The fact that what was very obviously an automaton sent by my brother to dispose of me was in the region was a cause for worry. Somehow, either Leton had been able to make a good guess as to where I was, or the automaton had been capable enough to find my tracks and begin its search…

  No matter which option was true, this was a problematic turn of events. It did not seem like the automaton was aware of my exact location, and it might not even be able to recognise me in my knightly form… But from what I had heard about my brother’s inventions… He sort of had a knack for creating absolutely nonsensically efficient and powerful things.

  Somehow, you could give him some steel, wires, and a bit of lightning, and he could just build a robot capable of doing twirls while predicting the weather. It was absolute nonsense, and it was obvious that this little shit had some sort of unique innate ability that he had never told me about!

  What madness, I took care and protected him like I was the one who had birthed him, and he didn’t even mention possessing such a thing? Back then, I would have been happy for him! Yet… He still preferred to keep it a secret.

  Now that I think about it, it was rather clear why he had wanted the steel from those automatons. He must have known that he could create something great using that particular material. Some sort of builder’s and engineer’s sixth sense or whatever.

  Instead of owning up to his–Rather egregious–Mistake of abandoning me like a pile of trash, he was using the talent he had kept hidden to try and murder me. At least, I appreciate that he was putting personal effort into it instead of delegating the work to other people. Family matters should be solved by family.

  I’ll just proceed as I was intending to for now. Heltna’s father will be keeping that thing busy on my behalf, and that thing will be keeping Heltna’s father away on my behalf. It was win-win for me in this regard.

  …That automaton probably had a silly name. I know him. He probably took the automaton’s general purpose, took some first letters, and made them into something that sounded like a name. And he probably slapped a number at the end even if he wasn’t intending on making any more of it.

  He has always liked using impressive words as well. I am one hundred per cent certain that I can guess exactly what the thing’s actual name is just by its acronym.

  I’ll leave that little piece of comedy for when, and if, I ever run into this automaton. For now, following the Bombidour patriarch’s departure, it was time for me to leap into action and become a master robber.

  By now, I had already been staying at the manor for a long while and had been hand-fed plenty of curses. Nara was even telling me that I was nearing another choice of upgrade. Such speed was exhilarating.

  Gorging on items that improved my dual nature was clearly the way to go for swift progress. It was just a shame that both of said groups of items were a bit on the unusual side. As far as I was aware, the Bombidour were the only official bunch who specialised in curse slinging… Argantis was well-known as well, but as far as Rootriska was concerned, they were the only ones with actual high achievement in this category.

  As for people that related to spirits and ghosts? There were none that I knew.

  This heist might be the last in a long while unless I decide to go on a trip throughout the continent to seek them out… As some sort of culinary tourism, I guess.

  Heltna seemed a bit sad to see me go away, but I assured her that we would meet again. The noble girl had really grown attached due to the similarities I shared with her mother and hugged my waist for a dozen minutes before letting me go.

  Before leaving her, though, I convinced her that she should go back to the orphanage to check on those poor children and see if they had gotten better.

  Once everything was in place, I walked a fair distance away from the residence, acting like a most normal leaving guest. But once a certain hour passed, I used the trick.

  I was full of apprehension about that part. Things were a bit experimental when it came to this pseudo-teleportation ability. Would the barriers and other defence mechanisms be able to stop me? Would I be considered too far away? Would the manifestation mess up and make me pop half-embedded inside a wall or piece of furniture?

  I hadn’t been able to run proper tests. The tests were made right now in the field!

  Unlike before, when I used this particular ability, it felt like I was turned into a fly and flung through the air at neck-breaking speed. The world around me seemed to bend and meld into one big mess as it all spun counterclockwise.

  In the next instant, I was standing inside a closet like nothing had happened.

  …Good thing I can not get nauseous at all. It feels like this thing could have given my soul motion sickness otherwise…

  I stood still for a few minutes, waiting to see if my action had caused a reaction of sorts, but the manor remained perfectly silent despite the fact that it hadn’t felt much like a teleportation from such a distance. It had been more akin to a… What was the word again? Warping? Blinking?

  In any case, it had seemed like I had actually moved from point A to point B, but that I had done so in a very swift and strange manner.

  According to what I could tell, when you activated the ability, your body transformed into a purely spiritual form. What moved were your non-corporeal parts fused together into the smallest and most condensed form possible

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  And in the meantime, the plush had transformed into your knightly form, and due to the fact that it was now considered your body, your non-physical bits were forcefully flung to it as though a mistake was being fixed hastily

  In short, the newly formed body acted like a magnetic pole for your soul and the rest, quickly dragging you to where you should be, to the point that you are unable to properly perceive the world around you for an instant…

  This is quite fascinating! I wasn’t aware this was how this worked until now. You actually moved so fast that the defence mechanism that should have been capable of intercepting an entity without a physical presence simply did not register your passage at all

  It’s a shame that there seems to be a bit of a cooldown on this ability. Unless someone knew where the plushes were hidden ahead of time, it would be nigh impossible to tell where you were going in this manner

  Nara seemed to have seen through and understood everything by just seeing it once… She truly was the genius sibling. I am sure she would be able to make better automatons than Leton, as well!

  So cute and smart. The boys will definitely be all over her if she ever gets a physical form… That form would definitely need some glasses…

  Before I put my mind into paralysis by daydreaming about my adorable little sister, I put my hands against the closet doors, about to step out of it, when I heard footsteps nearby. The sound was hardly audible to me right now, but since I was in my knightly form, my senses were nicely augmented…

  Two people entered the specific room I was in.

  That’s exactly what I was afraid of! It’s like people are contractually bound to go wildly off-script when I am around. Out of all the empty rooms available, why did they have to pick exactly the one I manifested inside of?

  If not for my sharper senses in this form, I would have walked right out and been instantly discovered.

  Now… The reason why two people would decide to meet in an empty guest room right after the sun decided to take a nap was pretty obvious.

  How unprofessional… I bet those two had been waiting for their master to leave so that they could safely engage in such acts during their work hours. Such a lack of work ethic was truly disturbing… Especially as I soon realised that it wasn’t just a maid and a manservant, but a high-ranking maid, and one of the two knights still remaining within the manor!

  Hey. This might actually be a good thing. Getting an occasion to be so close to a distracted knight who wasn’t wearing his armour and didn’t have quick access to his weapon? Talk about having it easy.

  When it came to such ‘activities’, I had no personal experience whatsoever. All that I knew was what my mother had been willing to explain to me. Which was actually a lot, she had naturally assumed that I would be a lady in high demand, so she hadn’t been shy about telling me about all of that stuff.

  But from the inside of a closet, all I could tell was that there was wood creaking a whole bunch, and that the two unprofessional workers were making sounds akin to those of an exhausted horse after a race.

  I used ‘Steel Shaping’ to manifest a spear-like weapon.

  The best time to strike would be when they were in the midst of it all, right? Their focus was currently elsewhere…

  Before doing that, though, I double-checked to make sure my little sisters could not see or hear anything about the outside world. Their pure eyes could not be blemished by such drivel… Now that I think about it, my eyes were supposed to be pure too… Oh well.

  I crept out of the closet.

  The room was dark, with only a small amount of moonlight peering through the window and partly closed curtains. As expected, neither of the two participants noticed a thing. They were completely oblivious to their surroundings.

  They had locked the door behind them, after all. No one should be able to disturb them.

  …You chose to wield the wrong sword today, Buddy! I stabbed down right through the knight’s exposed nape, piercing his entire neck and continuing my path into the maid’s throat.

  The spear only stopped as it stabbed into the ground below the bed.

  I gave my weapon and twist and then absorbed it back into my body, causing their wounds to burst with copious amounts of blood as they collapsed like stringless puppets.

  Would you look at that, it’s pretty easy to kill a powerful knight using a sneak attack, isn’t it?

  Now… From what I understood, the knights usually worked in pairs. Two would always follow the patriarch when he went out. Two would do the same for his daughter instead, and the final two were always assigned to be permanently stationed at the manor.

  I had not bothered learning about the first four since I had always been planning to have them out of the picture during my night of larceny.

  The final two, though, I had put more thought into observing. I hadn’t been aware that one had a relationship with a maid, but I did know that the two knights were very good friends. So, I assumed that the other knight would currently be doing his best to cover up for his friend’s little nightly excursion.

  The more important part was that since he most certainly knew that he would be anywhere but close to here. That was good because the storeroom was nearby.

  I assumed my ‘Base Form’. I would have been a bit worried about doing that since I would prefer to have access to the knightly form’s superior senses and reaction speed to avoid any unwanted encounters.

  Since the only real threat shouldn’t be around, and my objective was close by, I decided to just go for it, devouring the two corpses and the curses they held at the same time, not sparing any of the personal items they had left littered upon the ground.

  I pulled the covers on the bed, covered the hole I had made into the mattress, and calmly proceeded with my plan.

  It was dark, but I knew how to manoeuvre around. I had taken this route several times before to familiarise myself with it.

  Although I couldn’t see much, my latest upgrade, the aptly named ‘More Eyes’, was pulling its weight as if something moved somewhere, I would be able to see it.

  I hadn’t been able to get used to it that much due to spending most of my time in my knightly form, but I had put in the time to at least get used to the absolutely mind-numbing perspective it now gave me.

  This might be what it was like to have compound eyes like those of a fly. I had dozens of points of view at the same time, each at different elevation levels, at different angles, some of the eyes had grown in places where there was a bit of obstruction, and those on my arms and legs were constantly moving around…

  It was a good thing that I had an inexhaustible mind like that of an undead. Otherwise, this many eyes would have absolutely killed my focus.

  Regardless of all this. I soon stood before the doors of the storeroom.

  It’s dinner time.