Confronting the Assassin

The candle had long since burned out.

The only light came from the moonlight filtering through the window.

That feeble glow wasn't enough to properly illuminate the room.

But perhaps because I'd been asleep until moments ago, my night vision was sharp.

I couldn't make out his face clearly, but I could see the figure of a man who'd silently opened the locked window and slipped into the room where we'd been sleeping.

He was dressed in all black.

If he melted into the darkness, spotting him would have been nearly impossible.

… For a moment, I thought he reminded me of Finn-san.

I hadn't noticed him at all until I'd looked directly at the window.

I'd thought my hearing was good, yet I hadn't caught even the faintest sound.

If I hadn't happened to glance toward the window, we might have been attacked in our sleep.

The moment the man came through the window, I stood in front of him.

That was when he noticed me, too.

He was tall. Taller than Master.

The eyes looking down at me were as cold as the air outside.

Caught in the act of trespassing. There would be no talking his way out of this.

I'd figure out who he was after I'd beaten him down.

Out of habit, my hand went to my hip, but grasped nothing.

My weapon wasn't at hand.

It was with my bag over by the wall, and there wasn't time to go get it.

Thank goodness Finn-san had taught me how to fight barehanded.

I tucked my elbows in, clenched both fists, and held them up in front of my nose.

The distance between us was about two and a half strides.

I closed the gap in one step and thrust my right fist toward his torso, a target hard to dodge.

"Tch. So it's not just a couple of brats?"

The man muttered under his breath.

He deflected my fist and tried to kick up with his right leg.

I ducked low to dodge it.

I could just barely react since I could make out his silhouette.

But he could see me too. Clearly, at that.

His eyes tracked me as I pulled back to create distance.

Then his gaze shifted to Kazusa-chan and Rei-kun, who were still asleep.

"Three of you? That's not what I was told. I'll have to complain about this later."

"Who are you?"

I asked the question without expecting an answer.

Sure enough, he ignored me.

"Disposing of bodies costs money. I'll have to charge those guys extra for the additional head."

That sounded less like something directed at me and more like him thinking aloud.

He didn't consider me a threat at all.

And what he was saying was deeply unsettling.

He was talking freely because he didn't care if I heard.

In other words, this man intended to kill all of us.

Even I could figure out that much.

From our brief exchange, I couldn't yet gauge the full gap in our abilities, but he was far from weak.

Still, if I had my weapon, I was certain I could win.

But his position was the problem.

If I went to get my weapon, he would move toward the two sleeping behind me.

If I allowed that for even an instant, their lives would be forfeit.

Which meant I had to take him down barehanded.

I exhaled, then drew in a breath. I had to focus.

I couldn't afford to lose.

Right now, I was carrying more than just my own life on my shoulders.

He must have noticed me paying attention to positioning.

I heard him click his tongue.

"You're no amateur. But you're not one of us either. Adventurer, then. I'd heard there was a porter, but that's not you, is it?"

At last, he seemed to recognize me as an actual opponent.

The man swayed, and in the next instant he was right in front of me.

A needle-like object had appeared in his right hand at some point.

If this had been my first time seeing a move like that, I wouldn't have been able to react.

But I'd seen it many times before.

It was the way Finn-san moved.

Compared to this man, though, Finn-san was far more refined.

Finn-san truly vanished from sight. This man I could just barely follow with my eyes.

I was certain now. He was an assassin, the same kind as Finn-san.

Someone had hired him to kill Kazusa-chan and Rei-kun.

The moment that thought surfaced, anger flared inside me.

The man tried to drive the needle into my eye, but I caught his right hand with both of mine.

The needle stopped right in front of my face.

Some kind of liquid was dripping from its tip.

Poison.

I squeezed harder. My fingers dug in, and I heard something creak.

The man was bewildered. His right hand wouldn't budge no matter what he tried.

"Ow! Let go, you little brat!"

He kicked at me with his left foot.

There were spikes on the toe, so I released my grip and dodged to be safe.

The spikes extended further, but I evaded by a hair.

I'd had that done to me by Finn-san before, so I could predict it.

I followed up with a leg sweep, but it didn't connect.

Setting aside raw physical ability, his hand-to-hand technique was a cut above mine.

"What a pain. I thought this would be an easy job."

His voice carried an edge of anger, probably because his right hand was hurting.

"You've fought one of us before, haven't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. You're the one who attacked out of nowhere."

"It's work. Just work. You're strong for a brat. Adventurers are such a nuisance. Can't judge them by appearance."

The man said it in a taunting tone.

So he had been hired, just as I'd thought.

Would he tell me who had sent him?

"Who hired you to do this?"

"You think I'd tell you?"

After that, the man stopped talking.

Perhaps he thought he'd said too much already.

My throat went dry from the unfamiliar tension.

I swallowed slowly, and the sound seemed louder than it should have been.

The man drew a dagger and equipped it in his left hand.

The air shifted from what it had been moments before.

His killing intent felt like it was piercing my skin.

The man took a step forward. I advanced as well, but my toe hit a storage shelf, and a vase that had been sitting on it fell.

The crash echoed through the room.

Rei-kun stirred at the sound and woke up. He slowly sat upright.

"What was that noise?"

"Rei-kun, get down!"

The man's left hand moved.

I saw him hurl the dagger at Rei-kun.

I couldn't deflect it barehanded.

On instinct, I kicked a shard of the broken vase into the dagger's path and knocked it off course.

The dagger embedded itself in the wall.

It glinted dully in the moonlight.

"Whoa!"

Rei-kun yelped and threw himself toward Kazusa-chan.

Kazusa-chan was rubbing her eyes and looking around.

Both of them were awake now.

"What is this? What's going on?"

"This man broke in out of nowhere. It's dangerous, so don't move carelessly."

With Kazusa-chan and the others behind me, I faced the man head-on.