The Disciple Meets Another Master
The Hero Candidate Plan was exactly what it sounded like: a scheme the emperor had thrown together in a panic because his own life was far too precious, and the Demon King’s threat had left him far too frantic. In other words, the fact that the plan was riddled with holes was only natural. And the fact that plenty of people were eager to exploit those holes was equally natural.
The true problem with the Hero Candidate Plan was this:
It was not as if a god would descend from the heavens to select the Hero.
If every last Hero candidate died until only one remained, the empire would have no choice but to recognize that sole survivor as the Hero, no matter how lacking their actual ability. They would package the survivor as the Hero first and ask questions later, murmuring that perhaps the gods themselves had willed only one to remain. And who could say? Perhaps the moment that happened, a god really would descend and bestow special power upon that lone remaining candidate.
True to a plan that had been a mess from the very beginning, the middle and the end were overflowing with nonsense as well. That was why, even at this moment when the fate of the world hung in the balance, filthy desires and grasping hands still found their way in—truly foolish, and yet for that very reason, truly human affairs were unfolding.
“A commission.”
“…….”
“There’s a girl already making a name for herself as a Hero candidate before things have even properly begun. Eliminate her.”
“…….”
“Answer me, 5th Agent.”
Zzzzt!
“Ugh! …Yes.”
“Foolish thing. No matter how hard you thrash, your fate will never change.”
In the underworld there were any number of groups that made their living through filthy work, but among them one stood shrouded in the deepest secrecy: Medusa. True to the name of the legendary monster that turned any living creature to stone the instant their eyes met, the organization was infamous for silently burying anyone who tried to learn its true identity. All that was known was the name itself and the fact that they accepted payment to kill people; beyond that, no one knew a thing. Even the information guild Dark Moon was said to refuse every commission related to Medusa—whether because they truly knew nothing, or simply because they had no desire to get involved.
Both the woman called 5th Agent and the middle-aged man currently issuing her orders—and, when displeased, inflicting excruciating pain upon her—belonged to that very Medusa.
The legendary monster Medusa was known as a creature with a woman’s form. Perhaps for that reason, every assassin who carried out killings for Medusa was female. And every last one of them was a victim, forced into the life of an assassin by the organization itself.
5th Agent was one of those victims.
Yet she could not bring herself to think of herself as a victim.
“You don’t even say ‘It’s not my fault’ anymore, do you? That’s right. Killing people to stay alive was your choice, wasn’t it? If you’d truly possessed the noble will of a saint or a holy woman, the normal thing would have been to drive that dagger into my throat instead.”
The man’s words were correct. She had killed because she wanted to live. Even if the commands had been forced upon her, even if defiance brought unbearable agony… in the end, it was she herself who had spilled others’ blood and stained her own hands with it, all because she wanted to live, all because she wanted to escape the pain.
And so 5th Agent could not help but despise herself. As much as she loathed Medusa with every fiber of her being for the unjust orders and the torment they inflicted, she loathed herself just as fiercely. After all, she too had killed for her own sake; she was no different from the Medusa she so hated.
I should just drive this dagger into my own throat…
Why didn’t she?
Why couldn’t she?
Do I still believe it? That somewhere in this hell a hand will reach down to save me…
It was futile.
When she had first been abandoned on the roadside, she had believed that in a few days her parents would come looking for her and take her home again.
A futile hope.
When she first entered Medusa and endured days that felt like dying, she had believed the empire’s famous knights or the Church’s holy knights would come to rescue her.
A futile wish.
The first time she killed someone, she had prayed with trembling hands. Please save me. Or else just kill me and give me peace.
A futile prayer.
She knew better now.
This world itself was hell, and no matter how desperately she begged, nothing would change.
So it would be better simply to end her own life with her own hands.
But if I die, death will just be another hell.
Perhaps the ones she had killed were waiting for her, waiting for her to die. That, too, would be hell for her. And so even death was not a path of escape. If living was hell and dying was hell… then in the end there was nothing left but to let the current carry her.
Yes.
She was not living with hope.
She simply had no choices left, and so she made none; she merely existed.
And now she was about to kill even a Hero candidate.
A Hero candidate… maybe she could kill me?
5th Agent immediately erased the thought from her mind.
Even a Hero candidate was still a child. There was no way a child could kill someone who had been forced to grow far too strong in that hellish training, someone who already stood among the ranks of masters and had taken the lives of other masters.
“5th Agent, you will succeed. Never forget that you have no choices left.”
“…….”
“Answer me!”
“Ugh!”
5th Agent clenched her teeth. She had not yet abandoned the will to resist. Expressing that was the only thing she could still do. She knew it was nothing but worthless self-satisfaction, worthless self-consolation, and still she could not throw it away today either.
Hero Candidate Sera.
Word had spread that she had been recognized by the Mercenary King Balik, one of the “Hero Selectors.” As if that were not enough, she had already begun roaming about, cutting down countless villains, and rumors of her exploits were spreading at a furious pace—almost as though someone had prepared them in advance and detonated them all at once on cue. The important point was that she had become so conspicuous that every other Hero candidate had been completely overshadowed.
As a result, many people had come to resent her existence. It was not merely those driven by lust for power. The superhumans and masters who had taken on disciples under this very Hero Candidate Plan now regarded Sera as a thorn in their side. High cultivation did not automatically mean one’s humanity had been verified. In other words, it was hardly strange that some among those masters and superhumans, furious that their own disciples had been eclipsed, would resort to underhanded methods.
What mattered was that someone had wanted her dead badly enough to pay Medusa a fortune for the commission. That was why the job had been handed to 5th Agent, one of the First Numbers.
The First Numbers: among Medusa’s assassins, the ten most skilled were given the numbers 1 through 10. Selection stopped at number 10; any other numbers were meaningless. That was why, unlike 5th Agent, those who were content living as Medusa’s tools poured every ounce of strength into reaching the First Numbers. Unlike her, the other First Numbers enjoyed sweet rewards and lived lives that every other assassin envied.
The other First Numbers and assassins could not understand 5th Agent, but she could not understand them either. What pleasure could anyone possibly find in money soaked in blood? Did the faces of the blood-soaked dead not rise before their eyes every time they spent it?
It was not as though 5th Agent had never tried to escape this hell. Nothing had ever succeeded. No matter what she did, those faces never left her mind. They never vanished from her thoughts, and she could never forget them either.
And today, without a doubt, she would be unable to forget the face of Hero Candidate Sera as well.
Whoosh!
She hesitated—
but in the moment of murder, she did not.
She had been trained too thoroughly for that.
She could hesitate before drawing the dagger, but once it was drawn, hesitation became impossible.
Approaching Sera from behind and aiming for her neck was utterly natural, utterly swift, utterly precise. Technique refined to such a degree was no different from magic. In this instant, 5th Agent’s assassination art was exactly that. The feat she displayed in a single breath was so extraordinary it might as well have been spatial teleportation magic combined with half a dozen other spells cast at once.
“Hate me.”
With those words her dagger, nearly as fast as light itself, locked perfectly onto Sera’s neck.
It’s over, her experience and instincts screamed. It’s over, she truly believed. Her technique had been that perfect. The talent for murder—no matter how desperately she denied it, she could never deny it—had always betrayed her thoroughly and completed every assassination without fail. So she could only assume this time would be the same. She had executed the technique more perfectly than ever before.
Whoosh!
“……?!”
And so she could only be shocked.
Her dagger had merely carved empty air.
An illusion made with magic? No. Just a moment ago there was definitely a person inside my domain.
There was only one possibility she could think of.
That Sera had used the very same technique 5th Agent had just employed to strike from behind in a single instant. Nothing else made sense.
Shadow Walking? Impossible!
Shadow Walking.
It was Medusa’s secret art, one only Medusa’s assassins could learn, and the assassin who could use it more perfectly than anyone else was precisely 5th Agent—that was why she held a First Number seat. The only thing that could perfectly counter Shadow Walking was Shadow Walking itself… and that was why she could not believe it. The idea that a Hero candidate had mastered Shadow Walking was simply too absurd.
“You look like someone who just witnessed the impossible with her own two eyes.”
“……!”
Sera was standing right behind 5th Agent.
5th Agent immediately used Shadow Walking to open the distance.
But when she checked the spot where Sera had been, Sera was no longer there—as if she had never existed in the first place.
“Interesting. So you can make that kind of face too.”
“……?!”
Sera was standing right behind 5th Agent again. It was simple. The instant 5th Agent used Shadow Walking, Sera used it as well and seized her back in the same breath.
Ting!
5th Agent spun and swung her dagger. Sera defended. Unlike usual, she held not the sword Jade had given her but a dagger of her own, and she met 5th Agent’s dagger technique…
Ting! Ting! Clang! Ting!
…without the slightest difficulty. Her movements were identical, as if she herself had mastered the exact same dagger art—like a twin.
5th Agent felt as though she were trapped in a nightmare.
It was the feeling of an unbeatable enemy stepping out of a dream. In the dream, no matter what, she could never defeat that powerhouse; the moment the enemy’s blade fell toward her head, she would wake. That was the sensation. But this was reality. Feeling that way changed nothing. What waited ahead was certain death.
Death?
Yes. She would die.
She would finally be able to die.
She…
“I’d like to show you a mirror.”
“…….”
“Do you know what kind of face you’re making right now?”
“…….”
“You’re smiling while you cry.”
“…Kill me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“…Why?”
“Because death would be happiness for you. I’m not kind enough to grant happiness to someone who tried to kill me.”
“…….”
5th Agent had no choice but to understand. Those eyes held pure sincerity. Hero Candidate Sera truly possessed not even a speck of will to kill her. No—on the contrary…!
5th Agent frantically tried to drive her own dagger into her own throat.
Clang!
Everything but the hilt of the dagger vanished.
It literally vanished—cleanly, without the slightest trace.
Sera’s Aura Blade had erased it.
“Biting your tongue or swallowing poison won’t help. The Archmage will just heal you completely.”
With those words, Archmage William appeared. He had concealed himself with high-level magic and remained utterly motionless, erasing every trace of presence so thoroughly that even 5th Agent—whose talent for detecting presence was genius-level—had failed to notice him.
“From the beginning… you knew I would come?”
“Of course. I placed a commission with Medusa so that it would happen. I also placed commissions tailored to the specialties of the other First Numbers so that you, 5th Agent, would be the one free to come. That’s how you ended up here exactly as I wanted.”
Poison to drive out poison.
The Medusa assassins were currently suffering through unwanted contributions to the world. After forcing every First Number assassin to fight for the world’s sake, Sera had arranged things so that 5th Agent would have no choice but to come to her.
Having faced Medusa before, Sera found nothing difficult about dealing with them.
If anything was difficult, it was this very moment.
Because every single time before, she had killed 5th Agent with her own hands.
Even an infinitely regressing Hero could not know a method of saving her. It was a path she had never once walked.
Shall I begin repaying the favor properly?