This Eroge Won't Make Me Fall!-Chapter 52 49: Gunpowder Detective (2)

?We were led to the storage room where the facility had kept the gunpowder by the barrels. The manager said they had left it untouched and it was in the same state as earlier.

The storage room was like a small detached room from the main building's frame, though it was still connected to it. It had its door and locks and a window as well.

The storage room was almost emptied with only a single barrel left in place. Gunpowder and dirt with boot marks stuck to the ground while many bits of broken wood were splayed over the room that should have been filled with explosives. Even the stars were kept in the same room, and they were completely heisted away.

I turned toward Lady Sophia a couple of times as the two of us patted different parts of the ground and the walls while checking the explosives. Sir Buhini was observing the shoe marks while looking for bits of hair.

Lady Sophia moved closer to me, and the two of us looked out the window. 𝑓𝗿𝐞𝘦𝘄ｅ𝘣n𝘰𝘷eƖ.c𝘰𝗺

"There are very few shards inside, huh?" Sophia asked.

"Is any of them?"

Sophia shook her head. "I know what he looks like," she said.

I nodded and turned back to the inside of the room. The perfect foot marks, the random splaying of the barrel's splinters. The cleanliness with which this room was turned into a mess was way too suspicious. It could only be an inside job.

There was a chance this was not connected to our thing at all, but at the same time, a worse thought was present in both my and Lady Sophia's minds.

What if he had others working with him?

If it was the movement of an entire cult, then the gods would have warned the church. So what was the case here? Well for one, for a demon worshipper, such amateur work won't make sense since the demon was rather hands-on this entire time.

"How good are you with judging faces, lord Eugene?" Lady Sophia asked.

"The worst. The absolute worst."

She turned to face me with what I could only guess to be shock. She chuckled and shook her head.

"You're at least good at inciting people though."

"I got it," I said. At the same time, lady Sophia gestured at Alec to move around and cover the exit of the main factory.

I walked away from Lady Sophia, who had now turned to face the line-up of workers.

"Hah," I said out loud, patting Buhini's shoulders. "Whoever stole from this place must have no dignity as a man."

Buhini turned to me and tilted his head, despite my words, my expression was stern. He reeled back and nodded.

"I wonder what kind of half-blooded idiot of a thief would leave things like this. If I were in their place, I would have killed myself long ago. Heck, such a stupid thief is only wasting oxygen by being alive."

"You are correct!" Buhini chimed in. "We can't even take in such a bastard to the prison, it's like he wanted to be caught."

"Sloppy! So sloppy! We'll find the criminal in no time."

"No time? Lord Eugene, I already know who it is."

"Do you?" I faked a laugh and finally turned around with Buhini, facing the line of employees in front of me. "So, which one of you here has the keys to the warehouse? You shame for a man, raise your hand."

"Argh!"

One of them suddenly screamed and tried to bolt away. His eyes fixed on the door. He jumped over the tables in his path as he rushed straight for the gate, but right then, Alec swooped in and blocked his path.

"That's as far as you go."

"D-damn it!" The runner screamed. "I—I! AH! I'll kill you, you bastards—"

The man was rammed in from the side as the knight from next to me disappeared and crashed into the bastard.

"You damn asshole!" Sir Buhini shouted, pinning the guy to the ground with all his body weight. He stood upright and raised his fist, ready to knock him out.

"Kahaaha! Die! Die!"

That man continued screaming.

Crazy. I had seen this before, it was a crazy guy.

"Ah! He has a star and gunpowder on him!" Lady Sophia's voice resounded, but it was a tad too late. A small flame was rising from that man's fingertips, and it was pointed right at his chest.

He was going to explode. He was going to kill himself and take the rest with us.

Fuck.

"[Honeycomb Defense: Hexagonal Shields]" Mana rushed to the tips of my fingers before materializing into hexagonal shields. One, two, four, eight, sixteen,

In the time that one could blink, the number of shields kept swelling up.

"[64 Shields]!"

The dozens of shields coursed through the air as they blocked the front of everyone in the room. Most of them wedged themselves between sir Buhini and the bastard as they tried to cover him completely.

"Lord Eugene! The bomb is separate—"

Lady Sophia used her magic to lift the explosive away from the man. I tried to wedge my shields in between them to keep him alive.

A blinding flash followed. And then a thunderous bang resounded in the air. Sparks of red and yellow spread inside the room as the ruthless explosion swallowed the inside of the building. A strong resistance jammed against my body, but I didn't loosen my hold on the shields.

The light settled down as the explosion subsided, filling the room with black smoke. I covered my nose with one hand as I focused the mana for the shields with the other. Through the wafting smoke, I could see Sir Buhini floating mid-air on the shields, he was scrunched up into a ball as he tried to protect himself from the explosion by covering his body with his Ki.

I waited for the smoke to waft away before touching anyone's shields, when a popping sound filled my ears.

One after the other, the pops increased.

The smoke from the giant explosion was whisked away as the piles of fireworks placed around started exploding one after the other.

"Ah..." I could hear someone's mutter over the sound of the explosions, but I wasn't focused on it.

Right below Sir Buhini, the bastard that had chosen to kill himself was still alive. His body above his chest was unharmed, my shield had stopped even a single spark from reaching him, but the rest had turned into an exploded char that looked like piles of mortar.

I clicked my tongue and walked over to the moaning bastard.

He turned his head toward me.

"Haha..." he laughed.

I walked over to the bastard and removed the shield covering his head.

This fucker was going to die.

We couldn't get any information out of him.

"How... was—"

He tried to say something, but I stomped his face the moment he did.

"If you're going to die, just do that instead."

The sounds of the rest of the fireworks exploding stopped. I turned away and noticed that everyone in the room was looking at me.

With a snap of my fingers, the shields blocking them all disappeared.

"That..."

"We lost him," I said to the stuttering lady Sophia.