Chapter 55
Chapter 55
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: Unwelcome Visitors
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Wang-sik bought a small house.
It was in the fishing district, not the trade sector—a quiet, single-story home with a view of the sea.
While not a luxury home, it wasn't cheap, as it overlooked a small, sandy beach.
Opening the main gate, which faced the sea, revealed a cozy yard, and the house itself consisted of a living room and two bedrooms.
After settling in, Wang-sik made a point of being seen, deliberately spending time outdoors and exploring the local market.
“Hello. You're here again today.”
Ten days had passed since he started living as Rellick.
Wang-sik's mornings began with soup and bread at a nearby inn.
When a woman in her early twenties greeted him warmly, Wang-sik smiled in response.
“I came because I missed our Susan. If work gets too tough, you can always come marry me. Got it?”
“Oh, please. If I married you, I think I'd just end up working even harder.”
The woman, called Susan, skillfully played along with the joke. Yet, she didn't seem entirely opposed to the idea.
‘Well, he’s not so bad.’
He wasn't a chiseled beauty, but he had a solid build and a handsome, masculine face. Plus, the fact that he'd bought a small house with a sea view suggested he was financially stable.
“We should go on a date on your day off. I guarantee you'll see my charm.”
“We'll see. I'll think about it.”
Susan left the door open, offering him a smile like a gift.
Throughout breakfast, Wang-sik kept an eye on Susan while also casually striking up conversations with other patrons.
“See you tomorrow, then! Susan, don't turn me down tomorrow.”
He called out one last time before leaving the inn. The moment he was outside, his expression vanished as if it had never been there.
“This act is exhausting.”
He had never spoken so familiarly with the people of the Azelan Continent.
‘They should be making a move soon.’
For ten days, he had deliberately made himself visible. The breakfasts at the inn were part of this charade.
Next, he headed to the bustling market.
There, he leisurely bought his lunch, trading jokes with the people around him.
“This one came in at dawn today. Have a taste.”
His lunch routine was to eat fruit he bought from the market. But today, instead of the middle-aged man who always greeted him with a smile, a slender man in his late twenties was selling the goods.
The slender man peeled a piece of fruit called a keter, which resembled an orange, and handed a slice to Wang-sik.
Suspecting nothing, Wang-sik ate the keter. A concentrated orange-like aroma filled his mouth.
“It's good. I'll take three.”
“An excellent choice. I'll pick out the best ones for you.”
Wang-sik returned home with the keters the man gave him, along with some bread and vegetables for lunch.
Placing the market food on the dining table, the only piece of furniture in the living room, Wang-sik picked up one of the keters the man had given him.
“So, it begins?”
As he held the keter, a tingling sensation ran through his fingertips.
“Poison, is it?”
Wang-sik examined the fruit's peel closely. He found a minuscule hole.
“What a childish method.”
After just ten days, an assassin had made a move.
He had expected a full-on assault, but their first attempt was a simple yet lethal one.
“They don't care about the method, I see.”
All that mattered was killing the target. Perhaps this was the most efficient way.
“If I wait, they'll show themselves.”
From that point on, Wang-sik ceased his outdoor activities.
That night.
The living room door opened.
As if by some special technique, the door made no sound, and the intruder slipped into the living room like a shadow.
Though the space was consumed by complete darkness, it seemed to pose no problem for the man.
After confirming the living room was empty, he chose one of the two rooms and gripped the doorknob.
The door opened again.
*Clank!*
A sound shattered the silence.
“Ugh!”
He stifled a surprised grunt and stepped back, but not before something wrapped around his waist.
It didn't take long to realize it was a chain.
The man calmed his startled heart and lunged forward.
A silent ambush.
*Thud.*
But the dagger he drew was blocked by a hand.
“H-How…”
It wasn't armor. Nor was it a special gauntlet.
He had blocked the blade with his bare hand.
Staring at the blade, which hadn't even drawn blood, the man realized something was terribly wrong.
‘A trap.’
The man tried to pull away, but the tightening chain bound him, leaving him helpless.
“It seems we have a lot to talk about.”
*Thwack!*
Wang-sik drove his fist into the man's face.
“They sent a rookie.”
The man couldn't withstand Wang-sik's torture. He held out for a short while, until one of his shoulder blades was shattered. After that, he told him everything he knew.
But there was no useful information. He knew nothing to begin with, so he only begged for his life until the very end.
“A low-level assassin…”
He had undergone three years of assassin training, where the survival rate was only about ten percent.
Just surviving to be in that ten percent was impressive, but only a select few among them communicated directly with headquarters.
The rest lived undercover in the outside world, only acting when orders came down.
This was one of those cases; the assassin had no way to report directly to his superiors.
“And they confirm the results on their own?”
External guild members were disposable cards until they proved their worth.
“Another one will come.”
In any case, since the first assassination failed, they wouldn't stop here.
Wang-sik buried the man's body in the backyard and waited for the next assassin.
Five days passed.
The second approach was an ambush.
As he walked through the market, someone tried to slit his throat, moving like a pickpocket.
*Screech!*
Wang-sik deliberately let it happen.
At the grotesque sound, the eyes of the young man, who looked to be in his early twenties, wavered.
Because Wang-sik was smiling.
“Come with me.”
He had no choice. Wang-sik already had him by the collar.
Wang-sik dragged him back to his house.
The young man shouted to draw attention, but no one intervened.
“Why is a common pickpocket acting so bold?”
Since Wang-sik had become a familiar face to the merchants in the market, they readily believed his words.
And so, the second assassin was also brought home and dealt with.
“After two failures, they should be sending someone competent soon.”
A competent assassin did arrive. As a new employee at the inn Wang-sik frequented.
She was a woman far too beautiful to be working at an inn like this, and her gentle, graceful demeanor had many men drooling.
Wang-sik was one of those men. The woman, named Mijel, acted shy but subtly left openings for him.
After ten days of this, Mijel left a note for Wang-sik while he was having breakfast.
It was a note asking to meet after she finished work for the day.
Wang-sik nodded, and waited for her at the harbor where the waves crashed, holding a flower.
“The breeze feels nice. Is this right?”
Wang-sik had made various preparations, but dating was not his forte.
After some thought, he let out a long sigh and shook his head.
“She'll fall for it one way or another.”
It was a terribly insincere thing to say, but it was also true.
“I didn't expect them to resort to a honey trap.”
The new employee was an assassin. He had confirmed it by watching her sneak out at night to leave the note.
The woman who was so demure at the inn moved hidden in the shadows at night, so swiftly that Wang-sik almost lost her.
“Hah… hah… I'm a little late, aren't I?”
The woman ran all the way to where Wang-sik was, panting and wearing an apologetic expression.
‘Her acting is top-notch.’
It was his honest assessment. That's why he hadn't just stopped at suspicion and had tailed her himself.
From the assassin's perspective, she wouldn't dream she was being followed, so she proceeded with her original plan.
“It's fine. I enjoyed waiting. It's been a while since I felt this excited.”
“Thank you. You're so warm, Rellick.”
She caught her breath and sat down beside him.
From then on, Wang-sik and Mijel talked at length. Mijel smiled often with a shy expression and reacted enthusiastically to even his smallest replies.
But inwardly, Mijel was thinking something else entirely.
‘Is this guy a complete lunatic?’
Though she was smiling, she wasn't enjoying the conversation at all.
“Rellick, what do you think love is?”
“It's what you do for me.”
“Then what is it that you do?”
“Permission.”
It went on like that.
They were supposed to be having a sweet conversation about love, but this man named Rellick's answers defied all common sense.
She had seduced countless perverts and psychopaths before, but she had never met anyone like him.
“Rellick, what do you think when I talk to other men?”
“I think, ‘She's trying so hard.’ Because I know she'll come to me eventually, she's just having trouble finding the way.”
*What kind of bastard is this?* she thought, looking at the man named Rellick.
And she was surprised.
‘This bastard. He's serious.’
Rellick seemed to genuinely believe it.
“Let's get up.”
Wang-sik stopped the conversation and rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?”
“It's my turn to ask the questions now. I'd like to do it quietly at my place. Would that be alright?”
“At your place?”
Mijel deliberately turned her head away, feigning embarrassment.
‘Right. In the end, that's all these bastards want.’
And when she entered a house with a man, she was always the only one to walk out.
“You can't do anything else. Promise me.”
“Of course.”
Wang-sik made the promise and took her to his house.
That night.
As he had forewarned, Wang-sik asked many questions. And the next day, the one who emerged from the house alone was Wang-sik.
*Thump!*
A man slammed his hand on a desk.
“Three failures on a simple request like that?”
The man reporting to him stated the facts with an emotionless expression.
“All three have gone missing. They were last seen entering the target's house and never came out.”
“Hah, wasn't this a low-level request?”
The Dark Moon branch manager was irritated.
Normally, low-level requests like this weren't even reported to him.
They usually ended up as a single line with a name in the reports that came in every five days.
“Myles, after two failures, you should have sent someone competent, shouldn't you?”
The man with the dark eyes replied in a toneless voice.
“I determined it was a low-level request and didn't require reporting to a superior. I will go myself this time.”
“Make sure you handle it. As quickly as possible!”
“Understood.”
The man called Myles bowed and left.
This was the first time he had personally handled a low-level request.
“Just what kind of person is this target…”
He looked at the file again.
Just an ordinary escort knight, a coward who quit his job out of fear.
And yet, someone had held a grudge from his time as an escort knight and submitted a request to Dark Moon.
Such an easy request.
But after three failures, it had come to the point where Myles himself had to step in.
“Damn it. Looks like I won't be getting into headquarters this year either!”
He irritably threw the target's file aside.
Two days later.
Around midnight, someone entered Wang-sik's house.
The branch manager's right-hand man, Myles.
His official title was the general manager of the Dark Moon's Holland branch.
He walked with a confident stride, as if entering his own home.
“What's this? Is that how an assassin is supposed to walk?”
Wang-sik was sitting in the living room as if waiting to receive a guest.
“I hope you're a bit more competent this time.”
As Wang-sik rose from the worn chair, the man's eyebrow twitched. But the surprise quickly faded from his expression.
“Shall we begin?”
As Wang-sik got to his feet, Myles pulled both hands from his long, flowing clothes.
Protruding from each of his hands were three sharp blades, like elongated claws.
“I doubt those could even scratch me.”
Before the words were even finished, Myles moved.