Chapter 47. What can be put inside a pocket.
The Thief was stuck. It wasn't like his path was completely cut off, though. Death would surely come for him soon; that much was certain. But not now. This meant that his following actions were going to be very easy to predict.
"—-Knife Edge Present."
A blue halo formed over the Thief's head as he activated his power. This much is something I expected from him… An unnatural disconnect formed between my memory and sight, which told me that the Thief had stopped time once again.
He stopped time for around ten minutes, seeing what had just happened to the vault.
I stood up. I could see the Thief leaning against a wall on the other side of the vault. His head was now lined with streaks of white, but he didn't seem to be moving. He's not dead… Did he give up? Looking around, I found that the vault looked absolutely nothing compared to before the time stop. All the toxic materials had disappeared, along with the flamethrower in my hand.
So he used his artifact.
I could see multiple scratches on the walls from his attempted escapes. I could feel that I sustained some damage onto my body, but it wasn't enough to concern me.
What I could tell from the situation was that the Thief had struggled to the last of his strength.
Attack stats and defense stats were, in the end, just estimated numbers. They could be changed with enough willpower. It's just that… Even his attempt to change these numbers had failed. I approached the Thief and grabbed his collar. Seeing how he wasn't resisting at all, it seems like he has completely given up. I tried punching him once to wake him up, but he wasn't responding at all. He seemed more dead than alive. Perhaps saying this would wake him up?
"You asked me earlier if I thought I could take four days of torture. Why don't you try looking into the future one last time? I think you definitely have a chance of getting away from that one yourself."
I'll let him choose his future himself. The Thief's eyes became focused again. His eyes trembled for a split second, then widened. I wonder what he was looking at?
"Kuh…!"
All of a sudden, his back shot back up. The man was drooling, and there was a crazy look on his face.
"Kihihi! Kihihihi!"
Was the future really that funny? After laughing to himself for quite some time, he took his hands and began to choke himself.
Creak, crack.
His muscles expanded. His reddened face seemed to be ready to explode.
Just what did I do to him?
Did I torture him? Maybe I deconstructed and reconstructed his body countless times? I was planning on seeing the effects of potions, so it's probably the latter. Though… It was actually pretty hard to kill yourself by choking yourself. I slapped the idiot awake, and watched him choke himself again. I wonder if he'd be able to kill himself by doing this continuously?
"Hmm… So it's just a waste of time."
There was no fun in messing with him. He was missing… something soft, malleable, and yet bouncy to the touch. Something like the saint.
Crack.
I broke the Thief's neck as I lamented about how boring this was, and chucked his body into the vault. Necro told me to keep his corpse intact, after all. Unfortunately, I would probably have to share my profits with the other two this time. But since I did almost everything, I say I deserve most of the profits. I could go on a strike if they tried to take advantage of me again. I took a look at the back of my hand. This spade-like symbol on it was the Grand Thief's Vault. An artifact that was transferred to me the moment the Thief died.
"…"
I guess it's fair for me to give myself a bit of a bonus. Right, what did Necro even do this time? The saint, too, was more of an insurance this time anyway.
I justified myself as I entered the vault. There, after kicking a few toys and materials away, I activated the Grand Thief's Vault. I wonder how much is in…
Pshaaaa!
A mountain of gold and various gems flooded the vault. Buried in a tidal wave of gold, the precious treasures inside came tumbling out of the vault, creating a sea of precious materials.
Just how much did this damn thief take…
After being carried out into the middle of the vault by the wave of gold, I stood up. The scene laid out in front of me was almost blinding. Dear lord. This much gold is just…
The amount of money this equates to is… still being calculated.
I slowly climbed up the gold mountain and I rolled myself down from it. I even tried throwing gold up into the sky for no reason. Ah, my flamethrower. It's here. Now that I look at it, I could find bits of styrofoam covered in gasoline everywhere as well. As I looked around to see what else there were, a message popped up in front of me.
…Nice. Most likely those two didn't even know how much money the Thief possessed. Would they believe me if I just told them the Grand Thief's Vault contained a billion dollars? A billion dollars is still a lot, right? I just need to convert it to cash before they see it.
Right, I'll do that.
Man, thank god I'm unable to feel guilt. After exiting the vault, I activated dematerialization to get out of this damn place. Hopefully it'll last long enough… My dematerialized body quickly rose out of the ground. My surroundings brightened, and I was out. I rematerialized. I stretched a little bit after doing so. Being stuck in that small area all this time made even the sunset seem excessively bright. Looks like all the soldiers in the area had decided to retreat.
"Ah, he's out!"
The saint, who had been waiting for me outside, pointed at me and ran over immediately with Necro following behind her. They came up to me and… in perfect sync, kicked me in the abdomen and butt respectively.
What were they… what?
"Should've told us when you were done. You didn't respond to our messages, so we were super worried, don't you know? And we have a ton of stuff we need to deal with here." "You snuck away some cash for yourself, didn't you? I'm good at noticing this shit! Spit it out, damn you! Spit it out!"
The two beat me diligently, but it didn't really hurt anymore. Ah! Not true. The saint's holy power still kind of hurt. I managed to escape their lynching, and shrugged.
"After we rest a bit. Let's deal with this tomorrow. I want to rest. I earned it." "Bullshit! These wasted days add up to your entire life! Ah, looking at your face… Necro was right, damn it! You really did sneak away some cash! Do you even know how much I worked this time?!"
Really, the only thing these two are good at is sniffing out money… I looked down at the saint who was pulling on my clothes in mock anger. I grabbed hold of her head, and started pushing her down. All the while muttering 'you too, become small enough to fit inside my pocket' quietly to myself.