Bang! Bang, bang—!!
Without a moment to collect his thoughts amidst the rain of bullets, Ben threw himself aside.
He frantically shoved the cylinder he had been holding into his jacket pocket.
Because of that, a bullet grazed his collar by a hair’s breadth, but thanks to his body moving just as it had before, he managed to dodge everything safely without injury.
“Whew… hah…”
Taking advantage of a brief lull in the gunfire, Ben leaned his hands on his knees and gasped for breath.
‘Dodging all those bullets like a circus act is great and all, but this is exhausting.’
The aftereffects of movements he had never performed in his life were only now crashing down on him.
Of course.
This wasn’t something his body could normally do so easily.
Belatedly, he felt as winded as a man who had just finished a 100-meter sprint.
Furthermore, perhaps because the initial shock had worn off, the forgotten pain in his thigh came rushing back.
To make matters worse, his left ankle began to act up with a stinging sensation, making him want to collapse right then and there, regardless of whether he needed to run.
However, forcing himself to ignore his body’s protests, Ben focused on scanning the situation.
Still, the circumstances were better than the dead end he had been in moments ago.
Compared to almost having a hole blown through his head, he was nothing but grateful for this mysterious anomaly.
If things stayed like this, he might be able to drag out the time.
He didn’t know when the woman might change her mind again and put him in danger, but for now, Ben pinned his hopes on that one possibility, steeled his posture, and prepared for the next attack.
At that, Roilnia curled one side of her mouth into a sneer and suddenly turned her muzzle toward Penka.
“Wait—!”
‘That’s cheating!’
To aim a gun at an unconscious person—how could she be so spineless and unconscionable?
He wanted to shout a complaint, but the woman didn’t wait.
Ben brought his teeth together and scrambled to run toward Penka.
“Ugh!”
“Ahahaha!”
The bullet he had worked so hard to dodge finally grazed Ben’s leg.
Losing his balance, his body rolled noisily across the floor.
Failing to land properly, Ben tumbled and crashed next to Penka, barely regaining a sitting position without even having time to tend to the pain.
He had made it to Penka, but in this state, he was likely to become nothing more than a human shield.
Yet, there was no time to think of another way.
That cowardly woman would never give him that much time!
‘I can’t dodge this!’
Reflexively, Ben shielded Penka’s body, squeezed his eyes shut, and turned his head away.
Thump—!
Instead of a sharp cracking sound, a dull noise, like something being deflected, hit Ben’s ears.
What visited Ben wasn’t horrific pain.
Even though the distance was one where he absolutely should have been shot, he felt no agony.
Bewildered, Ben cautiously turned his head toward Roilnia.
Thump! Thump—!!
The woman fired at Ben several more times.
And several more times, the bullets were “deflected.”
An invisible, intangible force surrounded Ben like a shield, blocking the attacks.
With every shot, the expression on the woman’s face as she pulled the trigger grew increasingly, grotesquely distorted.
“What are you?”
Her expression was markedly different from before.
Even if the movements he showed earlier could be attributed to a human’s superhuman strength triggered by a crisis, what just happened was clearly an abnormal power.
A realm of supernatural ability not permitted to Guides.
Even to Ben, the person at the center of this phenomenon, it was a shocking sight—he wondered why this was happening himself.
It was a series of phenomena far too bizarre to be dismissed as one or two lucky breaks.
Objectively, it was a good thing for Ben, but he couldn’t just celebrate because he didn’t know how long it would last.
He checked to see if Penka was responsible, but it was hard to believe that the limply fallen Penka had done anything.
If he were asked if there was anything special about himself, there was nothing.
The moment he faced an unavoidable attack, Ben simply wished to protect Penka and himself and escape this danger.
That was truly all.
The current phenomenon was so nonsensical that it would be more convincing to say a magic lamp had appeared out of nowhere to grant his wish.
While dazed, Ben unconsciously wiped a warm liquid flowing from his nose with his hand.
“Why a sudden nosebleed…?”
What stained the back of his hand was red blood.
The bullet had grazed his leg, so he couldn’t understand why his nose was suddenly bleeding out of nowhere.
As blood continued to flow from both nostrils, Ben pinched his nose with his jacket sleeve to apply pressure.
Along with the nosebleed, the sensation in his left ankle, which he had been ignoring, intensified, making him frown.
The graze from the bullet hurt, the cut on his thigh hurt, his slapped cheek hurt—everywhere hurt—but the sensation wrapping around his ankle was particularly vivid.
It was even different from the lightning-bolt pain he usually felt.
Right after waking up from Roilnia’s cigarette smoke, the feeling had been faint, but at some point, it gradually grew hot like a fever and began to throb as if demanding his attention.
Ben finally took his eyes off Roilnia while keeping his nose pinched.
‘Why on earth is my ankle—’
…What is this?
“A ring…?”
Ben’s breath hitched.
A band of golden light-mist was wrapped around his ankle like a ring.
The ring, emitting an exceptionally clear light, had a distinct presence, yet at the same time, it felt precarious, as if it might vanish at any moment—a dual sensation.
Ben, who was briefly entranced by the mysterious atmosphere he couldn’t put into words, soon remembered where he had seen this light that resembled the Milky Way.
He had certainly seen this exact phenomenon on Haimar’s neck.
There was no way he could forget such a brilliantly shining cluster of stars.
He never imagined he would see on his own body what he had only seen on Haimar.
Especially on his left ankle, which had occasionally hurt for no known reason.
‘But why on earth is this here?’
With a dazed face, Ben stared intently at his ankle.
The band circling widely around his ankle and the energy of a familiar color were burned into his vision.
The form of a loop, a band, a ring.
‘Could this be…’
A sudden intuition struck Ben like a thunderclap.
The reason for the authority granted to him.
Yes, with this, everything could somehow be explained.
They say there’s always a way out, even if the sky falls.
Though he couldn’t express it accurately in words, there was no other logical basis if it wasn’t this.
Once he realized the principle, everything became clear.
Until just a moment ago, he had known nothing, but even though no one had taught him, Ben understood the meaning and function of this ring on his ankle as if discovering a universal truth.
It wasn’t knowledge gained through memory or reasoning; it was a teaching engraved directly into his brain.
It was still an incomplete half, not yet enough to celebrate fully, but Ben felt an inner joy.
This was the result of the bond he and Haimar had created.
The fact that the “thing” that had caused him so much worry in the past had actually appeared before his eyes made him nothing but happy now.
Hadn’t it helped him escape the brink of death several times already?
Ben barely suppressed the urge to let his mouth curl into a grin.
Compared to the person who held the actual authority, what was allotted to him was a mere tiny fragment—a trivial power—but to Ben, it was more precious than anything.
Removing his hand from his nose, where the bleeding had stopped, Ben expanded the size of the hope he held.
‘With this, even if I can’t defeat her, I can hold out.’
Anyway, she wasn’t an opponent he could beat by trying to win.
Survival was what mattered.
“You really have a lot of tricks up your sleeve, don’t you?”
On the other hand, Roilnia, watching Ben, became extremely displeased.
The woman did not know why that phenomenon was occurring.
Such things were always in the category of things she didn’t need to know.
It would all end the same way with the target dying at her hands, so there was no need to understand.
However, the look on Ben’s face, which had strangely gained momentum, irritated Roilnia’s nerves.
The woman, whose arm was now almost fully recovered, threw the spent handgun away like trash and pulled out a combat knife.
If bullets were deflected, she would tear him apart with sheer force.
The reason she had used a gun without any special superpowers was that she had treated Ben as mere entertainment until the end.
But now that supernatural elements were involved, she had to change her mind.
She intended to make him realize how pathetic that f***ing stroke of luck was through her own abilities and pure strength.
“I’m sure it’s frustrating that I’m not dying easily.”
“Don’t get cocky just because you have a mouth.”
The woman leaped through space and appeared in front of Ben in an instant, plunging the knife downward.
“Urgh…!”
He had expected it, but the woman’s movement was truly, disgustingly fast.
To block the knife, Ben pulled out the cylinder he had stuffed into his pocket and took a defensive stance, using it as a shield.
Thump—!
With a dull sound, Roilnia’s knife struck Ben.
But once again, the woman’s attack did not reach him.
This was because Ben, having understood the principle of the phenomenon, intentionally used the amount of ability he was permitted.
The two looked close enough to touch, but they hadn’t actually touched.
Even though they looked close enough to collide, there was actually a microscopic gap of a few centimeters.
And in that gap, instead of physical contact, an invisible battle of power was unfolding between the woman and Ben.
‘Damn, this is no joke!’
Roilnia was only using one arm to press down, but Ben felt as though gravity had increased several times over.
Having begun to use her true strength, the woman ruthlessly tried to crush Ben’s entire body.
He was clearly facing a knife, but it felt as though a massive boulder was trying to strike his head.
No matter how much he strained and tried, holding out was the best he could do; he couldn’t strike back.
