Chapter 96
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 96
Chapter Title: Market and Labor
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The serial killer lived like a serial killer.
The ninja lived like a ninja.
The assassin lived like an assassin.
The Kurokumo clan began their new lives in exactly the way they had lived their entire lives.
8 a.m. Shinpo-dong Live Fish Market.
A battlefield tangled with the stench of fish, humidity, and people's shouts. Kurokumo Genji stood right in the middle of it.
65 years old. A retired assassin. The reaper who had claimed 547 lives.
Before him lay a massive bluefin tuna, its enormous body sprawled out.
The head chef eyed Genji suspiciously, arms crossed.
"Hey, old timer. You sure you can handle this? That's a 200-kilo beast. One wrong move, and we're out hundreds of thousands of won."
The kitchen staff's gazes turned to Genji.
Curiosity, wariness, and a touch of hazing.
Words were meaningless. Only actions proved reality.
Instead of replying, Genji drew his blade from the sheath at his waist.
It wasn't an ordinary sashimi knife. It was a 60-centimeter wakizashi, forged for slicing through humans.
The kitchen's attention locked onto the blade.
"W-what's that knife...? Not even a maguro bocho..."
Genji ignored the commotion around him.
His eyes narrowed.
His clairvoyant gaze gleamed coldly.
Muscle fibers, fat distribution, tendon positions, and the vital points piercing through it all.
Every detail of the target scanned into his brain like 3D data.
'The connection between the third cervical vertebra and the skull base. The aorta inside the gills. The nerve cluster near the tail.'
Three red dots appeared in Genji's vision.
Humans and fish were different. But the structure of life was ultimately similar.
Vital points.
The spots that severed life with the least force.
Genji's body moved.
A flash.
No one in the kitchen caught his movement.
Slash.
With a dull thud, the tuna's head rolled across the floor.
Slash. Slash. Slash.
The second motion.
The blade split the belly open. Not a drop of blood spilled as the entrails separated cleanly into a basket.
The third, fourth, fifth...
The blade danced. The sounds of flesh and bone parting rang through the kitchen like a cheerful rhythm.
One minute.
No, even less.
The massive tuna was perfectly disassembled by section.
Belly loin, mid-belly, inner flesh, back loin. The cuts, precise as if machine-sliced, lay on white platters like works of art, without a millimeter of error.
The kitchen froze.
The assistant rinsing fish, the part-timer carrying dishes, even the server shouting orders from the dining area.
All stared back and forth between Genji and his handiwork, mouths agape.
"Hah..."
The head chef with 40 years of experience swallowed hard. With trembling hands, he picked up a piece of belly fat.
Flawless cut surface. The fat layers weren't mashed at all, and the flesh's springiness felt alive.
"Where... where on earth did you learn a technique like this, sir?"
Genji indifferently wiped the oil from his blade.
"Just... a family technique passed down through generations."
"Family technique...!"
The chef's eyes shone with awe.
"As expected of Japanese craftsmanship! The mastery of someone who's spent decades honing a single blade! This is the soul-infused cut from the land of the samurai!"
Genji nodded silently.
'Not samurai, but ninja.'
He corrected it in his mind but didn't voice it.
Equating the warriors of light with shadows like themselves was an insult, but now wasn't the time to assert such petty pride.
He looked down at his hands.
Hands that had taken hundreds of lives.
Today, for the first time, they had cut something not human.
Stained not with human blood, but fish oil.
The scent of the sea, not blood. A clean mission completed without lingering grudges.
The feeling was strange.
But not bad.
The same day. On the other side of Neo Incheon, another mission began.
Kurokumo Shizuka.
A widow in her thirties, elder of the Kurokumo clan. Once the clan's top assassin inheriting its vision, and Yuuta's mother.
Now, she was...
"Welcome to Pizza Heaven!"
Red uniform. A hat with a ridiculous winged pizza logo. A thermal bag in hand.
She was a new delivery rider for Neo Incheon's top pizza joint, 'Pizza Heaven'.
"Shizuka! Bupyeong-dong 2-ga order! Within 30 minutes, please!"
"Wakarimashita."
Today's mission.
Pepperoni pizza, large, extra cheese crust.
The manager handed over the pizza box and scooter keys.
"Shizuka, it's your first day, so don't push too hard. Safe driving is key. Navigation's on the scooter—just follow it."
Shizuka silently returned the scooter keys to the manager's hand.
The manager's eyes widened.
"Huh? Oh, walking? It's a bit far... 30 minutes at least. The pizza'll get cold."
The code of the Kurokumo.
First, complete the mission without fail.
Second, complete it swiftly.
Third, complete it perfectly.
To her, the scooter was too slow.
"W-wait! Shizuka!"
Ignoring the manager's call, Shizuka stepped out the door.
Thud-!
The asphalt cracked faintly as her body shot forward like a bullet.
Car horns, murmurs of people, shop touts.
The surroundings blurred past in an instant.
Faster than any scooter, yet the pizza box in her hand stayed perfectly level, unmoving.
A sense of balance that tolerated not a single displaced topping or cheese shred.
This was the Kurokumo clan's Shadowless Step.
The technique of a shadow racing across city rooftops without sound or vibration.
'Straight-line distance to target: 2.2 km. Estimated time: 3 minutes. Obstacles: none.'
Her clairvoyant gaze calculated every variable along the path.
But there was one variable she hadn't accounted for.
Whoosh-!
Rounding a quiet alley corner, a rusty iron pipe swung toward her head.
Shizuka instinctively leaned back.
Bang!!!
The pipe smashed into the adjacent building wall. The concrete spiderwebbed with cracks, debris flying.
"You there! Stop! Hand over that pizza!"
Someone blocked her path.
A man in stained workout clothes, face hidden by a sloppy mask. Rusty iron pipe in hand.
"Delivery fees of 5,000 won? Unacceptable! I judge the bloodsucking delivery platforms preying on the common folk! I'll destroy this unfair system!"
C-grade villain, Delivery Breaker.
A petty thief villain who specialized in ambushing food delivery riders out of rage over exorbitant fees.
Shizuka's clairvoyant gaze gleamed coldly.
A villain's sob story meant nothing to her.
What mattered was completing the mission no matter what. That was the Kurokumo way.
"Hand it over quietly, and there won't be blood!"
The villain charged, swinging the pipe.
Shizuka twisted her body lightly, pizza box in hand.
Swish.
The pipe grazed her collar with a whistle of air.
"What?"
The villain's eyes widened.
"Y-you bitch!"
He swung again.
Left, right, top to bottom.
But Shizuka deflected every attack with minimal movement. The pizza box stayed perfectly level throughout.
"W-what are you...!"
Terror-stricken, the villain stumbled back.
Then, black patterns bloomed on Shizuka's forearm.
Shadow Tattoo.
The signal for the Kurokumo bloodline ability to activate.
The tattoos writhed, wrapping her limbs.
Shizuka's movements accelerated.
On a superhuman level, beyond her prior evasions.
"W-where'd she...?"
"Over here."
A chill ran down his spine at the voice.
As the man turned in horror, Shizuka came into view.
Jet-black sclera glowing in the dark, with pure white pupils.
And living, writhing black tattoos.
A line from an old fairy tale his grandfather told flashed in the man's mind.
The one who emerges from shadows to silently reap lives.
"Ninja!? Why a ninja!? Eeeek!?"
The villain gulped in instinctive fear.
Common sense and reality crumbled in his head. Ninjas were fantasy from movies and comics.
Yet one stood before him, holding a pizza box.
"Why's a ninja delivering pizza!?"
Shizuka supported the pizza box with one hand and raised the other.
Her body vanished.
Or seemed to.
"Kurokumo secret ninjutsu..."
A soft whisper echoed in the villain's ear.
"...Seventeen-Part Vital Strike."
Invisible impacts overwhelmed his body.
Neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, solar plexus, flanks... Hand strikes pierced exactly seventeen vital points simultaneously.
"Guhk...!"
The villain collapsed without even a scream. Every nerve paralyzed, he couldn't twitch a finger.
She hadn't killed him. Just stripped control of his body for 24 hours.
Shizuka glanced at the fallen villain, then checked her watch.
"15 seconds delayed."
Tsk. She clicked her tongue.
As if she could delay no longer, she dashed toward the building wall.
Thud-thud-
Defying gravity, she kicked off the wall vertically and leaped up.
Ding-dong-
"Who is it?"
"Pizza delivery."
"Huh? Already?"
The door opened, and a man poked his head out.
Shizuka politely handed over the steaming pizza box.
"Total: 23,000 won."
The man, oblivious, handed over his card.
To him, she was just an exceptionally pretty delivery girl.
★★★★★
Pepperoni Pizza (L)
There was a villain attack on the way here, and the whole neighborhood was in chaos—how'd the delivery arrive? Pizza's still piping hot. But there's something like a commendation badge stuck in the pizza... new promo? Anyway, super fast and delicious. The delivery girl's insanely pretty too lol. Ordering again!
Shizuka checked the review on the shop's tablet.
And nodded quietly in satisfaction.
"Mission complete."