'Feels like I'm playing an MMO in 16k...', Lucy said to herself as she monitored from above her substitutes moving towards the place where the Marquis' son remained. Since they had to traverse a wooded area, their speed was somewhat disappointing, and more than once one of them stumbled over a rock or a root.
Honestly, it wasn't that she wasn't taking her task seriously; she was just trying to see things from a more interesting perspective. Such an operation, which didn't require her direct involvement, wasn't exactly compatible with the kind of ninja she aspired to be.
'But if I think about it, a real ninja's life isn't all action. For example, in a movie where a ninja hides in the water to ambush someone, we see them sinking into the water with a reed in their mouth to breathe and then jumping out of the water, but these things happen almost one after the other, leaving the viewer with no sense of how agonizing the wait was. Maybe there should be a five-minute montage showing just the view of the dry land from underwater, where the only dynamic moment is the surface of the water occasionally being disturbed by an insect... yes, a scene similar to those in Russian films from half a century ago.
Moreover, there's the equipment preparation part. Luckily, I can buy whatever I want from the Ninja Shop, but a real ninja would probably spend most of their time sharpening kunai and shurikens and searching for all sorts of herbs, both for treatments and poisons. You could say they're part-time artisans...', Lucy's mind kept wandering, as she wasn't the type of person who could focus 100% on something she didn't enjoy. Of course, this made the operation take even longer, because every time Lucy lost concentration, it didn't take long before a substitute bumped into a tree.
The mental effort Lucy had to make was quite intense because she had to use both her ocular abilities to the maximum and control the substitutes' movement. So it was no surprise that by the time they reached their destination, Lucy's forehead was damp with sweat.
'The hardest part is over. But my performance wasn't great... Maybe I should start meditating or solve some puzzles to improve my concentration...', Lucy told herself, wiping her forehead, feeling as though she'd just taken a test she wasn't prepared for.
Afterward, since in the clearing she no longer had to worry about so many obstacles, things unfolded much faster; it took Lucy no more than a minute to move two substitutes to where the treasures were and transform them into an ice attack to secure them, and another substitute in front of the marquis' son with a sword in hand, ready to take his life.
'Now's the moment...', Lucy had no idea how things would evolve after she took the marquis' son's life. Would there be a big explosion? Would he just be "deactivated"? Of course, there was also a chance that things would remain the same.
The sooner she finished, the sooner she would find out the answer, and since there was no point in giving a pompous speech in which to provide the Marquis' son a chance to say his last words, as he couldn't hear her, Lucy wasted no time and controlled the substitute to cut off the head of the Marquis' son.
[You have defeated a level 10 Swordsman. You gained 110 experience points and 110 points for the Ninja Shop.]
"Well, that was a bit anticlimactic...", Lucy said to herself after the marquis' son's head stopped rolling, noticing that the tattoo on his lifeless body remained unchanged.
Lucy wasn't quite sure what to do next. Initially, she planned that if the tattoo's state remained the same, she would store the body of the Marquis' son in her storage space to use as a weapon in the future. However, upon closer analysis, she realized it wasn't worth the risk to approach it. Even if she discovered a way to activate the tattoo's effect, it wasn't wise to use it as a weapon without knowing for certain what the effect was and what area it would impact.
'Besides, I have no way of knowing if ghosts exist in this world. What if, driven by a desire for revenge, his soul doesn't move on to the other world and stays near his body, capable of triggering the tattoo? If he was useless while alive, that doesn't mean he'll stay the same after death... Hmm, I think the wisest thing to do would be to have the substitute move him a few hundred meters away from the treasures so I can approach them safely to store them...'
Lucy was aware that her imagination had gotten a bit out of hand, but she believed she made the right decision because, even if ghosts didn't exist, there were plenty of things in this world she didn't know, so it was always good to take the safest route.
"He's dead, but the tattoo on his back remains unchanged...", Lucy shouted to Rina and Yara, who waited quietly under a tree, not wanting to interrupt Lucy's concentration.
Lucy intended to briefly tell them what she planned to do next, but unexpectedly, without any change in the tattoo on the back of the Marquis' son, a shockwave propagated almost instantly within a 100-meter radius around his corpse, disintegrating both her substitute and the ice protecting the treasures.
Lucy watched the scene unfold in confusion.
"What the he..."
But she had barely opened his mouth as the tattoo on the marquis' son's back began to glow intensely, and within seconds, it caused a powerful explosion.
"Boommmmmmmm!!!", a fireball with a similar amplitude to the earlier shockwave appeared in front of Lucy, the force of which generated a wind that stripped all the leaves from the surrounding trees.
"Hide!!", Lucy shouted, but when she looked towards where Rina and Yara had been moments ago, they were gone; scanning the area, she noticed a mana trail sliding through the shadows about two hundred meters away in the opposite direction of the explosion and Lucy figured Yara had most likely grabbed Rina, who was closer, and fled as soon as she heard the explosion.
'...Well, it's better to be cautious...', Lucy thought, trying not to dwell on the fact that she was left behind; Yara knew Lucy was more than capable of protecting herself thanks to her skills, so it was only natural for her to prioritize Rina, who was slower than them.
For a moment, Lucy considered staying put because, by her estimation, the explosion's force would lose much of its intensity by the time it reached her. In her opinion, it would have been very cool to stand and face the wind generated by the explosion, solemnly meditating on the wrong decisions that led her to this situation, while leaves and dust battered her motionless body, a moment similar to a captain staying behind to sink with their ship.
However, now that she was in a relationship, she couldn't do whatever she pleased. Lucy didn't want Rina and Yara to worry, seeing that she had stayed behind.
So Lucy followed in their tracks, while behind her, it seemed as though a hurricane had been unleashed, a scene that, from the front, looked straight out of an M. Bay movie.
As for the marquis' subordinates and the elven man, Lucy didn't bother to bring them along, figuring that even if the wind tossed them around a bit, they likely wouldn't die, just ending up with some bruises and disheveled hair. Since she didn't need them for a beauty contest, this wasn't a concern for Lucy.