Chapter 104 - A Demon and an Aristocrat Walk Into a Study…

"Hah hah hah!" A pudgy, olive-green haired man in fancy clothing laughs, taking a sip of champagne from his glass. The two other men and five other women also awkwardly join in his laughter, raising their glass in a toast to his… questionable humor.

"My last one, before I must excuse myself for a moment!" He exclaims happily, tossing a few strands of his hair away from his face — his bangs are long, nearly reaching his bottom lip when they aren't slicked back as they are now. Despite his grim jokes, which make everyone uncomfortable, he is a well-held gentleman who upholds decent relations with other big families, and respects people of all backgrounds.

That is, the side of himself he shows to the general public, anyway.

His name is Harrield Muniuer, and he is a long-time patron of the Mafo "family." The slavers.

Long story short, he's number eight on my list.

"Did you know that if you give a man a match, he will be warm for a few hours? Now, set him on fire, he'll be warm the rest of his life!"

Again, his laughter leads a strange cacophony of awkward laughter trying to fit in, and he waves his free hand dismissively. "Alright, alright, if you would all excuse me for a moment. I have an appointment with the restroom."

He steps away, heading towards an empty hallway at the end of the room. As others watch his departing shuffling back, they whisper amongst themselves. "He sure is somewhat strange, for such a good guy."

"What makes him so good?"

"Are you kidding? He donated to three orphanages yesterday, and he's sponsoring the full cost of this party. If anything, he's TOO good. He even reaches out to lower families, and those without a family name! I would bet he actually has some dark, disgusting secret or something, ha!"

While the slimeballs laugh, notably more genuine this time, I hold back a snort. 'If only they knew about the dungeon beneath them right now,' I think as I check my watch. The invisibility sigil was due to wear off in a few minutes, so this was perfect timing. I slip past the group I had been waiting by, one or two of them turning their heads at the slight breeze brushing them that was a tattered dark cloak.

I slip into the hallway, following the single pair of footsteps around a few corners. 'We've passed two bathrooms now, so what…'

Abruptly, the portly man turns left, entering a large study, with piles of books thrown into piles around a wide desk. The walls are also lined with books, several gaps where some have been pulled out. In short, it was utter chaos, paired with the hazardous stack of paper on the desk.

"Ahh, I wish I could go see my little girls right now… Did you get a full tour while sneaking into my place, Mr. Assassin?"

I freeze, checking my watch again. The invisibility sigil was still active, so how did he know I was here?

He waves his hand gallantly, as if he's the most graceful man in the world. "I bet you're wondering how I know you're there. I am an incredible Illusionist, so something so basic like that sigil would never best me. Hah hah hah! Sadly, I must put you down. Unless, of course, you would like to work out a deal?"

I sigh, pulling a black dagger from my inventory. Tapping it on the sigil on the back of my arm breaks it, and I slowly become visible to the naked eye. My ragged faded black cloak-with-sleeves looks barely held together by the stiches, torn at all ends— the arms, the bottom, and around the hood obscuring my face. My hands are wrapped in thin black gloves, hiding any trace of skin. My face itself is also covered; a black mask over my face, with a small circular object in the middle that distorts my voice when I speak, and over my eyes dark red bug-eyed goggles, the type only I could see out of, and people couldn't see in. Red Mana flows from these, making it feel even more buglike. Thankfully, despite the compound eye look of the goggles, they were made to see normally, so my brain wasn't overloaded.

"You certainly have an interesting… aesthetic," the man notes, leaning confidently on an empty space of the cluttered desk. "So? Decided to negotiate?"

"… No," I reply, dashing forward. Rather than panic, Harrield groans, dropping his head. "You don't get it, do you? If I decide it…" He lifts one hand up, and everything around me begins to warp. The walls twist and spin, and the room itself becomes a long hallway, papers and books flying in circles around me. I don't even flinch; simply pause, looking at the extensive scene around me.

"… You will never leave this room."

The tubby fellow is no longer in front of me, and his voice echoes from every direction around me. I crack my neck once, then twice, in each direction. "I think you're the one who doesn't understand," I say, lifting the hand holding the dagger up slightly. "Especially since you were ballsy enough to tell me you were a one trick pony."

[The user understands the enemy's fighting style. Seeing Eye's effect activated.]

My upgraded Skill, combined with the adjustment of my eye to see more Mana than reality, snaps the room back to how it was, surrounded in orange Mana. I don't even bother looking to my right, where a large man is running forward, covered in sweat while he holds a large kitchen knife in front of him. "Pathetic," I think.

'Alternative Meditative Style. Tumultuous Dusk.'

The dagger traces a soft semi-circle in the air, a line of red accompanying it. The movement is so fluid and quick, Harrield Muniuer is facedown on the floor and bleeding out from his neck before he can comprehend what just happened. The dagger disappears back into the Inventory at the end of the swing, and the blood sitting upon the edge of it splatters onto the desk and some papers, leaving a messy end to the straight line of red spots tracing up to it.

I lift up this world's version of a burner phone — it looks just like a stick of charcoal — and speak into it. "It's done. Let 'em out."

"Roger. Don't forget—"

"Yeah, yeah. I know," I mutter as I stick what looks like a vial in the dead man's chest, shying away from the blood. It begins sucking out pure Mana, flowing a deep orange in the tube. Once it's full, I yank it out and it closes shut with a metallic sounding whirr. "You have some fucked up shit, y'know that? And do we really have to do this? It's so cringey."

"I don't know what 'cringey' is, but it's necessary. For you, for your friends, and for the Mafo. Well, for you again, to take you off the list of suspects."

Jumping out the window, I tap my foot off the wall and roll in a black whirl to my feet again in the garden below. "Yeahhh, but I'm not really at the level to be broadcasting that I'm—"

"Have you left yet? I'm waiting at the rendezvous point."

I scoff. "You're trying to flex, but it's invalid because you have fucking wings."

"I'm also just straight up faster than you."

"I'm aLsO jUsT sTrAiGhT uP fAsTeR tHaN yOu. Shut up." I vault over a fountain, running through shadows now in a flash of motion. I haven't heard any screams yet, meaning the body hasn't been found.

Still, we didn't have all the time in the world.

I scale up a pipe, flipping onto the roof. I stumble clumsily, of course, before catching my footing and dashing across them, heading for the small clock tower in the distance. Mt. Turra's large city didn't have day or night, but the giant bugs clinging to the ceiling had excellent day/night cycles, and when they went to sleep they stopped glowing, meaning the only lights came from buildings and streetlights. The foot traffic was a lot more sparse than in the daytime, and I noticed once more that even with less people, not a single mecha horse thing could be seen. Yauln said it was some law here, which I didn't understand, but, well… I didn't need to.

Finally, I land on a small building looking out at the clock tower above me, plopping my ass down on the edge of the roof next to a woman who blended in with the lack of light.

"Took you long enough."

"Hush, hag. They're starting to get more tricky."

"HagRAVEN, you ass. Do you want to lay low again? You only have one more sigil patch because of that botch with Three, if we can wait a few days—"

"No. It's already been three months. These last two are happening tonight, then our deal is done. Then you just gotta uphold your end."

Truth be told, I knew we were both thinking about how pointless this ordeal had become, and yet I also knew how much we both wanted to see its conclusion. Even if I had to end lives, it was the lives of shitty people, right?

Yauln gives me a concerned look. "You haven't rested much."

"The last night. Just tonight, and I'll rest for three weeks."

She nods, satisfied with my answer, and pulls out another burner phone. It projects a small screen above it, showing two faces.

"This should be easy. While the security detail is still heightened, these people will likely be together, as Nine is Ten's right hand man, and that's the reason we have to bring both down. If we just take out Ten, Nine will take over and keep things going."

"Right. Names, location, plan."

She glances over at me. "You're getting a bit too comfortable with this. You sure you aren't ACTUALLY the Demon?"

"Don't joke like that. C'mon, spill." I remove the lower mask in order to eat some jerky I've pulled from my Inventory.

Yauln begins going over the plan, telling me that my targets are Nine, Leppi Mafo, and his boss, the current head of the Mafo, Astil Mafo. Number Ten. It would be a simple infiltration: They work at the top of a ten story building, and we have a giant bird. She'll 'drop me off' with them, and then go free the current slaves in training. Without the Mafo name to back them, any incoming shipments will eventually fall apart, and they'll either be captured or be forced to let the prisoners go.

Simple, more or less. 'This is the type of thing a Saint does,' I remind myself, ignoring the ghostly hands trying to yank me down while I stand and reattach the mask. Although I was more like an anti-hero, the poncho-like cloak with the two-part mask certainly made me feel superhero-esque, especially considering my current capabilities compared to a normal human's from Earth. ''Hell, I could probably run faster than the world's fastest man, now.''

<At max speed, the user could only marginally outspeed Earth's Fastest Man.>

"Marginally? It has to be at least 10 miles per hour faster."

<Earth's 65 Fastest Man can travel up to 27.33 mph. The user's max speed is>

"I'm almost faster than a cheetah! The fuck are you on about?"

<Almost (marginally), but not.>

"Fuck you," I mutter, turning to be startled by how close Yauln is. "Are you done talking with yourself?" She asks innocently, and I nod. "Good, let's go."