A [Deviant Form]’s power could be extended to their clothing.
The abnormal ability takes effect by defining the clothes wrapped around oneself as part of one’s being. Otherwise, depending on the type of ability, one might end up completely naked every time they use it. This is a more flexible point than [Metamorphosis].
However, it’s not something that can be done immediately.
One cannot do it without the necessity and attachment to recognize it as part of one’s own body.
And yet.
“That’s just bandages——”
“Does it look that way to you?”
Her smile changes.
From a monster’s mocking laughter to a gentle, human-like smile.
“Then that’s the difference between you and me.”
You and I are alike, yet different.
“I hate to say it, but I’m a heavy woman.”
——You and I are different.
“《Unsullied Gemstone Anvil Celestial Maiden》”
The bandages are drawn in.
“Gah——!?”
Lonzder’s fist pierces Filgie’s face.
The fist sinks in, harder than steel.
The phantom thief does not know its true nature.
《Unsullied Gemstone Anvil Celestial Maiden》.
It is an increase in her very existence density.
Instead of hardening her body, the resulting hardening and weight gain comes from increased density.
Tens of times harder and heavier than steel.
The floor and carpeting beneath her feet must already be cracked.
Compressing a human form with a mass of several tons, yet without the slowing effect of weight and physics.
Just as heavy, hard, and strong as she wishes.
“Hyo……guh……!”
Even with one hand bound and his face punched through, the phantom thief counterattacks.
Piercing through the wound bandages, his right hand tries to scratch and grab Lonzder’s body.
But,
“Ugh……!”
“Hahaha, what’s wrong, phantom thief? You can’t use your age as an excuse anymore!”
Unable to slip through her high-density body, he can only scratch the surface.
Lonzder does feel pain. Her sense of pain remains even with increased density.
But she is laughing.
“Let’s make it a Chain Death Match.”
At this point, neither can properly guard.
So the unlaws attacks will pierce through.
However.
Naturally, the gem has the advantage.
“Gah……guh……agh……!”
“Hahahahaha!”
Her fists pierce through again and again. Jabs, straights, uppercuts, blows. A flurry of left hooks. The old woman’s attacks could hardly be called counterattacks, more like death throes. Her body is blown back by the punches, only for the bandages to pull her back, and the punches to pierce her again.
The old woman bounces back, is pulled in, and bounces again.
“You like to dance, don’t you? Dance is meant to be done hand-in-hand!”
The phantom thief dances—the detective laughs.
Receiving pain, being injured, yet her smile does not stop.
Covered in blood, in a ghastly manner.
Laughing at the filth, the greed-enhancing diamond, Enhance Dia.
Casting aside pretense, concealment, schemes, and conspiracies.
Discovering the single truth from among the many mysteries—the detective.
——《Unsullied Gemstone Anvil Celestial Maiden》 points to the truth.
“Guh……!”
The gem’s fist knocks out the Flower of Vengeance’s teeth.
“St…stop——”
“Stop!? Ha, what are you saying at this point! You’re under arrest for the crime! Breaking and entering and theft! I’ll let the assault and attempted murder slide since it goes both ways! You old hag!”
As if she didn’t know, the beauty laughs.
“You must not steal other people’s things——ugh!”
Another blow to the face.
A particularly large, downward-swinging strike pierces the phantom thief’s head, putting considerable distance between them.
“Nu, gu, ah……!”
At that moment, the Flower of Vengeance musters her last strength.
Having mocked the police four times, she was finally the same kind as the gem in the end.
To take that life away.
Her ability to slip through and graze anything.
And yet,
“It’s useless.”
“Wh, y……!”
She cannot escape the bandages wrapped around her hand.
“It’s simple, Elementary, Phantom.”
What may seem like mere bandages to Filgie, is something else to Lonzder.
The proof of kindness received from her assistant, .
“The phantom thief may steal treasures—but the truth is always in the detective’s hands.”
While pulling Filgie in forcefully with her right hand, Lonzder spins her body.
Her right foot, marked with red patterns, traces an arc.
Her right foot, made extremely heavy at just the tiptoe by her ability while the rest is made nearly massless, reaches supersonic speed in an instant from her own powerful rotational force and centrifugal force. The air breaks with a sharp sound.
She drives it in.
The downward spinning kick smashes into Filgie’s pulled-in side face.
In that moment,
“——《Unsullied Gemstone Anvil Celestial Maiden – Burst》”
Extreme overload on her tiptoe. A spinning kick of dozens of tons of mass driven in at faster than sound speed.
The old woman’s body disappears, punching through the floorboards.
“…………Hmm. Hey, Norman. Two things.”
“Yes, yes. What is it?”
“The bandages just got shredded. I’ll ask for new ones later.”
“Of course, as many as you need. And the other thing?”
“We’re getting out of here soon.”
“Pardon?”
“When I was rampaging downstairs earlier, I broke a few pillars, and that just now was the final blow.”
“………………Sister’s going to freak out, you know.”
“Ha, don’t worry Norman.”
As the floor, walls and ceiling all begin to tremble and collapse around them,
She who destroyed everything puffs out her chest.
“I’m worth far more than some museum, aren’t I?”
●
“───Ah.”
Filgie felt no pain, nothing.
Where Lonzder had kicked her, buried under rubble as she exhales her last breath.
All she feels is a strange sense of weightlessness.
“How, did——”
What was the difference between her and that woman?
That woman smiled, saying the difference was those bandages.
Filgie did not understand what they meant to her.
Perhaps, it was about that boy who had been standing there the whole time.
The detective had been gripping him tightly, never letting go.
Unlike herself.
Her husband had died in the war, but her daughter had a family, even a granddaughter.
Come to think of it, her granddaughter was around the same age as that boy.
And yet, she had parted from them, coming to this city.
From her beloved family, supposedly.
“………Hah.”
She naturally let out a laugh.
That was the answer, to what was different.
The things she should have cherished, she discarded for the mere reason of not feeling fulfilled herself.
As a result, she had become nothing but a directionless monster.
“……Ha, ha, ha.”
How ironic, that she who discarded everything would gain the power to slip through anything.
That’s why,
even as a monster, she could not defeat one who held dear what was most important.
She could break anything, do as she pleased.
But for her, the most important thing was never mistaken.
“Ah—— Well, how embarrassing.”
With those last words.
The life of the old woman, who only wanted to be fulfilled, slipped away and fell.
●
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.PAGES.DEV
“The answer was the perfume.”
Norman heard Lonzder’s bored-sounding mutter.
She muttered,
“……Hey, Norman. It kinda hurts.”
“Just bear with it. You’d normally be dead.”
“Hah, quite the ironic joke.”
He didn’t mean it as a joke, but she suddenly laughs in amusement.
After the big ruckus, having left the crime scene processing to Harrison, Norman and Lonzder returned.
The detective silently protested the state of the scene with full-body outrage, but that was his job, so they left it to him.
Norman was treating Lonzder’s injuries as she sat in her underwear.
Her purple lingerie and tanned skin were alluring, but now was not the time for that.
In addition to the gash in her side, she had numerous small bruises all over. Norman carefully treats each of Lonzder’s injuries as she lies back on the sofa, her arms full of scrapes and bruises from initially using them to block and deflect attacks.
He disinfects, applies ointment, places dressings and gauze, wrapping each wound in bandages one by one.
He even sutures the wound on her side properly.
“You’re quite handy as always.”
“Picked up all sorts of things on the battlefield, but this is the most practical skill. ……So, perfume?”
“It’s simple.”
She sniffs.
“There was a faint lingering scent on the calling card. So I knew her identity as soon as I shook her hand. Got my hand crushed and all that too.”
“…………Ah.”
With the snip of scissors cutting the bandage, he switches gears in his mind.
“……………………………..Phantom Thief Thistle.”
“That’s right. Thistle—the flower Azami, its perfume. One of our national flowers, so it implies she’s of a certain age and has some patriotism at least. The stationery was for the princess’s birthday too. While some people might use Azami perfume, it’s unlikely someone of her standing would use the same flower name as a phantom thief. And……
She sniffs once more.
“The flower language of Azami is ‘Do not touch me.'”
“……Well I’ll be.”
“After the museum collapse, I checked the staff room downstairs and rummaged through that old lady’s desk. There were photos of Port Quarry and the envelopes and stationery from that stationery shop too. Oh, and her desk had pen holders neatly placed on both the left and right sides—she wanted them to be found.”
As he kneels to apply a dressing to her thigh,
“……In the end, any idea why she was doing the whole phantom thief thing?”
resting her leg on his own thigh and running his fingers along to check for swelling,
“I understand that she became Unlaws and use her powers. But in the end, I didn’t understand why she bothered to be a thief.”
“Who knows.”
Her toes playfully tickle his thigh that her foot rests on.
Ticklish.
“I can’t quite figure out that part. She said her husband died in the war and her children were independent. With the way she snapped as an 《Unlaws》, she must have been harboring a lot of pent-up frustration. If there was a reason for the museum scholar to become a phantom thief……well, maybe checking the bookshelves at her place would give us a hint.”
“……I see. I’ll have the detective put in a request.”
What if…
If there were mystery novels lined up there.
Or if she had written them herself.
In that case, you could say.
Filgie Mule was truly living out her youth.
Having aged, withered, with no family – perhaps she had fulfilled a dream glimpsed through her awakened abnormality.
That may be a bit too fanciful an imagination. But phantoms themselves are fanciful existences to begin with.
“Say, Norman.”
“Was I right to kill that woman?”
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