I let my eyes wander, not toward the Hit & Hurt box itself, but around it.
That was the trick, I realized. Looking at it directly would be a mistake.
It would know it had been detected and flee as if its life depended on it.
So instead, I traced the space indirectly, mapping the street as it existed around the nothing. Hoever i still had the suspicion that it coudn't move freely yet. Not until the scythe girl was present here.
Just off the main road, where the stone path narrowed and the buildings leaned closer, there was a shallow recess formed by a cracked masonry wall and a half rotten wooden overhang.
The roof sagged unevenly, patched together with mismatched planks and rusted nails, close enough to collapse that people avoided standing beneath it, yet stable enough that no one ever bothered to fix it.
Broken crates were stacked there, not neatly, but carelessly.
One lay split open, warped boards spilling outward as if abandoned mid task. A rusted cart wheel leaned against the wall, its spokes snapped, a torn canvas draped over it like an old habit no one bothered to break.
People passed by occasionally, close enough that the space blended into the rhythm of the street, but no one ever looked there for long.
Their gazes slid past it the same way mine avoided the thing inside.
There were only so many ways something could move without being noticed.
Even fewer ways it could escape.
My eyes drifted on, casual, almost bored, and brushed over a clean gap between the buildings. An open line. A natural exit. The kind of route something would plan to use the moment it realized it had been seen.
It was, however, too obvious.
I turned slightly toward the girl with the scythe and raised my voice, just enough to sound natural.
"Hey, can I ask for a favor?" I said. "I think the creeper already managed to escape. And if it did, it's going to come back. Worse than before. After losing whatever sanity it had left."
Her grip tightened, and she looked ready to argue.
"So," I continued, nodding down the street instead of at the space I was actually thinking about, "can you go stand over there and guard the road? Just for a while. Don't turn around. Keep facing forward, and if something tries to slip back in, it'll do it the same way it disappeared before."
She opened her mouth to protest, said something about rules, and how she didn't care to take instruction from others, but i did not pay them any heed.
"If you do that," I added calmly, a faint reassuring smirk tug at my lips.
"I guarantee something good will happen for you. I will pay the consequences."
That made her pause, as logic settled in, slow but inevitable.
After a moment, she moved, lazily dragging her scythe along with her, and took position exactly where i have pointed towards in a lazy ass stance.
I turned my attention to the crowd and spoke in a flat, almost bored tone, though it carried well enough to cut through the murmurs.
"I like that overhang," I said, hitching my thumb over my shoulder. "Who even built it? Looks kind of shabby, and aesthetically unpleasing."
A faint ripple of unease moved through the gathered faces.
People exchanged glances, unsure why that detail mattered. After a moment, a man stepped forward, hands raised halfway in a reflexive, placating gesture.
"My grandfather built it," he said hesitantly. "Years ago. For some purpose… I don't really remember."
He paused, lips pressing together as he searched his memory, then continued.
"He used a hammer. It's been passed down through our family ever since. They say it brings good luck. That anything built with it doesn't break on its own."
He hesitated again, then added, a little awkwardly, "It's… our legacy. Our guild's work."
A few people murmured at that, recognition flickering across their faces.
I tilted my head, feigning mild interest. "Oh? Really. That's one hell of a lore...So you're saying the hammer's still around, right?"
The man nodded slowly, clearly unsure where this conversation was headed, while the crowd leaned in just enough to listen, and not enough to interfere.
He swallowed, not loudly, but i noticed it anyway, and his fingers twitched slightly as they curled into the fabric of his sleeve, like he already regretted opening his mouth in the first place.
"Well… yes," he said after a moment of consideration cautiously, "it's still around. Kept at my place. But it's not something we just show to others, it's family legacy and—"
"I'm not asking to keep it," I interrupted, my voice flat, uninterested, not sharp enough to sound like a threat, but firm enough to stop him from building another excuse on top of the first one.
"Just want to see it. That's all."
He hesitated again, this time longer than usual.
His eyes flicked away from me for a brief second, drifting toward the overhang, then back, as if the structure was silently reminding him why he should be careful, why he shouldn't agree so easily.
I exhaled quietly and slipped my hand into my cloak.
The faint clink was enough.
I didn't even need to pull out the whole bag out, as his eyes caught the edge of the coin in an instant.
"For the trouble," I added, almost lazily. "And your time."
That was when his hesitation finally collapsed and twisted into something far more vicious, or at least that was how I chose to interpret it.
"Oh, right. Of course," he said quickly, eyes glistening with greed far too fast for a man who'd been struggling to even meet my gaze moments ago, straightening his back as if the decision had been made long before I ever asked. "I'll bring it right away. Won't take long."
And just like that, doubt evaporated.
He turned and hurried off down the street, purpose replacing caution with embarrassing ease.
I watched him disappear, then let my gaze drift back, casually, toward the space beneath the overhang.
Good.
It did not take long for the hammer to be placed in my hands, though the overall weight in my pouch did not really increase in proportion to it, other metal having quietly vanished in exchange without ceremony.
I held it there, turning it over slowly, pretending to examine it with the utmost curiosity, like some sheltered noble fascinated by peasant craftsmanship rather than someone measuring balance, length, and the subtle way the head pulled forward when allowed to hang loose.
The handle was old, polished smooth by generations of palms, the wood darkened where sweat had soaked in and never truly left.
Meanwhile, the real inheritor lingered well within my kicking radius, close enough to remind me, constantly, very insistently, not to break it outright.
I tested the grip once, subtle enough to pass as admiration, and felt how naturally it wanted to slip just a fraction when momentum was introduced.
That was enough.
I raised the hammer, as high as I could, posture loose, careless even, and brought it down with full force.
'Not really.'
My fingers loosened at the very last moment.
"Hey, I think you're just wasting my time, and you don't really have a clue what you're sayi—"
Swoosh.
The scythe girl growled in protest, but before she could finish turning toward me, something passed her ear in a blur and struck the supporting beam, not dead center, but just off to the side, right at the joint where the rotten overhang transferred its weight.
Wood screamed.
Nails protested.
Then came the sound of something old finally deciding it was done pretending to hold together.
For a breathless moment, nothing happened, and then the structure remembered gravity.
_ _ _
A/ N : I made this chapter a bit long, as i felt that the descriptions of the hiding place were repeated, in the previous chapter as well as this one.