Chapter 110: Variables At Play
Cillian immediately left the room he had used earlier, while thinking about how it turned out. The outcome was good, but it wasn’t as perfect as he had hoped.
The ten rooms he deliberately opened using Gale and Sleight of Hand turned out better than he had expected. There are a lot of rooms inside this hospital, and each one of them is going to be painstakingly long.
He opened ten doors to make it appear that they were going to waste their time searching inside, even though they could do it fast. Well, they could’ve done it, but Cillian used the eleventh room as his hiding spot.
There were a lot of variables at play here, and using ten rooms with open doors might make the Shepherds angry once they found out they had been tricked, if this situation happened, that is.
However, the reason he was confident that at least one of the shepherds would search the rooms and the other two would run forward was that one of them could turn invisible.
It was obvious how the other two Shepherds were making noise as they ran away. They probably had been through many fights and came up with this scenario based on their experience. If not, they had likely held a meeting and shared their expertise in their respective fields.
And they did just that.
Cillian carefully waited for the invisible shepherd to come to the tenth room, and he finally observed him once the shepherd came to the sixth room.
Thus, he began to get ready and proceed to prepare an ambush in the eleventh room once the shepherd made it to the tenth room, activating Mouthful Eye’s Whispering Sphere.
However, there was something Cillian hadn’t gotten as well, and it was the Ruiner’s ability of the shepherd, invisibility.
If Cillian had managed to grab it, he might’ve just escaped using that ability, but alas, his Faceless was still having trouble mimicking abilities.
Cillian didn’t deny that his mimicking ability was great, busted, even, if used correctly. However, the problem that had appeared from the very beginning was the fact that copying abilities might take a while, or it might not. It happened at random moments, and the only time Cillian had managed to mimic a powerful ability was one of Aster’s Five Swords of Chaos.
Aside from ’a certain action of an individual’ or voices, the current problem he has with this ability is the randomized moments of mimicking.
’I’ve used it so much already, yet the note in the power description still says I can’t fully harness its true potential since it’s fairly new. What would make it upgrade to the next level where it’ll say I can fully harness it?’
Now, it had to be noted that Cillian was able to see these descriptions because of his system. Without it, he wouldn’t have known about them, and he might not have understood the limits of his Faceless.
Heck, no one in this world had a system aside from his own. However, information regarding the Pieces automatically passed through the minds of the Ruiners who acquired those Pieces themselves.
’It almost looked like I’d been nerfed.’
Cillian pondered inwardly, a small sigh escaping his lips.
Then, as he continued to roam around while being very careful with his actions, Cillian spotted a few Death Flags after peeking through the other side. They would eventually come toward him if they continued walking forward.
[Death Flag]
[Death Flag]
[Death Flag]
It wasn’t Troy, the one who tried to block his path with his sword earlier, or the one he was with. Other shepherds were also probably roaming around, probably finding him within the Hensel Hospital.
’How many of them are here anyway?!’
Cillian was already suspicious that it wasn’t just the previous three he had seen that were trying to catch him. It seems that the Shepherds are heavily invested in capturing a student like him.
’If these are not just the Shepherds staying here, does that mean the entrance earlier is already being guarded by some Shepherds now that I’m already inside? Wait, if that’s the case, they should’ve just waited for me to come—oh, right. They are trying to find my family here. Using them as a hostage in case they had gotten them. Now that I’m here anyway, they must’ve proceeded with trapping me here. I should assume people are already guarding the entrance.’
Cillian looked at the series of screens that appeared at the corner of his vision before focusing on the one that pointed toward his Death Coin, especially the timer it displayed.
[0:49:56]
’I have been running for ten minutes, and I have been careful about my actions. I don’t know if they already found out the corpse of the shepherd from earlier, but I don’t want to take my chances and copy his face when they might already know he’s dead.’
Cillian pondered his next course of action before coming up with an idea as he clenched the black robe he had stolen from the shepherd he had killed earlier. A small smile played on his lips.
’The last thing I should do is fight them directly and fairly. They have the advantage in numbers. The reason I had to do what I did earlier, even while risking my life, was because the situation demanded it. I can still do the same thing, but this time, I’ll be more careful. To do that, I will kill the Shepherds one by one as long as I can.’
Cillian’s face started to change before he pulled the robe over his head, covering his entire face and taking on his previous world’s appearance, Raymond.
"Nearby Flag Presence."
Then, he stopped acting like he was hiding and confidently stood up, straightening his back. He then began searching through the nearby rooms as if it were nothing more than a task he needed to do.
[Death Flag x4]
Once he saw that the three were almost there, Cillian pretended to have finished his search before leaving one of the rooms and encountering the three shepherds.
"Oh?"
Cillian called out to them.
"Did you already find Cillian Sparrow?"
One of the shepherds sized Cillian up and down before answering.
"We haven’t yet. Troy, the man in charge of this operation, informed us that Cillian had entered and that we were currently searching the area carefully. We might receive an updated message in a few minutes. What about you? What’s the status of your search?"
’One slip-up and they might become suspicious of me. But because of them, I know now that Troy didn’t just have the ability to record. He also had a way to inform the people inside Hensel about the situation. Telepathy or some sort of method to communicate with others over long distances? I see... then what I assumed earlier was true. There might already be other Shepherds waiting at the entrance.’
Cillian pondered inwardly before answering.
"As you can see, I haven’t gotten a scent of this Cillian Sparrow. He’s quite something for someone of his age."
The three Shepherds looked at each other for a moment before nodding. The four of them talked for a while as Cillian tried his very best to copy their voices by activating his mimic.
[Mimicry Activated]
[Mimicry Failed]
[Mimicry Activated]
[Mimicry Success]
After they talked, Cillian joined the group. The three Shepherds didn’t mind being accompanied as they journeyed together until information suddenly passed through their minds. Cillian, who was experiencing it for the first time, weirdly heard it as well.
"Cillian Sparrow already killed one shepherd! I repeat, Cillian Sparrow already killed one shepherd! Be careful! The death status doesn’t work inside a Runic Gate!"
A deep frown appeared on Cillian’s face before cursing inwardly.
’What the fuck...?’