-X-

  I reached down and pulled out my Qrufa-45 to aim at the hooded man’s back, making sure to keep my distance. I had been working as an investigator for quite some time now, and I had come across many different types of people, however this was a new one for me. A wizard that was obviously radiating mana into their surroundings was at the scene of the crime, which meant one of three things. Either they were confident in their ability to escape and disappear, they were insane and crazy, or they were just plain stupid.

  I didn’t know which of the three this man was, but I didn’t like the idea of dealing with any of the three, and from what I had seen from the man casually chopping limbs, I was leaning more towards the man being insane and crazy.

  The hooded man slowly turned around with the severed limb in his hand, and his bloodstained front came into view. His hood covered his hair, and he seemed to be wearing swimming goggles over his eyes. The goggles wouldn’t usually be a problem when it came to hiding distinguishing features, but this man’s goggles were smeared with blood making it impossible to get a clear view of his upper face. The man’s lower face was visible, with a smile hovering on his lips. Perhaps the smile was supposed to be reassuring, but with the blood it just looked scary.

  When the man fully turned to face me he spoke up, “Well hello there, what brings you to a place such as this? Perhaps you’re looking to take part in the looting? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t mind sharing if you just put the gun down.”

  The man wasn’t overtly hostile, but the way the man tried to casually take control of the situation and deescalate made me think that he might not be as weak willed as he was trying to sound.

  “I’m sorry to say that I’m not here to partake in the looting. I’m an investigator working with the THC police department, and I came here while working on an ongoing case.” The man tensed up slightly at my mention of the police department, but that was normal so I continued, “As the only witness to the scene of a crime, I’m going to have to ask you to stay here and cooperate while we wait for the police to arrive.”

  The man continued to smile, almost mechanically, and said, “Well I’m not going to say no to someone with a gun to me. As long as it doesn’t take too long, I have a prior appointment I need to make sure to get to.”

  Yep, definitely crazy, “As long as you cooperate this won’t take longer than it has to.”

  After that I didn’t exchange small talk with the crazy guy, and just handcuffed him to a pipe on the wall. I confiscated a small spatial pouch he had on his person, but when I looked inside I didn’t see any of the Kralium parts that seemed to be missing from the crime scene, it mostly just seemed to hold some small gems inside. However, just because I couldn’t see anything other than the gems didn’t mean they were the only things there. Plus I couldn’t let him have access to something that might have tools that could allow him to escape.

  He cooperated without a fuss, smiling the whole time, and I was starting to get a bit nervous about how calm he was acting, like he had everything under control. Nonetheless, all I could do was restrain him to the best of my ability and try to keep an eye on him. So I used the only pair of magician grade handcuffs I had on me, to bind him to an extruding pipe on one of the nearby building’s walls, hopefully I wouldn’t have to worry about it any further.

  The handcuffs I had used were specialized for wizards and magicians, they would sound an alarm if they detected any magic being actively used, and would send a large enough shock to disrupt their concentration. Now all I had to do was focus on the task of investigating; the crazy smiling wizard was someone else’s problem now.

  With him locked in, I activated his handcuffs and went to work examining the crime scene with ease of mind. With the future prediction anomaly going on, I didn’t have the leisure to be as laid back as before, with so much of the diviner department’s work now put on me to handle. But on the bright side, my investigation skills were getting some intense exercise, at the expense of a little bit of sleep.

  Hopefully my exhaustion wouldn’t cause any lapses in judgement or awareness.

  -Radiant-

  I looked down at my hands that were both handcuffed together, with the handcuffs threaded behind a pipe on the wall.

  Well this is some bad luck, but at least I’m not instantly recognizable like I was in my past life. If I was, then that investigator would know that my [Magical Physique] makes it possible for me to ignore the handcuff’s magic detection. I mean, if it was my past life I might’ve just been directly subdued and laboriously watched over while waiting for higher authorities to come and get me. Thankfully I was never caught in the past.

  *Shiver* Ugh, I hate thinking about past memories like that. It’s a good thing most of the truly awful ones are sealed. Though it’s definitely not good for me to seal so many memories, maybe I should work on unsealing some of the lower hazard memories? There could be some important information stored in them…

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  My thoughts wandered as I observed the inspector guy.

  While the inspector was doing his thing, I looked down at the cold handcuffs biting into both of my wrists, not allowing even the smallest gap for anything to slip between them and the skin. The air around me smelled of damp concrete and the lingering smell of blood and death, a stark reminder of the current situation I found myself in, and I mentally kicked my mind into gear instead of thinking about useless things.

  I felt [Mental Operator]’s power reserves start to drain as I sped up my different thought processes. I knew that I probably wouldn’t have any chance of escaping from my situation if the police showed up and I was kept under a much closer watch, so if I wanted to escape then I needed to do it quickly, while I still could.

  The investigator moved methodically, their gloved hands brushing against blood-stained shattered concrete and bodies, while occasionally glancing my way as I remained tethered to this stupid pipe. They crouched near a lifeless body sprawled awkwardly, its story frozen in time as they tried to decipher its clues.

  The tension in the air was palpable as I measured when I should commence my escape. With the faint hum of distant sirens gradually drawing closer, I studied his every move—the way they jotted notes, the way their eyes flickered with grim understanding—occasionally looking my way while trying to decipher whether they see me as a witness, a suspect, or just another piece of this grim and bloody puzzle.

  I had no idea what investigation had led him to this point, but it didn’t matter to me. What mattered was the fact that he only occasionally looked over to me, and it was usually only when he was looking at the dead bodies of the Kralium members. He seemed to be extremely exhausted, rubbing his eyes and yawning excessively, and was probably only managing to remember to keep watch of me when his investigation somehow pointed to me.

  So, as he got up and started to walk over to The Rejects’ bodies I knew it was probably my best shot at escaping.

  I turned my focus to my wrists and the handcuffs that bound them, spreading my wrists apart to make sure that they moved as little as possible and had free space all around them. The pipe the handcuffs were threaded through didn’t have much space between it and the wall, so I had to keep my hands and wrists in an awkward position to make sure the handcuff’s chain wasn’t touching anything but air.

  With everything ready, I focused on my [Magical Physique], and started to restrict any mana in my forearms, making sure that the magic I was about to use wouldn’t set off the sensitive handcuffs. Then I used my [Shattered Space Channel] (which wasn’t technically magic, since it wasn’t fueled by mana), to shatter the space around my arms and make it easier to perform the delicate space magic necessary to remove my cuffs without triggering their magic detection alarms.

  Then I reached into my mana and started to mold a space-time spell inside my mana nebula. The time part of the spell was to confuse mana senses and make sure I left no traces of my spell, just in case. Once the spell was formed I started to fill it with mana, consuming a large portion of my reserves. With that finished I fired off the spell, and watched it disappear into the future.

  Then, I waited.

  I waited for two heartbeats, and suddenly I felt a burning and scraping sensation on my wrists. I grit my teeth against the pain, and watched as my handcuffs suddenly disappeared and then reappeared inside my Internal World.

  My wrists were red from the strain of resisting the spatial magic, but I was now free and didn’t have the time to worry about that. I didn’t waste any time, and got to work spinning various stealth spells so I could get out of here undetected. I turned my back towards the inspector, to hide my now free wrists, and nervously listened to the police sirens that were practically already near.

  Thankfully my spells finished before any police arrived, and I quickly used them to enchant my body to the peak of my current stealth capabilities. This would leave behind a faint magic and mana signature, but the spell mostly took place within my body, so the small amount of mana and magic signature that leaked out would quickly fade into the background noise of the city.

  With that I was almost ready to skedaddle, but there were two more things to take care of in order to hide all my traces.

  First, I focused on my [Magical Physique] and restricted all of my mana, so it wouldn’t be able to leave my body like it normally did. This wasn’t exactly healthy to do for long periods of time, similar to holding one’s breath, but it would allow me to get far enough away to avoid the police and investigator.

  I felt my wrists burn even fiercer as I restricted my mana, which was not a good sign. I might seriously injure my wrists if I keep this up for too much longer. I better hurry up and leave.

  But there was just one more thing to take care of.

  I looked towards the tired investigator, and swiftly moved closer to him. I had to retrieve my spatial pouch that he had confiscated. It was crucial if I wanted to use my spatial abilities without suspicion.

  I reached the inspector’s side and crouched down next to his open bag where he seemed to keep all of his things, including the confiscated spatial pouch. He was currently sifting through the clutter, and it was costing me precious seconds where I could feel my burning wrists start to tremble as I grit my teeth against the pain.

  The fatigued inspector laboriously combed through the bag, seemingly having a hard time focusing, but eventually he found what he was looking for and pulled away from the bag with some sort of scanner in his hand.

  Seeing this I basically lunged towards the bag, quickly snatching away my pouch before dashing away. My feet pounded on the concrete without making a sound, and I flew through the alleyways as I made my way towards my original destination.

  I nearly ran into the police as I rounded a corner. I barely managed to avoid them, and squeezed my way past them before exiting out of the alleyways into the pouring rain where cars and autonavs rushed along, passing nearby parked police vehicles on the road.

  I was tempted to end my suffering and release my [Magical Physique] right there, but I knew that wouldn’t be wise. So I continued to run more than a hundred meters before releasing my hold on my mana.

  My whole body felt a bit tired, but it would fade away soon. My wrists on the other hand, hurt in a way that I knew would take at least a couple days to recover from.

  Hopefully I won't need to use my hands much for the test tomorrow.