“Alright,” said Gaius, “so I just waltz in, hit up some music and demand them to hand over their valuables. And if they don’t, I’m allowed to break each of their limbs slowly. Am I right?”

“We’ve been through this before. What are you, a child about to take his first exam?” Nexus replied. Its expressionless head popped out of the boy’s shirt, but Gaius couldn’t help but think that the damn thing was mocking him.

Poking the somehow-provocative head back into his shirt, Gaius said, “But I just thought of something. What happens if they call my bluff? Like, they somehow realise that I don’t want to kill people and refuse to hand over their items?”

“How would they find that out?” asked Nexus. “You go in, demand that they hand over their stuff, maybe break a leg or two. That’s it.”

“But what if—”

“Shut your piehole, Master Gaius. If you keep worrying about, it, they’ll find out.” The sculpture squirmed in the boy’s shirt, as though as it wanted to make a point about something. Gaius wasn’t too sure about what point the artificial intelligence wanted to make, but before he could raise that question, his first victims were already in his line of sight.

Something inside Gaius churned as he activated the Background Music ability for the first time, and the three people below him looked up. He wasn’t too sure about what they were hearing — the manual for this ability had told him to just think of a genre — but by the looks of it, the ability was working.

Shots bounced off his barrier as Gaius landed, but the little boy simply crossed his arms and watched as emotion began to drain from their faces. The Straight Shots in their hands were definitely hitting him, but Gaius wasn’t feeling any strain.

A purple cube flew out from one of the Straight Shots, and its user took a step back. The implications of what this meant had hit him, but before he could abandon his comrades and flee, Gaius spoke.

“Don’t even try to escape.” He looked at the other two. “Are you guys done, or do you want to spend another hour firing at me?”

“What do you want?” One of them, whose shirt was somewhat more elaborate than that how his companions, asked.

“For starters, you can drop all your artefacts on the ground,” replied Gaius. “Or if you’d prefer this the hard way, I’ll break your legs, and then strip you. Your choice.”

“You’re robbing us?”

“Precisely so,” said Gaius. He produced the Moonshot, which sent a ripple through what seemed to be the group’s leader. “Oh? You know of this?”

“That’s the Moonshot, right? But…” He paused. “No way. She lost it to you?”

Light glinted in his eyes.

“Before you think of anything funny,” said Gaius, “you might want to think about how she lost it in the first place.”

Blood sprayed his shoulder as Gaius pulled the trigger. The boy had aimed for his left shoulder. It wasn’t by any means a fatal wound, but without any defences, it was an injury serious enough to take him out of combat.

“And besides,” continued Gaius, “I believe I’m the one doing the robbing here. Drop your equipment, and you can leave unharmed. Otherwise…”

The boy vanished into thin air, reappearing by the side of the wounded teenager to give him a solid kick before returning to his original position. The other two Squires trembled, and then placed their Straight Shots onto the ground, before raising their hands.

“Wise choice. Your backpacks too.”

The boy blinked over to the trembling teenager he’d kicked earlier and tore a rucksack from him. The poor sod didn’t look like he was in any state to comply, so Gaius decided to take matters into his own hands. As for the others, they had immediately removed their bags after seeing Gaius’ rough treatment.

“C-can we go now?” One of them asked.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” replied Gaius. “Thanks for your contributions.”

Their faces twitched as Gaius picked up their bags, and took to the skies. They were probably cursing in their hearts, but none of them were willing to step out to voice their discontent.

“See?” said Nexus. “It’s all about the entrance.”

“Entrance my ass,” replied Gaius, before he vanished from the spot to reappear in the Library. He dumped the backpacks onto the floor and said, “It was my brutality that did the trick. And how little their attacks did.”

“That’s part of ‘entrance’ too,” the artificial intelligence retorted. “It’s part of the concept. You come in, beat someone up and make them pay you to leave. Do it well enough, and it’ll be done within five minutes.”

“Fine, whatever.” The boy wasn’t in a mood to argue. “How many other groups are still in Heritage?”

“Give me a moment.”

At these words, Gaius opened up the backpacks. His haul wasn’t that bad. Four bags of around fifty gemstones each, a week’s worth of rations and water, as well as some little trinkets that were probably artefacts meant to help with camping out on the field.

The boy had debated for a moment to strip their clothes and the artefacts they had on their body too, but it was probably bordering on a level of cruelty that he now felt averse to inflicting. It would have been far better to kill them on the spot in that case, since stripping them of everything and expecting them to return was sadism of another level.

He bent over to pick up a little book. The cover reminded him of the sigil guide he’d brought from Heritage Basestation’s Exchange. Both of them were books slightly larger than his hand, and their jackets were in the same shade of brown too.

Are they part of the same series? Carrying the book, the boy went into the deeper parts of the Library, where everything he’d ever owned had been tossed messily into a room. He’d at least made the effort to differentiate the items by piles, but having three different piles for artefacts, weapons and random assorted items were still messy.

After sifting through the pile for random items, he finally fished out the guide he’d brought from the Exchange. He inhaled sharply as he compared them side by side.

They were far too similar. Like cookies out of the same mould. Gaius flipped through the new book, and immediately noticed that the sigils it recorded were entirely different from what the other one had. Unlike the first one, which had a focus on lifestyle-centric sigils — Gaius wanted to call bullshit on that one, but these were the words written on the cover — this guide was more focused on elemental applications.

He would probably look through it later, unfortunately. Nexus was hollering at him to continue his role as a highway robber.

Placing both books back onto the pile, the boy left the room.