth mantras worked. If the problem was that you would instinctively ignore the person, you just had to make sure that you couldn't ignore them, and no one would be able to ignore someone who reeks like a cesspool. As a nice side effect, hiding in a crowd became an impossibility as well since no one would want to get close to the victim even for money.
When Alice saw how people started to create a circle around that spot she got excited at the possibility of catching the thief. When Alice saw that the circle in the crowd started to move as everyone tried to avoid the victim she became sure that they got the right person. Only a thief would run away, an innocent person would stay where he was, spewing long row of curses and complain to the shopowner.
The next moment, Alice started to run. Her target was about two hundred meters to her left and made his way towards a small side alley on the opposite side of the market.
While she ran over the roofs parallel to the market, jumping over the small alleys in between the buildings as if they didn't exist, her anger flared up again, this time stronger than ever.
When Alice just reached the point where the other had disappeared into the side alley, she suddenly stood before a problem. She would never reach there in time if she were to try and make her way through the crowd.
Trusting in her instinct, Alice made instantly her decision and jumped right in the middle of the market. Landing on one of the few stalls with roofs made of wood instead of cloth, Alice didn't waite for the roofs to break down under her weight and instead put all the power she could muster into her legs, making a second big jump, flying right over the heads of the astonished crowd.
Landing right in front of the alley, Alice suddenly stumbled, rolling a few meters until she crashed into a wooden crate.
When the boy heard the loud noise behind him, he looked back for a moment, exclaiming with a loud: "Fuck!", and bolting away.
With anger and adrenalin suppressing the pain in her shoulder and back, Alice got up as fast as she could, giving it her all to chase after the boy.
As soon as he heard Alice behind him, he looked over his shoulder for a moment. When he realized that Alice was gaining on him, and fast, he didn't hesitate.
When the boy suddenly shot away at speeds Alice wouldn't have thought possible had she not learned about mantras, her anger flared up once again, this time taking over.
She couldn't let him get away, he was the one who taken away her fate, her entire life, and now he was getting away once again. She needed to be faster, stronger.
Like an arrow let loose, Alice sped up fast. When the small alley suddenly took a turn, Alice couldn't control her speed and crashed right into wall at the end. In a beast-like manner and without feeling any pain, she sped up again, following behind the boy.
When he suddenly took another right turn, there wasn't a wall in front of Alice to stop her this time. Instead, she jumped off from the wall on her left shooting diagonally into the street on her right and killing her momentum on the wall there.
When she suddenly realized that the boy had disappeared, she followed her instinct and nose and simply jumped up, several meters high.
"What the...!"
When the boy who had hid himself by lying flat on the roof saw the girl flying through the air almost three meters above him, he tried rolling to the side.
But as soon as Alice was above the roof, she had already spotted the boy, aiming a kick directly at him. Before the boy could evade, Alice foot hit him in the stomach with enough force to make him break through the roof and the small table beneath it.
Before the boy got the chance to even think of anything else, the girl picked him up by the neck and started repeatedly punching his face into a bloody mess. Just as she tried to punch the boy once again, a strong hand grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
Suddenly a foreign calmness invaded her mind, suppressing the dark emotions and waking up her consciousness.
When Alice mind suddenly became clear again, she suddenly started trembling at the realization. If that person hadn't stopped her right now, she would have killed a person.