305 – A Game of Life
Francesca was an opponent so strong that she could not be dealt with using straight attack techniques in her current state.
So what was needed was just one moment of emptiness.
It’s okay if she isn’t completely fooled by my bravado.
If you have even a little doubt in a corner of your mind and make you wary, that’s enough.
In particular, if the explosion is so massive that it wipes out the surrounding area, she has no choice but to be alert and ready for defense, no matter how brief it may be.
I didn’t miss the opportunity and rushed towards the ground.
As soon as Francesca sees my movements, she immediately realizes the situation and her expression contorts grimly.
Without a moment’s delay, she swung her wire to block my approach, but first the magic I had prepared in advance was activated.
A flash of intense light that takes away your vision along with a flash of light. The opponent, who reflexively raised his arm and covered his eyes, tried to widen the distance by taking a step back, but it was a meaningless resistance.
He immediately bound her with ropes and broke the wire harness around her waist.
In addition, she did not let down her guard and pointed one of her cards in front of her neck to warn her.
“It’s better not to do anything foolish.”
“···Do you really think that the wire you just broke is all there is?”
Veronica was easy to subdue as she was incapacitated by just tying her hands, but Francesca’s wires were much trickier. She may simply use her wires to break free of her restraints, even if her hands are tied.
“Which is faster, your wire or my card? “I guess you can guess just by guessing the sum I just guessed?”
“······.”
What I brought out was yet another bluff.
It is certainly true that this one was faster by a narrow margin just now. But that’s only because I created a gap through bluffing, and in a situation like now where I’m competing fairly in a head-to-head match, I might be slower.
The other person will also know that fact. We have already confirmed that an explosion did not occur even when Veronica was unshackled. You can easily guess that I am bluffing again, just like I did last time.
But even if you notice this, will you be able to sit down at the gaming table willingly?
The chip at stake in this game is not money, but life.
It is a life-threatening gamble where if you misunderstand the opponent’s goal even once and lose, you will die.
Just because it was a bluff, what is the possibility that it will be the same this time as well?
Wouldn’t it be real this time?
In fact, the opponent was faster in the close combat earlier?
Your mind is probably complicated. It was not difficult to see signs of nervousness and agitation in her eyes as she lay on the floor under me.
The opponent is clearly stronger than me.
However, because it is so overwhelmingly strong, there is no way it could have experienced such a dangerous tightrope walk as risking its life like now.
In reality, to her, I am an enigmatic enemy whose identity is unknown.
She suddenly started chasing a suspicious man without knowing why, with the leader ordering that she must be caught.
And he is a strong man who has already defeated three of his equally strong colleagues one after another.
The more you think about it, the more you are drawn into the trap. As if I was drowning in a muddy swamp.
I don’t know anything else, but I am confident in psychological warfare. Because he’s a phantom thief magician.
The only way for me, in my worst physical condition, to defeat my opponent with as little loss as possible is to engage in psychological warfare like this.
What if, in this situation, the opponent sees through my bluff and takes out a wire and attacks me?
I will probably suffer in vain without even being able to react.
But Francesca cannot move hastily. I was scared that if I took out the wire, I would immediately see through it and cut off my head with a card.
There is no need to issue any more unnecessary warnings. Even if you just keep a cold gaze in silence, it will come as a huge pressure to the other person.
Since she usually looks down on others like insects, she values her own life more than anything else.
In this game, it is not a matter of whether she has a high or low chance of winning. Francesca has become passive just because the chip at stake in her game is her life.
The inner survival instinct warns. Don’t sit at this dangerous table for no reason.
Just surrender safely and accept defeat. Anyway, the opponent is a strong person who defeated three of her colleagues, so she won’t have a problem even if she loses. She tells Veronica that she won’t kill her if she sees her, so she shouldn’t resist.
Surely when the game starts, she might win.
In fact, the other person’s bravado is so unsightly that it can end up being very vain.
But what if I lose…?
You can see everything. What she was thinking now, she could feel that in her mind she was split in two and conflicting.
On the surface, it seems like a short time of only a few seconds.
Francesca, who must have thought countless times in her mind, finally made her decision.
The color of resignation seeped into the eyes. In the end, she was fooled by my bluff once again.
“Disarm the wire device.”
“···I understand.”
Tuk. The device, which fell helplessly on the floor, was easily broken.
She stood up from her seat, realizing that she had no more means of attack left.
Francesca, with her entire body tied up, was lying down on the floor looking up at her ceiling, looking rather refreshed.
There was no regret left. That’s right.
She would rather consider herself fortunate. I’m sure she would have died if she had sat at that table.
In other words, it is the same story as the fox and the sour grapes.
It is better for her mental health to believe that grapes that she cannot eat anyway must have been extremely sour rather than thinking that they are sweet and feeling regretful.
Well, there’s no need to break that sweet illusion.
The more dangerous my opponent considers me, the more solid my bluff becomes.
I tied Veronica and Francesca together tightly to her pole.
“Wait patiently until her colleagues come to rescue her later.”
Veronica asked with a distraught expression, as if she couldn’t understand why I didn’t kill them.
“If you are released, will they chase you again?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Anyway, by then Eldina would have regained her divinity.
My confidence also turned into a bluff and the girls completely lost their fighting spirit.
Even if it were rescued by its comrades and came after me again, it didn’t seem like it would attack me aggressively.
We left the limp girls at the station and waited for the train to arrive.
After a while, I started to see a train coming into the station from afar along with a rattling sound.
There really isn’t much left now. If you arrive at the association on this train, the first half of your plan has been successfully accomplished.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay. “Let’s go quickly.”
I boarded the train with Eldina and sat in the empty seat.
As always, the train was empty except for the two of us.
The train passes through a stop in London and begins traveling across Europe.
During the barely-arrived break, I relaxed and my whole body became drowsy.
“Phew…”
“Good job. “You won really well.”
“Thanks to Eldina’s operation.”
Perhaps because she was slowly getting used to calling her goddess by her name, she felt much friendlier.
Now, I felt like he was an equal friend rather than a god of higher rank than me. Maybe Eldy wanted that too, so she asked me to call her by her first name.
···Ah. Now that I think about it, I suddenly remembered the first time I met Francesca.
“It was there earlier, right? You definitely called me God’s lover, right?”
When he heard my gossip, he got really angry and said those words to me clearly.
At my direct question, she flinched slightly and avoided looking out her window.
“Uh, um. Was it like that? “I don’t remember very well…”
Since when did L.D. Her speech become much softer?
Just like having a conversation with a truly ordinary lover.
I didn’t feel bad about the growing distance, so instead of asking further, I just smiled quietly.
As I sat on the train like this, the memories of that day tickled my heart.
He must have been returning from Paris to London.
The endless horizon outside the window I see now is the same as it was then.
The only thing that has changed is one thing. At the time, I could only feel Eldina’s presence through her voice, but now I was able to see it with my own eyes.
“Huh? What’s the matter?”
Eldina tilts her head with a puzzled look as I stare at her without saying a word.
Seeing that, I chuckled, shook her head, and concentrated on restoring her stamina.
And after a while.
The speed of the train slowed little by little and it began to prepare to stop.
“Huh? “It would still be a long way from the association…”
I don’t know how the train works, but it doesn’t stop unless it’s the destination I want to get off at.
So, this was my first time experiencing a sudden stop on the way.
···No. Thinking about it carefully, there was a case like this once.
That was when the engineer boarded and disembarked.
In other words, when guests other than us get on and off, the train stops.
The train stopped at an unfamiliar stop and the door opened.
And then someone leisurely climbed into the compartment where we were sitting and approached us.
A man wearing a pitch-black mask.
Drakan’s second-in-command stopped in front of me.