Chương 432: Heroic Grade

The first trap that went off was a simple pit trap. Felix had used a mixture of spatial techniques and metal manipulation to chip away the stronger and sturdier upper layer of the school flooring. Considering how long it had been since anyone had maintained the structures of the Market, the floor was surprisingly easy to destroy, even with our limited firepower. Of course, Sallia's exceptional strength had also played a big role in our ability to create the pit trap.

Boosted by a variety of spells, her runes, and burning some absorption essence, Sallia had used a shovel Felix had scraped together and then tore through metal, wood, and dirt as if they were all the same substance. After the pit was dug out, and the bottom was furnished with a layer of thin, razor-sharp metal spikes, Felix created a thin cover for the floor using more metal manipulation. It wasn't too thin - after all, the heroic-grade combatant would probably see through a trap if it was too obvious.

However, Felix had hooked the entire new floor to a button. With a single push, he could dump anyone standing on the false floor into the spike pit. The heroic-grade shooter didn't seem to notice the trap at all. The moment he stepped onto the false floor, along with two other scavengers, Felix hit the button. The false floor instantly started to retract into the wall - but the heroic-grade shooter reacted almost instantly.

A few beams of light flashed out from his gun, and the entire hinge mechanism for the trap turned into molten slag. Felix and I both frowned. The mechanism that was supposed to drop the floor was buried inside of a small box of reinforced metal, since we had been wary of the heroic-grade shooter doing exactly this. Somehow, his laser beam had outright ignored the metal surrounding the hinge mechanism and fried the hinges, without hitting any of the material surrounding it.

It was almost as if the laser had simply phased through solid matter until it hit its target. <What in the world? > asked Sallia. <I don't think that's how light works. Or at least, that's nt how it has worked in any world we've travelled to so far. >"Be careful. There are traps," said the heroic-grade shooter, a few moments later. This pulled me out of the conversation with my friends. I glanced at Felix again. <You know, this actually does give us some useful information, > I said.

<The heroic-grade scavenger didn't notice the trap until after it started to activate. He also hasn't noticed either form of surveillance yet. He hasn't found some way to wipe out your electronic surveillance or prevent me from observing the area via my spatial sight. In other words, he doesn't have any unusual ability to detect unusual or dangerous objects in his surroundings - only the ability to respond to them once he notices them. > <That's a good point, > said Felix.

<If his senses are this bad, we can hit him with traps that are hard to detect, like poison gas. His reflexes are exceptional, though. I didn't even see him fire his weapon before he managed to melt the pit trap hinges. > <So once he notices anything is wrong, the trap will get destroyed, > said Anise. <That means the real traps need to be instantaneous, or impossible to handle even after they're detected. > I nodded as my friends spoke. I was glad we hadn't tried to fight this guy head on.

If we had charged at him, at least one of us probably would have died the moment we showed up in this guy's line of sight. The group of scavengers seemed much more cautious after seeing the presence of the pitfall trap. One of them whistled, and tossed a small, grey-blue square of metal into the pit. The spikes at the bottom of the pit ripped the metal to shreds.

"Pretty sharp. Those other people really have it in for us," said the Scavenger.

"Indeed," said the heroic-grade shooter. He looked at our surroundings, and frowned.

"Come to think of it, I don't see any kind of trigger that could have been used to set off the trap automatically. Annie?" A short girl with a rather unusual pair of goggles scanned the area, before she shook her head.

"I don't see any tripwires. I do notice that the entire corridor has a very, very light coating of alteration essence in it, though." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The heroic grade gunner frowned.

"Alteration essence is the most annoying type to deal with. It has so many potential manifestations and so many different magic systems that keeping your enemy's abilities straight is a nightmare." A moment later, Annie frowned.

"Wait. I see something." She pulled out a bow from thin air, and then dug an arrow out of her backpack.

"Looks like some kind of surveillance device." She shot an arrow at Felix's camera, shattering one of our two surveillance mechanisms. Without a word, I started sharing my vision with my friends.

"You're right, that trap was probably manually set off. Looks like they were spying on us," said Annie. The heroic-grade shooter frowned, before he shot the corridor itself with his laster pistol. In complete defiance of how the laser beam had acted last time he shot at something, this time the laser seemed almost like a rubber ball. It ricocheted off of various walls and the floor, moving in seemingly random directions - but I noticed a few things.

First of all, the laser conspicuously avoided hitting the scavengers. Second, after about twenty bounces, every single one of Felix's cameras was destroyed - as well as the hinges for the ceiling tile we had planned to drop as our second trap. Finally, I noticed that after fifty bounces, the laser beam started to grow noticeably dimmer. After about seventy bounces, the laser beam faded into thin air.

"There we go. That should take care of the little spying devices," said the heroic-grade gunner. He smiled. My ability to spy on him with my spatial abilities was completely uninterrupted. I relaxed. He really didn't have the ability to detect his surroundings. Of course, his shooting skills were still incredibly dangerous - somehow, the laser beam he had fired out of his gun had ricocheted around the room and destroyed every single one of Felix's cameras, even though the man hadn't noticed them.

That meant that somehow, he had accurately shot objects he had zero awareness of… which was a troubling ability in and of itself. However, it had failed to make an impact on my spatial sight… so I wasn't really sure what to make of his shot. <If his detection abilities are this lackluster, maybe we can go with the original plan, > said Sallia. <He might not notice if Miria just teleports the Marks away and lets their group die due to incompatible physics and biology. > <Hmm… maybe, > I said.

<Let me try an extinguish with a very, very low amount of alteration essence first. I still have a bad feeling about that plan. > I tried tossing a low-grade extinguish at the heroic grade shooter - and the moment my drop of water materialized, a flash of heat and light turned my extinguish into a puff of mist. My extinguish didn't even land on the heroic-grade shooter. The seemingly impossible to exploit fraction of a second between my drop of water materializing and my enemy getting harmed… had been exploited.

<His reflexes… no, it's not just reflexes, > said Felix. <He clearly noticed the drop of water. But why did he notice that, but not notice the other things in the hallway? > I frowned. There was something about this heroic-grade shooter's abilities that we were missing. He could shoot things without noticing them, he missed obvious signs of surveillance in his surroundings, and he could instantly spot extinguishes and deal with them before they hit him.

As I tried to figure out what was going on, the scavengers continued making their way through the corridor. Despite their caution, they still didn't notice the next thing Felix had prepared. Since this section of the magic academy had also had several science labs, Anise and Sallia had actually managed to scavenge some proper chemicals. We had no idea what any of them did… but we figured that mixing random chemicals together would still do something dangerous.

A few quick tests from Felix had confirmed that mixing a few batches of two different orange solutions together created a strange, acidic gas. The moment the scavenger group was inside of the 'gas zone,' Felix hit another button. In a small hollow above the invaders, two vats of liquid released their contents. Those contents mixed together, before they ate through the ceiling and began to descend upon the heads of the scavengers.

Unfortunately, the moment the heroic-grade shooter saw the orange mist in the corridor, he shot a laser at it. Then, the entire cloud of acidic gas caught fire and instantly burned out. <What? The gas I created isn't even flammable! I checked! > said Felix. <Even more weird, I don't think the temperature in the hallway changed at all, despite their being a massive fire in the air, > I said. <Even the weakest scavengers don't seem like they're sweating - they just look normal. > <I'm out of traps, > said Felix.

He sounded more than slightly exasperated… and a bit defeated as well. <Let's recuperate and see what we can figure out about his abilities before we try to design a better plan. This guy is a monster. > I curled up my own fists in frustration, but then I nodded in agreement. I had been hoping that our traps would do something … but none of the scavengers had even gotten hurt by our traps. Somehow, the heroic-grade shooter had dealt with every single threat.

I still felt that there must be some way to deal with the heroic-grade shooter… but it was obvious my earlier thoughts were too optimistic. We weren't just dealing with another easily handled enemy. We were dealing with a monster.