Those Who Live Without the Law

Chapter 213

Lucky (3)We had secured all the samples that needed to be tested using the pharmaceutical company’s facilities. Tanya Lysand carefully packed away the vial filled with blood with delicate hands.

Watching her with her chin resting on her hand, Irena spoke.

“But is it really okay for us to leave the city unattended?”

The pharmaceutical factory was located in a city called San Paluche. It was quite far away.

With none of the Operations Committee members around, Kairus was the one managing the city’s disputes. Strictly speaking, the city was being maintained to some extent simply because Kairus remained there.

But if Kairus suddenly left as well—

“It’s fine. It’s not something that’ll take long.”

By coincidence, it was actually fairly common in Bennett City for all the Operations Committee members to be absent for two or three days at the same time. When people live their lives, schedules naturally overlap.

A case like this one, where the place would remain empty for several months, was the rare exception.

“In other words, we just need to finish what we have to do within a few days and return to the city.”

“But Tanya can’t fly.”

Irena and Nora could somehow endure Kairus’s flight. But Tanya Lysand did not have a body capable of enduring high-speed flight using Veil of Plumed Mist.

She couldn’t use battle gear, nor had she undergone any procedures or received tattoos.

In other words, the moment she accompanied Kairus during flight, she would die. Kairus answered with an unconcerned expression.

“Tanya will take a ship.”

Even the nearest pharmaceutical facility was quite far away. It was distant enough that traveling by ship would actually be faster than taking a train. And most importantly, there was the need to ensure Tanya Lysand’s safety as well.

“Then… what about us?”

Nora made a tense expression. It was the face of someone firmly determined never to become a flying delinquent again.

“One person will board the ship with Tanya as her escort.”

Right after we gathered all the criminals in the city and threatened them by declaring that we were searching for Sopor, Tanya Lysand joined us.

Even the bastard holding the Sopor would understand what that meant. The chances of Tanya Lysand ending up in danger were fairly high. One of us had to accompany her.

“I-I’ll do it! Let me do it!”

Nora immediately shot her hand up and looked back and forth between Kairus and Irena with desperate eyes. I could feel her powerful determination not to miss this opportunity no matter what.

“I’m fine with it. Nora, you take the ship.”

Irena yielded with a small bitter smile. Nora looked at her with a touched expression.

“Unni… thank you.”

However, if she was taking the ship, unlike Kairus and Irena who would be flying, Nora would have to depart earlier. Of course, for the model youth Nora, who truly hated flying, that was not a problem at all.

“We’ll have to finish preparations quickly and depart.”

Preparing a ship posed no issue whatsoever. We planned to prepare a steamship of suitable size and assign several people to accompany Nora in protecting Tanya.

“I’ll handle all the necessary preparations by using oppa’s name!”

At Kairus’s words, Nora gave a crisp salute. She looked incredibly enthusiastic. It seemed she was worried Kairus might suddenly change his mind and choose to fly with her instead of Irena.

If we left the aftermath to Nora, there would be no problems. Around the time the evening sun was setting, Nora returned to the office after finishing her preparations.

“Doctor unni, let’s go now.”

At Nora’s urging, Tanya picked up the luggage she had prepared and followed after her.

“When you arrive, send a telegram. And if you get attacked while traveling by ship, leave a few alive and interrogate them.”

At Kairus’s words, Nora grinned and nodded.

“Then, see you in San Paluche.”

Irena watched Nora leave the office before rising from her seat. Kairus did the same.

Though the two shared the same goal, they no longer crossed swords together now. Until she achieved a result she could truly be satisfied with, Irena had no intention of showing Kairus her sword.

Kairus understood those thoughts of hers, waited for her, and continued honing his own blade in the meantime.

“....”

Standing in an empty lot on the outskirts of Bennett, Kairus swept his gaze across the surroundings. Countless sword marks carved by Kairus covered the barren field where nothing else existed.

Kairus was preserving every one of those marks without erasing them. Whenever he looked at the traces left behind, he could reconstruct how he had moved before.

The number of newly carved traces increased faster than the old ones disappeared day after day.

“I lost my breathing rhythm here. And I stepped wrong there.”

Looking at the traces, he reconstructed the past. Where he had made mistakes, where he had succeeded in moving cleanly. In a brief instant, Kairus retraced every sword path he had unleashed.

And then he set the goal he wished to achieve during this training session.

The moment he raised Veil of Plumed Mist, the surrounding wind surged like waves.

“Hup.”

In the brief moment the air filling his body remained in his lungs, Kairus filled the space with dozens of slashes.

Every single sword path traced by the blade cutting through the air was enough to claim several lives. But it did not end there.

Some sword paths had been brushed by blades heated hotter than boiling lava.

Others were traces carved by blades so cold that merely touching them would freeze one’s marrow.

“....”

All that heat and cold intertwined together and only truly rampaged after the sword had already passed through. Fragments of stone on the ground shot upward at unbelievable speed before crashing down as though struck by something.

The air seemed to bounce away and surge upward, only to be sucked inward, exploding while simultaneously crushing the surroundings.

The wind, torn into hundreds of streams, each carried different forces and temperatures as they collided and scattered apart, churning so chaotically that nothing could be properly predicted.

The radius in which the wind rampaged measured nearly one kilometer.

‘Turbulence.’

It was the same flow of air he had encountered countless times while flying alone through the skies for days on end. Until now, it had tormented Kairus, but now he could create and control it as needed.

And then—

While the turbulence continued raging, Kairus lifted himself into the air and refined the shape of his tail feathers.

“I have to be able to keep flying inside this.”

Turbulence was a flow meant to suppress opponents, but at the same time, it also restricted Kairus’s own movements. It could not end there. A vicious weapon incapable of distinguishing friend from foe could not truly be called a weapon.

Inside the turbulence rampaging like a wild stallion, Kairus attempted flight.

“Fuck, I don’t know who made this, but it’s vicious.”

This was turbulence artificially created by maximizing the output of Veil of Plumed Mist. It was on an entirely different level from the naturally occurring turbulence high up in the skies.

And yet, despite that, Kairus continued flying.

‘If the flow of air is steep enough.’

Even through turbulence, enough output for flight could still be obtained. The important thing was noticing the constantly shifting flow of air at every moment and throwing his body in accordance with it.

“Huu, huu.”

The reason Kairus occasionally swung his sword was to maintain the momentum of the turbulence. Repeating the process of releasing output only at the absolutely necessary moments, Kairus was already continuing an acrobatic supersonic flight impossible for the human eye to properly track.

The chaos of the turbulence continued. It was confusion shaped like the living room wallpaper drawn over with crayons by ten four-year-old children.

“Five minutes!”

Even while continuing his flight, Kairus continued thinking without pause.

‘An immortal. So it’s an immortal.’

How should he deal with Denver Hudson? An enemy that could not die was incredibly troublesome. If it were merely a matter of not dying, there were still ways to suppress him.

He knew he just had to suppress him, but there was no method to do so. Denver Hudson’s skill surpassed that of most knight captains existing within the Empire.

Suppressing him without killing him was impossible.

“But I can’t just get rid of him either!”

With an irritated shout, Kairus’s sword swept through the empty air. Though there was no actual target before him, the blade Kairus wielded was clearly severing that target’s throat and piercing its heart.

Even so, his flight speed did not decrease in the slightest.

Maintaining supersonic speed within uncontrollable turbulence while cutting off the life of a targeted enemy.

“I achieved the goal, at least.”

He still had not found a way to deal with Guardian of the Nation Denver Hudson, but he had at least accomplished today’s objective.

He had maintained this state for five minutes today, so tomorrow he intended to maintain it even longer.

“And.”

It was something he had thought about while flying, but Kairus still continued distinguishing between up and down.

But after repeatedly performing this training, a thought came to him.

“Do I even need to distinguish them?”

Up could become down, and down could become up. If Veil of Plumed Mist allowed him to overcome gravity, then “down,” the direction in which gravity acted, no longer held meaning.

‘My body needs to become a little more—’

Freeform.

The advantage Kairus could gain over his enemies through this was obvious.

It was similar to Lunaseeker’s joints.

Breaking common sense through incomprehensible attacks flying in from impossible directions.

‘For example, a thrust.’

To properly generate force while thrusting at an opponent’s ankle, the path of the sword naturally had to draw a diagonal line.

That was obvious. But if Kairus flipped his body upside down before thrusting at his opponent—

‘It becomes a straight line.’

Not a diagonal, but a straight line. If someone knew this fact beforehand, they might somehow find a way to respond.

But in real combat, where every blink of an eye mattered, it was difficult to react to attacks flying in through such bizarre trajectories.

“The problem is that the same applies to me.”

Kairus himself also had his sense of up and down reversed when he flipped his body.

This required training, and it was not training he could do alone.

To seek Irena’s cooperation, Kairus headed toward the place where she was training.

Covered in mud, Irena widened her eyes while swinging her sword, then turned around after sensing someone’s presence.

“What are you, a hippo? Taking a mud bath and all.”

Instead of answering, Irena wiped away the sweat running down her face and spat out the dirt that had gotten into her mouth.

“What is it?”

“I need an opponent.”

At Kairus’s words, Irena gave a small nod.

“If someone at my level is enough.”

“So humble.”

Kairus and Irena raised their swords toward one another.

“How’s the sword you’re using instead of Stained Glass?”

“It’s decent enough. Not at the level I want, though.”

Its output had definitely increased.

Still, it was also true that someone of Irena’s skill more than deserved a better battle gear.

“Let’s do this.”

With the sound of turbines, Kairus lightly rose into the air. Most people would panic the moment they heard that turbine noise, but instead, Irena swallowed hard and took her stance.

“?!”

Then, as Kairus charged at Irena, he suddenly flipped his body upside down.

“What the hell is this now?!”

Suddenly forced to face an upside-down Kairus, Irena hurriedly pulled herself together from the confusion threatening to overwhelm her and began responding.

It was not merely that her opponent’s body had flipped upside down. From the perspective of someone facing him, it was not Kairus’s body that had been inverted, but the very common sense of combat itself.

“....”

But Kairus showed no sign of stopping there. He retreated while flipping his body again, then this time charged at Irena while lying sideways in midair.

“This is dizzying! What even is this?!”

Irena shouted in confusion.