Panting as he straightened up, Tangze wiped the blood from his cheek and hissed.
The grotesque giant spider that had been screaming scattered across the floor as swords and blades. Maru Denjirou, his topknot undone and clothes in disarray from the beating, lay on the ground, pleading miserably for mercy.
"Move aside, you tasteless piece of trash." Tangze nudged the limp man aside with his toe and walked toward the room behind him.
"No, don't take it!" Maru Denjirou's shadow grabbed Tangze's ankle, weeping as he begged. "Don't take it. You can take anything you want—treasure, money—just don't take it—"
Tangze crouched down and smiled as he tapped Maru Denjirou's cheek with a short blade smeared in black sludge. "That expression. That pain. Do you feel the sins you inflicted upon others now? Keep crying. Louder."
With that, he kicked Maru Denjirou's hand away and entered the main house amid his sobs.
Inside stood a dresser made of fine wood. Tangze's expression turned subtle at the sight of the familiar cabinet.
Let him guess. This was the cabinet Maru Denjirou used to carve death messages into in that manga...
In a way, they had found each other after all. How amusing.
Tangze reached up and took down the object emitting Treasure Light from the top of the dresser.
It was a folding fan covered in gold paper, its handle adorned with exquisite mother-of-pearl inlay. A glittering gold "Maru" was emblazoned across its face.
On the reverse was a painting of a warrior swinging his blade at an evil demon.
"How interesting." Tangze studied the painting closely, overcome by a feeling difficult to put into words.
A collector who treasured an artifact of a blade slaying demons had instead become a demon himself. If Tangze had not interfered, he truly would have been slain by that warrior.
After putting away the folding fan, Tangze pressed the exquisite fan against Maru Denjirou's brow.
"Remember the pain of having something precious taken from you." Looking at his tear-streaked face, Tangze curled his lip. "Repent properly for what you have done, Mr. Maru."
Maru Denjirou, now looking every bit his age, stared blankly at the folding fan in Tangze's hand. With a sigh, he knelt upright and lowered his head.
The shadow turned into a beam of light and drifted away. Tangze tucked the fan into the back of his waistband, kicked off the ground, and sprinted away, dodging the doors and windows collapsing behind him.
The ruler of the Palace had lost his distorted desire, and the Palace was about to collapse as well.
"I still got hurt a little. I wonder whether healing skills will work." Tangze raced the collapsing house behind him while reviewing the experience aloud. "Having just one mask still isn't safe enough. After all, I'm fighting alone, and I don't know whether I'll have teammates in the future..."
I still need to work harder. As Tangze barely escaped the Maru family residence, he told himself that, at the very least, he needed some kind of transportation in the Cognitive World, right?
You looked handsome when you beat people up, but you really looked miserable when you ran away!
Having quickly wrapped up a heart-stealing adventure, Tangze returned to the Polo Cafe before lunchtime.
Tangze's experiment had confirmed that healing skills could indeed restore his physical condition, but only in the Cognitive World. If he did not heal himself to full health before leaving, he could only bring his injuries back with him.
Even if he returned to the Cognitive World afterward for treatment, he could not directly erase the wounds.
Fortunately, most of his injuries this time were on his body. Only a small cut on his face was exposed, so it would not draw anyone's suspicion.
Tangze buttoned his undershirt all the way up so the bruises on his chest would not be noticed before pushing open the door and returning to the cafe.
The moment he entered, he saw Tooru Amuro washing dishes with a grim expression. Though his face showed little emotion, the squeaking motions of him scrubbing the plates were positively murderous.
"Mr. Amuro?" Tangze reminded him quietly. "That plate is already clean."
Tooru Amuro came back to his senses, glanced at the plate in his hand, polished so brightly it could serve as a mirror, clicked his tongue, and hung it on the rack.
"Are you in a bad mood? Did something happen?" Tangze sat down at the counter.
If this were a manga, his current appearance would probably have clusters of effect lines behind him, with black aura pouring off him.
But Tooru Amuro answered his question with one of his own. "Where did you go this morning?"
Tangze gave an awkward laugh. "Ahaha, I just went out for a walk. Why ask so suddenly?"
Wait, what happened? No way, no way... did someone really get exposed the moment they started stealing hearts?
"Have you run into any trouble these past two days?" Tooru Amuro's gaze was intensely penetrating as he scanned Tangze from head to toe like an X-ray. "Did you run into anyone strange on the road?"
Trouble? Did Suwa Yuji, who had nearly gone out to kill someone, count? Did secretly photocopying a stack of little cards and hiring delinquents to hand them out count?
Unsure whether Tooru Amuro had noticed some flaw or meant something else, Tangze did not dare answer immediately.
Then Tooru Amuro suddenly widened his eyes, stepped closer, and pinched Tangze's cheek.
"Ow, ow, ow—" When Tooru Amuro tugged at the unhealed cut, pain like needle pricks shot through it. Tangze hurriedly pulled away from his hand.
The minor under his care had still gotten into trouble right under his nose, and Tooru Amuro was furious. "How did you get that wound? Did you realize someone was following you?"
Tangze blinked and tried to gauge why Tooru Amuro was angry, answering ambiguously. "It's just... an ordinary scratch... Nothing happened..."
Tooru Amuro did not buy it. Reaching out, he tugged at Tangze's tightly buttoned shirt collar. "Still refusing to tell the truth? Your shirt wasn't buttoned this high when you went out this morning."
Tangze had quite a few bruises from the giant spider's attacks. Being hit by a katana hurt like hell—one strike cost him twenty-five HP. On his body, that translated into a long bluish-purple bruise across his chest, stretching all the way to his collarbone. The injury was nearly turning black.
With one pull from Tooru Amuro, that bruise was exposed.
"Were you attacked?" Tooru Amuro crossed his arms, wearing an irritated expression that plainly said, "Go on, keep making things up."
"Not exactly..." Tangze straightened his collar, then realized something. "This morning? Mr. Amuro, you hadn't started work yet when I left this morning. How did you know my shirt wasn't buttoned up?"
"I arrived right after you left, and then I saw someone sneakily following you. He didn't look like a good person, so I wanted to follow him and see what he was planning to do." Without hesitation, Tooru Amuro reversed the order of events, packaging his own tailing operation as concern-driven action to protect a minor. "Then I discovered that you were deliberately shaking him off."
Tangze blinked twice.
Huh? Someone was following me? And I shook him off?
Could it be that Tooru Amuro was following me, then someone else was following me too, and I slipped into the Cognitive World with a feint, causing the two stalkers to run into each other?
Having guessed eighty percent of the truth, Tangze relaxed slightly.
So he wasn't asking about the Phantom Thieves of Hearts? That's good, then.
Tangze began explaining along Tooru Amuro's line of thought. "Someone has indeed been following me. For two or three days now, perhaps ever since the day I arrived in Tokyo. I don't know which side they belong to."
Putting on a grave expression, Tangze decisively threw the blame outward.
For Tang Ze Zhao now, whether it was retaliation from the higher-ups who had framed him, surveillance from the organization, or some other faction looking to make a move, any of it would make perfect sense.
Unknown stalker, sorry about this, but please take the blame for beating up a minor!
Before you continue