Chapter 46 : How to Deal with an Assassin (1)
Chapter 46: How to Deal with an Assassin (1)
A merchant wagon from Choranchai stopped in front of the Warrior’s Restaurant.
The owner stepped out and gave instructions to the workers before heading inside to warm his cold body.
‘He’ quietly blended in among the workers and carried goods into the storage.
‘Shabby.’
That was his first impression.
He had heard the place was expanding its influence quite a bit, but it looked no better than a backwoods village.
The roads weren’t even paved properly, making everything dirty, and there were too many people walking around with booze in their hands.
Still, he showed no reaction and behaved naturally.
To completely blend in under any circumstances and avoid drawing attention—
That was the absolute basic, and no one had ever discovered his true identity.
Top-class assassin under the Black Veil, Number Five.
He looked up at the large, ugly signboard of the shop where he was carrying goods.
‘Warrior’s Restaurant… What kind of name is that?’
While carrying loads, he subtly scanned the interior, but nothing stood out as particularly special.
A man with a protruding belly working as the staff, and a rather beautiful female owner.
‘Didn’t expect to see a woman like her in a place like this.’
Thinking it unexpectedly odd, he continued carrying the goods to the storage.
Meanwhile, the male staff served tea to the merchant lord and struck up a conversation.
“Aigo, you’ve had a tough journey. Was there any trouble on the way?”
“Well, it’s not much different from the usual route. Still, this place has changed a lot since the last time I came.”
“Of course. Doesn’t it look a lot nicer now compared to that old bandit den it used to be?”
“Well, yeah, but the problem is whether Parno will just sit back and let it be. It was a close call this time, too.”
“Ehh― This place, Choranchai… I mean, Yongbok Gate, will become the very heart of the Great Snowfields. Just think of it as investing early.”
“Yongbok Gate? You changed the name?”
“Well, it never really had an official name, but the folks around here have started calling it that. After all, this place is right at the entrance to Snow Dragon Valley.”
Focusing on the conversation between the two, Oho continued carrying goods.
Then suddenly, his eyes met the gaze of the female owner who was staring intently at him.
Without revealing anything, he bowed his head slightly in greeting and returned to his work.
‘What was that?’
He could feel her gaze burning into the back of his head.
Even to the end, she didn’t avert her eyes, and Oho’s movements started to feel increasingly unnatural.
“Let’s see… and for lodging……”
Since it was a long journey to return immediately, the merchant lord also booked rooms for himself and the porters.
While the others roughly unpacked and immediately sought out alcohol, Oho stepped out alone and wandered the streets.
‘Colder than Parno’s domain.’
It had been about a month since he crossed the Northern Sea and stayed in the Great Snowfields.
Only now could he realize that Parno’s domain had actually been warm in comparison.
‘I need to remember my body is duller than usual and move accordingly. Escaping right after the mission… will be tough.’
Crossing the snowy field alone was no easy feat.
It would be smarter to follow the merchants again on the way back.
‘Those must be the rumored barbarians.’
Striking physiques and skin tinged with red.
But despite the strength radiating from their appearances, their mana levels were lower than that of an average person.
In short, they were nobodies.
Oho’s mission was to find and kill one person among those barbarians.
However, all the barbarians he saw in passing were clearly weak, so the target didn’t seem particularly impressive either.
‘But……’
From the outskirts, he began to feel a fairly heavy mana presence carried on the wind.
Pretending to be a bystander, he wandered here and there and eventually reached the source of the mana—his eyes went wide.
“Alright! One last time! One! Good! One last time again! Good! This time for real…….”
A booming voice led a group of barbarians who were jumping in place while carrying giant logs on their shoulders.
In this godforsaken freezing weather, both men and women were sweating buckets with their coats off—
To Oho, the scene looked laughable.
‘That’s why they’re called barbarians. And that one up front… is that the Snowy King? Is he trying to raise them as private troops?’
He had stayed in Parno’s domain for a month gathering information.
The higher-ups had ordered him to confirm details on-site since they couldn’t trust the intel from the client.
But even after arriving, most of the stories were hard to believe.
Rumors that the barbarian slaves under Parno had rebelled, and that the family head had been taken down by a barbarian wearing red bear hide.
That’s what the informant had said too, but who would actually believe such tales?
If the family head really had been killed, they should have dispatched a top-class assassin.
Of course, sending an elite like himself meant they hadn’t taken it lightly either.
Top-class assassins were usually sent for people like key members of the family below the family head or major figures from the academy.
So this wasn’t a light assignment by any means.
Still, seeing it for himself now, he couldn’t help but feel more relaxed.
‘But the most important target hasn’t shown up yet. The barbarian in the red hide… someone like that should stand out easily.’
Swish―
Just as that thought passed through his mind, Oho’s head turned on its own.
He didn’t sense anything or move consciously.
It just moved.
From afar, a huge figure walked slowly toward him.
The red hide draped over the shoulder confirmed it—this was the target.
But he couldn’t think of anything else. His entire awareness was stolen.
His name and number: Oho.
The lower the number, the longer one had survived as an assassin.
Meaning, among the top-class assassins, he was one of the best.
And now, his instincts were screaming in alarm.
Step― step―
The target was already right in front of him.
But he walked past without even sparing Oho a glance.
Drenched in cold sweat, Oho didn’t even have time to reflect on his blunder.
What kind of assassin just stood dumbly staring at his target?
Yet he was so shocked, he hadn’t even realized it himself.
‘Wha… what was that?’
A situation too baffling to understand.
What exactly had his instincts sensed from that man?
‘His… his mana…….’
When he quickly expanded his aura sense, he found that it was only slightly better than the other barbarians—nothing extraordinary.
‘Then why……’
Nothing had changed.
He had received a mission, and it must be carried out.
But the uneasiness had already taken root deep in his mind.
“Ah! Brother, you’re here?”
“Can I get a meal?”
“Got it. I’ll bring the alcohol first. Claire!”
Duar headed to the kitchen, and Claire entered carrying a box of alcohol that had arrived earlier.
She set it down beside the table, plopped herself across from him, and opened a bottle right away.
A little later, Duar finished cooking and rang the bell, and Claire brought the food and started eating it casually as a side dish.
“You… jeez…”
Duar clicked his tongue but let it go since it wasn’t a new thing.
Ever since Claire had become a staff member at the Warrior’s Restaurant, this had been a regular occurrence.
Fortunately, she only behaved like this with Hindir.
She didn’t drink or slack off in front of other customers, so that was a relief.
Of course, even when Hindir came, she still did all her duties.
And in fact, Duar sometimes thought it was better when Claire drank with Hindir.
When he wasn’t around, she would just stare blankly into space, and that somehow looked even scarier.
‘…Does she like the brother?’
Duar, who had good instincts for danger but no sense for reading people, even thought that.
Of course, that was a ridiculous delusion.
The two didn’t even really talk. They just drank together.
It was a kind of comfort that came from sharing a similar kind of pain that no one else could understand.
Deep, unbearable loneliness.
It was the biggest wound within both of them—something they shared in silence.
Of course, they had never spoken of it aloud.
The quiet sympathy that flowed between them made the silence feel comfortable.
“There was a suspicious one.”
Claire, unexpectedly, opened her mouth.
Hindir responded like it was no big deal.
“I saw him on the way in. Looked like an assassin.”
“He’s staying here for the night. The merchant said they’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Did he look like part of the group?”
“There was only one. So either way, you or I probably saw the same one.”
Hindir felt a bitter taste on his tongue.
He had figured something would happen soon, but he hadn’t expected an assassin to show up.
Assassins were pests that forced you into annoying and pointless fights.
They didn’t care about honorable battles; they only focused on killing their target.
Their obsession with completing their mission was so intense, they’d keep coming back like mosquitoes unless you burned their entire base down.
Now that one had appeared, it was impossible not to worry.
He’d be fine, but if that bastard started targeting others without hesitation...
“You going to deal with him right away?”
“No. Since he’s clearly here for me, I’m thinking of meeting him first.”
“You’re fearless. Ever fought an assassin before?”
“They’re the kind of people whose heads are full of ways to kill. Their targets’ movements, habits, conditions, sleeping patterns—there’s no one in the world who studies others more obsessively than those guys.”
“Sounds like a pervert.”
“That’s accurate.”
“So what’s the point of just sitting back and watching him swing his sword first?”
“No matter how skilled an assassin is, habits and traces always cling to the body. If I observe those now, it’ll help later.”
Claire stared quietly at Hindir.
She had realized why he was bothering with such a roundabout method.
But she didn’t say anything.
She was an outsider—a bystander.
She was just momentarily intrigued by the arrival of a stranger known as an assassin.
The conversation ended.
Time passed, and night fell. Familiar faces like the Charun tribe, Moritz, and Ubol came to the Warrior’s Restaurant.
Claire got busy, and Hindir continued drinking with the others who had taken over the tables.
Among the noisy crowd was also Oho.
‘He really drinks like a madman.’
Oho thought as he looked at Hindir.
He drank a shocking amount.
His skin looked even redder than earlier, and his head was swaying left and right.
‘His mana’s weak, so he probably can’t even burn off the alcohol.’
Even the owner passing by had something to say.
“How long are you going to keep drinking? You keep guzzling on credit every day. Planning to drink until you crawl back again?”
“……”
Though the fact that she had a bottle in her own hand made the sight pretty ironic.
“I was just about to leave anyway.”
With that, Hindir grabbed the almost-empty box of alcohol and got up.
‘More drinking? He’s really something.’
He staggered out of the shop, and just then, Duar came out with food and looked shocked at Hindir’s figure.
“What the—? That guy drinks all the time and never gets drunk. Why’s he stumbling like that now?”
Hearing Duar’s genuinely surprised remark, Oho felt certain.
Though he didn’t notice Claire’s eyes sparkling with a terrifying intensity as she watched Hindir.
After quickly finishing his meal, he quietly slipped out through a window.
After confirming where Hindir had gone, he returned and passed the time.
Once the other porters sharing his room had gone to bed and everything outside went quiet, he climbed back out the window.
A silent night with not a single sound on the street.
The clouds were thick, completely blocking the moonlight from reaching the ground.
There were a few torches here and there in the village, but not nearly enough to reveal Oho’s presence.
He reached the roof of the building where his target was staying, having erased all traces of his presence.
He clung to the pre-checked room’s window and peered in through a tiny crack.
Boosting his eyesight, he looked inside and saw empty bottles strewn on the floor and a bulging bed.
Even the breathing was deep and even.
‘He’s completely passed out.’
He couldn’t see the face well, but that could be confirmed from the inside.
He slipped a thin wire through the window crack and undid the latch.
Sliding in without a sound, he approached the bed and confirmed the face of the person lying down—
‘Hm?’
He was sure he had seen Hindir go in here.
But the one lying there was someone else.
Sensing something was off, Oho withdrew his weapon and backed out.
When he climbed back up to the roof—
“If it’s not the target, you don’t touch them. At least you’re not completely rotten.”
“!”
Hindir was sitting at the roof’s peak, drinking, waiting for him.