Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival [WN] - Chapter 63
Assassins’ Guild Strategy (2)
All the preparations were done.
A week after my infiltration of Count Hadel’s territory, the stronghold of the Assassins’ Guild Northern Frontier District… I left the city for a while, then re-entered the city through the front door, and headed for the chapel where the guild was located.
On the way there, I ordered a corn flour dough sandwich with vegetables and ate my first decent meal in a long time.
The city looked the same as when I first saw it.
Large numbers of people flowed from the residential area to the artisan district in the early morning and returned in the evening. From far away in the residential district, I could hear the voices of children and what sounded like mothers scolding them, and from the artisan district, the sound of hammering metal echoed incessantly.
A peaceful city…but none of the laughing commoners in this city knew that underground, one of the country’s underworlds, the Assassin’s Guild, existed, and that thanks to its existence, it was feared by those who knew about it and kept that peace.
“”…””
My eyes met those of the Monitoring Beggar sitting near the chapel, and I flipped a silver coin with my fingertip and released it, and the beggar grinned at the feel of the silver coin as he grabbed it in midair.
“Ash-haired, is it?”
“Here, a little something to cheer you up.”
The beggar looked a little surprised at my lighthearted remark, as I rarely spoke.
From the point of view of the people associated with the guild who lived in this city… and who unwittingly received its benefits, I would be a potential enemy.
To them, I would be the destroyer and evil who disturbed their peace.
But that did not make me evil. If they had a reason to fight me, or if I was considered as their enemy, I would always be ready to fight back.
And yes, the Assassins Guild did become my enemy. So in turn, I would kill any enemy that aims for my life.
That was what it meant to fight against a huge organization.
I went down to the basement from the side of the chapel and entered through the official entrance in the shape of a tombstone.
There was no one in sight. I knew that there were many people in the guild, but they would have already known that I had crossed paths with Radha. I was able to sense discomfort from their hidden presence.
I went to the back and knocked on the door of one of the rooms, and a voice said, “Come in” from inside the room, where I could feel a slight sense of discomfort.
“Oh, my dear fellow junior sister. Are you fine? I received a letter from our liaison officer. You have indeed returned without a scratch on your body… as expected of my Master’s beloved disciple.”
“Everything went smoothly.”
Even though he had received the report from the liaison, he probably didn’t think that a kid like me could seriously defeat a Rank 4 party.
They must have assumed that I could defeat one or two at most, and when I was about to lose, they would use me as bait to have Radha take out Daggart and the others, and then rescue me from near-death to ingratiate themselves with me and Master.
Based on all the information I had gathered so far, Dino probably had such a picture in his mind. He looked surprised, not because I had returned, but because I had returned so quickly and in one piece.
“It is truly terrifying. This will be your reward this time. It’s going to be a bit stuffy today, but please take your time and rest your body.”
“Understood.”
Receiving the small leather bag, I lightly shook it to feel its size and weight.
With this feeling, I would say ten large gold coins. Nearly half of the commission goes to the person who did the work, which would mean that the original commission exceeded 20 large gold coins.
That was an amount that could be paid because he was a nobleman…. It probably exceeded the monetary value of the Tears of the Spirit, but maybe that’s how important the artifact was to them.
Well, whether that was worth the reward for defeating the Rank 4 party was another story.
“And yet, how did you get back so quickly? The two liaison officers haven’t returned yet, have they?”
Dino called out to me again as I was leaving the room after receiving my reward. But one of them was not a liaison but a guard, right?
“I went through the canyon south of Dandol.”
“That’s a place where even a well-balanced adventuring party would have difficulty… but you made it through with your fighting prowess, correct?”
“…”
I was appraised, after all. I had tried to hide my appearance as much as possible by wearing a cloak, but with an experienced person such as Dino in such close-proximity, a rough idea of my fighting ability would be known.
“It’s only natural that fighting makes one stronger, right?”
“It seems you’ve been in some pretty fierce battles. …Aria-san. I hope that you and I can continue to have a good relationship.”
“…”
Was he asking me to continue to lend a hand, not only with the requests I was asked to do, or was it a warning not to consider doing anything bad?
But it was too late. My trap was already in motion.
After leaving Dino’s office, I went to my room, which was given to me, when I didn’t find any sign of him following. There was no need to move around and increase the number of people who would witness my fighting ability. Besides, the guild was already in a dangerous state.
After I returned to my assigned room, I found that the mark I had placed before I left was gone, and there were already signs that someone had broken in.
Nothing was left inside, so there was nothing to be stolen, but it would have been troublesome if someone had entered the room and set a trap. But there was no need to worry. Before I could open the door, the person who was inside came out on her own.
“Oh, welcome back, Aria, what are you doing standing there?”
“What are you doing?”
Inside was Kira, the Gothic Loli Girl I first met at the guild.
Dino must have quarantined her to avoid an argument with me, but it seemed she was waiting for me, licking her bright red lips in response to my question and smiling thinly.
“I thought I’d comfort you as you ran back home in tatters… I wonder if you ever met Radha? I set you up with all this, but she’s even more useless than I thought she would be.”
Kira let out a deliberate sigh, and stepped back to clear the entrance to the room she was blocking.
“Why don’t you come in? It’s hot today. Although it’s a dirty room, it’s better than standing out there, right?”
“I wouldn’t want to go inside a dirty room.”
It was your fault that the unused room was dirty. When I simply rejected her, Kira looked annoyed for a moment.
“…You’re being very discreet. The only thing I’m setting up is a prank toy, so you don’t have to be so frightened, okay? See?”
I stepped on the string-like cloth that Kira had placed, and an arrow that looked like a crossbow bolt shot out from the shelf beside the door, aimed close to my head, and as it passed by, it pierced the wall behind me.
“Come in safely. Or are you afraid of me?”
“…”
She muttered as I quietly let out a sigh and stepped into the room.
At that moment–
I heard a light thud, and a crossbow arrow was shot from above my head.
If it had been before – I would have been shot straight through.
It was said that if one attained Level 4 Taijutsu, one would be able to avoid arrows shot at one’s head, and if one attained Level 5 Taijutsu, one would be able to catch arrows shot at one’s head.
Although I was only at Level 3, now that I have mastered multiple melee combat skills, I could handle it as long as I knew when and where I was being shot at.
“–Shadow Snatch–“
I caught the crossbow arrow with the Shadow Snatch darkness that I had decided to make appear between my eyebrows from the beginning.
Spatial dark magic must cover the target with a dark magical element. Radha’s Shadow Walk wrapped herself in darkness, and my Shadow Snatch wrapped my target in a thin film of magical element by passing through the darkness and transferring me to a shadow connected by magical power.
I would not have been able to react if I had been targeted in non-fatal places like the belly or limbs.
Even if my prediction had been correct, but if the timing had been slightly off, I might have been pierced between the eyebrows. But if I could overcome my fear of death, it wouldn’t be difficult to time it right.
“…Eh?”
Kira, who had been shot through the stomach from directly below by a crossbow arrow, looked at her stomach and me with an astonished face.
Kira was easy to understand. She never betrayed my trust that I couldn’t believe in anything but her. So, when she provoked me in a way that was easy to understand, I extended my magic power to Kira’s shadow and connected the attack to her.
When I met her, I thought she was a nasty and dangerous person, but after meeting a really dangerous girl in that dungeon, I felt lukewarm about Kira’s danger.
“Hey, why did you… how did the arrow hit me, why…why…why, you, your fighting power–gasp!”
When Kira tried to scream, I used the walking technique I learned from Sera and the striking technique I learned from Viro to quickly strike and crush her throat with my fist held like a cat’s paw.
I guessed she had finally appraised me and noticed my fighting ability. If she had made a habit of observing me a little more carefully, she would have been able to get a rough idea of my strength without any appraisal.
Kira really did not change. Both her nature and her ability.
“–Ugh!”
Kira hurriedly pulled out knives from the cuffs of her hands, and I, who had seen and known this before, slashed the tendons in Kira’s wrists with my concealed pendulum that I pulled out from the shadow in the palms of my hands, then I went behind her and tied the string of the pendulum around her neck so that she could not make the slightest sound, and tightened it to the point that it snapped.
“–! –!”
Kira struggled to dislodge the threads from her neck, but her tendon-torn hands could do nothing.
Kira’s eyes looked back at me behind her with pleading eyes begging for her life, and they reflected me, who was expressionlessly strangling her.
The people who were called the strong in this world were too conceited. Too careless. They were too naive.
Why did they think their enemies would spare their lives?
Why did they think they were the only ones who would not die?
Why did they deliberately cut corners to boast of their superiority?
Why didn’t they think that their enemies, even once, were always trying to kill them?
“–?!”
With a final look of horror on her face, I snapped Kira’s neck and gently laid her down on the bed, so she wouldn’t make a sound.
It was about time. From now on… I was going to take out everyone in the Assassin’s Guild.
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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