Chapter 2: An Elite’s Intellectual Victory

While most people envision combatants as nothing more than generic, tight-suited clones, the truth is, combatants possess distinct ranks and specialized roles.

Take Ling Xing, for instance; he, a self-proclaimed chivalrous thief who punishes evil and champions good, is a nimble, thief-type combatant, adept at both stealth and larceny.

Furthermore, his rank, allowing him to operate without a mask, signifies his status as an elite among elites, truly a combatant among combatants.

An agile, elite combatant, intimately familiar with the terrain and capitalizing on every advantage, found himself pitted against a greenhorn magical girl, utterly devoid of experience and impulsively giving chase.

The outcome, as one might expect, was—

…well, he didn’t get away.

“Ugh, a thousand curses upon that wretched magical girl, taking advantage of my predicament!”

“She’s relentlessly pursuing me while I’m burdened with dozens of pounds of boxes, forced to flee!”

And wasn’t that entirely to be expected? While he could typically shake off any pursuer with ease, the fact that Ling Xing hadn’t been apprehended yet, despite lugging several dozen pounds of boxes, was a testament to his considerable skill.

These weren’t just any boxes; Ling Xing had deliberately stacked them to the absolute limit of what he could physically carry. Under normal circumstances, merely hauling them up a single flight of stairs would leave most people breathless, their hands trembling from the strain.

Yet, he couldn’t drop them; not a single box could be sacrificed.

Should he lose even one, both he and the executive would genuinely be reduced to gnawing on grass and tree bark for the rest of the month—a fate he desperately wished to avoid!

“Hoo, hoo-ah, hoo, hoo… then… then don’t run, you… you fiend…”

The rookie magical girl, panting heavily, continued her relentless pursuit.

Despite her less-than-stellar physical conditioning, her utterly unpracticed running form, her constant disorientation within the unfamiliar terrain, and the way she looked on the verge of a stitch after merely a few steps…

Her sheer tenacity, however, was nothing short of astonishing.

No matter how much distance Ling Xing managed to put between them, she would eventually close the gap with an almost irrational determination, proving impossible to shake.

Ling Xing had already navigated the labyrinthine alleys and dilapidated buildings for four or five circuits, covering a distance equivalent to a half-marathon. Yet, this rookie magical girl, who appeared on the verge of collapse at any moment, clung to his trail with astonishing persistence!

Evidently, speed alone would no longer suffice to resolve this predicament. ‘Hmph,’ he thought, ‘it’s time to employ my formidable intellect and composed mind…’

Having created a slight distance, Ling Xing carefully stacked the cumbersome boxes to one side, liberating his hands, which he then casually wiped against the crates.

He then spun around abruptly, raising his hands and crossing them before his chest, adopting a peculiar stance strikingly similar to that of a certain aide.

“Very well, since you implore me with such earnest sincerity, I, an elite combatant, shall magnanimously—”

Predictably, the rookie magical girl, Chao Wu, was momentarily stunned by Ling Xing’s robust, nonsensical pronouncements and his utterly bewildering pose, causing her to halt her pursuit.

“Hoo… hoo-ah… ha… Fi-finally, it’s about to begin, you fiend from the Dark Organization…”

Strands of her long black hair clung to her face, matted with sweat, while her beautiful, ornate ceremonial dress had become dishevelled from the strenuous chase, now translucent and clinging to her body, drenched in perspiration.

Chao Wu gasped for breath, her delicate, unblemished face flushed crimson from the intense exertion and glistening with sweat, an expression of profound relief—’Finally, no more chasing!’—etched across her features.

Rejoice, magical girl, and be grateful, for what comes next is—

“A magnanimous reprieve, for now! Ta-ta, magical girl!”

“Eh?”

Having shed his burden, Ling Xing’s movements instantly became at least threefold lighter. His red-clad figure executed a nimble back-flip, effortlessly landing atop the high alley wall, where he then flicked two fingers together at Chao Wu in a flamboyant gesture of farewell.

Before Chao Wu could even comprehend what had transpired, Ling Xing had vanished from sight.

“Hmph, surely you haven’t failed to notice, have you, magical girl?”

“I’ve long since lured you away from your main force! Now, all I need to do is summon my comrades to mercilessly surround and thrash you.”

“Retrieving your confidential cargo then will be no issue; after all, you can’t possibly move it on your own. Hehehehehe—”

‘What companions? What confidential cargo?’

Ling Xing silently scoffed to himself, knowing full well he wouldn’t dare pull such a stunt if he were up against an experienced magical girl.

Yet now, he was confident enough to say it; the real question was whether this rookie would be gullible enough to believe him.

Chao Wu still yearned to continue the chase, but for one, regaining her momentum after a brief pause during intense exertion proved incredibly difficult. For another, Ling Xing, now unencumbered, was truly a blur, scaling walls and dashing across rooftops, vanishing around the corner in the blink of an eye.

In the alley, only the still-gasping Chao Wu remained, alongside the neatly stacked boxes at her side.

Ling Xing had even gone so far as to deliberately erase the markings on the boxes and solemnly affix seals. That fleeting moment of wiping had been ample time for him, a seasoned thief, to concoct such a crude disguise.

“Guh… guh-ah, ha… Don’t underestimate me! Even if I can’t capture the Dark Organization combatant, it won’t be a defeat if I can protect this confidential cargo and bring it back!”

The utterly inexperienced, well-meaning student, Chao Wu, accepted Ling Xing’s words as gospel truth without a second thought. Especially upon seeing the deliberately obscured markings and seals on the boxes, she genuinely mistook this stack of frozen goods and food for some preposterous confidential cargo, truly believing Ling Xing was about to summon reinforcements to gang up on her.

‘—If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be best to transport these items back before the Dark Organization can rally their forces?’

Despite her burgeoning exhaustion, which rendered her steps somewhat unsteady, Chao Wu still swelled with self-satisfaction at having discovered the ‘flaw’ Ling Xing had left, feeling a renewed sense of purpose.

‘It’s merely a stack of boxes,’ she thought, ‘watch me carry them back!’

With this resolve, Chao Wu marshalled her dwindling strength, laboriously hoisting the boxes into her arms.

“Ugh, I am… I am a magical girl… I must… I must protect… protect this confidential data…”

She murmured to herself, her calves trembling as she shuffled forward, half-step by agonizing half-step. With every few paces, sweat trickled uncontrollably down her cheeks, and her speed visibly dwindled.

In the end, the inexperienced rookie magical girl, driven solely by youthful fervor and sheer tenacity, predictably fell victim to Ling Xing’s ruse, utterly unaware of her predicament.

After she had laboriously shuffled several hundred meters, blindly navigating the intricate and disorienting labyrinth of alleys for what felt like an eternity, her physical strength and willpower finally teetered on the brink of collapse. It was then, just as she glimpsed a faint light at an alley’s mouth, that it happened.

Having rested and bided his time, Ling Xing, who had leisurely trailed her all along, deriving amusement from Chao Wu’s pathetic, arduous progress, silently crept up behind her.

“Yoho, this is quite far enough. I’m home now, you silly magical girl. Thank you for your excellent door-to-door delivery service—”

“Ah… eh?”

He subtly relieved Chao Wu of the saber at her waist, preempting any sudden resurgence of defiance.

Then, with a swift elbow chop to her utterly defenseless and powerless neck, Ling Xing caused the girl’s already precarious, barely-held posture to instantly give way, her last reserves of strength draining as she slumped to the ground.

In the fleeting moment that the girl lost consciousness and collapsed, Ling Xing, with a single hand, deftly caught the now-unsupported boxes as they tumbled, artfully stacking them one by one with the precision of an acrobat.

Ah, such was the intellectual supremacy of the upright, kind, diligent, and courageous combatant over the nefarious magical girl—another glorious victory secured.