Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival [WN] - Chapter 55
Shadow Master Radha
“What did you do to Guy?”
[Shadow Master Radha] [Race: Beastman (cat) ??]
[Magic: 233/235] [Strength: 240/240]
[Total Combat Power: 855 (With Physical Enhancements: 1017)]
…Strong. Perhaps this was [Shadow Master Radha].
I remembered most of the people who were in the Northern Frontier Branch of the Assassins’ Guild, even if they were hiding….
Concealment was not about hiding, but about avoiding detection.
Even if someone was perfectly hidden, if their target knew they were around, the target would feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, if the one who was hiding was doing it too perfectly, they tend to develop habits. If the target learned of those habits, they would be able to vaguely sense the concealment.
A presence, one that was cut off from the outside world, not to be seen, but there was a distinct presence that I could feel following from a while ago that would probably not be detected by other people.
Based on this information and the characteristics of her alias, I could assume that this was Shadow Master Radha.
I tilted my head slightly at Radha’s question, who was intently staring at me.
“Guy? Dino asked me about him, but how was I supposed to know, since I was away from the guild on business?”
Guy was disposed of along with the beginner hunter, leaving behind no remains. There should be no evidence that I got rid of Guy, so why did Radha suspect me?
“Kira said she asked him to attack you. Didn’t Guy show up at your place?”
The sharp eyes and Intimidate peculiar aura belonging only to those of Cat-Beastmen shot through me. Still, I stared back at Radha with my eyes narrowed, not showing any changes in expression.
I didn’t think there was a horizontal connection between members in a guild like that.
I didn’t think Kira would tell anyone information that could be used against her, but maybe Radha had threatened her, or perhaps she had a reason for telling Radha.
“Let’s not make any strange accusations. Even If he did show up there, wasn’t he defeated by a monster in the dungeon?”
“Guy is not going to back down to a low-level monster. That man… had the power to fight me on equal terms in a simple head-on battle. There was no way Guy would lose… unless he was set up in a dirty trap.”
Radha’s whole body oozed with a murderous and dark-colored magical energy, and I, too, filled my entire body with magical energy, and using the darkness I created in the palm of my hand as a medium, I took out a dark weapon for throwing.
Our silent killing intent collided with each other, and the small creatures around us disappeared, as if they were all frightened and trying to escape.
Were we really going to fight in the middle of the city in the daytime? As I was building up several patterns for when the battle started, Radha unexpectedly erased her killing intent and tossed a sheaf of papers at my feet as if to throw them away.
“…We’ll talk after the job is done. It contains the information about the other liaison who had entered the Royal Capital earlier. Let’s see how well you can fight against a Rank 4 adventurer.”
Radha said this in a spitting tone and began to back away from me.
“…Guy, what is he to you?”
Radha turned her angry eyes on me for a moment before muttering one last word as she disappeared into the darkness of the alley.
“–Brother.”
***
Radha and Guy grew up in an orphanage in a small town in the north.
Both of Radha’s parents were beastmen adventurers, and after leaving the beastmen country in hopes of making a fortune, they dived into the dungeons many times, until one day, they left young Radha behind and never returned.
There were a fair number of subhumans in the Kingdom of Cleydale, the land of humans, but there was still a subtle prejudice against them, and not many of them had regular jobs.
It was an adventurer who knew Radha’s parents who placed her in an orphanage, but she was lucky that she was able to enter the orphanage as a beastman and not a citizen.
When Radha was five years old, a baby Cruzian was sent to the orphanage.
Even though it was rare for a Cruzian with a different skin color to be discriminated against, this was only between adults, and in the case of children, those who were different from them were cruelly excluded.
The older orphans were supposed to take turns taking care of the baby, but the orphans did not want to take care of the baby, whose name was Guy, and forced Radha, who was only five years old, to take care of him.
[You take care of the black baby, you with the black hair and the black eyes.]
Radha was forced into it with such heartless words, but when she saw the baby reaching out to her without any power and innocent eyes, she decided she would protect the child.
They sought each other to heal each other’s loneliness. Guy adored Radha as a sister, and Radha cherished Guy as a brother.
When Radha was 12 and Guy was 8, they stole money and ran away from the orphanage, which was cold to foreign children.
[Guy, if the people of this country say we are black, we will live in the shadows.]
[Yes, Radha, let’s show them what we can do.]
Radha had learned combat and dark magic from her parents, who were adventurers, and Guy, with her high physical ability characteristic of the Cruzians, quickly became a skilled fighter.
The two hid out in the slums, attacking and killing drunks in the middle of the night when there was no moon, taking their lives and money.
Their actions incurred the wrath of the guild of thieves that controlled the area, but it was a member of the assassins’ guild who first spotted the two and approached them.
Radha’s unique cat-and-beast ability in the Concealment system and her talent in dark magic made him a master of the Shadow Master, while Guy’s rating was only Rank 3, but she became a warrior who was looked up to even within the guild when fighting against other people.
One day, Guy left the guild in pursuit of a new kid and never came back.
It was not unusual for a mission to take several months in the Assassins’ Guild, and Radha was not concerned, maybe a little concerned, but Kira herself confided to Radha that Guy had asked her to hurt the child.
[Hey, Radha, don’t you think it’s funny that Guy would spend so much time on such a simple job?”]
Kira must have found out about Radha’s relationship with Guy and was trying to turn Radha’s hatred against the child.
Everyone knew that the kid and Kira had an altercation. I was also angry at Kira for getting involved in such nonsense, but Radha put Guy first and volunteered to be a liaison at the Royal Capital to avoid causing problems within the guild.
This time, the liaison was also the watchdog who would take care of the newcomer if she messed up and ran away or got caught.
And when I actually met the newcomer at Royal Capital, I was convinced that she had the gall and fighting ability that one would not expect from a child… and most of all, I was convinced by her ice-cold eyes that she could kill Guy – or rather, that she had killed Guy. I was convinced.
“Ash-haired, I will kill you with my own hands.”
***
“…”
Brother… or was that some kind of figurative expression? I exhaled slightly, after feeling that Radha’s presence had completely disappeared from the vanished shadow.
Oh well. In that brief exchange, Radha brought me a huge amount of information.
If Radha cared about Guy enough to want to follow me to the Royal Capital and kill me, information about them treating each other as siblings was important.
Radha was strong. But if she lost herself in anger, no matter how strong she was, there would still be a gap.
If I had information, I could make her even angrier. Weak people get frightened easily. If a strong enemy were made to be angry, it would usually create an opening.
It was a casual remark, but I thought the reason Radha emphasized Rank 4 adventurer was because Radha’s Rank was also 4.
As per appraisal, Radha’s magic power and combat power was high, and she did mention that she was Rank 4 but in comparison to the status of Guy who was Rank 3 in close combat, it could be assumed that Radha’s Rank 4 was due to her dark magic.
Moreover, Radha made a mistake. She might have let her guard down because I was a child, or she might have forgotten herself in anger even though she was pretending to be calm, but she showed the activation of dark magic, which appeared from the shadow and disappeared in the shadow, in front of me, who could see the magic element in colors.
From the sensation, it seemed that she could move from one shadow to another, but since this could not be compared to teleportation even over a short distance in terms of Level, I assume it was probably a technique similar to shadow storage mediated by the darkness around her body.
The whole body was wrapped in the magical element of darkness, and [movement] was possible only to shadows connected from the shadow or to shadows connected by magic power.
The space isolated by the dark magical element was like a vacuum and no living creature could survive, but I supposed it was possible for a few seconds. So, if they hid any longer, they must surely make a hole in the dark quarantined space.
Moreover, this Shadow Walk had its drawbacks.
And the most important information in this encounter was that I saw Radha.
Since Radha’s concealment skills were beyond mine, I could not perfectly grasp her presence, but I could at least detect her strange presence when she entered and left the shadows.
Just as I was able to identify the person by her presence, Radha could identify me when I changed my appearance and removed the ashes from my hair, so she must have remembered my presence.
The fact that Radha could identify me and I could only sense Radha’s discomfort seemed to put me at a disadvantage, but the fact that I knew it was my advantage.
The battle between dark magicians was a battle of deception and deception only.
In such a battle, combat power was not so relevant. What was important was to understand the opponent’s state of mind and information about her moves.
For me, [Shadow Master Radha] was the worst opponent in terms of chemistry. If the assassins’ guild found out about my betrayal and turned against me, my chances of survival were drastically reduced just by the fact that Radha, whose signs were unreadable, was still there.
That was why I was so glad that the liaison who came here was Radha.
Radha, as a fellow dark magic user, defeating you would make me stronger.
“Radha, you must die and be my food.”
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Also check out my other novels: Reincarnated into a Game as the Hero’s Friend, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, and A Girl Who Was Told “You Have No Talent” Turned Out To Be A Talented Monster