The Guild Master Whose Hobby Was Helping People Found Himself Surrounded by the Strongest, Overly Attached Members - 55

Chapter 55: I’m Way at Disadvantage in This Another World 3

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I wasn’t certain if there really was a way to escape from here. But there was no doubt that this space had distortions. If so, then I needed to find the place where those distortions were most concentrated. I needed to find the spot under the greatest structural strain. But how? I looked around again.

The terrain was indeed that of Vestia. The arrangement of the buildings, the width of the streets, even the design of the streetlamps were almost identical. And yet, the whole thing was just slightly… Off.

…That’s right, I have to read it.

Rovan-san’s teaching came to mind. 

Read the flow of people. 

Maybe the same could be applied to spaces. Dying in a desperate struggle was one thing, but being cut in half by some shady bandit was not how I wanted to go. I forced my thoughts into full rotation. 

Look at the outlines. Is there anything floating unnaturally apart from the world?

The clearer and sharper something appeared, the more likely it was a manufactured fake. Looking at my feet, I noticed the joints in the cobblestones cut off midway. No. To be precise, the drainage groove that should have been there was only painted on partway. When I touched it with my hand, I realized that the groove was just a drawing after all. No texture, no depth.

A façade…?

I shot to my feet on instinct. When I glanced back at the street I had just passed, I saw a shadow moving in the distance. At the tip of a staff, a purple light gleamed.

“—Crap!”

I ducked and dove into a side alley. A rush of wind grazed past behind me, slicing diagonally through the wall of a house. On the severed cross-section of the destroyed wall, there was a subtle wrongness. The cross-section of the wood felt too light to be actual wood.

As I kept running, making sure never to move in a straight line, I brushed my fingers over the gouged surface.

It isn’t real construction material. Some other substance is being disguised as wood through magic.

This space was a copy of reality, not reality itself and the accuracy of the reproduction wasn’t uniform. Flaws appeared depending on the place, but that information alone wasn’t enough for me. There was one more thing I had to confirm.

I guess I have no other choice here…

I spun on my heel and jumped back into the street behind me. I didn’t run or hide this time. Instead I moved toward where the boss and his men were. One of the grunts nearest me said something to him. Most likely, something along the lines of “He’s coming this way, Boss.”

The staff glowed ominously, and a blade of wind smashed down into the cobblestones at my feet. Fragments scattered, one of them slicing my cheek as it flew past. But I burst forward regardless of the pain.

I closed with one of the grunts. He shouted as his axe came down on me, but I had just enough time to dodge it. The next man’s attack too. That said, he was half a step slower than I expected. I kept running, passing the grunts. I was steadily closing in on the boss.

I kicked off a house pillar, caught the wall, then landed again. Not in a straight line—my movements traced a figure eight, circling around the boss.

“I thought you’d given up and come to be killed… What are you trying to do?”

“I just figured I’d annoy you a bit. Having a bug buzzing around your head is stressful, isn’t it?”

The grunts still hadn’t caught up. I threw a kick in the pause between words, but he avoided it with ease. I didn’t push my luck. Before the boss could begin a casting motion, I returned to buzzing like an insect around him.

“You may be able to dodge, but it seems you can’t use magic in close quarters.”

“…How troublesome.”

At his words, a magic circle appeared beneath my feet. Purple mana flared, and a wide shockwave burst out.

“Tch…!”

I couldn’t avoid it completely, and my left shoulder slammed against a wall. The impact was strong, but… Just as I thought.

The distortions in the buildings near the center of the spell had vanished. When I had been dodging his long-range attacks, I hadn’t been able to move as freely as usual.

Against the grunts’ attacks, I had been able to respond within the margin I expected. That last area attack—though I’d provoked it myself—would have hurt far more if I hadn’t been able to move properly.

In other words, the closer I was to the boss, the more accurate the space became. Conversely, the places outside his influence, the farthest points away…

That would be high ground.

I lifted my gaze. What came into view was the belfry at the edge of town, on a hill. It was supposedly only used as a lookout during festival season. Of course, in this fabricated space, it was unoccupied.

I’ll go up. If I reach there, the space’s correction will be weaker. If there’s a seam to exploit, that’s the only chance I have.

I sensed the boss raising his staff again. Kicking off the ground, I ran up the wall of the alley.

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