398: A Dirty Blade
It was time.
I was curled up in bed, trying to find a position where my wound wouldn’t hurt, and I was dozing. I remembered the bandage I had re-wrapped after wiping my body with the water I had boiled before bed.
Just three days. In that short time, I had grown attached. And yet—what could I do? She was, after all, an ‘human’ from an enemy nation. …An enemy race.
I had been putting off my departure, one day at a time, using my wound as an excuse, but tomorrow, no matter what she said, I was going to leave. I didn’t think she would accept my thanks, so I thought I would secretly put the money I had left in my pouch—though it wasn’t much—in her safe. It was locked, but I knew where the key was hidden.
…She didn’t suspect me at all.
Well, in fact, since I wasn’t trying to steal her money, but rather to add to it, perhaps she was a good judge of character.
—Suddenly, something touched my mental tripwire.
I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t so foolish as to not trust my instincts.
I got up without a word and took the fighting dagger I had hidden under my pillow, sheath and all. And I also took the one remaining throwing dagger and hid it in my palm. With a slight hesitation, I flicked my wrist and dropped the knife’s sheath.
“…Help me! There’s an injured person. Help me!!”
The sound of a fist pounding on the back door. And a man’s voice broke the silence of the night.
I could feel Marta stirring in her room, which was close to the back door.
Gustav barked loudly at the person—or people—on the other side of the door. I, too, shouted, my voice low.
“…Don’t open it!”
The pounding on the door stopped, and only the dog’s barking echoed.
And then, an axe was put to the back door, and the sound of the door shattering continued.
The moment I left the room, Gustav’s scream—his death cry—reached my ears. And I saw him, as he was about to pounce, being struck by an axe, and then collapsing to the floor, a spray of red blood and brown fur, and I unconsciously tightened my grip on the knife.
The lantern that had been placed outside the door, and the moonlight, illuminated the interior from the back door, which had been broken and pushed open by an axe.
The intruder, illuminated by that light, had his hood pulled low, and his face was not visible. There was blood on his dirty brown hood—but it was clearly a spray. If he had thought he could fool me with that, then he was a terrible actor, but if you were to just glance at him through a peephole at night, it might have looked plausible. If your opponent was not a dark elf with night vision.
A home invasion… was too small a word. They were probably a band of thieves. Compared to the national army, they were a small, insignificant mob. But for two women, one blind and one wounded and weak, they were a very real threat.
He held an axe, wet with Gustav’s blood… and he pointed it at Marta.
Not even a word of a threat. It was probably not his first time.
He raised the axe and brought it down. The series of movements was, in a way, a practiced, work-like motion—he was no longer a human who lived without killing.
I timed my throw of the dagger in my palm with his movement. But the wound on my back, and the weakness of my muscles, had robbed that one throw of its lethal power.
“…A dark elf?!”
It had stuck in his left shoulder, but I had been aiming for his head. Even as I felt myself being surrounded, I stepped in front of Marta. My hand, which was holding the single-edged fighting knife, and my legs, were not fully powered. I had lost a considerable amount of blood and stamina, and I had no healing magic, and no proper medicine. It was only because of the mental adjustment spell [Optimization] and the physical enhancement magic that I could even pretend to fight. I couldn’t even read their presence. How many were outside?
The sound of an axe from the front door, and the moment I was startled, an axe was in front of me. I couldn’t dodge it, which I could have easily done if I had been at my best, and a spray of blood erupted from my arm.
“Lizlit-chan!”
I ignored the pain, the scream that was like my own, everything. My body was a tool, for killing.
I leaped into his guard, and I drew my blade across his neck. A sound like a whistle replaced his scream, and he dropped his axe, clutched his throat with both hands, and collapsed to his knees.
From the back door, another man in a hood, with a thick machete, pushed his way in. His attack had fewer openings than the axe, and I couldn’t dodge it. The knife I had tried to block was sent flying.
My thoughts, which had been suppressed by the mental adjustment magic, observed the machete that was being swung down, as if it were someone else’s problem.
A black shadow passed at the edge of my vision, and in my tumbling vision, I saw Marta.
And my eyes, as if it were someone else’s problem, continued to watch as she took the machete in my place.
“…Marta?”
Her body, which had collapsed on me, and the blood, which was slowly soaking into her nightgown, and the bandage she had wrapped around me.
From the broken back door and the front door, the thieves were pouring in. The light of the lantern flickered. It was an unstable flame, not a magic lamp, and since they were holding it, that was only natural.
No one said a word. They were all wearing their hoods low, probably because it was easier that way. If you hid your face, and if you didn’t know who had killed whom, then you could be as cruel as you wanted, and you would quickly get used to the blood, to the pain of taking a life.
They must have been starving, and had turned to thievery. In Rank Kingdom, the arming of the common people was restricted. So, what they had were everyday ‘weapons,’ like axes, machetes, and large butcher knives. Had they decided to live a short, thick life, until they were caught by the state and killed, or would they return to their respective lives, after they had made a certain amount of ‘savings’?
Clink, the light sound of breaking glass. The cup of flowers on the table had fallen and shattered. The spilled water and the flowers. The shards of glass sparkled.
That sparkle, and the muddy shoe prints on the wooden floor, grated on my nerves, and I was irritated.
I undid the clasp of the blood-soaked bandage. I mixed my own blood with Marta’s, and I channeled my mana through it.
My body wouldn’t move properly anymore. If my body wouldn’t move. Then I would just have to force it.
I only knew how to kill. I knew how to kill. I understood it, in my head.
What was needed was myself, as a murderer.
‘Lizlit Finis’ was not needed. What was needed was only the ability of an assassin.
The blood-soaked bandage, which had been infused with mana, wrapped itself around my arms. I wrapped the bandage around the knife I was holding, which I was on the verge of dropping, and I fixed it in place.
Perhaps, in this moment, I was not even an assassin. Because I had, perhaps for the first time—gripped a weapon not because it was necessary, but because I wanted to.
“You sewer rats…”
I laid Marta’s body down and raised my knife. At that moment, I heard a faint voice.
“Run…”
I was startled. She was still… breathing?
But what I had to do did not change.
To eliminate the bastards who were better off dead, with all my ability.
A person who should have been protected had been hurt. —By the same country, by the same race. It was probably too late.
I was an assassin. For me, who made a living by killing, to be angry that a single person from an enemy nation, who was not even a protectee, had been hurt, was probably out of line.
And yet, I had my pride. —There were things I couldn’t forgive.
And I knew, very well, how to kill.
