A Way to Detect Him

The most dangerous place is the safest place. Most people would not think that Formaggio would dare to shrink himself to such a defenseless size and then risk being crushed to death by a single hand to hide on the enemy.

Mista initially made the same mistake as everyone else, failing to consider the consequences for himself.

But now, only a short time has passed, and Mista has already stopped running away and begun to check his pockets very purposefully.

It was clear that he had realized his opponent's hiding place.

Formaggio couldn't understand why his whereabouts had been exposed so quickly:

The intelligence report didn't mention that Mista had any other sensory abilities.

Did Mista suddenly have an inspiration, or did he accidentally make some noise in his pocket?

Or perhaps, the guy simply wanted to take his phone out of his pocket?

This question is difficult to answer in a short time, but in any case, Mista's large hand is already coming towards him.

Although Mista's hand had shrunk to the size of an undeveloped child's, it was still a potentially fatal attack for Formaggio, who was currently less than ten centimeters tall.

Now, "why" is not the most important thing; what matters is "how".

Of course, Formaggio knew what to do: he dared to hide himself close to Mista's pocket, which meant he had prepared an escape method that he could use at any time.

Just before Mista was about to flatten himself into a pancake with his palm, Formaggio suddenly pulled a ballpoint pen out of his pocket.

This ballpoint pen, which had previously shrunk proportionally along with the Formaggio, is now only about the thickness of a hair.

"Grow bigger!"

With a thought, Formaggio deactivated the pen's shrinking state.

The ballpoint pen suddenly grew from small to large, like a magical Ruyi Jingu Bang (a magical staff), and in the process of expanding instantly, it lifted the still small Formaggio into the sky.

Using the thrust generated by the object's expansion and the elasticity of the pen's spring, Formaggio successfully leaped into the air before Mista's large hand could strike, safely dodging what could have been a fatal blow.

And so, Formaggio's small figure traced a hidden path through the air and soon fell silently onto the curb a few meters away.

The physical impact a person can withstand is related to the cross-sectional area of their bones and muscles, and is proportional to the square of their length; while kinetic energy depends on their own mass, which is related to their volume and is proportional to the cube of their length.

If one's height were reduced by 10 times, one's ability to withstand impact would be reduced by 100 times, while the impact force experienced by the human body during free fall would be reduced by 1000 times.

This is why, when humans are scaled down proportionally, their ability to withstand external physical impacts is actually greatly enhanced.

This "human cannon" style of escape would certainly leave a normal-sized human severely injured or killed. However, for Formaggio, who has been shrunk to nearly twenty times his original size, such damage can be easily withstood.

So he landed unharmed on the roadside and quickly hid behind the roadside trees standing nearby.

When Mista slammed his hand down on the second pocket, all he touched was a ballpoint pen that suddenly popped out of it.

"That guy really did spot me—"

"He was 'patting' rather than 'groping'."

"This means he's pretty sure I'm in that pocket, which is why he attacked with such force!"

Hiding behind a roadside tree a few meters away, Formaggio thought with a serious expression.

He had put away his previous contempt and was now filled with caution.

Meanwhile, a few meters away, Mista was deep in thought, holding a ballpoint pen that had suddenly popped out of his pocket.

He seemed to have seen through Formaggio's escape plan, so he only paused for a moment before turning around and nervously looking around.

Formaggio quickly hid even deeper behind the tree trunk:

"That guy is looking for me with his eyes? It seems the intelligence was right."

"He really doesn't have any sensory abilities, otherwise he wouldn't have used his naked eyes to search me immediately after discovering my escape."

"If that's the case, then why was I discovered just now?"

Was it really just because he had a 'sudden idea'?

Harboring doubts, Formaggio carefully concealed them.

He waited for Mista's figure to shrink further with the power of her Little Feet, while also nervously pondering the method that the other party had just discovered.

But amidst Formaggio's wary observation, Mista's behavior was somewhat unexpected.

First, Mista did not attempt to escape again.

Formaggio could understand this:

After all, his enemy wasn't some immobile clay puppet; simply running away wouldn't necessarily shake off his pursuit.

Now that we have the ability to "sense the enemy," we might as well stay and solve the problem once and for all before we shrink to the point where we can't fight.

However, Mista's actions after staying behind became somewhat puzzling:

He stopped looking around with his naked eye and instead lowered his head, showing no intention of searching for the enemy.

He just stood there, staring intently at the ground, his gaze so focused it was as if money had sprouted from the earth.

"The ground. Is there anything on the ground?"

"By the way, he also stopped to look at the ground for a while before suddenly reaching out to check his pockets."

"Could it be that the secret to that guy's ability to find my trail lies on the ground?"

Formaggio suddenly remembered Mista's strange behavior just now.

He quickly followed Mista's gaze and looked at the concrete road in that direction.

He gazed into the distance for quite a while before he could finally make out the little creatures that had been crawling around on the ground:

Ants, a group of ants.

These tiny creatures had somehow gathered in greater numbers on the road, and had even formed a long, disciplined column.

"Ants. Why is he observing ants?"

Formaggio had a vague idea of what was going on.

Just as he was filled with doubt, he suddenly heard a series of piercing, squeaking noises incessantly in his ears.

It turned out that several huge sewer rats had poked their heads out of the wide drain opening, staring at him excitedly from afar and grinding their teeth.

Judging from the excited, waving claws of those rats, they seemed ready to pounce on Formaggio at any moment.

"These rats are acting strangely too."

Formaggio felt increasingly uneasy:

Although rats are quite aggressive, they are also cautious and timid by nature.

When they encounter unknown creatures, even those small like Formaggio, they would first hide and carefully observe and judge, instead of rushing towards him from afar like dogs smelling meat, drooling with desire.

Unless these rats have skipped the observation process altogether and immediately identified him as food upon seeing him.

"Food."

Formaggio suddenly realized something:

"That's right, I'm food in the eyes of ants and mice right now!"

"Because I was covered in ice cream, and ice cream is the favorite sweet treat of these bugs and mice."

"No wonder Mista kept observing the ground; he was using those ants to find my way!"

This is all because Formaggio was too hasty, causing the ice cream to spill all over himself. The high-calorie, sweet stuff stuck to him and wouldn't melt, no matter how hard he tried to shake it off.

Ants can use their sense of smell to detect food within tens of meters, so Formaggio, covered in ice cream, naturally became a target that these little creatures flocked to.

He's now like a golden-brown fried chicken leg, making the neighborhood kids drool with envy.

Therefore, by observing the direction the ants follow the scent, Mista can roughly deduce where he is hiding.

And the facts are just as Formaggio predicted:

After observing for a while, Mista suddenly drew his pistol, having roughly determined the enemy's location:

"There, near that roadside tree!"

Bullets shot out amidst the flashes of fire.

The No.1 Sex Pistols rode on this bullet, riding its steed like a cavalryman on the grasslands, galloping freely while constantly and carefully observing the surrounding movements.

Ants can only point out a rough direction; the enemy's exact location still needs to be determined by Mista's Stand using the naked eye.

Very quickly, in the instant the bullet whistled past the tree trunk overhead...

Formaggio's incredibly ashen face appeared.