CH12: First Assassination

***

CH12: First Assassination

'Speed is king. If you're fast enough, your opponent can't hit you while you can hit them.'

This is a fact told to many young fighters and martial artists.

And none embodies this fact than Speedsters.

They are simply too fast for you to hit while they can hit you as much as they want.

Does this mean Speed makes you unkillable? Are Speedsters invincible?

Of course not! This life is far too villainous for invincibility to exist.

As long as something lives, it WILL die.

As long as something has a strength, it must have a weakness.

First of all, the mind-set that you're invincible is already a weakness.

However, one important thing Speedsters forget is that life is determined by one hit. You may go your entire life being untouchable, but it's all over the moment you are touched.

Karl Gold.

This was the name of my first ever target.

He was around forty years old when I assassinated him. By then, he was already a scum of the earth so my juvenile body didn't have any qualms about killing him.

(Human hormones are pretty annoying. Although I'm an old mind who had seen enough death to be numb to it, I could still tell it wouldn't do me well if I killed someone who 'didn't deserve it'.)

He wasn't always like this.

According to the Intel I was able to gather about him, he was a true hunter of the Hunter Union. He had a C-Class (Violet) Pangea. He also managed to reach 6-rings which aided him to become a Noble-ranked Hunter.

He was at the peak of his life believing he was untouchable.

He was too fast for any beasts at his level to touch him.

Or so he believed.

He fell into the fallacy common to Speedsters.

Unfortunately for him, reality... this villainous world loves smacking disillusioned fools in the face.

He faced a beast that eventually ended his hunter career.

And it was... a Tortoise!

Ha-ha. The villainous world played a cruel joke on him.

His life... dream... ambition. Everything was ended by one of the slowest species of beast in the world.

I'm not sure of the detail. This is after all a third-party recount.

Long story short, a Beast tide caused a great, chaotic battle with the Union.

Karl made a name for himself by picking off a number of beasts, thereby easing the pressure on the Union's forces.

However, perhaps drunk on the rush of adrenaline, he lost sight of his surroundings. He didn't notice that a Calamity-Class Giant Tortoise had been sent flying by the Lord-rank Hunter it was facing.

And where it was landing?

Where Karl Gold was busy posing after successfully dispatching the beast in the quadrant.

By the time he noticed the beast was flying over, it was already over him. Although he ran at his greatest speed, he couldn't get out of the range of the beast's body.

So he took a leap of faith.

The leap saved his life, however, his legs were crushed under the body of the massive 300 metres long beast.

(Imagine my surprise when I heard there were beast that big in this world. Fork!)

He was later rescued and his leg healed, but he soon found out his Pangea had been damaged.

His C-Class Pangea manifests as shin-high boots, it was caught under the body of the beast along with his leg and was damaged significantly.

The damage was so severe that the Pangea could no longer accept any more mana rings, which effectively meant Karl's progress was cut short.

He'd never rise above the 6 rings and unless he found another way to improve his strength, he'd also never rise above the Noble-rank.

However, as if that wasn't bad enough, the villainous world pulled out an ace in the hole.

Not only couldn't he improve, Karl noticed his strength was declining every time he used his ability.

It was impossible not to fight as an active member of the Union.

He realised that the more he fought, he wasn't actually doing anything to increase his Union Rank, instead he was only losing strength.

He didn't want to be demoted from his Noble rank because he couldn't fight at that level anymore. So, he retired.

He left the Union's forces and came to a small town like Pyremonte where no one knew him to live a quiet life.

With his Noble rank, he could've lived a comfortable life with the pension he earned. However, he fell into a gambling addiction and lost it.

Instead of accepting responsibility for his actions, he blamed the world for taking away his 'birthright'.

'If the world didn't scheme against me, how would I, a Speedster, get hit by a tortoise? The world... that Lord must've been jealous of my talent. Since the world stole from me, I will steal from it.'

I believe this was what went through his head.

In a town where the strongest guard was at 5 rings at most, plus the fact that he was a speedster, Karl was unstoppable in his robbery spree.

He soon fell back into his 'I'm invincible' fallacy.

This was how Karl Gold became the scum of the earth he was when I killed him.

So, the 20% loot question is, how did I, who wasn't even a Novice-equivalent (2 rings), kill an exalted Noble?

Simple, I used his own strength to kill him.

I had an hour to myself in the alley.

I know I am a Fool, however, I wasn't foolish enough to let all that time go to waste doing nothing.

Remember the barbwire I saw on the fence of the client's mansion?

Well, it made me realise that this world technology was already sufficient to make thin steel wires.

So, when the client asked if there was anything else I needed to complete the mission, I asked for steel wires.

This was what I went to pick up at his shop in the day after our meeting.

Did you know? Something thin can cut as long as it can bear the repulsive force generated by the body it wants to cut, especially when moving at high speed.

(Sorry, not exactly a science person. I work more on experience.)

This was why the sharp edge of blades were thinner than the body of the knife.

The thin edge(blade) can cut better than the thicker (blunt edge).

Moving the knife at a fast speed, for example swinging it, makes it cut better.

I used this same principle (I think) to kill my first target.

I tied the thin steel wire at opposite ends of the alley way. The length of wire I got from the client was just enough to do the work.

The darkness helped make the wire invisible to Karl from the alley entrance.

Now, all I had to do was make sure he charged at me.

That was quite easy to do.

And so when he charged at me with the full speed of his Pangea, he generated the force that cause the wire he passed through to sever his head.

And that's how I completed my first contract without moving a muscle.

*

The severed head of Karl, the thief, rolled to my leg.

He still had the excited look in his eyes.

He didn't know that he had already made an appointment with death.

I calmly picked up the head.

This was far from the first time I was picking up a severed body part. My mind didn't waver. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for my body.

This was the first time I was killing in this life, and I used a disturbing method, Decapitation, to boot.

The sense of disgust from my juvenile body was intense. It took a lot of Willpower on my part not to vomit my stomach's contents.

I placed the severed head in a sac I prepared beforehand.

I also removed the thin steel wire.

It wasn't damaged in any way. It looked good as new. There wasn't even a drop of blood on it.

It would serve me nicely in the future.

I looked around the alley and made sure I had removed all traces of myself.

The only thing left was the decapitated body on the ground.

I took one last look at the alley. Then I worked away coolly.

*

I walked to an open field.

There was one last thing I had to do before going to get the gems.

"You can come out now. I know you're there." I called out.

There was no response.

"I know you're proud of your stealth and all that, but do you think I walked all the way here if I wasn't sure you were there. You haven't tried to kill me after stalking me for so long. I guess you want to talk, right?"

A dark figure appeared before me.

"I thought I made a mistake yesterday, but it seems you could actually sense me. You're more fascinating by the minute."

Yep, the thing I had to do before going to get the gems was to deal with my stalker. I picked the guy up after leaving the client's house the previous night.

Remember I said the denizens of this world used Mana to track if someone was following them?

Well, let's just say I have a similar method.

My body is constantly devouring mana around me. That's why the denizen's method doesn't work. However, the effect of my body's 'passive' ability doesn't stop there.

At some point during my mana cave retreat, I discovered that I could feel the natural flow of mana in the surrounding. I could feel the steady stream of mana entering my body.

The only time this 'natural' flow is disturbed was when there was someone around me.

I could feel the presence of a mana in my surroundings not flowing into me.

I believed this was because the mana belonged to someone, meaning I couldn't absorb mana belonging to someone else.

When I left the client's mansion, I discovered a flow of mana in my surroundings, however, that flow of mana was rejecting my body's pull.

This was how I knew someone was stalking me.

It took a serious hassle to lose them without them realising it.

I noticed the person picked up my trail again after I left the client's shop.

At first, I thought the person worked for the client. However, I soon discarded the notion. This person was too strong to work for the client.

I suspected that this person was stronger than Karl, a 6 ring human. That meant I was being stalked by someone at Lord-equivalent, at least.

I could sense the person didn't intend to harm me at the moment from their actions so I behaved oblivious and went on to kill Karl.

However, there was a limit to how long I could ignore their stalking. I certainly couldn't lead them to the loot's location.

Greed can make humans do anything.

So, I decided to call the person out and figure out what they wanted since they didn't want to kill me.

"Who are you? Why are you stalking me?"

"Most of the people who know my name are dead. For your sakes, I won't tell you my name." Was his reply.

I couldn't argue with that.

A Lord-equivalent entity could easily kill me. No tricks I can pull right now can change that.

"As for your second question, it's because I felt the potential of an assassin in you. And I was proven right. Your true strength should be a Beginner-rank at best, yet you were able to kill a Knight-rank. An injured Knight... but a Knight nonetheless. Truly amusing."

"I happen to be a recruiter for an Assassin Organisation."

"Young man, are you interested in joining the House of Death?"

(To be continued...)