Mind Reader - α

Chapter 18 - Hard Choices

It wasn't my first time facing someone with a knife. There were many ways to handle them, even more so in such a narrow place. I learned the hard way how to deal with such a situation. In terms of wounds, getting slashed by a knife still wasn't so bad. The real issue was getting stabbed. Due to the depth of the wound, it wouldn't be strange to die from a stab, especially if it wasn't treated very quickly.

The gang member in front of me was an absolute amateur at handling knives. I guessed he mustn't have needed to use it often. This made things easy. He was waiting anxiously for me to make the first move, his knife at the level of his stomach and pointed toward me.

'Even his grip is wrong.'

This is where I discovered another useful side of my mind-reading power. By reading his thoughts, I was able to know and anticipate anything the one in front of me planned to do. This made me feel like I would be pretty much peerless in any one-versus-one fight, especially considering I usually didn't even need that advantage.

I sent a straight punch to his face and he raised his arms instinctively to put the knife in the way. Right before my fist contacted it, I stopped my movement and sent a kick to his hand holding the knife. The kick connected and with his bad grip on the knife, it flew from his hand. He swore loudly while looking at the loss of his weapon but this distraction would be his last mistake.

This time, I faked a low kick to his legs, and reading that he was not even reacting, the feint transformed into a real attack. I put in a good amount of strength, enough to make him fall to his knees. Another kick to his head and he was on the ground. I finished him with a few more kicks until he fainted, joining his comrade in dreamland.

What an amateur. It was like he had never fought before in his life. This is what happens when you recruit random waste from anywhere. You can't expect any sort of quality.

This was an ideal fight where I didn't need to hurt my fists at all to take down my opponent. Using kicks was both more powerful and more conservative on the assailant. It was just that kicks often weren't enough if the other side knew what they were doing.

Now then, it was time for the important part. Truthfully, after knowing everything their gang was doing, I was extremely tempted to simply erase them from the planet. They deserved it, a hundred times over. I could make it seem like they had fought one another by putting their fingerprints on each other's belongings. It probably wouldn't hold a serious inspection but considering they were grunt gangsters, they might at least think about the possibility. These guys were all hot-blooded and had zero tolerance for anything, after all. They would raise their voices and their fists immediately as soon as something displeased them.

The problem was that doing something like that would create way too much trouble. I knew that the police barely got involved in my previous assault. However, if there were people who died, that would be a different story. Not only the police but even the gang itself would take me more seriously. They would track me down.

Of course, now that this was my second offense, they would still search for me but the intensity would probably be on a completely different level.

Another issue was that they might start to link the two events together. Both were sort of connected to the girls at my school. This could allow them to consider that I was related to them in some way.

Finally, the girls might face some serious retaliation if these two died. Losing a fight and dying were on completely different levels, after all. Even though the second one had taken a knife out and was ready to potentially kill, I still needed to hold back here.

I chose to make them immobile for as long as possible. I first transported them to the side of the alley I came from, just in case the girls noticed them. I waited there until that street was clear of people and transported them to another dark alley. I had to hope not too many people were watching the streets from their apartments, even though it wouldn't matter too much even if that was the case. Folks from this town were used to gang fights and usually didn't even report it when they saw something. They wanted to have nothing to do with them. In a way, it was the perfect town for crime. Gangs caused people to ignore crimes, allowing for even more crimes, which made gangs grow further. This was a vicious circle that I was part of now.

Now that we were far enough, I used their clothes to bind their hands and feet. It was crude but would hold for long enough. I thought it would take them many hours, if not the whole night, to wake up and get themselves out of their restraints. The girls would be long gone by that time and they would be the ones to be blamed for not doing their job. As a bonus, I took any sort of money they had on them. This was something I forgot to do the previous time. The good thing about gangsters was that they used mostly cash instead of cards.

I wondered if I should break their five members too. However, I decided not to in the end, for the same reasons as before. Instead, I put them together in one of those large trash bins, forcing them inside until they fit and couldn't move a centimeter anymore.

Now that I was done, I used the same strategy as the previous time to hide my identity. After going through a maze of small alleys, removing my mask, and changing clothes, I was back home. The tension left me as soon as I closed the door of my studio apartment. I laid down on my bed, taking a well-deserved breather.

I wasn't certain what would happen from now on but one thing was for sure, it probably wasn't such a good idea to roam around Cattivo tomorrow, just in case they linked me lurking around with what just happened. It would be safer to take the day off instead.