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“Before parting ways with the group and heading to the fitness center.”

“Wait a moment.”

Camila, with a serious expression, asked a question.

“You plan to face the terrorists alone?”

“Yes.”

“Are you crazy?”

Camila shouted, turning red in the face. The image of her just moments ago, banging her head against the table in a fit of panic, vanished.

“How do you expect to fight them all by yourself?! We should go together…”

“That’s not an option.”

I interrupted Camila’s words and responded.

“If you are taken hostage or your lives are at risk, Abbas will undoubtedly receive strong diplomatic protests from foreign nations. In fact, we are already in a dangerous situation. We’ve failed on security and found ourselves trapped in a department store.”

“Is politics really that important right now?!”

“The government is important.”

Whether it’s the Cold War, détente, or a new Cold War, diplomacy is a necessary element for national management. Unless one is capable of handling everything alone, diplomacy is not just a choice but a must.

Camila understood this too.

She was majoring in conflict studies, after all.

“If you truly want to help me, you need to communicate with the outside as quickly as possible. And you have to neutralize the cargo. Even if we manage to catch several terrorists, if external support doesn’t arrive, I can’t guarantee what will happen then.”

“…Is there really no alternative to this?”

“If you distract them for a moment, I’ll handle them. Or we can tackle them one by one. There are plenty of methods.”

“…How about this?”

After much deliberation, Camila placed her hands on her hips and raised her head.

“Instead of distracting them, we could draw their attention completely. While holding the terrorists back, could we get everything sorted out?”

“Isn’t that dangerous? And simply drawing their attention won’t be enough to neutralize all the terrorists—”

At that moment.

“Fire.”

“……”

“How about we just turn off the lights?”

“Turn off the lights?”

Camila nodded and continued speaking.

“If we turn off the lights in the entire department store, the startled terrorists won’t be able to move, and they won’t be able to navigate until emergency power kicks in or they adapt to the darkness.”

“……”

“Doesn’t that sound feasible?”

Upon hearing that, it did sound plausible.

However, there was an issue.

“How will you find the facilities that maintain the department store’s power? And how are you going to destroy them?”

“Um… I don’t know about finding them, but destroying them should be possible, right?”

-Whoosh.

“I’m a magician, after all.”

“……”

Camila ignited a bright flame. I looked at the flickering flame at my fingertips, sighed softly, and spoke up.

“…The facilities are likely underground. Even if the building codes and fire laws have been revised, those kinds of facilities are usually kept underground. Because of vibrations and noise.”

“Vibrations and noise…?”

“Yes. The vibrations and noise that occur when the facilities are operational. Given that the current situation seems to be functioning normally, they should still be alive. At the deepest and most secluded part of the underground.”

“So we just need to find our way there.”

Finally understanding, Camila nodded, and I threw her a question.

“Are you confident?”

“Excuse me?”

“I just worry that you’re forcing yourself to do something you wouldn’t want to do. And you don’t necessarily need to personally take the risk, do you?”

At that, the former Muggle from England, now a magician, smiled brightly.

“You can’t just live doing what you want all the time. No one can do everything alone, after all.”

“……”

“And it’s cool too!”

What a ridiculous brat.

“…Sigh. Fine. Just don’t get hurt. I’ll give you a radio, so contact me immediately if things get dangerous and get out of there. And stick together, the three of you.”

“What if you give us the radio?”

“I’ll just look for something lying around. So how will you draw their attention? Please explain in detail.”

And so, I sent off Camila, Lucia, and Francesca, who were determined to find the power room and situation room.

If luck is on our side, they might reach the situation room and send out a message. Or at least stay hidden without being caught up in a firefight. I thought I could manage the terrorists all by myself.

I never dreamed it would actually succeed.

—

Episode 8 – Say Hello To My Little Friend

Camila succeeded. And at a magnificent timing too.

The interior of the department store was suddenly engulfed in darkness. The bright magic lights lost power, and the natural light coming through the windows was blocked by the curtains.

Total darkness. Truly the essence of oblivion, with not a single beam of light breaking through.

In the murky gloom filled with the murmurs of the terrorists.

I aimed my pistol in the direction of the sound.

And then.

-Clack.

“Ahhhh! My eyes!”

As the bright light flashed, a terrorist jumped in surprise, covering his face with his hands, much like a deer caught in headlights just before being hit by a truck on a country road.

Of course, it was a logical reaction.

The human eye struggles to quickly adapt to strong light and darkness. Hence, the lights at the entrance and exit of a long tunnel are generally dimmer than those inside, allowing the eyes to adjust to the changes in light.

However, what I faced now was neither a truck, nor a car, nor an SUV.

-——!

The terrorist, groaning as he shielded himself from the blinding light. The bullet flew through his palm and struck him squarely in the head. I fired my pistol at the disoriented terrorists, and they fell like marionettes with their strings cut.

“Shoot! Shoot them!”

Amid the screams and curses, one of the terrorists, having grasped the situation, roared from the left. The sound of metal clashing echoed from all directions. Both the left and right were alive with terrorists.

I swiftly turned to keep an eye on the left. As the light hit, one of the terrorists freaked out and pulled the trigger.

“Shit, shit—!”

Bang! The bullet struck a display stand. Of course, the bullet barely grazed me. The terrorist had failed to aim properly.

Hearing his voice, it was the guy who had just been shouting. He was unexpectedly close, but apparently, the light had blinded him so he couldn’t see me properly.

I shot two rounds into the terrorist’s hip, then pressed the barrel of my gun against his chest. And I pulled the trigger.

Blood and what appeared to be chunks of lung exploded out of his back. Given the metallic sounds he made, it seemed I hit his lung. I stuffed more bullets into the terrorist’s chest, kicked him away, and took off running.

But it seemed I was no different in my inability to adapt to the darkness, so I couldn’t get far. Besides, it seemed the emergency lights had also gone out, not a single guiding light illuminated the route.

I knew that much.

So I never intended to run from the beginning. I actually had something else in mind.

I hid behind the barricade made of heavy objects stacked on top of each other that had just sheltered me.

And.

As I predicted.

“There! There he is!”

“Help! That guy shot me!”

“Shoot him!”

“Ahhh—!”

The terrorists were heading towards the darkness.

I started shooting everywhere.

The problem with night operations is the lack of visibility. That’s the biggest difference between daytime battles and nighttime ones.

In other words, moonlight, streetlights, torches, illumination rounds, flashbangs, thermal imaging equipment, and night vision goggles.

To fight properly at night, one must secure a light source. You need to see something to hit it. It’s already difficult enough to distinguish between friend and foe; if you can’t see clearly, it could turn chaotic.

The issue was that there was absolutely nothing inside the department store to illuminate it.

The power and magical energy had been cut off, plunging us into darkness. Some dark, shrouded energy resembling black magic was blocking incoming light, and the emergency lights that should have activated were utterly useless.

That was the root of our trouble.

“Kill that bastard right now!”

“Marco! Over there! It’s over there!”

“Die!”

In the pitch-blackness, a terrorist pulled the trigger of an old-fashioned gun, aiming at the opposite side. Pulling the lever down discharged the spent casing, then pushing it back up loaded a new round.

“That bastard is shooting at us!”

“Shoot together! Don’t just sit there, shoot him down!”

“Duck! Don’t raise your head carelessly!”

A terrorist, hiding behind the wall and enduring the gunfire, extended a shotgun and pulled the trigger. The clack of the pump echoed as the shell was ejected, and pushing the pump forward loaded a new shell.

The terrorists united to shoot me down, yet none of them could recognize the faces of those around them.

“Over there! That bastard keeps moving!”

“Dammit…!”

I weaved through the store, where bullets rained down, taking out terrorists one by one.

A terrorist who caught a knee to the face crumpled to the ground. I grabbed his hair with my left hand, yanked his head back, and thrust my knife into his artery. Hot blood splattered onto my face, rhythmically gushing according to his heartbeat.

I snatched the shotgun from the dead terrorist and fired at another one. The terrorist, who had his revolver loaded, slammed his head into the wall of the store, lifeless.

Of course, it wasn’t a one-sided battle.

“Hey, I found him! Over here!”

In the midst of bullets flying all around, one lucky terrorist spotted me and yelled to his comrades. I pulled out my pistol and shot him dead, but I had to take cover from bullets embedding around me.

The terrorists, grasping the situation, began to fight back.

Some were still so clueless they shot their own allies, but most were directing their fire at my location. Of course, their firepower was nothing like earlier.

About three or four of them. After spraying several rounds toward the darkness with my shotgun, I regripped it and charged out.

And then, I swung the shotgun at a terrorist’s head.

-BAM!

The terrorist, caught while reloading, toppled over from the full swing. Blood gushed profusely from his shattered skull, as if he had burst a major artery.

I hurled the wrecked shotgun at another terrorist and seized the throat of a terrorist who had dropped his weapon, rolling him to the ground.

It was a woman.

“Ah! You little—”

I recognized her voice. She was the same one who had been yelling about wanting to kill me earlier. The terrorist, now half-risen from the ground, reached out toward me as she leaned over, seemingly intending to strangle me.

Not happening!

I deflected her hand with my forearm and tightly gripped her collar with both hands.

I squeezed.

“Ghk…!”

The terrorist gasped, eyes bulging as she struggled for breath. Her sharp nails dug into the back of my hand. I kicked her knee hard, causing her to lose balance, and as she tilted to one side, I used my thighs and waist to climb on top of her.

In an instant, I was sitting on her chest.

“Ugh…!”

I released her collar and choked her neck with my forearm. While pinning her down with my weight, I drew the pistol I had tucked into my waistband.

I aimed for her head.

Just as I was about to pull the trigger against her cranium—

“Who do you think you are!”

“Damn it!”

A crazed terrorist charged in and shoved me aside.

Crash! We rolled on the ground together. It felt like crashing into a wild boar. I felt a sharp pain in my side; maybe a rib was cracked. I tasted blood in my mouth.

I gritted my teeth and struck the terrorist’s back. I swung the pistol down with force, but the terrorist clung to me, refusing to budge. I struck several more times, but he merely groaned and endured without flinching.

It was then that the terrorist, who had been on the brink of choking out, regained his senses.

“Ugh, Marco…!”

“Irina, take the teacher and run!”

The terrorist called ‘Marco’ shouted to ‘Irina,’ the one who had been his partner.

The ‘revived’ Irina crawled like someone deranged, with tears and snot streaming down her face, while Marco swung his fists desperately to hold me down.

Surely, these bastards weren’t trying to escape.

Not on my watch.

With clenched teeth, I yanked the terrorist’s hair to force her head up. Then, I struck her temple hard with the grip of my pistol.

“Die!”

The terrorist fell lethargically, not quite dead but twitching and bleeding, clearly unconscious.

I pressed her slack head against the floor and delivered several rounds into her limp body. Afterward, I fired three or four rounds into the back of another terrorist who was stumbling away in a panic.

Hovering over my weapon, I felt the empty slide and finally paused after realizing I’d run out of bullets.

I sat there blankly, looking around.

The inside of the dark department store was eerily quiet. So eerily quiet. My eyes hadn’t fully adjusted yet, and the world remained almost pitch black, with no sounds to be heard, apart from my ragged breath.

So I sat there for a while, on high alert in the dark store.

Eventually.

-Tick, tick.

Whether the emergency power had kicked in, the dim magic lights began to flicker. As the emergency lights drove the darkness away and illuminated the department store just a bit, I could finally take in the scene laid out before me.

Surrounding me, leaning against the pillars, were several cold, lifeless bodies of terrorists.

“……”

There was no one left to move.

 

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