The roof of the house was sloped at an angle which could easily result in an unfortunate slip, or very painful spraining of an ankle–Regardless, Einhert moved around as though he were on flat ground, pursuing the colourless relentlessly.

  He swung his sword with the intention to slash right through her every single time, but she did nothing but focus on dodging and getting away, contorting, stretching, and folding onto herself to evade even the most refined and inescapable of strikes… All the while continuing what she called a ‘comedy show’.

  “Hey, hey! City Mac-Lord-Face, why don’t you tell everyone about what you liked so much about this first crush of yours? I bet you were just a hormone-ridden teenager and only liked her because she was pretty! Don’t you think it's pretty weird to think so fondly about her nowadays? I mean, aren’t you an adult now? Dirty old man!”

  The city lord felt like she was going to kill him by bursting every vein in his damned forehead. Not only did she say utterly vile and despicable things–But the way she said them! She was way too happy about it! Not to mention that she would laugh at her own ‘jokes’ like a mad hyena.

  He channelled mana into his blade, swinging it to produce flying blades of energy. Energy-based attacks usually ignore physical means of defence, so her elastic body should be powerful if struck… The keyword being ‘if struck’. The clown wasn’t getting hit by anything.

  She never tried to even land a single blow. She was only focused on running her mouth and evading… These were two actions she seemed to be capable of doing in tandem, no matter the situation.

  Admittedly, she was indeed quite a good showman in this regard. Nothing could disturb or interrupt her as she spewed the most disgusting things possible, but still wrapped them nicely enough not to sound vulgar.

  …So far, though… The theme had been mostly about Poppy and how Einhert should be concerned that he was still enamoured with the young girl he had met all those years ago, completely ignoring the fact that Einhert had actually been younger than her back then, and that Poppy had quite literally died. How else was he supposed to remember her than the only way he had ever known her?

  Of course, he knew that she didn’t actually bother to make any amount of sense. She was only spouting slander upon slander while remaining untouchable–The clown was trying to provoke him. To make him erupt with anger… At least, he presumed that this was what she was after, so that he showed an opening allowing her to land a blow with ease.

  However, even though she was a deeply unpleasant character who was deeply getting on his nerves, Einhert kept his cool. The grip on his sword did not falter nor tighten… He remained calm despite it all, attempting to find a flaw or pattern in the way his opponent moved.

  The city lord’s blade was charged with a copious amount of mana. He wielded an enchanted sword crafted from materials meant to specifically be capable of handling high amounts of mana augmentation.

  Being slashed by this blade was closely akin to being slashed by a blade formed from pure mana–Meaning that the colourless clown’s defences should be useless against its edge. Here came a problem, however. Einhert was unable to find a flaw or pattern, or rather… What he discovered was not exploitable due to one simple fact.

  The clown was constantly improving and adapting. Every time he made a step forward toward striking her, she would make a step of her own toward learning how to dodge better. It was uncanny. He could see her learning in real time.

  It was becoming clearer and clearer that she was a threat who needed to be taken down as quickly as possible–He had no clue where she would stop or slow down in her progress, but it wasn’t worth it to hope that she would stop growing more skilful. She needed to go down today.

  The clown was too dangerous to be left alive.

  Einhert pushed more mana throughout his body.

  Although he could technically be considered a mage, he would be more accurately described as a spellblade who focused more on the blade part than the spell one… He was innately awful at forming complex spells, so he always cast them in tandem with his swordsmanship, or sometimes, archery.

  This lack of talent in more refined spells meant that he spent a whole lot of time practising only a handful of usages for his mana, making him quite skilled with them–As such, when he decided to increase the pressure to the maximum he could manage without actively exhausting his stamina and mana reserves, the tempo of the fight changed completely.

  The roof beneath his feet cracked as he pushed himself forward, swinging his sword at an upward, diagonal angle, aiming to go through the clown’s waist and slash through her shoulder on the opposite side from where his swing had begun.

  He saw a flash of worry across the clown’s face, which seemed to be genuine, but she reacted in time nonetheless, and his blade went right through empty space as she split herself in half, swiftly liquifying into a puddle, before throwing herself at him, still a slime-like abomination.

  Countless tendrils were sent his way, which he slashed before realising that she was ‘melting’ through gaps in the roof. He didn’t see what happened below, but he heard it. The people who were still down there–Most probably still stuck amidst the web of flesh–Were ruthlessly targeted while they could barely even fight back.

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  He heard the sound of bones breaking and flesh rupturing within just a mere few moments–Einhert was unaware, but below, the black and white clown merged back with the flesh she had woven into an expansive web.

  When she feasted upon people and creatures, she regenerated. As such, there had been a stash of food hidden in the house ahead of time, so that she would be able to create the cobweb if necessary… But even when separated, it remained a part of her.

  A distant, quiet part, but still her.

  As such, when she dropped down from the ceiling amidst the trapped fools, she connected back to the strings of the web–First, she consumed the flesh of those who had already succumbed to the fleshy trap. Second, she took control of the strings, wrapping them around those who still lived, and finally… She pulled every last one of them into her body alongside her own disembodied strips of flesh.

  All of the guards, mercenaries, and adventurers who had been within her reach were killed, ground into paste together.

  …Unfortunately, she couldn’t really stock excess flesh for later healing purposes–Or any purposes, for that matter. As such, the ‘extra’ would be rapidly burnt off like fat in a fire. Nonetheless, there was a use for this quirk, and this was exactly what the clown was after.

  She had her fun slandering the city lord and learning how to evade attacks in a more proper manner, but even a clown as dedicated as herself knew when to be serious–If she wanted the one she viewed as her parent to accept and cherish her… Then, the colourless clown needed to be useful. She needed to be strong.

  First thing that was good to become strong? Not get killed. She couldn’t bear to imagine dying without ever laying eyes once upon the person she looked up to so dearly.

  Thus, the monstrous clown felt determination. She was born with a purpose and a goal. No one was allowed to get in her way.

  The excess consumption led to the ability to use said excess for a short burst of power. The strength of the burst was dependent on the quantity of sustenance she had devoured, and currently? She had eaten enough to burst several stomachs.

  …She had practised and created this scenario precisely so that she could use this trick if necessary.

  “Aah… I hope you’ll be proud of me”

  The clown directed most of the energy created by the burning of the excess consumption toward her legs, causing them to surge in size as she had suddenly become a bodybuilder who only focused on the lower body. The changes in the rest of her body were subtle enough to go unnoticed as she jumped straight through the ceiling, slamming into the city lord without mercy.

  The man was quite the tough fellow. Most would have been turned into red mist by the impact alone, but he survived the initial strike, though he was launched upward with the clown still sticking to him. They both slammed against one edge of the roof before crashing down onto the small, overgrown garden behind the architecture.

  Exactly where the two mages were, and also where plenty of guards had been standing. Neither party moved or acted at first. The latter because they were genuinely dumbfounded by what had just happened out of nowhere, and the former because the clown was quite literally stuck to Einhert. They couldn’t cast any spell without hitting the city lord as well.

  “Huh… How are you so resilient, Buddy? I can’t digest you when I am shapeless”

  The clown grew a head, but remained mostly as a slime-like creature, opening her maw wide to bite down into his entire head as Einhert appeared unconscious… The mages fired spells, but the clown changed the shape of her head to evade them all.

  Before she could get through with it, however, the city lord opened his eyes, spitting a mouthful of blood directly into the clown’s eyes–He had dropped his sword when he was tackled, but he still had his fists. Overloading his own limb with mana beyond what he could safely handle, his knuckles crashed into the monster’s jaw, shattering it alongside countless of her sharp teeth.

  The mana forced its way into her body, the foreign energy causing her to lose her stickiness and be thrown straight into the house’s wall.

  As Einhert rose, the guards attempted to step forward to help, but stopped in their tracks as their lord raised his arm.

  He couldn’t allow the clown to get close to them. They were too weak to resist her and would only serve as nourishment for the abominable creature. He rushed forward as the clown returned to her usual form, taking a bit longer than normal to fix her messed-up jaw.

  She mumbled something to herself, moving to her right–Her movements were much more sluggish. It was clear that she had no clue how to deal with an invasion of foreign energy, allowing Einhert to grab her by the neck, lifting her feet off the ground as he drove more of his mana into her, effectively rendering her harmless.

  “Aaah… What’s this? I didn’t know you were into choking… Did you wish you could have done this with her? Ahahah!”

  Binibelle rubbed her temples as she stood up, finally managing to sort out the memories of the visions she had had.

  Something dawned on her. If the visions of these alternate realities were anything to be trusted, then they had warned her about something very much relevant to the situation, her lack of remembrance due to experiencing everything like a dream, and the situations being completely different from what was at hand had led her to believe that everything shown to her were clues about the investigation, but actually, there had been a warning very much applicable to the present.

  “Lord Einhert! She isn’t alone!”

  As though having been waiting for a dramatic cue, something shifted.

  The clown had not headed to her right for no reason. Currently, the sun was directly behind her, which resulted in her shadow and that of the city lord merging in places. By itself, this was nothing.

  However, emerging from the clown’s shadow was a rusted, twisted automaton. Different in appearance from what he should look like, but recognisable nonetheless. The Coyote was quick to act.

  His clawed, metallic hands lashed out, tearing right through Einhert’s heels. The man lost his balance, and Coco took this occasion to slash the man across his back several times before pushing him aside with a reverse of his hand.

  Spells flew, but The Coyote was not here to stay. He noticed that the city lord was still breathing. However, killing was not his priority. He grabbed the clown by her neck using his maw and, with frightening agility, swiftly climbed the house before leaping onto another roof, quickly getting away without being struck by any of the spells.

  Einhert groaned on the ground.

  “Shit…”