6 First Kill?(1)

Vin and I silently started heading towards the entrance of the Ballmart.

After the explosion, silence hung over the place. Whoever was responsible for the explosion was not making any more moves.

"I don't remember anyone entering the supermarket. I am sure nothing like this happened in the novel." Vin whispered.

"Same. In fact, the author only mentioned this place when describing how various areas of the city had been affected." I whispered back.

It was the truth. Many areas of the city like Ballmart were only mentioned when I was describing the destruction around the city.

It served as a nice way to increase the word count while providing the necessary descriptions.

"Vin, I think we have to leave this place. Maybe we should head to the city center together."

With S grade Wind Manipulation and Lie Detection, Vin would be a formidable ally in the future. Not to mention that she was also a reader of my novel who knew about the future.

It was better to keep her close.

Speaking of that, the seven readers who read till the end of the novel might create a huge problem. What if they tried to meddle with the timeline…

BOOM!!

Another explosion was heard and numerous shelves came crashing down. Items hit the floor, most of them shattering on impact.

We exchanged another grim, slowing our walk towards the entrance.

Two more explosions occurred, this time from a location inside the Ballmart. Staying inside was definitely going to put my life in danger.

Moving closer to the exit, we noticed how the destruction caused by the two explosions.

Numerous grocery items lined the floor alongside the destroyed shelves they had been kept on. The floor still looked fine except it was blackened by the explosions and littered with tons of stuff.

I paused behind a shelf, trying to find an escape route.

Suddenly, a voice rose throughout the Ballmart.

"It should be here only!" a middle-aged male voice shouted. "Then why isn't it here?!"

Judging from the location of the voice, the man was currently present in the books section of the place. 

"He is looking for the Lie Detection skill," Vin whispered.

My eyes widened when I heard Vin's words.

Not one but two people knew about the existence of the Lie Detection skill. This meant that the guy there was another one of my readers.

'When did I write this part…'

All of a sudden, something clicked inside my words and words started entering my mind.

|| The Ballmart was not affected by the supernatural phenomena. Perhaps it was due to the presence of a mythical item inside it.

A book called 'One of Us is Lying' had been infused with mana and later developed into a magical item. Once picked up, it granted the user a skill called 'Lie Detection'

After all, that was the plot of the novel. ||

Chills spread throughout my body. I now remembered that those were the actual words I published. The golden carrot was something that could have made any villain overpowered.

It was scrapped for a much low level skill that could still be useful.

Now only one question remained inside my mind. If the golden carrot was never part of the published story, how did it appear here?

More explosions were heard from the other side of the Ballmart, meaning that the man was moving towards the backside. This Ballmart in particular stretched over a huge space of almost one kilometer. Crazy, right?

I looked at Vin and she gave me a nod. This was the best time to escape.

Carefully, I moved towards the exit as soundlessly as possible. Vin followed me up close while keeping an eye on our surroundings.

Two minutes later, we were standing in the parking lot, safe and unharmed. From this distance, we could no longer hear the explosions taking place inside the market.

"We should start moving towards the city center. Humans with strong abilities have already started wreaking havoc." I sighed.

"Nice plan. Who knows what kind of people we will encounter. At least we are safe for now." Vin sighed as well

Unfortunately, that counted as raising a flag. Looks like I am not the only who could raise flags. 

"Safe? There is no such thing as safe here." The same voice from before chuckled.

Shit! How did he even manage to come here without either of us noticing it?!

I immediately turned around and came face to face with a middle aged bodybuilder. He was at least twice my size with a bald head and a creepy smile that screamed PDFile for some reason.

He might have been Saitama if not for his smile.

"So you two were responsible for stealing both the Lie Detection skill and the Golden Carrot. Can't say I like that." PDFile face cracked his knuckles.

Instead of being scared by him, I felt even more confused. This dude knew about the Golden Carrot as well as the Lie Detection skill.

Maybe I was dreaming. This was way too complicated for no reason.

Why does it feel like this scene was scripted by someone for no particular reason like those fights that an author inserted into the story to prevent things from becoming boring.

"Calm down. What's your name? We can handle this calmly." I replied while silently preparing fire in the palm of my hands.

I hoped Vin was doing the same because my fire alone might not be enough for someone with explosive abilities.

"I am Bash and I currently feel like bashing your heads for stealing something that belonged to me," Bash answered while cracking his knuckles for the second time.

Great. A guy named Bash was all I needed.

The comical name of this guy meant that he was not someone important. No author wanted to waste a good name on a character who only played an important role in one or two chapters.

Such characters deserved comical names like Bash, JunJun, etc.

Even if I did not write about him, it was pretty clear from his name that he would not live long enough to see the day.

"It didn't belong to you. Finders keepers." Vin pointed out and exchanged a look with me.

'If Bash decided to bash us, we are going to put his pants on fire' or at least that's what I decoded from the look she gave me.

Sigh… an author can't stop himself from being cringe.

"Then you are finders keepers too. I am going to enjoy you both." Bash smiled and pointed his fingers towards us. "Bang!"

Vin and I jumped back as explosions took place at our previous spots.

The gravel road was damaged by the explosion, resulting in debris falling everywhere. Judging from the damage, the explosion wasn't powerful enough to kill me. It could surely deal some damage.

Good thing he didn't yell "explosion" or it would have ruined the image of a very special character inside my mind.

Vin pointed her hands towards Bash, throwing two wind blades at the latter. The blades were a foot tall and flew at the speed of bullets.

Bash raised his hands in front of him, using his explosion to destroy the wind blades. The clash resulted in the production of a lot of smoke.

The smoke managed to cover Bash's entire body behind it, preventing either side from looking at each other.

Now it was my turn to attack. I extended my hands backward before throwing the flames in my hand towards Bash.

Even after leaving my hands, I could still feel a connection with the flames, meaning that Pyrokinesis allowed me to control the fire even after it left my body.

I directed the flames towards Bash, letting them cross the smoke. The scream that came next indicated that my fire hit its target.

"AHHH!" 

Bash's screams were heard as he was burned by the fire. The smoke parted slightly, allowing me to see the flames burning Bash's clothes.

"You will regret that!" he shouted as he removed his jacket and threw it on the ground.

His eyes stared directly into mine, a murderous gleam clearly visible in them. I somehow stared back into his while chuckling internally.

Every third rate character loved to say that their opponent would regret everything that happened. It was so cliche that I never expected anyone to say it in real life.

Despite that, I didn't let my guard down. It was time for me and Vin to put him down and leave the place.

It looked like Bash wanted to do the same thing.

"Bang maximus!" 

He shouted and joined his hands together as if he was about to pray. All of a sudden, a red glow emerged from within his hands and started spreading across his body.

A grim expression appeared on my face. Words from the novel started echoing inside my head at a fast pace. Author's Skill' was clutching things a lot.

|| Bang Maximus, a skill similar to the self-destruct move found in Nekomon games. 

The skill allowed the user to concentrate their magic power in their fist before spreading it across their body. Doing so results in their body being transformed into an explosive.

On command, they can make their body explode in exchange for experiencing near-death condition.

In worst-case scenarios, the user will experience a painful death. ||

The best course of action was to run away with the help of Vin's wind manipulation. Bang Maximus had a large radius and would destroy the parking lot along with the Ballmart. 

We needed to maintain enough distance to ensure that the debris after the explosion wouldn't harm us.

"Vin, we need to run quickly!" I shouted. "Use your wind manipulation."

Immediately, I brought my hands together and started summoning the biggest fire I could conjure up. 

I was doing this in case some huge debris flew our way and I needed to destroy it.

There were two ways to stop Bash. One was to counter this skill was to make the user lose focus so that the explosion occurs inside his body instead of being external whereas the second way simply required the death of the user.

The death, however, had to be instant because the skill would be active as long as the user was alive.

As for distraction, that required a skill that could affect the mind because Bash would not be affected by any physical pain.

"Vin are you…" my voice trailed off when I looked at Vin.

Her eyes looked out of focus. It looked as if she had entered a trance of sorts. It was clear that she was not aware of her surroundings and could no listen to me.

This meant one thing. I was left with only one thing to do to prevent the explosion from taking place.

I had to kill Bash on my own.