I groaned as I touched what should have been empty air and felt a solid wall.

I wasn't sure what it said about me, but my first instinct was to cheat. Instead of walking down the whole of shopping street, wouldn't it be faster to just walk into the clock tower from the back?

The answer was yes, and it would have worked if the backdoors of the clock tower weren't all blocked off with some sort of force field. Just to make it worse, a second later a wireframe person walked past me and through the door with no problem.

I backed off and sighed. The last thing I wanted was to just walk down the almost-empty underneath version of shopping street.

At the very least I had confirmed that I didn't have to worry about collateral damage. Despite what I had done to the underneath version of the church, it was still fine in the normal world.

I had also confirmed that the wireframe did in fact represent people in the normal world. Either that or the two wireframes I found in the living after entering the world underneath via the small TV in my room had been a strange coincidence.

"Maybe some of the side entrances?" I asked myself as I walked over to one of the many alleys that let you enter shopping street. I carefully walked forward with my hand outstretched and growled when my fingers met another stupid force field.

I tried two more alleys until I was forced to accept the unacceptable, I was going to have to walk down a mostly deserted shopping street in full view of the sniper.

I walked back to the entrance of shopping street and looked at the trees blocking my view of the clock tower. Never thought I would find myself being so thankful for them. Whoever had had the idea to plant some must have been some sort of genius.

…Okay so maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but the point still stood that these large, sturdy, cloth-covered moving trees were going to be the perfect co…

I Crushed Lama's card and had her grab me and drag me back as one of the trees swung down its branch and smashed the road where I had been standing.

"First the bees and now the trees?" I landed on the ground and carefully watched the three approaching trees. They were skinnier than the rest of the trees, with almost bare branches and a trunk covered in red robes. "What's next the… Keys?"

I cringed at my own pathetic attempt at a joke as Lamia facepalmed. A fitting act for an expression of my own… soul?

No, now was not the time to overthink about the metaphysical aspects of my magic snake powers. Right now was burny-slashy time.

"Burn Lamia," I said as my other self came forward and released an agi at the closest tree. The flames impacted the tree, rolling over it as the other trees slowly backed away from it.

Now you would think that an old, dry-looking tree covered in flammable cloth would be weak to fire. I would think the same.

However in this case we would both be wrong. The flames subsided leaving a slightly brunt tree that was still coming right for me. Once the fires were gone, the other two trees started advancing too.

I quickly scanned them with the goggles just to be sure. And yeah they had an empty box under the flame icon. I wasn't going to risk getting in close to use lamia's fangs, so I stayed back.

I looked around the street, there had to be something here that I could use.

My eyes passed over the blacksmith's shop and I suddenly felt really bad about this.

"Come, Persona," I brought forth Lamia as she charged forward and smashed down the front door with a shoulder tackle. Both of covered our ears as the alarm blared.

"There has to be a way to get rid of that," I growled despite not being able to even hear myself. I quickly spotted the speaker creating the noise and had Lamia smack it with her tail.

I let go of my ears as Lamia rushed forward and grabbed the first heavy metal object that she came across.

I looked back at the trees as Lamia emerged from the store and threw the metal baseball bat with all she had.

The bat flew through the air spinning so fast that it turned into a circle of gray. The metal struck the tree, and bounced off.

"So not that then," I grimaced as I scanned the tree again. This time the block under a symbol that kind of looked like a diagonal arrow was filled in. The word underneath read 'immune'.

Was that physical attacks? In that case what were the arrow and diagonal line before it?

I looked back at Lamia's own stats and went to her attacks. In particular,I reread Blight Fang.

'Deals light slashing damage with a chance to poison.'

When I had read it the first time, I had guessed that 'slashing' was just a fancy way to say physical, but now I wasn't sure. I had to find out.

I ran out of the store and summoned Lamia as the trees turned towards me. I saw the three trees start to wave their branches around before pulling them back.

I reached the outside of one of the smaller restaurants as Lamia flipped a table over. I dove behind it for cover as Lamia kept moving, circling around the trees.

I watched through her eyes as the three trees unleashed a hail of green needles from their leaves. The needles burrowed into the table, digging into the thick plastic and leaving it looking like a pincushion.

Lamia approached as the trees slowly turned to her. Her claws filled with poison light as she slashed through the closest tree. Its trunk went rigid, staying in place as the top branches dropped to the side.

I scanned the tree again and this time I saw that magic word, weak. This time it was under the diagonal line icon. I guess that it sort of looked like the path of a sword slash if you kind of squinted at it funny.

Well, here I was with three slow-moving monsters weak to knives and a pair of big old knives right here. I was going to have to be fast about this.

I waited for the two still moving trees to let loose another round of green needles. I smirked as the needles hit the table. With how long it took for the trees to reload, I had plenty of time.

As soon as the hail of needle fire ended, I rushed out from cover and ran to the trees with Lamia's fangs out and ready.

I ran past the first one, cutting into the cloth covered trunk before reaching the second one. I brought down both fangs in a crossed slash before spotting the third tree start to recover.

"Oh no you don't," I growled as I jumped at the last tree and cut it where Lamia had already slashed.

The cut was a disappointing brown color instead of the purple that I had hoped for, but the tree fell back stunned, so I'd take what I could get.

I looked back at the three trees for a second. They were kind if cut up but in otherwise fine shape. If I really wanted to take care of them, it was going to take a while.

A while that I did not have to spend. I turned back around and ran forward, taking advantage of the tree's downed state to put as much distance between me and them as I could.

I narrowed my eyes at the surrounding trees as I ran down the street, making sure to check for red cloth. I only spotted a few and I made sure to land a solid cut on each one I saw. After the first few times, I didn't even look back to check that the trees were stunned.

I slashed at one last cloth-covered tree before reaching the end of the tree cover. From here on I would have nothing to keep me out of sight of the clock tower sniper. I had to think of a way to advance my way up without getting shot. Fortunately,I had plenty of time to stay here and figure out how I could…

I looked back at the tree-covered part of the street and saw the 12 or so clothed trees that I had cut up slowly approaching me.

I looked between the slowly advancing foliage behind me and the bare skies in front of me and only saw both sides of a particularly annoying mousetrap.

"Squeak, squeak," I deadpanned before looking around for anything that I could use for cover. There weren't that many more restaurants, so using outdoor tables for cover was out for most of the run. Had to think of someone else…

The force field started at the start of the alley…

I made a break for it, running to the closest alleyway. I kept my eye on the clock tower as I ran, waiting for the flash that I had seen before.

…

There it was.

I jumped into the alley as I saw a white needle flash through the air and hit my leg. I winced as I felt a sharp pain in my leg and all of the muscles going numb. My momentum kept me going until I landed behind cover in the alley.

Just like before, it was only my leg that had been hit, so the rest of my body was still working correctly. I dragged myself a bit deeper into the alley and looked over at my leg.

Instead of the fleck of ice that I had been expecting, the whole area around my knee had been covered in ice. I tried to summon Lamia, only for no card to come to my hand.

My slashes didn't do much to the trees, and despite my leg being covered in ice, this hurt way less than the lightning from my first fight. Maybe being 'weak' to something meant that you got immobilized when it hit you? I mean it would make sense with everything so far and what was that light?

I looked up from my leg and saw a shining light start to come from the clock tower. Now that I looked at the light again… was it shrinking?

It was, the light was narrowing and getting brighter. After about a few seconds it had concentrated into a narrow laser beam that hurt a little to look at.

I couldn't help but notice that the beam was running down the same path as the white needle that had hit me. Ice to immobilize and then hit with a laser beam? It seemed like a bit too much set up for little payoff. If I hadn't jumped when I did, I'd just be laying there getting annoyed.

"Maybe there was something else to it?" I asked myself aloud.

And that was when the world went white.

I shut my eyes and put my arm up over my face as a torrent of light rained down, following the path of the laser.

The laser wasn't the attack, it was the reticle for the real attack.

The light gave way and an instant later, the ice around my leg vanished.

I got to my feet and got as close to the entrance of the alley as I dared. I peered at the spot where the light had hit the ground.

It had left a circular scorch mark big enough for me to curl up in. There was still steam coming off the ground and the very center of it looked a little… liquid.

Now call me crazy, but I was pretty sure I wasn't about to survive against anything capable of melting concrete.

But on the other hand, I couldn't just stay here and wait for the trees to come for me. In fact, how close were they anyway? I poked my head out to look back at the moving forest.

Or maybe not so moving. It looked like all the monster trees had stopped at the edge of the real trees. Well stopped moving forward, it looked like they were spreading out to block off the whole street. And I didn't even have to look behind me to know that there was a force field blocking me off from behind.

But I couldn't just run out and get fried like the street in front of me…

Why had they shot at the street? All they needed to do was move the laser to the left a bit and it would have cut through the house and hit me. In fact they knew where I was now, but they still weren't firing…

What if it was automatic? Firing the needle at anything moving around in range and then firing the laser exactly where the needle had hit?

But if it shot at anything that moved then why did it only fire on me and that biker guy earlier?

The angel had said that her job was to accept penance from 'persona users'. Users plural. There were others like me out there… I hadn't thought about that until now. Was the biker guy a persona user like me?

My eyebrow twitched.

Then where the heck was he? Why was I dealing with this on my own? Ugh, I could figure that out later. For now, I had a problem to solve. If the sniper only shot at persona users… would it fire on personas and magic in general?

I backed away from the alley opening and summoned Lamia.

"Okay so how about this?" I asked the world as Lamia prepared an agi in her hand. With a wave, the fireball went forward towards the tree line as slowly as possible. The flames only traveled a little bit before getting pierced by a white needle.

Right on cue, the light started shining again. I waited for it to get halfway through its charge before firing another agi spell in a different direction.

Despite the new source of magic fire cruising along at a turtle's pace, the laser kept concentrating on the where the first needle had fired.

Perfect.

I rushed out of my cover and ran towards the next alleyway, a tiny little place between the book store and a pharmacy. I reached it just as the laser fired and filled the whole street with light again.

I had it figured it out now. I waited a few seconds before summoning Lamia and letting loose another agi into the street. The sniper took the bait just like the first time and the second the light appeared, I made a break for it.

I was pretty sure I ran faster than I had ever run my entire life. My feet felt like I was slamming them on stone, my legs burned like someone had poured hot oil inside, and my lungs gasped for breath.

But when I stopped, I stopped in front of the clock tower.

"Made it!" I huffed as I walked under the arched entryway into the large tunnel that went right through the tower's base. Despite my best attempt, I sat down on the ground with my back to the wall. Now all I needed to do was make it to the top of the tower.

From what I had heard, the entrance to the tower was around halfway into the tunnel on the left side. All I had to do was go through that door and make my way through the clock tower.

The clock tower that Robby had described as a maze of narrow corridors with subpar lighting. The one that he admitted that he would totally gotten lost in if he hadn't followed a tour guide. The same tower that was now probably filled with monsters defending the sniper…

I got up, dusted myself off, walked back outside of the tower and summoned Lamia. We both stayed silent as she picked me up in her arms and carried me up to the top of the tower.

We reached the area right below the clock itself when I saw it. It was a large cannon with five barrels set to rotate. The barrels themselves were red, blueish-white, green, yellow, and gray. It had two… 'legs'? They were metal parts that on either side of the cannon that braced it. Wasn't sure if there was a name for them.

Other than that it was a pretty normal looking weapon.

Considering what I had already seen, it felt like a bit of a disappointment to be honest.

Lamia set me down next to the cannon and I slowly held a finger out until I was touching it. I tapped it once before flinching my hand away, expecting something, anything, to happen.

No, nothing.

I quickly glanced around the room, just to be sure. The whole room under the clock was empty aside from me and the cannon. The mess of spinning gears and poles overhead were just as empty. The cannon must have been automatic, because not only was there no one around to operate it, there weren't any sort of controls or trigger.

"Looks like I was right about it being automatic," I said to myself as I looked the cannon over. I had managed to get up here now all I had to do was figure out how to destroy this thing.

Now how exactly was I going to do that? I had two big knives but I wasn't sure what that would do against something like this. Just to be sure I took them out and sliced at it a few times.

All I did was tire myself out.

Next I brought out Lamia and her wave a Rakunda on this thing, followed by an Agi and a blight fang. Neither of the attacks did any noticeable damage but at least the curse worked.

Maybe I could push this thing off the building? The section of fence that would have kept it from falling off had been removed to make room for it, might as well take advantage of that.

I summoned Lamia again, rolled up my sleeves and had both of us push it from the back with all the strength we had. As it turned out, that proved to be not a lot.

"Okay that's not going to work," I dismissed Lamia and let my arms rest for a second. I sat back down with my back to the cannon this time. "What else can I do?"

I looked back up to the gears above. All of those gears… all of those heavy gears.

"That'll work," I said as I got to my feet and summoned Lamia. "Burn it all Lamia!"

The snake me coiled back as she gathered fire in her hands. I took the chance to check her stats as she let loose a rain of agis on the metal support beams keeping the clock above from falling on our heads.

It looked like the yellow circle was maybe some sort of magic meter. As the spells went flying, the yellow in the center got smaller and the pulsing got weaker. By the time my work was done, it was almost empty.

Lamia picked me up and carried me away from the tower as the support beams started to bend. One last agi and soon the clock was coming down. I made sure that some of the gears fell on and crushed the cannon before looking away.

Man, I really hoped that I was right about the world underneath not reflecting on the world above or I just might have burned down the most iconic building in the city.

Case 3 end