I asked Offense,
“You’re not serious, right?”
“I am. I will get close and draw his blood myself. No one here is more suited for it than me.”
“……”
“There’s a special tool assassins use. If I use that, he won’t even realize his blood’s been taken.”
I tried to stop him with a serious look.
“He was your master.”
“He was. And I surpassed him when I was fifteen.”
“……”
“Didn’t Miss Pheasant also surpass Dame a long time ago? It’s kind of like that.”Xenia asked worriedly,
“But now Hyran has been chosen by the Demon King, hasn’t he? Isn’t he different from before?”
“Sure, it could be a little dangerous, but we don’t have any other options. I will bring back his blood and make the antidote.”
He looked at me and continued.
“When Lisel summons storm clouds with her spirit, we mix in the antidote. Then it will literally rain antidote.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea. We could cure all the territory’s people at once.”
“In about 20 minutes, they should all return to normal. Then we can kill Hyran without worries.”
“Sounds good. Let’s go with that.”
Serein tilted her head.
“But how do we kill Hyran himself? If he turns into smoke, we can’t touch him.”
That was the problem.
Trail asked,
[How did you kill the Fourth Finger before regression? Can’t we just do that again?]
‘Kaeld just stabbed him with a sword.’
[Huh?]
‘Before regression, Fingers One through Five were all sacrifices to build up Kaeld’s reputation. Idria arranged it so they would all fall to his hand.’
Honestly, looking back, I’m not even sure the Fourth Finger really died back then.
It might have just been an act, and Idria probably recovered him later.
Our entire journey before regression had been in the palm of Idria’s hand.
[What a mess.]
Trail clicked his tongue.
Anyway, what should we do?
Then Offense spoke again.
“I’ll research a poison to kill him while I’m making the antidote. Literally fighting poison with poison.”
“Huh? Think there’s any poison that will work on him? He’s a poison master.”
“I once studied a poison that could kill him. Got some results, but I quit halfway.”
“Why?”
“I figured I could just kill him the regular way.”
Our expressions turned a bit awkward.
Adwin said,
“Uh, so… you have been trying to kill Hyran for quite a while, huh?”
He nodded like it was no big deal.
Lisel spoke up.
“Okay, making a poison that kills Hyran is one thing, but how are we supposed to get that into his smoky form? Antidote rain is fine, but…”
“When he turns into smoke, gather it in one place. Then sprinkle the poison powder. It will kill him.”
“How do we gather the smoke in one place?”
“We have got a great spirit summoner in our party.”
“That’s me. Oh? Right, that is me.”
Typical Lisel, living life in a daze most of the time, though she can be sharp when it counts.
“…What are you thinking right now, Mr. Mide?”
See? Like that.
I shrugged.
“Just wondering if you could actually do it.”
“Hmm… Trapping smoke with a wind spirit, huh… That would take a lot of spirits. And I haven’t seen that many around here.”
“Use this.”
I pulled a horn from my bag, the one I took from under the royal palace.
Lisel’s face lit up as she accepted it.
“The spirit-summoning horn! Great. I’m not the type who can use things like the Gem of Desolation or the Branch of Corruption anyway.”
“Feeling left out, huh.”
“Exactly. I mean, no? Not at all.”
“Anyway, this whole plan only works if Offense gets the blood. Think you can pull it off?”
Offense nodded like it was obvious.
“Of course.”
“Idria might be watching. She’s got this habit of watching people a little too closely.
“She seems the type.”
“If she connects with Hyran, she could alert him to your approach… maybe even kill you through him.”
“Hmm. That does make me a little less confident.”
I gave a slight grin.
“That’s why I’m coming with you.”
“You?”
“You focus on extracting the blood. I will distract Hyran and Idria, if she’s watching through Hyran’s body.”
Neril interrupted with a worried expression.
“Then shouldn’t we all go together?”
“If the whole party goes, Idria will pull Hyran back. But if it’s just me…”
“She will take interest. I get it, but it seems too risky.”
I shrugged.
“It’s not like I’m going there for a death match. Like I said before, even if the Demon King watches through her minions, she can’t go beyond their limits.”
“I know that, but…”
“You worry too much.”
Neril mumbled under her breath.
“Only about you…”
Xenia used her shared vision with Agril to locate Hyran.
He was on the peak of a nearby mountain, overlooking the territory.
I estimated the time and said,
“If we leave now, we will reach the peak by nightfall.”
“Shall we go, then?”
“Yeah.”
Offense and I left, climbing the mountain with our party’s farewell at our backs.
It had been a long time since I was alone with this guy.
[Why alone? Did you forget about me?]
‘Ah, who are you again?’
[…]
‘Kidding. Don’t sulk.’
[Not sulking.]
I soothed Trail and spoke to Offense.
“I have heard countless names wandering across the continent, but Hyran’s is new to me.”
“Mm.”
“I have heard of ‘Bright Death,’ though.”
“Hyran wasn’t the type to act himself, and he wasn’t chasing fame either. Honestly, most people in the guild I was in didn’t even know poison was his specialty.”
Sensing he had opened up a little, I probed casually.
“So, why did you kill him?”
“Straight to the point, huh.”
“I thought I was being subtle…”
“Heh.”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I just… wanted to take my mind off this whole annoying situation.”
“What’s annoying?”
“Two guys hiking up a mountain in the middle of the night? Tell me that’s not annoying.”
Offense let out a light laugh.
Then, in a quiet voice, he said,
“My old guild was called the Cnail Guild.”
“……”
“I was abandoned there when I was born. Hyran raised me. To be honest, he wasn’t exactly a great guardian. Most of my childhood memories are just loneliness.”
He looked up at the night sky.
“When I showed a talent for assassination, it got worse. Not just poisons, he stuffed every kind of dark art into me… I thought about killing myself multiple times a day.”
“……”
“The biggest one is this.”
He absentmindedly touched his face.
I tilted my head.
“What do you mean?”
“You think I had such an average face from the start?”
“Assassins usually have plain faces anyway.”
“But this plain?”
I had no response to that.
Offense nodded and said,
“This face, this is another one of Hyran’s poisons. You apply it to your face, it melts your skin and resets the bones. He used to brag that he went through the same thing himself. I honestly wanted to kill him then.”
“……”
“He took my face from me.”
“I feel bad saying this, but… why didn’t you kill him earlier? I mean, you did in the end, but still.”
“He had a daughter.”
Offense let out a deep sigh.
“A woman named Helena Gois.”
“……”
“Hyran, of all people, had a family. He was an assassin but clocked in and out of the guild like a regular office worker. I doubt his wife even knew he was an assassin.”
His wife. If he’s saying that, then…
Sure enough, Offense continued.
“But Helena knew. She joined the guild saying she wanted to learn the trade herself.”
“…She must have become the vice guildmaster.”
“You catch on quick.”
“I thought it was weird from the beginning. It didn’t make sense for you to be a regular member. Guess blood ties rule even in assassination guilds.”
“Yeah. Helena didn’t have any real talent for it. Actually, she had none at all.”
A spoiled daughter.
Someone who didn’t even understand what it meant to kill, whining that she wanted to do it because it paid well.
That’s how Offense described her, but his next words told a different story.
“I ended up falling in love with that foolish woman. We became lovers quickly.”
“……”
“What? You think I don’t deserve to love someone? Even you’re in love.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Anyway, as long as Helena was around, I couldn’t bring myself to kill the man who might become my father in law someday. At least, not until that day.”
That day?
I asked,
“The previous emperor’s poisoning incident?”
“Yeah. Hyran said he would be on assignment in the capital for a couple of months and left.”
“……”
“Then one day, a letter was slipped into my room.”
The letter said:
They had taken Helena, Hyran’s daughter, as a hostage. If I didn’t want to see her corpse, I had to kill Hyran Gois…
My mind started racing.
Could it have been the emperor?
The emperor had killed everyone who knew about the previous emperor’s poisoning.
Wasn’t he the one who sent the Captain of Alkahad after Hyran in the first place?
Then Offense spoke again.
“I think I know what you’re imagining. But it wasn’t the emperor who sent the letter.”
“……”
“But at the time, I thought it was. I figured if Helena was kidnapped by the ruler of the Empire, I had no choice. So I killed Hyran.”
“…And the real culprit?”
“I have a feeling you already know.”
I gulped.
“It was all staged by Helena, wasn’t it?”
“Heh. Sharp as always. Yeah.”
“……”
“Despite having no ability, Helena was aiming for the Cnail Guildmaster’s seat. Naturally, Hyran refused. Their conflict escalated, and she planned to use me to kill him.”
“Weren’t you two lovers?”
“Apparently, I was the only one who thought so. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
Crunch, crunch.
The summit of the mountain was close.
Offense brought the story to a close.
“When I found out the truth, I went to Helena. By then, she had already claimed the guildmaster’s seat and kicked me out.”
“……”
“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill her.”
“I’m not the kind of person who pushes the no-kill rule on others.”
“…Yeah. You don’t force anything on anyone. Even when you were trying to recruit me, you made me decide for myself.”
He looked up slightly and went on.
“Well, not like I spared her out of principle. I just thought it would be a waste to kill her.”
“……”
“I left her alive. Long enough to make sure she lives to see all the filth the world has to offer.”
“That’s a good choice too.”
“Pff.”
His laugh was completely drained of energy.
“Don’t tell the others. I would probably die of embarrassment.”
“You’re not embarrassed telling me?”
“You’re the one who asked. And besides, it doesn’t matter with you.”
“Huh?”
“You are the hero. Aren’t you supposed to comfort everyone and listen to their burdens? Oh, we are here.”
I scratched my head.
We crouched behind a rock and erased our presence.
Far off in the distance, we could see Hyran gazing up at the moon.
Through shared vision, Xenia observed him and reported:
– Normal. Super normal. Unbearably normal.
And she was right.
Offense’s face would look just like that once he aged.
He had reshaped his face with the same poison, after all.
I said,
“I’ll go first. I’m counting on you.”
“Sure. Good thing the moonlight’s strong tonight. There’s a shadow right beneath Hyran.”
“You’re right.”
“Keep him from moving position.”
I nodded and stepped out from behind the rock.
Flinch.
Hyran saw me and started turning into smoke.
But in the next moment, his body froze.
And then a voice flowed from his mouth, one that could never be his.
“It’s been a while, Mide.”
Idria.
‘Knew she would be watching.’
It would have been a disaster if I had sent Offense alone.
I answered as casually as I could.
“Taking control of your subordinates like this? If it were me, I’d be pretty pissed.”
“Fufu. Ophelia might have been annoyed, but none of my other children would mind. I got their consent beforehand, after all.”
“……?”
“They follow me with all their heart. That’s why I care for them even more.”
Love? From a Demon King?
Give me a break.
Then Idria asked,
“By the way, how have you been?”
“It’s not like we are close enough for small talk.”
“If you won’t answer, how about Bion?”
Naturally, Trail refused.
[…………]
‘That silence is longer than usual.’
[It means I really don’t want to answer. Just tell her that.]
I smirked and said,
“He’s answering with a long silence.”
“That’s a bit hurtful.”
“I have noticed, you treat Bion a little differently. You see all other humans as insects, but not him.”
“Bion’s no human. Heroes are different from humans… but one who’s born a hero? Even more so.”
Idria added one more comment.
“Though not as much as you, Mide.”
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TL : Hey everyone, check out another novel I am translating. Honestly, it might even be better than this or any other novel on our site.
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