Shadows of Assassination
As Seong-il stepped into the Night Dancer, Pirina welcomed him with a bright, familiar smile. Yet he brushed aside her warm greeting and spoke to her with unmistakable urgency.
“Oh my? You’re here earlier than usual…”
“Hello, Pirina. But this isn’t the time for pleasantries.”
“...?”
Pirina’s face clouded with confusion at his atypical response. Sensing the gravity in his tone, Seong-il quietly requested a private talk. Reading the unusual atmosphere, she gave a small nod and led him to a hidden room deep inside the establishment.
“Hmm… What could possibly be so pressing that you’d approach me in such a rush?”
“An assassin came to my workshop last night.”
“What?!”
“Well… I’m not entirely sure if it was an armed robber or an assassin, but… in my judgment, it was definitely an assassin.”
“Hmm…? Does Master have enemies in this city powerful enough to send killers after you? Could it be… your family?”
“No. I have absolutely no quarrel with my house. If there were a problem, they would have tried to drag me back rather than kill me.”
At Seong-il’s decisive tone, Pirina ran a hand through her hair, deep in thought. After a moment she asked him,
“Then it might have simply been a robber. What makes you so certain it was an assassin?”
“I felt killing intent.”
“Pardon…?”
Pirina’s expression shifted to one of open bewilderment. Still looking somewhat dumbfounded, she pressed him further.
“High-level martial artists can sense threats from a distance, or so I’ve heard, but…”
“Master, you’re not that kind of warrior, are you? Just looking at those well-developed muscles of yours, you seem quite far from the martial path.”
“Aren’t you simply frightened—no, feeling threatened—by an intruder and jumping to conclusions?”
Seong-il shook his head at her and calmly laid out his reasoning.
“I know exactly how to read an enemy’s killing intent. If it had been a simple armed robber, they wouldn’t have radiated bloodlust before even being noticed by the homeowner.”
“They would have been tense, careful not to alert anyone, and actively trying to suppress their aggression.”
Pirina frowned at his explanation.
“Well… if that’s what you believe, I won’t argue, but it still feels shaky.”
“According to what you’re saying, you detected the intruder’s presence before they even entered, and you could tell whether they carried hostile intent. Does that sound plausible to you…?”
Seong-il let out a low groan at her pointed question.
‘Hmm… Should I reveal that I’m a psychic? Or claim I learned martial arts?’
‘No. If I suddenly drop something like that, her cautious nature will only make her suspicious of me. Better to wrap it in a believable story.’
After turning the matter over in his mind for a long while, Seong-il finally spoke, carefully mixing in a plausible lie.
“It’s a kind of family secret I can’t disclose openly. People in our house are frequently exposed to assassination attempts, so…”
“We possess a secret technique for identifying assassin types. Heirs receive early training on countermeasures from a young age.”
“That’s why I’m so sensitive to killing intent… and how I knew the intruder was an assassin.”
Pirina still looked doubtful, but her expression gradually softened and she gave a reluctant nod.
“Hmm… It sounds absurd at first listen, but… it’s true that those in power train to guard against assassination. I can’t simply dismiss it as nonsense.”
“Still, your earlier reasoning suggests you don’t have any obvious enemies holding a grudge. Who do you think would send an assassin after you?”
“Without resolving that question, it’s difficult to determine whether the intruder was truly an assassin. The armed-robber theory feels far more convincing. Are you genuinely convinced he was a killer?”
Seong-il laid out his own theory to Pirina, who had offered such a rational perspective.
“Do you remember Lady Elisha Portis, the one who partnered with me recently?”
“Hehe… How could I forget? She’s our venue’s most popular dancer.”
Seong-il gave a bitter smile at her description before composing himself and continuing.
“I told you before that she carries a massive debt, right?”
“Yes… You were going to use the offer to repay it gradually as leverage to recruit her, weren’t you?”
“That was the original plan, but the conditions changed.”
Pirina’s brow furrowed in confusion. Seeing her reaction, Seong-il explained.
“I paid the entire debt in one lump sum.”
“!?”
The look of genuine shock on Pirina’s face was something Seong-il had never seen before. He quickly added more justification.
“That was the only way to secure her. In return, I attached quite a few conditions…”
“Are you insane?”
“Huh?”
“Wasn’t it ten thousand gold? That debt?”
“It was.”
“Oh my god. Have you lost your mind? What if she clams up and betrays you?”
“I put plenty of safeguards in place, so it should be—”
“That’s not what I mean!!”
Real anger colored Pirina’s voice as she rebuked him. Seong-il offered a wry smile and tried to defend himself.
“What else could I do? I wanted her that badly.”
“...”
“Ah, and… the same goes for you. If you had resisted hard enough, I probably would have paid the same amount to claim you too.”
“Hmm…”
Pirina stared at him with an unreadable gaze. After a long silence she pressed a hand to her forehead, let out a heavy sigh, and spoke.
“Fine. Not thinking like a normal person is part of your charm, I suppose. I’ll try to understand.”
“Understand what…?”
“Just drop the subject! It’s irritating, so stop talking about it.”
Her thorny tone made Seong-il swallow hard and shut his mouth.
“Anyway… this was about that lady, correct? Continue. I’m listening.”
“Right… The reason I paid her entire debt at once is because the creditor is a man named Edward…”
“Ah~ You mean Edward the Noble Hunter?”
“You know him?”
“Of course. He’s one of the 1st Prince’s closest aides—the prince who is the leading candidate for the throne.”
Seong-il was visibly shaken by information he had never heard before.
“The 1st Prince’s aide?”
“You really didn’t know?”
“First time I’m hearing it…”
Pirina gave a small shrug and began to explain.
“You know the Nelke Kingdom’s politics revolve around its nobility, yes?”
“Uh… roughly?”
‘I have no idea. How would I know something like that?’
Seong-il kept his ignorance hidden behind a vague answer. Pirina nodded and continued, sounding very much like a patient teacher.
“Because Nelke follows a traditional feudal system, the king’s authority has always been weaker than in centralized empires.”
“So every time a new king takes the throne, he attempts to reform the kingdom—reducing noble power, expanding royal territories, and appointing large numbers of commoners into a bureaucratic structure, just like the empire.”
“The problem is that the nobles are not fools. They naturally resisted those reforms fiercely, and it has even led to civil wars in the past.”
Seong-il listened in a daze to the unexpected history lesson. Pirina kept speaking.
“I never studied history formally, so I don’t know the precise details, but that’s the general picture. And right now there is a prince who uses his exceptional mind to weave political schemes that eliminate nobles.”
“Ah… so that’s the one?”
“Yes. The 1st Prince. Before ascending the throne, he takes great pleasure in using his subordinates in the shadows to slowly devour powerless nobles and weaken their influence.”
“Aah… so that’s why Edward…”
Pirina nodded.
“Exactly. That’s why he can act so arrogantly without being killed by the nobility.”
“I see…”
“Noble Hunter Edward. Or Edward the Hunting Dog. Those are the names they call him. For that lady to owe a debt to someone like him… I don’t even need to guess what happened.”
Seong-il nodded in agreement.
“Exactly. That’s also why I paid her debt in full. When I looked into that bastard, I found more than one or two rotten secrets.”
“If I had helped her half-heartedly with installment payments, it could have come back to bite me later. So instead of a weak agreement, I paid everything at once in exchange for much stricter contract conditions.”
Pirina nodded thoughtfully.
“That makes sense. No—you did the right thing. Getting involved half-heartedly would only have invited trouble from him and his backers.”
“It feels like I’ve already taken a hit, though.”
“Huh?”
Seong-il shrugged at her puzzled look.
“Less than two weeks after I cleared her debt, an assassin came looking for me. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“You don’t think…”
Seong-il nodded.
“I suspect that bastard sent the assassin.”
“...”
Pirina leaned her back against the wall, staring into space for a long time as she sank into thought.
“Hmm…”
“What do you think of my reasoning?”
“Give me a moment.”
She fell silent again, pondering deeply. Finally she lifted her gaze to meet his.
“Actually…”
“...?”
“If an assassin were running loose in this city, there is no way I wouldn’t know about it.”
“?!”
“What, did you think I was just an innocent little thief girl who only manages a brothel?”
“...”
“You can assume that every filthy incident in this city reaches the ears of myself, the guild leader, and a handful of key executives before it even happens. In fact, it must. Otherwise it would mean our control is slipping. Any fools who rebel or cause trouble need to be made examples of immediately.”
“...”
“That’s why I didn’t believe your assassin story at first. But…”
“But…?”
“I’m starting to get a feeling about this. In that sense…”
“...?”
“Shall we continue this conversation tomorrow? There are things I need to look into right now. Also—”
“Also…?”
“I’ll assign a few of my friends to you. Four of them. One will stay at your house for the rest of the week. The other three will patrol the surrounding area.”
“Ah…”
“So don’t worry about your safety and live normally. Just avoid wandering outside the city if possible. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Seong-il nodded and left the room. As he walked, his mind churned.
‘Could this be… that hidden civil-war event…?’
‘No, nothing is certain yet. I’ll talk with Pirina again tomorrow and think it over then.’
Carrying these weighty thoughts, Seong-il returned to his workshop.
Once back, he immediately sought out Elisha and called her name.
“Elisha.”
“Just a moment! I need to concentrate.”
She was deeply focused on an experiment, practicing her alchemy. In front of her lay a chaotic array of glass instruments, colorful liquids, and mysterious ingredients. After manipulating them for some time, she flipped through several pages of a book at the edge of the workbench and muttered to herself.
“Hmm… This ratio seems correct, but for better efficiency…”
She mumbled a few more words and returned to her work with renewed focus.
‘Ugh… Should I just grab her and force her to listen?’
‘No… If I distract her and something goes wrong, it’ll be a nightmare.’
Because the matter was so serious, Seong-il had considered interrupting her anyway, but in the end he shook his head, sat down in a nearby chair, and waited for her experiment to conclude.
“Are you finished?”
When she finally sighed and stretched, Seong-il asked.
“Huh? Oh, yeah…”
Elisha washed her hands and walked over to him. Apparently assuming he had called her for sex, she reached out and began gently stroking his manhood. Seong-il unbuttoned his shirt with one hand while catching her wrist.
“Wait. It’s not for that. There’s something important I need to discuss.”
“Huh? There’s something more important to you than this?”
‘Fuck… An assassin came at dawn and she’s still talking like that… Isn’t she treating me like a sex-crazed dog in heat?’
‘Wait… Is she actually right…?’
Seong-il began reflecting on himself with a bitter heart. Pushing the gloomy thoughts aside, he spoke to her.
“You remember the assassin who came at dawn, right?”