Before finding Lulu with Saint Clare’s power, there were two last pieces of advice she gave.

First of all, in order to find a person with the power of destiny, you have to move your steps as you please.

Because it was the power of destiny to make people do things they wouldn’t have done and change the consequences that would come from doing so.

As I’m using it to find Lulu, I should follow her method as much as possible.

Separately, the second piece of advice she gave me was a bit meaningful.

“I changed the fates so that Mr. Conrad and Mr. Lulu could face each other, but maybe the two cannot meet with the power I used alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because one of them is strongly rejecting the fate of meeting the other.

Of course, the person rejecting it would not be Mr. Conrad, so it probably means that Mr. Lulu is rejecting it.”

“Can fate know such a thing?”

“Thanks to someone who didn’t want to see me for a while, it became a familiar feeling.”

Her gaze toward me was strangely stinging.

I vaguely suspected that, but in reality Lulu was refusing to meet me.

In fact, it was inevitable that my heart would become a bit bitter after hearing the definite answer.

What was it that made her avoid me?

Even before summer vacation started, there was a close relationship between me and Lulu.

Maybe something that happened before that wasn’t the cause, I don’t really have any idea.

In terms of timing, you haven’t seen me since I returned from the forest of the World Tree.

It was probably fair to assume that something happened while I was away from the academy.

The most likely cause is probably the work entrusted during summer vacation.

Although he had no choice but to leave the position of monster material manager to her, one of the reasons was that he deliberately asked her to fix Lulu’s shyness.

However, looking at the current state of avoiding me after returning from the task, I don’t know if the task I entrusted to Lulu was still burdensome.

That said, of course, it wasn’t the story that she was good at hiding without contacting me.

There are still a lot of things to talk about, such as settlement of monster material sales and securing coil mouse shells.

Whether it was resenting and avoiding me for entrusting me with a burdensome position, or losing face with me due to a mistake I made while playing the role of a monster material manager.

Either way, if I didn’t talk to Lulu directly, everything else wouldn’t be resolved.

So, the first thing I had to do was meet her.

If he runs away even when he sees my face, then I will have to force myself to catch him and talk to him.

With that thought in mind, he was still moving his steps, so the final destination was the back alley of the academy.

It’s a quiet and dark alley, so it’s a place that can’t be said to be very safe.

It had already been February of last year that Stella had been saved from being surrounded by swordsmanship seniors near this alley.

It was in the second semester of last year that I rescued Xian senior from being attacked by other students on the other side of the street.

As much as that, it was a space where the worst students in the academy gathered, so when I entered this place, I naturally worried about my friends.

Of course, if it’s Lulu now, even if she encounters a bunch of badass bullies, she’ll be able to deal with five or six of them alone.

“Kahak!”

I don’t think it’s a place called a small lawless zone for nothing.

The sound of someone collapsing and groaning across the alley was heard.

And naturally, my footsteps were directed toward that direction as well.

Since it’s hard to find Lulu anywhere anyway, it was natural logic to move to the direction where there were people.

Even if there’s no Lulu across the alley, I’ll be able to ask about her whereabouts.

Of course, it would have been better if it was Lulu herself.

“Ouch… .”

As soon as I turned around and entered the alley, one bully with a dagger stuck in the nape of the neck fell to the floor with a moan.

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Judging by the appearance of the other two guys who were down first, it seemed that these guys had been attacked in a similar way.

Mouth opened stupidly, tongue sticking out, and fingertips and eyelids quivering minutely.

It was a typical symptom of a person who has been poisoned with paralysis.

And as for paralysis poison, he knew one of the best people in the academy.

Su-in, a black cat standing on her own two legs among a group of fallen bullies.

I called the name of the girl I knew on the back of her head.

“Lulu.”

Her ears perked up when she heard me, and she slowly turned her head toward me and met my gaze.

“Conrad… ?”

It was a truly moving moment of reunion.

* * *

It didn’t take long for Lulu’s emotions to change from anger to bewilderment.

Less than a few hours after he hid himself in a dark back alley to avoid Conrad’s gaze, a group of thugs began to argue with him, who seemed easy enough.

Feeling angry at those who didn’t let him go until now, when he neutralized them all with the poison and memorization he was carrying.

It was not long after that that Conrad Perdalos, whom he had been avoiding so much, suddenly appeared.

“Lulu.”

Lulu’s ears pricked at the nostalgic voice she hadn’t heard in a long time.

Carefully moving in the direction of the sound, her eyes began to tremble slightly as soon as she identified the owner of the voice.

“Conrad… ?”

How the hell did you know and find yourself here?

I haven’t been able to organize everything to say yet, but what should I say first if I face it like this.

Her heart, which she thought had calmed down, started pounding again, and her breathing became irregular due to the sudden surge of anxiety.

“This, this, they quarreled first… ! And the reason I hid here wasn’t because I was avoiding you, Konrad… !”

Without knowing what the excuse was, Lulu continued her gibberish explanation to Conrad.

Conrad, who was silently staring at Lulu like that, said one last short word to her.

“Let’s go back.”

Lulu stared at Conrad’s right hand, which he held out to hold hands.

If she went back holding onto his right hand as it is now, the unnecessary worries Lulu was currently having would be resolved at once.

However, for Lulu, who has worn out her mental strength due to hard work over the past few days, his touch did not feel as reassuring as before.

The moment he grabbed his right hand, his expression suddenly changed and the anxiety that he might reprimand himself came to mind.

In the end, Lulu made the wrong choice this time as well.

“… Sorry!”

Lulu hurriedly moved in the opposite direction away from Conrad.

Arranging various complicated emotions in an instant was still a difficult area for Lulu to control her emotions.

That’s why she reached the worst decision to run away from the reality she faced this time.

“Wait, Lulu!”

Hearing Conrad’s voice calling out to her, she quickly distanced herself from him.

He thought that it would not be easy for Conrad to chase after him, since he had the nimble legs typical of a cat beast and the agility training he had trained on a regular basis.

“Lulu, wait!”

“Uh, uh?!”

However, her expectations of being able to escape on her own were turned 180 degrees shortly after the chase began.

As soon as Conrad saw her running away in the opposite direction, he started pursuing her using body augmentation and tailwind.

He overcame the limitations of the races of humans and beastmen and followed her while maintaining a certain distance from her.

“Wait, stop! Let’s talk first!”

“Da, don’t follow me!”

Around the fifth alley. Lulu started to feel uneasy.

Because I didn’t expect it to follow me so well.

As a fugitive, her steps became more urgent.

The speed in a straight line was narrowly superior, but in this area with many alleys in the first place, such a subtle difference did not help much.

Above all, Conrad’s pursuit was not something that could be circumvented simply by being fast.

“Phew!”

A face-sized water bomb flew from the direction he was chasing and landed on the back of Lulu’s head.

It made her look like a cat in water that she hated so much.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll throw it again!”

“Ugh… !”

Drenched hair obscured Lulu’s vision, and her wet ears made it difficult for her to react as alertly as before.

At this rate, I was destined to catch up with him sooner or at least get hit by a couple more water bombs.

Of course, both of these were not options that Lulu was very keen on.

That’s why she immediately turned in the opposite direction and entered a dead end with no way to escape on her own.

“uh?”

While Conrad was suspicious of Lulu’s strange behavior that suddenly blocked the escape route, he changed direction in the same way so as not to lose sight of her.

And, as expected, seeing Lulu stopped at a dead-end wall, Conrad barely showed a smile of relief.

“Luru, let’s calm down.”

“… … .”

“I won’t be angry about running away until now, so just tell me why you’re doing this… .”

But before Conrad’s words were finished.

Lulu’s right foot hit the wall of the building to the right of the dead end obliquely.

After that, I turned around and shot the wall in front of me with my left foot, then turned around and shot the wall on the left with my right foot.

Again, the wall on the right side turned around and stamped with her left foot, and she began to climb up the wall one step at a time toward the sky.

It was a movement made possible by Suin’s unique light body and strong legs, as well as her quick body movements that did not neglect her usual training.

It was common for ordinary humans to have difficulty kicking and jumping off walls, and even climbing while holding onto both walls.

It was Ruru’s calculation that if he ran away in the vertical direction, Conrad would no longer be able to pursue him.

As she was climbing the wall safely with that thought in mind, the familiar explosion sound began to be heard from below her.

“Wait!”

Conrad seemed to imitate Lulu’s movements, albeit clumsily, and kicked both walls alternately and vomited up into the air.

Of course, it was impossible with normal human leg strength, but the explosive magic exploding under his feet made it possible.

A little clumsy movements and lack of legs were made up for by the power of explosion magic, so it was not difficult to follow the vertical pursuit.

Even with this method, Lulu seemed to have failed to completely separate Conrad.

“As expected, Conrad… .”

Even though Lulu was stunned for a moment at the absurd sight, she did not forget to express her respect for him.

At the same time, he recalls the realization that he is a person who does not suit himself.

As expected, if he continued to stay by Conrad’s side, he would only lose his honor in the future.

With such thoughts occupying most of her head, Lulu did not stop running away from Conrad.

Upon reaching the roof of a five-story building, she immediately ran up the roof and moved to the next building.

It was at such a height that even if she sprained her foot just once, she would not be able to escape serious injury, but she already had no time to hesitate.

I couldn’t even think of a follow-up, and I was filled with the only thought that I had to run away from him.

As I jumped over the first building, I felt the pursuer’s gaze from behind again.

“If you really don’t stop, I’ll get angry!”

At this rate, Lulu’s head began to turn for the next plan with the momentum that seemed to follow him to the ends of the earth.

As she wondered if there was some way to get him away from herself, a memorized note from her right pocket flashed through her mind.

“… … .”

If he casts memorization according to the position where he steps, it will definitely work.

Perhaps Conrad would be able to respond adequately, but it was worth trying anyway as a means of stopping him.

In particular, if she threw a dagger in the air with her posture broken, even Conrad would have no choice but to be exposed to attack in a defenseless state.

At least for this moment, it will be possible to stop his pursuit.

“But, it is not.”

Of course, all of this was only in her imagination and never actually carried over into practice.

If at all chance his attack put him in danger, he would regret it to the point of giving up his own life.

I didn’t want to commit a new sin again at the point where I had already sinned against him.

After briefly putting the dagger in her hand back, Lulu stepped into the air toward the next building.

“ah.”

It wasn’t until she completely threw herself into the air with no support that she realized that the building she was meant to step on had been demolished half a year ago.

The height of the last building I stepped on was about 20 meters above the ground.

In other words, the height she would fall like this was about 20m.

No matter how well he fell, he was at least destined to suffer serious injuries.

Lulu’s head was dyed white with fear.

At the highest point, by the time her body starts to fall down.

Conrad’s voice, clearer than anything else, reached my ears once again.

“Luru, relax your body!”

Lulu, who was unable to think of anything due to the fear of falling like this, instinctively took out all her strength after hearing his suddenly heard command.

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Just before she had the rare experience of falling from the height of a five-story building to the ground, a chain made of arcane magic was wrapped around Lulu’s waist.

With just a glance, she could instantly figure out who the owner of the arcane chain was.

The vision chain that grabbed Lulu’s body instantly shortened its length and lifted the body that was about to fall down with elasticity.

After her body flew through the air in a parabolic arc, she returned to the rooftop where she had last stepped.

“aaagh!”

Lulu, who came to her senses belatedly, let out a terrifying scream, flew through the air like a ball and fell straight into Conrad’s arms.

She collided with Conrad with a slight shock and fell face down on the roof floor with his body stacked on top of him.

“I can’t run away now.”

When Lulu came to her senses, she was already completely caught in Conrad’s grasp.

Conrad and Lulu’s right hand had magical handcuffs so that they could not escape again.