A Beginner’s Guide to Being a Scoundrel

Chapter 119

Violet Shadow had been an emerging assassin guild rising in the underworld of the imperial capital these days.

Originally, it had been nothing more than a mediocre-sized group, but a few months ago, an incident occurred in which a mid-tier assassin guild collapsed without leaving a trace.

Usually, such things happened when someone crossed the line.

Either they had become a thorn in the side of those in power, or they had offended the sensibilities of an overwhelmingly strong individual they had no right to look up at.

The other guilds clearly tried to keep things quiet, seeing no need to stir up a hornet’s nest out of idle curiosity and get burned by the fallout.

Of course, Violet Shadow did not go against that general current either.

However, unlike the other assassin guilds that merely watched the situation, they moved aggressively to seize the vacant spot, and that became the driving force behind their explosive growth.

As the guild grew, high-priced requests began to come in. Assassins who caught the scent of money gathered, and as time passed, it was only natural for the scale to grow larger and larger.

‘And this mission will be another chance to rebound.’

Damare, the master of Violet Shadow, let his eyes gleam in the darkness.

A request sent by an unknown individual. The target was the Third Prince, Leios, who would be leaving the capital for an academy exam.

They were not being asked to cut off his breath in one clean strike.

The journey for the academy exam lasted roughly a month and a half. During that time, the client wanted the target to be harassed without rest.

Of course, at the end, they asked for him to be killed miserably.

‘As a rule, requests involving the imperial family are to be avoided, but.’

When Damare first received the request, he realized that this was the very culprit that had destroyed the previous guild.

At the end of the request document was a promise that even if the Third Prince died, no responsibility would be pursued, and instead, a great reward would be paid.

In fact, just the down payment alone was a sum so large that it would take them a full year of activity to accumulate.

Damare did not believe the words about not pursuing responsibility. He knew all too well that for those in power, changing their words was easier than breathing.

As he was agonizing over what to do, what helped him make his decision was none other than a message from another assassin guild.

A large-scale assassin guild even bigger than Violet Shadow had received the same request. When they contacted him to propose cooperating on the job, Damare accepted without hesitation.

They called it high risk, high return. He had already succeeded in making history once, and he did not think a second time would be impossible.

Even if it was a trap laid by another guild to keep their recently rapid growth in check, he was confident he could fight his way through.

That was why he volunteered to take on the first strike of the operation himself, bringing along all of the guild’s elite assassins.

The group led by Prince Leios, having left the capital, stayed at a travelers’ rest stop along their travel route.

Looking at the lineup, it was extravagantly impressive, but most of them were just children of noble families who knew nothing of the real world. The only one worth paying attention to was Prince Leios himself.

‘At minimum, he’s estimated to be a mid-level Sword Expert.’

Was he not a disciple of a Sword Saint? He was surely hiding some of his strength, but there was no intention of engaging in a frontal confrontation during this attack.

The plan was simply to imprint upon him the fact that assassins were after his life, then withdraw.

There was still plenty of time.

Then, upon hearing that the targets were drinking at the inn tavern, a snort of laughter escaped him.

‘Accepting this mission really was the right choice.’

The fact that he even dared to raise a thick killing intent toward Leios when he stepped outside for some air was born of confidence that he could handle him well enough.

Damare himself was also a mid-level Sword Expert. A direct confrontation would be difficult due to compatibility, but if it came to assassination, he was confident he could kill him with more than an eighty percent success rate.

“……?”

Leios drew his sword in response to their killing intent. Seeing him put on a show of bravado as if he would not yield to the attack made Damare smile on his own. But then, when Leios suddenly vanished from his field of vision, a flustered expression crossed his face.

No trace of him anywhere. Damare strained his eyes wide open, but he could not see even a single strand of hair.

‘Have I been pushing myself too hard lately.’

He had gone without sleep for over two days straight to plan the routes and details of the ambush. It was something he had done countless times and was used to, but perhaps because the target was who he was, he had expended too much mental energy trying to eliminate variables.

Feeling that this was enough for today, he pressed his lips thin and emitted a special signal sound that an ordinary person could never hear.

He then turned his body to leave the area, but an unfamiliar, alien sensation swept over his entire body.

‘No response is coming back?’

Those who had gone on the operation with him were ten elite assassins, all of them Sword Experts.

Yet not a single one responded to the signal. As he stopped in his tracks at something that had never happened before, an unfamiliar voice came from behind him.

“Why, is it strange?”

“…….”

Damare’s chest sank heavily. Slowly turning his head toward the direction of the voice, he saw Leios standing there, holding a sword dripping with blood.

“How?”

At that question, Leios shrugged and opened his mouth.

“You were blatantly radiating killing intent, so I thought you were pretty capable guys, but you were weaker than I expected.”

“You bastard…….”

Damare sharply raised his killing intent. As if he were enraged by the deaths of his subordinates. But it was all an act. A strategy of giving flesh to cut bone, exposing his own weakness to exploit the enemy’s carelessness.

‘Even if I kill him like this, there shouldn’t be a problem.’

The plan would be somewhat disrupted, but having lost this much strength already, if he could not return with Leios’s head, the damage to the guild would be severe.

Tsk.

A matte black sword, painted to block out moonlight, hid itself behind his back.

Damare slowly lowered his heart rate and concealed his body in the darkness, and Leios, watching him, grinned.

“An assassin’s fight, huh. Fine, that’s not bad either.”

Tsuzuzuz-.

When his entire body melted into the darkness, the only one left standing there was Leios.

An assassin’s battle was decided in a single blow. That was why Damare staked everything on the tip of his blade.

Swaeaeaeak-!

Sensing the killing intent surging up at his side, Leios twisted his body with a snort of laughter.

“So obvious.”

But that was an illusion created by killing intent; the real strike was the poison-coated blade thrusting up from beneath his feet.

‘With this……!’

The opponent had completely fallen for his bluff. A light of certainty filled Damare’s eyes. But Leios, likewise sneering, swung his sword.

“That’s why I said it’s obvious.”

Slash.

“…How.”

Damare’s eyes were dyed with shock. He had neutralized what should have been an absolutely unavoidable strike and counterattacked instead.

Unable to withstand that single blow he could not dare to oppose, the arm holding his sword was severed, and he rolled across the ground, spraying fountains of blood.

“Kgh…….”

At this point, he judged that there was no option but to flee.

He had laid countless traps along his escape route just in case. He thought that would buy him some time, but Leios did not even grant him that chance.

Slash.

With a single stroke, his remaining arm and both legs were severed. Now Damare’s body did nothing more than writhe meaninglessly atop a pool of blood.

Realizing that this moment was the end of his life, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to bite down on the poison capsule hidden in his mouth, but even that was thwarted by a stone that roughly forced its way into his mouth.

“Who said you could die on your own terms.”

At that calm voice, Damare glared at Leios with bloodshot eyes. He assumed Leios was trying to extract information from him.

He widened his eyes to show that he would never open his mouth, but Leios crouched down in front of him.

“What, thinking I’d torture you for information or something? Why would I?”

And at the whisper that followed, Damare’s eyes went wide.

“I already knew everything. That my older brother commissioned you with me as the target, and that you bastards were going to attack this place.”

“……!”

Realizing that they had been used as disposable pawns, bloody tears streamed from Damare’s eyes. They were soon stained with injustice and rage, and he choked as he spewed out his grief.

Leios, having watched the entire scene, stood up and flicked the blood from his sword. Then he cast a sidelong glance at the sobbing man.

“I’ll let you live. Go and tell your comrades. Don’t do anything troublesome.”

Then, without hesitation, he turned his body away. After walking some distance, when the wailing of the dying assassin could no longer be heard, he shrugged and spoke.

“…Well, the part about knowing everything was a lie, though.”

Click.

After finishing off the assassins who had been targeting us, I wiped the blood from my sword and sprayed perfume over my body. Even so, it still felt unpleasant, as if the smell of blood lingered.

As I was about to sigh and think that I should go back and take another bath, a figure leaning against the inn door caught my eye.

“Good work.”

Alice, who I had no idea when she had come out, held out a cup filled with water. My throat parched, I drank it down refreshingly, then said with an awkward expression.

“I tried my best not to let anyone notice.”

As I had said earlier, I did not want to ruin the good mood of the group. That was why I had gone alone, but Alice shook her head.

“Your effort wasn’t pointless. Except for me, no one will know what happened. But…….”

As if asking whether I had really tried to deceive even her, she lightly punched my chest. In response to that playful action, I flicked her forehead lightly with my finger.

We looked at each other and let out silly smiles.

After all, sharing a secret that no one else knew was a fun thing.

“…Lately, I sometimes think about this.”

“What kind of thought?”

Alice took a moment to catch her breath. Then, hesitating slightly, she continued.

“Since meeting you, life in this world has started to become pretty interesting. My memories of reality are gradually dulling too…….”

She confessed her complicated feelings, saying that she was starting to think that maybe it would be okay to just stay here.

“…….”

At that, I fell silent. What Alice spoke of was not something limited to her alone.

Each time my relationships with others grew closer, my memories of reality also faded.

Moreover, in reality I was nothing more than a low-level editor, but here, I was an imperial prince and an existence of utmost importance.

“Well, let’s think about that slowly.”

There was no way to return to reality right now anyway.

We could think slowly, spend plenty of time considering it, and even when we finally reached the end of those thoughts and faced it, it would not be too late to decide.

And so, late that night, we looked up at the same moon.