"Erica, do you want to go somewhere else?" Charlotte asked while remaining vigilant toward their surroundings.
She would have liked it if they go somewhere with fewer people.
"Uhm…" Erica, completely unaware of Charlotte's thoughts, put her index finger on her cheek and fell into thoughts.
"…" Charlotte didn't hurry her but she was starting to feel a bit anxious wanting to know from where the next attack would come.
However, as if to mock her, the next attack never came.
"Bathroom." Erica finally exclaimed after being silent.
Charlotte raised an eyebrow at her answer but nodded nonetheless.
"Okay." She replied before taking Erica in her arms and teleporting away from her position.
Meanwhile, Hai noticed that the small golem with a mic hidden under the table stopped hearing Charlotte and Erica's voices.
'That is a bit unfortunate.' He hadn't chosen the bathroom as a location and had no intention to do so, after all, virtual space or not, there is still a limit to everything.
'Now, what to do…?' While he was able to create a metal that can escape from mana sense, it is only a matter of time before Charlotte figures out a way to detect it, after all, as good as it is, it's only a test, so it's bound to have flaws.
'A means of attack against someone with space affinity…'
Normally, this wouldn't be much of a problem to Hai who has quite a vast experience with fighting and battles in general, the problem, however, lies in the fact that he can't kill or knock Charlotte out, and this while having to kill Erica.
And to ice the cake, he also can't kill anyone else, so he has to make sure that his attacks don't make any damage aside from the one he intended to.
It's an annoying and a bit difficult of a battle if Hai were to be honest.
'Hum…' Controlling the golems and making sure that they are properly scattered through the whole mansion, in every room possible, he looked at the clock.
[9:48 until the next attack.]
A small message floated before him, it resembled his system's but it was slightly different.
'Let's organize things first.'
Hai closed his eyes and concentrated.
First things first, Charlotte can become visually invisible with her magic, but this doesn't make her able to pass through things.
Second, she can create a barrier covering all directions that is also invisible to the naked eye, and this said barrier is strong enough to repel attacks that would easily crush a boulder.
Third, the little girl, Erica, doesn't seem to be in Charlotte's control or anything as she seems to have her own will and decisions.
Fourth, unless with something special, physical attacks wouldn't be able to bypass Charlotte's barrier, hence, if he doesn't develop any countermeasure, he wouldn't be able to do anything.
'Now, addressing the most pressing trouble…'
How to deal with space affinity magic?
Using his knowledge, Hai started to think and before he noticed, he entered into a meditation-like state.
'What do I know about space magic?'
The first contact he had with it or something close to it was when he fought against the being that possessed Ye Chen's body.
Back then, Hai didn't pay much attention as he was in quite a dangerous situation, but there was a time when he saw as if the air "cracked" and that thing used the shards from those shattered places in the air to attack Hai.
There was also the time when he was put in some sort of mirror world or something like that.
Thinking about it now, Hai realized that he unconsciously dealt with it using his ice affinity. He did something rather simple but on a complex scale: he froze it.
'If something like ice can affect space, could metal do it too?' He started to ponder about it, but he felt as if things were missing. Like he didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle.
Going further in his memories, Hai remembered the talk he had with Akame.
'Concepts.' Something he hadn't heard before, even with the little access he has to Egregore.
Remembering when Charlotte attacked him back then and how Akame countered it, he noticed a little detail.
'Akame used the same amount of mana, technique, and everything as Charlotte.' It looked like a mirrored attack because it was exactly the same, however, it was enough to cancel the attack.
'Is mirroring it the best way to deal with it?' Hai is fully aware of his own capacities, he knows that he can learn things relatively fast and is sure that a bit of space magic is no exception, however, he knows that it would be pipedream to think about using space magic equal or stronger than Charlotte's in this little time he has to come up with a plan.
Heck, he doesn't even know how to use it yet, he only has some rough ideas.
'Think, Hai, think…'
And like this, Hai spent most of his "break" meditating about this matter.
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'What is happening?' Meanwhile, Charlotte was confused.
It has already been around 8 minutes since they exchanged locations and after the bathroom, they went to the kitchen as Erica wanted to eat more and Charlotte didn't want to go back to the main hall and risk being attacked again from who-knows-where.
And through all of this, Charlotte hasn't caught a single trace of Hai's presence nor has she experienced any other attacks.
'Could it be that he can't attack me?' This was the only conclusion she could reach given that he didn't show up in front of her during the first attacks and now, he isn't even attacking.
'No, he could be planning another sneak attack.' Since the beginning, Hai has been acting more like an assassin rather than someone who fights head-on, so him not attacking might not be due to not being able to, but waiting for the best opportunity.
Raising her vigilance once more, she let Erica eat the snacks on the table while sitting on a chair designed for children.
Scanning the kitchen, Charlotte only saw some chefs and staff going here and there, but aside from this, nothing else.
'Am I thinking too much?' She glanced toward the door and then back to Erica.
Looking at Erica for a few seconds, she held in the urge to sigh.
Truth be told, Charlotte isn't comfortable with children.
It reminds her of things in her past that she does rather not.
While she was immersing herself in those thoughts, her spatial sense suddenly caught something off.
'!!!'
Snapping her head toward the ceiling, she saw a man standing on one of the chandeliers in the ceiling.
The man was handsome to the point that one would take a second and even a third look at him, but Charlotte knew that it was a disguise, and even if it wasn't, she wouldn't care either.
"Heh~ Finally decided to show yourself after all this time, you coward." She provoked him.
However, his reaction wasn't much normal.
"To think you would grow up this much after just one lesson, I feel like crying." Hai sarcastically remarked.
Charlotte felt her eyebrows twitching but she controlled herself to not dance to his tune.
As she was doing this, Hai on the other hand was trying to even see her.
Using his Magic Vision, Hai could vaguely see where Charlotte and Erica were, but not enough to his liking.
'It must be due to my lack of knowledge about it.' He concluded while noticing Erica being in one place without any intent to move.
Hai's Magic Vision is something he did by combining several types of perception techniques through magic and applying it to his eyes, hence, allowing him to see more than even the best cameras out there.
However, due to his lack of knowledge about spatial magic, he can only see through it to some extent, thus making him only able to contemplate some vague and hazy figures.
Not enough to execute a precise strike.
Fortunately, his intention isn't this as of now.
"Hum… It might be a bit late for this, but you're Charlotte, right?" He asked in a light tone.
"…" Charlotte didn't answer and only glared at him.
Feeling the gaze locked on him, Hai took advantage of it and tried to focus on her location better.
Noticing that she wasn't answering, he decided to try a different approach.
"My, My, I will get shy if you keep staring at me like that." He spoke with a mischievous smile on his lips.
Charlotte felt a vein throbbing on her forehead after hearing his words.
"Don't say my name with that mouth of yours." She spat those words in an attempt to get rid of the building annoyance inside of her.
"Why not? It's such a lovely name~" He commented but in the next instant he observed something with his eyes.
Coming toward him, Hai saw something akin to a mirage, almost imperceptible and seeming illusory.
The format seemed to resemble a slash, though it wasn't exactly big so it resembled one that would probably come from a dagger or a knife.
Nimbly jumping away, he stopped midair and stood there, floating like he was stepping on an invisible ground.
Then, he observed that the slash vanished after missing him.
"Quite the feisty one, huh." He commented lightly.
Charlotte on the other hand aside from the frustration of missing the attack, also felt a drop of sweat rolling down her forehead.
Her attack just now is something that even a trained mage would barely be able to perceive through mana sense, and even if they did, it would be too late at that time. However, the man in front of her dodged it like it was nothing, and to make matters worse, he just jumped away, nothing else.
"I don't like you." She said out of nowhere.
"Huh?" Hai raised an eyebrow at the unexpected comment.
"Well, that was out of the blue. And why is that?"
Charlotte looked back at Erica and saw that she was still eating snacks.
"You just don't trickle my fancy." She plainly said with a smirk.
"Hoh~" Hai nodded his head.
Then, he kept analyzing her magic.
"…" Receiving no reaction, Charlotte got slightly uncomfortable with his silence.
And like this, time ticked away with neither of them making a sound and only Erica's chews being heard.
"What, cat got your tongue?" Charlotte asked after confirming that he really had no intention of answering.
"Huh? I thought you didn't like to talk with me." Hai replied in a casual manner.
"…" It was Charlotte's turn to be silent.
"Hum~🎶 Hum~🎼 Hum~🎵" Ignoring her, Hai started to hum a melody before sitting down on air.
Looking at the digital clock, he saw that there was a bit less than one minute remaining before the next attack.
Which means that he had to choose the next locations.
Charlotte observed him in the meanwhile and noticed something.
At the area where he was sitting, there was a barely visible due to how thin it was, metal that seemed glued to his clothes.
'I see… So he uses the metal to keep himself floating.' She concluded but before she could open her mouth, her instincts suddenly alerted her that something was coming.
Expanding her spatial sense, she quickly found out "what" was coming.
"Well then, I originally intended to take things easy and try a few more things, but I think this should be good enough." Hai suddenly spoke and a huge amount of mana burst around the whole mansion.
Then, on the holographic screen that appeared before him, he noticed a change and smiled.
He tapped and choose the next locations.
However, those locations had something different from the ones from before.
And it was the fact that they covered the whole mansion.
Charlotte looked through her spatial sense and saw huge metal walls forming a box that was covering the whole mansion.
Hai created this box and divided the mansion into three sections, or as it is referred to, locations.
"Now, should we spar a bit, Charlotte?" He asked while stretching.
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A/N: Hello there, I hope you're having a wonderful day!
Quick notice: I'm currently doing a survey/ casting votes on the Discord server to decide on the theme of the rewrite of my second novel, I will be doing this until 25th March, so if you want to give your opinion/ chose a theme you wish to have a novel written with, join our Discord community and give your vote.
So, what do you guys think about this chapter? We are approaching the part of the novel where there will be more planning and some action in it, but it won't be as slow as it has been until now, so look forward to it.
Comment what you thought about this chapter. If you liked it or not, I want to read your opinions and interact more with you guys.
Another thing: Please give your feedbacks. I want to know what you guys think, if there are things that could be better or if I could have done something in a simpler manner. If you could also leave a review, that would help me to understand what you think about the novel in general, so it would be really helpful.
Also, join our Discord community, there you can interact with other readers or with me in case you have questions or ideas about/ for the novel.
Discord server: https://discord.gg/NZV2EtdJY8
(The link is also on the novel's synopsis).
...….
Power Stones' rewards:
100 Power Stones = 1 bonus chapter;
200 power stones = 2 bonus chapters;
500 power stones = 3 bonus chapters.
...….
That is all for today, thank you all for reading! 🍷😎