An Assassin Shows Up and Kills Everyone (01)

"Be careful, junior sister. Lose the road in a place like this and you'll end up a lost child."

"Yes, senior brother."

She kept close at my side, her hand clasped tight in mine. She was no longer the tiny, frail girl she had once been, and yet that first impression had sunk so deep that, to me, she still looked like someone I would have to look after for the rest of my life. To anyone else, I supposed, we simply looked like an older brother fussing over a much younger sister.

"Nngh..."

It hadn't been part of the plan. In the end I couldn't outlast Seolhwa's stubbornness, and I had stepped into the story with her in tow.

This is... extremely inconvenient.

In the original, Cheongha had no money and no will to speak of. He drank the cheap liquor vagrants pressed on him in the street, swallowed a sleeping drug along with it, and passed out, only to be sold off to a shabby pleasure house belonging to the Beggars' Sect. The moment he came to, he shattered the shackles on his wrists in a single breath. The proprietor, shaking and stammering that they had laid hands on the wrong martial artist, heard him announce that he had nowhere else to go anyway and might as well work as a guard. He passed the time growing friendly with the courtesans — until he happened to witness the proprietor meeting an agent of the organization behind the curtain, and was dragged into the incident. That was the proper story.

No, wait. There's a problem right from the start.

With Seolhwa beside me, I couldn't simply pass out and let us both be taken. A beauty like her would obviously be sold somewhere entirely different from a man like me, and I had not the slightest intention of putting my precious junior sister in that kind of danger. Even if we were captured together, the plan had been to befriend the courtesans, gather information, and wait for the right moment — but showing her that side of myself was a little much.

I really should have forced it and left her at Master's residence.

Every last thing was tangling. Damn it.

Since it had come to this, I would skip the natural course of events and follow only the major incidents. First, I had to smash the shadow organization's agent here in Sichuan, get myself marked as an obstacle, and draw their attack. Second, I had to meet the protagonist and the heroine, pick a fight, and turn that quarrel into the start of a friendship.

In the original, Cheongha drank like a ruined man and lazed through his training, so the Snow Ginseng piled inner energy into him on its own. That energy was so choked with impurities that, despite having the skill to crush the protagonist outright, he was pushed back instead — and the shock of it was what finally set Yeon Cheongha to training again.

Mm. Stick to the main trunk and the story should hold. I can dress up the backstory well enough that they'll nod and say it's close to the original...

Even as I thought it, my eyes drifted to my junior sister. Innocent-faced, she clung to my hand and trotted after me like a baby chick.

Hold on. I can let the rest of it slide, but if I bring Seolhwa along, then a clash with the protagonist's party won't be two against one. It'll be two against two.

And given Seolhwa's temperament, she was not going to sit quietly and watch while I was attacked. If nothing else, she was fiercely sensitive when family was in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠danger. That was Seolhwa.

If it comes to that, don't the two of us just beat them down and end it?

And then the story falls to pieces from the very beginning.

"Say. Junior Sister Ok?"

"Yes, senior brother. Did you call me?"

She had been staring, dazed, at all the rare wonders of Sichuan. The moment I called, she turned her head like a puppy and met my eyes. How adorable. An older brother's smile rose of its own accord — but this was not the time for it.

"You don't happen to miss Fa— Master, do you?"

It was the third day since we had come down the mountain. For a junior sister who had never once left her father's side since the day she was born, this was about when a child would start to miss a parent.

Even at a training retreat, go a day or two without seeing them and the moment someone mentions your parents by candlelight in the evening, the tears just run.

"I'm all right, so long as you're beside me, senior brother."

Heartwarming. Unfortunately, it was not the answer I had been hoping for.

"So you don't want to go home. You don't miss the mountain valley..."

Even now she wore a look on the verge of losing her mind, drinking in Sichuan's strange goods and its crowds of people. At least she had my hand in a tight grip, so there was no chance of her getting lost. That was something.

I'll have to draw the plan over again.

Handle most of it after putting Junior Sister Seolhwa to bed at the inn, for instance.

I already know where those bastards from the shadow organization operate, and exactly how they get their tails caught. And tonight happens to be the new moon...

Knowing the future was useful in precisely this way. You could arrive at the conclusion without wading through the whole tangled process.

"Junior sister, want to try that?"

"You should have some too, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠senior brother."

So, for the daylight hours, I would simply spend a pleasant time with her. Play hard enough that exhaustion would drop her into a dead sleep by evening.

It's later than I thought.

I had figured that around the Hour of the Pig — somewhere between nine and eleven at night — she would be fast asleep and I could slip out unnoticed. Perhaps because we had taken a cheap lodging, she kept sensing people moving about. Living on the mountain, she had never had cause to feel a stranger's presence, and she clearly wasn't used to it. She couldn't sleep, and I was pinned in place until the Hour of the Rat, from eleven at night to one in the morning.

In the modern world that hour was hardly late. In a wuxia world, where people began preparing for bed the moment the sun went down, no one was out at a time like this. Even so, once she finally slept and I carefully slipped away to search for the place the novel had described, the night was already past the middle of the Hour of the Ox — one to three in the morning.

The middle of the Ox, when people sleep their deepest. If it's now, I shouldn't meet any interference... but.

The trouble was that "people" included me, and I was sleepy.

Ugh. Pull yourself together. I need to finish this cleanly before she notices, or there'll be trouble.

I didn't have to worry about being mistaken for someone else and chased down. The only souls moving at this hour were night-walking rogues, or the covert organizations out gathering intelligence. Those, and no one else.

A port clung to the Yangtze where the great river ran through Sichuan. This was where the shadow organization made contact with the collaborators who worked for them here.

Finish it fast and get back. They aren't moving in earnest yet, so there shouldn't be any large action. They're still at the stage of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠receiving regular reports...

As the novel told it, the courtesan Cheongha had grown close to would sneak to the port to steal something she needed, and by chance witness their meeting. Had she failed to recognize who they were, she might have kept her life. She happened to notice the distinctive limp of the pleasure-house ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠proprietor, and for that she died.

Which was why I, too, was crouched near the port, searching for a man who walked with a drag in his step.

Not a person. Not even a single rat.

I had been certain the rendezvous fell on a moonless new moon like this one. Had I gotten it wrong?

And I have this feeling I'm forgetting something.

The novel I had possessed into was no work of a lifetime. I had read it idly, to kill time, and I did not remember every last detail.

Cheongha gets kidnapped around now. He spends about a month getting close to the courtesans. So originally, a month from now, the courtesan goes missing, and Cheongha smashes those bastards without even knowing who they are. What happened before that?

Honestly, all I remembered were the movements of the protagonist couple and of Cheongha, the major rival. The side characters did not come back easily. It felt as if there had been some important piece, and equally as if there hadn't.

Hm?

The Hour of the Ox slipped past. As the Hour of the Tiger drew near and still nothing happened, something brushed my qi sense while I dozed face-down, nodding off.

Someone's there.

A covert movement. It was not the presence of a pleasure-house proprietor — a limping middle-aged man whose secretly learned martial arts amounted to nothing more than self-defense. This presence was sharper. More secretive. So secretive that, had the other party not let their guard slip by pure chance, I might never have felt it at all.

A covert organization, gathering intelligence... Ah!

Only then did the forgotten piece of background lore surface. Among the protagonist's three wives and four concubines was one called the Resourceful Wise Woman of the Jegal Clan — Jegal Yeonji. She became entangled with the protagonist because she came to Sichuan searching for word of her twin older sister, missing in this very province, and was attacked by the shadow organization that had been hunting Cheongha. The protagonist saved her.

In the novel it passed in a single line: a member of the family had gone missing. In truth, it had been her own twin older sister. Whenever Jegal Yeonji had to leave her post, that older sister went in disguise and took her place, so to the outside world the sister was treated as a person who did not exist. Unable to speak of her grief, she was comforted by the protagonist, and that was how they grew close. It was a story from about two months after the duel with Cheongha.

As I remember it, the news had been cut off for about three months, so the Resourceful Wise Woman came here herself and drew the protagonist — the Divine Star of Upheaval — to Sichuan to use as bait...

Thanks to that, the early days were a vicious business of killing and sparing. Then affection set in, talk of marriage followed, connections formed with the Wulin Alliance, and they threw their weight around.

In other words... if today is that day, then today is the day she dies.

I thought I understood why there wasn't a single human presence at this port. The reason I hadn't remembered was that the whole affair had been filed away as background. It had never connected, directly, to today's date.

Hmm.

I spread my qi sense and swept the surroundings. Countless assassins were drawing a net tight around this place. The presence I had felt — the Resourceful Wise Woman's twin older sister — was one she herself had revealed, readying for battle after she noticed them.

Fortunately, I don't seem to have been found...

Shff—!

The assassins began to move, swift and sure, closing in to surround her. No longer bothering to hide, they carried out a slaughter in the dark without so much as the clash of a weapon.

Thud.

An assassin who had been sprinting nimbly a moment before became a slab of meat and hit the ground. The organization had sent thirty. She was only one.

The Jegal Clan's martial arts were not particularly strong, and hers were never meant for assassination or open combat. They existed for covert infiltration and the gathering of intelligence. There was no way for her to get out of this place.

If I want events to follow the set story, I should stay hidden and not intervene.

Only then would the protagonist come back to this place, and the ties with the Wulin Alliance unfold.

Shwaak!

Fully three assassins collapsed, spraying blood. Even as they died they snared her body in silver thread, pinning her movements, cutting her flesh, and in the end she was dragged into the shadow of the cargo stacked along the port — caught like a trapped beast in a net of fine silver wire.

Dragged off like this, she would become someone even the full might of the Jegal Clan's intelligence could never find. They would probably dispose of her cleanly. Not even a corpse left behind.

Ugh.

Watching, I could see a black-clad figure being hauled along, caught in the net. From the way it cinched her, she was a woman of a lithe figure. The instant her eyes met mine, she sent a signal straight into my head.

Knowing full well she was about to die, she still did not ask to be saved. A spy with a true professional's pride, I supposed.

Right. This, too, is just something that passes according to the story...

I closed my eyes for a moment and drew a long breath.

Think about it. If I burst in now, isn't that the kind of turn where a masked assassin suddenly leaps out of a story that was going perfectly well and cuts down every last character? What am I supposed to do with the plot after that?

Thinking so, I was working very hard to justify ignoring her.

I set my jaw.

Hadn't someone said it? A true novelist is the one who, even when a masked assassin suddenly leaps out and slaughters every character on the page, can still spin a plot more gripping than what came before.

I was only a character who had been possessed into the tale. The author could sort out the story himself.