Who's Pulling the Strings?

No matter how you looked at it—no, generally speaking, weren't security personnel always the last to arrive?

He hadn't even done anything yet, and they were already coming here to arrest him. What was that about?!

Even more concerning was his suspicion that the order on the surface was so good that the "public safety" personnel here had nothing to do most days—maybe they were just short of having four of them sit down for a game of mahjong.

Now that something had happened, they'd sprung into action, staging all kinds of pursuits and blockades. Could he curse them out?

Oh, it wasn't Jiu Ming who wanted to curse anyone. It was the boys with hair dyed every color under the sun, who often loitered in the streets and alleys. Quite a few of them had been caught red-handed by security guards who'd suddenly dropped out of the sky, right in the middle of their line of work.

Talk about rotten luck. This was even more trouble than running into Judgment.

They hadn't even finished today's planned business of beating people up and robbing them yet!!!

Anyway, when a bunch of weakling delinquents went up against a group of well-trained security guards, they were utterly crushed. For the record, Judgment members were students, many of them ability users, while the security guards were adult teachers.

They hadn't caught Jiu Ming, but the security guards had easily rounded up one batch of delinquents after another. By the end, even the guards were starting to question their original purpose. Were they here to catch that young man in the white coat, or was this a raid specifically to clean up the delinquents?

Both?

No, no... cleaning up the delinquents was just a side benefit.

What could they do when that guy kept darting into alleys?

Jiu Ming wanted to ask what they expected when they'd all come after him on motorcycles!

"What's that 'coffin' thing?" After running all over the place to evade the unexpectedly troublesome security guards, Jiu Ming spotted a windowless, doorless building, sealed up tight like a coffin...

Was some unknown dangerous entity locked inside? Or did some psychologically twisted person live there?

**A high school girl, with red hair tied into two bunches behind her head. Her upper body was bare, her chest wrapped only in strips of cloth, and her lower half was clad in a very revealing miniskirt. She was practically a walking public indecency violation!

She gave off the vibe of an H-type upperclassman...?

Seeing the girl who'd suddenly appeared before him, Jiu Ming's mouth twitched. Was this the third one he'd run into in a short time?

"I finally found you. Someone wants to meet you... You bastard!! Listen to what I'm saying!"

Seeing Jiu Ming turn and walk away without even letting his gaze linger on her for a moment, the red-haired girl's eye twitched violently. Part of her was angry that he hadn't even heard her out; another part was probably bothered by where his eyes had—and hadn't—lingered.

She was used to the special looks people gave her outfit, especially men.

Jiu Ming had only taken a couple of steps when several security guards sprang out from who knew where, shouting, "We finally caught you!" They'd just closed in on him, and then he was suddenly outside their encirclement.

"...What happened?" Seeing this, Kekiao Danxi swallowed the string of curses she'd been about to continue with. She'd only seen Jiu Ming stroll casually through the crowd of security guards. They'd stood there motionless, as if frozen in place.

Then they'd all collapsed with a clatter, shouting that their legs, hands, and necks were numb...

Uh, some kind of ability must have caused this. She hadn't seen him do anything, so that had to be it. Good thing she hadn't rashly tried to get close to him just now.

"You can't get away..." A malicious smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

A corkscrew suddenly appeared in front of Jiu Ming, near his shoulder, and stabbed straight down.

"?"

Looking at the corkscrew embedded in his shoulder, Jiu Ming reached up and pulled it out. A small round hole had appeared in his clothes. How had that thing gotten there?

It seemed to have appeared out of nowhere right in front of him before stabbing him... There was no way something thrown at him could hit so easily. It could only have worked like that if it had appeared out of thin air, catching him completely off guard.

Jiu Ming glanced back at the red-haired girl. Under her gaze, he pulled the corkscrew out of his shoulder as if nothing had happened. Not a speck of blood had stained its metal part!

What was going on? It had clearly injured him!

An unfamiliar ability?

She discreetly raised her guard. It was dangerous to attack without understanding an opponent's ability.

The plastic handle of the corkscrew crumbled in Jiu Ming's hand. Kekiao Danxi saw him flick the remaining spiral of metal away with a strange gesture.

Her pupils suddenly contracted. She saw a streak of light flash past, then felt a slight warmth on her cheek. A gust of Airflow swirled over her, stirring her hair, and the faint smell of something scorched filled her nose.

A lock of her hair had been singed.

It wasn't difficult for Jiu Ming to flick the thing at her. He'd fought opponents who knew how to use concealed weapons, and he'd picked up a few techniques. As for how to generate force... he only needed the right form for throwing a concealed weapon. He could replace the usual force with an outburst of mental energy.

The sudden surge of power meant he didn't need to use the usual methods for throwing concealed weapons.

In his hands, a concealed weapon was just a bullet, and his explosive power was the gunpowder.

Jiu Ming rarely used such a brutally forceful method. If he used it on an ordinary pebble, the stone would crumble to dust under the sudden burst of force before it even flew.

Only hard things like metal could withstand it, and even then, only barely. The spiral of metal, for instance, had already twisted out of shape under his force the instant it left his hand.

"Don't follow me again." Seeing the red-haired girl's astonished expression, Jiu Ming smiled faintly. He'd made his warning clear enough. Whether she was foolish enough to pursue him anyway was up to her.

Jiu Ming turned and left.

"Hey, hey! Is this place really full of hidden experts?"

He hadn't gone far before Jiu Ming stared helplessly at several men in black suits and sunglasses. They didn't look like much. Judging by their burly builds and clothes, they seemed like bodyguards for some big shot.

It was strange enough for them to be in an alley. Stranger still, some of them had guns in their hands!

Just ordinary handguns.

"You think those things are any use?"

He couldn't be bothered to waste words with them. Unlike the security guards, these men were clearly hostile. The former wanted to arrest him, sure, but at worst he'd be asked to come in for a chat and spend some time in a holding cell. These guys seemed to want to arrest him too, except that at worst he'd be forced to drink a bunch of unknown drugs or left on an experimental table...

Looked at that way, there wasn't much difference after all... Heh!

After knocking the whole group down and firing a few shots into the air, Jiu Ming decisively left. After wandering around for ages, he ended up back near the Academy District.

"It's you again! You must be up to something shady!!" As soon as Jiu Ming appeared, the mature woman showed up again with a group of people, from who knew where. That alone would've been bad enough, but what really bothered Jiu Ming was that, judging by their actions, they seemed to be wrapping things up...

He'd just happened to come back at exactly the wrong time and run into them.

"It's a misunderstanding! I just dropped some money around here..." Jiu Ming grinned. Then the same crisp smack rang out beside his ear, making him tilt his head slightly and look around once more.

Enough already. Once or twice was one thing, but was that unknown attacker going to keep smacking him around now!?

"Stop making excuses. You don't look like someone who dropped his money. You're obviously... If you dropped it, there's no way you'd find it after all this time. Quit wandering around here."

The stern-looking mature woman suddenly changed tack. While Jiu Ming stood there, dumbfounded, she simply led the others away, acting as if nothing had happened. There wasn't a trace of unnaturalness in her expression. She'd changed her tune so fast she could've won an acting award!

Was she messing with him?

Jiu Ming turned around, sensing something, and saw the star-eyed Blonde Girl again. She wore a faint smile, and her little hand, covered by a white glove, was waving at him as if inviting him over...

Maybe she'd just helped him out, using her ability?

He'd been hit by inexplicable mental attacks twice in a row, and now she'd openly greeted him, giving herself away. If Jiu Ming still couldn't figure it out, he really ought to get his brain checked. If it was a mental ability, she could've made those security guards leave too, couldn't she?

Under the star-eyed girl's slightly puzzled gaze, Jiu Ming turned and left!

As if. He wasn't some kind of masochist, and he wasn't the sort to lose his head and drool just because he saw a pretty girl. She'd tested and attacked him repeatedly, which was already pretty "unfriendly." And now she expected him to go over just because she'd beckoned?

So what if she was wearing a perfect smile?

The inexplicable arrogance in her eyes had already exposed what she thought of him: an amusing and interesting toy.

Go play with someone else. He didn't have time to go over... He was busy!

"Eh...? He actually just walked away?!" It was clear that Jiu Ming's abrupt departure had caught her completely off guard. Pretty girls usually got special treatment in all sorts of ways, didn't they?

In her opinion, she'd already lowered herself to greet him first—by waving and smiling. Surely Jiu Ming should've come over and said something, at least?

But he'd just left without doing anything?

"Go find out everything you can about him." The Star-eyed Girl spoke to the people beside her. She wanted to know exactly how this mysterious stranger had managed to become immune to her ability.

It wasn't like the way she'd been countered by the third-ranked girl among Academy City's Seven. Because of the third-ranked girl's ability, her own "electromagnetic barrier" could resist Mental Out.

And the third-ranked girl would never voluntarily lower that barrier in front of her. Jiu Ming, on the other hand, seemed to be resisting with his own mental strength?