Hello there, dear asylum patient.

Are you getting enough sleep?

Those bloodshot eyes of yours are telling me you don’t.

Also, you should brush your hair once in a while.

You won’t attract many ladies with such disheveled hair.

“FACE THE WRATH OF A MIGHTY HERO!”

…

There are too many things wrong with that sentence.

Please tone down your fantasies, dear asylum patient.

Even though he stood several meters away from us, the asylum patient raised his arm as if trying to smack the air.

But contrary to what I expected, flames suddenly sparked up in his hand and a flash of light followed.

His hand now held a long sword, with its tip still burning.

“DIE!”

And then he swung at the air.

Obviously, that wouldn’t reach us though…

Clank.

…is what I thought.

But to our left, there’s Kuro’s shield.

It blocked the asylum patient’s sword.

His sword extended mid-swing…?

“Hah! You think you are funny?! Using my own creations against me?!”

Oh, so that’s how it is…

You have some kind of magic or a skill to create weapons and armor.

And Kuro snatched this shield off of you…

Heh…

Kuro’s storage skill seems more and more unfair as time goes on…

“Take this!”

The asylum patient dropped the ridiculously long sword and pulled back his arms again.

More flames sparked between his hands and a spear with a flaming tip came into existence.

Clank.

The shield relocated to be in front of us just in time to block the extended spear.

“What’s wrong you little shit?! Is blocking all you can do?! Why don’t you steal my weapons again huh?!”

What an intense hatred…

Well, I guess now I know where Kuro got all of these weapons and the shield.

Although there’s still the question of…

Who the heck is this guy?

Another reincarnator?

I really wouldn’t be surprised, to be honest.

“Let’s see how you protect both of your lackeys against this!”

Huh…?

Wait, did he just call me and Cana Kuro’s lackeys?

The man spread his arms apart and flames appeared in each one of his hands.

This time, it’s a pair of chakram-like weapons.

He threw them simultaneously at us and they flew in an arc, approaching us from both sides.

Kuro blocked the left one with his shield.

And the right one…

Well…

You should have said you wanted to play catch, dear asylum patient!

Yoink!

There we go.

Didn’t even prick my fingers on these spikes.

Mhmm!

I’m not exactly a pro at flying disc games, but with my speed, grabbing this out of the air really isn’t a problem!

“Wh-! Grrrrgh! I’m not done yet!”

He just won’t cool down his head, will he?

Well, here you go Kuro.

Put that chakram in your storage.

Aaand…

Good luck with this guy!

…

What do I mean?

Well, you know…

According to the cliché pattern, you’ll now separate from us to battle it out with this maniac.

Next, there will be Spectre and then finally, ‘that guy’!

The numbers match up perfect-

Huh…?

Wait, no…

This is wrong…

If Kuro fights this guy one on one, that would leave only me and Cana.

And if I am to fight ‘that guy’ myself, that means Cana has to take on Spectre!

Impossible!

There is no way Cana could defeat Spectre one on one!

Especially not after she lost her summons!

…

D-does that mean Cana is actually the secret protagonist of this whole thing and she’s the one who will get to punch that guy?!

No way!

I want to do the punching!

Clank. Clank. Clank.

Okay, okay.

I should stop thinking about silly things.

This is starting to get dangerous.

…

Wait, can’t I just knock him out?

Right…

Unlike that woman from before, he doesn’t have anything preventing me from getting close, does he?

Yep, let’s knock him out.

A repeat of what I tried last time.

Dash out of Kuro’s protection.

Circle around and approach him from the left.

Aaand, punch his side.

“Gaah!”

After a distinct crunching sound, he got knocked down.

He held the spot where I punched him and groaned in pain.

I probably broke some of his bones.

…

Huh…

Did I do it?

How surprisingly simple.

I expected for him to block it with a small shield at least…

But I guess he can’t make them instantaneously.

Well, works for me!

“Got him!”

Thumbs up over to the girl and cat.

“Meow!”

That’s right!

Praise me!

I knocked out a mid-boss with one punch!

Hmm?

What is it Cana?

Why do you look terrified?

It’s just cat soul I turned on.

It shouldn’t be that bad!

“MEOW!”

Kuro’s loud voice knocked me out of my thoughts.

I reflexively jumped out of the way.

Looking back, I saw the asylum patient holding a knife stabbed through the place I stood at.

What?!

You can still move?!

No fair!

That was supposed to be one hit KO!

“Grh! You damn bitch!”

How can we cool this one’s head?

Should I just kick him till he faints?

That would just make me seem like a bully…

But…

I can sense a lot of people approaching this place.

We should finish this up as soon as possible.

Hmm…

Some of those people are the prisoners from the cat base…

Ah, there’s Mable and Deliah among them too.

I’m glad they are together.

It means Deliah is safe.

Nothing can get through that gorilla bodyguard.

“I’LL RIP YOUR LIMBS OFF!”

Okay, this guy is really getting annoying.

I don’t even feel like calling him an asylum patient anymore.

He’s just an obsessed madman.

What should I-

Suddenly, I heard a loud bang behind me.

Everyone instantly turned around only to be welcomed by a flash of light.

The right side of the inn was on fire.

It took me a good second to realize what this meant.

“I-IGNIS!”

Cana screamed out the name of our teammate, who we left inside.

I watched as the inn turned into wreckage and several screams resounded from it.

The shock stopped me in my tracks for a good few seconds.

But an angry yell from behind woke me up.

“GOT YO-ARGH!”

I jumped away and looked at the madman.

His extended hand dropped the sword he was holding as he slumped down again.

There was a hole in his forearm.

“You really shouldn’t let your guard down, you know?”

I heard a reprimanding voice coming from one of the side streets.

My eyes turned to the source of that voice.

And there she stood.

Carrying a handful of small stones and looking at me.

A gorilla in the costume of a girl with red hair.

…

I looked back at the man spasming on the ground.

Blood poured out of the pebble-sized hole on his forearm.

I looked at Mable again and cold sweat formed on my face.

This…

This is not okay!

That skill of yours is way too scary!

It’s like you have a sniper rifle on you at all times!

One that can fire big rocks instead of tiny bullets!

No wonder you defeated Fenrir!

Why w-

Wait!

The inn!

Ignis!

We need to save-

“Argh, what the hell…”

Huh…

It’s Ignis.

She’s covered in soot…

But other than that, she looks completely fine.

“I-Ignis!”

And there’s Cana hugging her friend.

She doesn’t even care about the soot.

“W-what happened there?!”

“I don’t know! She started mumbling something explosive gas and it took too long, so I just shot her! But then she exploded!”

Huh…

Explosive gas?

I see…

So her ability had something to do with gases?

That’s why her attacks were invisible.

And now that I think about it, that’s probably also why she had no odor.

…

Also, what happened to that woman?

Did you literally blow her up…?

That’s… really morbid…

“Er, what about the inn? Is everyone inside alright?”

Right…

Did that explosion injure anyone?

“… let’s check.”

How irresponsible, Ignis!

Did you just blow up the place and then walked away without the tiniest care in the world?!

This isn’t like in one of those superhero movies, where you can destroy everything as long as you defeat the villain!

There are consequences!

Well…

I’m surprised.

The worst injury was a stubbed toe.

Among the civilians, that is.

The purple-haired woman though…

…

Let’s be positive.

She’s alive.

But only thanks to one of the people staying at the inn, who had some experience with treating third degree burns.

She will probably stay unconscious for a bit, so we don’t need to worry about her suddenly attacking us for now.

“Now then… What’s going on? Why are there people with weird skills all over the city? Is it related to the curse guy?”

Good question Mable.

But I think the answer will have to wait.

There are three more people outside the inn.

All of which are former prisoners of the cat base.