Tainted Soul

Tainted Soul-Chapter 3

Over arrogance? Was it really such a bad thing to be confident in my own superior skills? I mean, I was a born natural at this vanquishing stuff. How could I not be a bit expectant of my own abilities?



Well, whatever it was, Selene was apparently annoyed with me. Of course, it wasn’t the first time and definitely wouldn’t be the last. She wasn’t really the type to hold cute grudges, but I wasn’t exactly happy when she wasn’t talking to me either.



I sighed as I took off my glasses and cleaned the lenses with my shirt.



They weren’t a pair of average glasses. They were shaped like rimless sunglasses and were transitions, so they worked out that way in the sunlight. But they had an even more important use than that. They actually did the opposite of what normal glasses do and dulled my vision, blurring my eyes so I could see less than normal. It would blind anyone else who tried to wear my glasses and give them a headache. But for me, they forced me to see the normal 20/20.



There isn’t a vision proportion better than 20/20, supposedly, but I was born with very observant eyes. Or rather, it was my brain. Without my glasses on, my eyes took in every frame of movement, my vision of stillness, my vision of depth, and vision of movement, among many others, improved substantially. I could catch a fly between the tips of my fingers effortlessly if I wanted to.

So why wear glasses that messed with my vision? Well, there was a load of information being sent from my eyes to my brain all at once, and the strain made me burn out after a while. For my own good, I impeded my sight to avoid frying my brain with overload.



But getting back to my situation—I was sitting alone on a dimly lit carpeted floor. It was the exact place I’d said before—second floor of Dillard’s in the mall we’d come to not long ago. The floor below was bustling with people shopping and talking, but people avoided the escalator entirely after Selene hid a small spell stone among a pile of clothing that ‘hid’ its target from mundane eyes. For the moment, everyone was sure that Dillard’s was a one story clothing store.



I had both my guns loaded and in my lap as I waited patiently, flask in my hand. I wasn’t sure how Kazuma intended to lead Lamia into the room but he was certainly taking his time. I was set up and bored long before I heard any sound from below. I heard clothing racks and shelves fall to the ground and women scream from a small chaos that happened below. I stood up and stretched my arms back behind me as I yawned, pocketing my flask. Finally, time to get down to business. There was nothing worse than being ready to feel some adrenaline, and then do nothing but wait impatiently for it to come. It was counterproductive, you know?



It wasn’t long before something shot up the escalator, almost like a rocket. I could feel the air around me shift as she flew through the one way barrier Selene had set up, almost like something entered a bubble without bursting it.



The figure landed lithely on the floor in almost dead silence but wasn’t pursued by anything. The momentary silence of confusion as the woman stood up was broken only by the sound of my safety unlocking as I directed my guns at the back of her head.



“Remember me, hot stuff?”



Lamia whirled around to face me, eyes wide with surprise. I had to admit, she was nothing like those other succubi I’d shot down last night. This one was wildly beautiful, of course, but there was a certain amount of cunning in her eyes that the others had clearly lacked.