She was fast. Damn fast. She was getting faster every day. This Larlo guy—she wasn’t thinking of killing him, but Vernisha did wonder if she could get away with it.

  Does law enforcement really care what happens to some loan shark?

  She ran past a bus and shot around a sharp corner. The fire orbs seemed brighter than usual. Or were her eyes just getting better?

  After a short while, she came across a roofless wooden house. Sitting in front of it were about five guys. All human.

  She tried checking their levels but detected nothing, so she assumed there weren’t any Vlandos among them. And if there were, they’d never taken a life.

  “Huh… is that a—”

  He didn’t finish. Vernisha kicked him in the jaw hard enough to knock him out instantly.

  Everyone jumped up and reached for their pockets. She didn’t care—she went for the one who moved with the most ego.

  She grabbed him by his green shirt and slammed him into the wall. Her left hand wrapped around his neck. “Before you all try to stab me, just know I can crush his neck in less than a second.”

  The man was dazed. “What the fuck…? Who sent you? What the hell do you want?!”

  “Is your name Larlo?”

  The man hesitated, but when he did answer, his voice was broken and muffled. “Yeah? What about it?”

  His ego was shattered and blown away by the wind. Right now, all she held was a scared man. The fear in his eyes sparkled like stars and grew brighter by the second.

  She didn’t enjoy that, but she also had no problem with it.

  “I don’t like killing people, but I have a feeling that if I don’t kill you, you’ll just keep doing what you do.”

  He smacked his lips together as he tried to make sense of her words. “What things do I do? I’m just chilling! D–did I sell your contractor the wrong monster part? I swear I don’t scam. If something was off, it wasn’t on purpose.”

  She didn’t respond. She just stared at him. She really couldn’t let him live, but… she wasn’t sure if she should kill him. It was complicated.

  A knife slammed into her oblique, but luckily she had armor under her clothes.

  She wondered if everyone thought she had a weird horned helmet at the back of her neck just for fun.

  She turned toward the stabber; that was her mistake.

  Larlo took advantage of the situation to stab her in the cheek.

  She screamed and flung him away. The bastard flew in the air for several meters before falling on his shoulders.

  She should’ve killed him.

  The knife was buried deep in her face. For the first time in her life, she was tasting a knife. Well—the tip of one.

  She didn’t like that.

  The other thugs rushed her with their knives while Larlo took off running with a broken shoulder.

  She touched the handle stuck in her cheek. That tiny touch sent a tremor of pain through her whole body.

  Fuck it.

  She grabbed the knife and forced herself through the pain, ripping it out with a scream that curdled blood.

  She dodged their stabs while tearing off a sleeve to wrap her wound. Once she finished, she dropped into a bladed stance, shifted her weight forward, drew her dagger, and bolted like a killing machine.

  Her stabs were quick and efficient. One stab to a throat before she swayed past her victim and moved toward the next.

  They weren’t clean wounds—she wasn’t an expert—but she had bigger problems. For one, she was bleeding a lot and in a shitload of pain.

  Two, Larlo had escaped. She should’ve been more decisive.

  Ah, hell with it. Let’s hunt this fucker down.

  She had no way of knowing where he ran, but she spent an hour looking for him and didn’t even come close to finding him.

  In the end, she went back to the crime scene hoping for a clue, but of course there was none.

  She stared down at the bleeding bodies, then turned to leave—only to notice a man standing there, quietly observing. He blended so well into the environment she almost missed him.

  He broke the silence. “You taking over Larlo’s business now?”

  …

  Who the hell is he?

  “Which part of it?” she answered.

  “Monster parts. I kinda need some as soon as possible.”

  She thought about it quickly. Honestly, it’d be easier to just kill him. She doubted he was innocent. No normal person would have reacted as calmly and nonchalantly as he did in this situation. He didn’t only think she was a killer, but that she had also overthrown a criminal operation. Yet, he didn’t care.

  But then again, what if he was morally innocent? Maybe he just wasn’t all there in the head.

  She doubted it… but before giving him an answer, she asked, “You can afford such things?”

  “Most certainly.”

  Well, she wasn’t going to turn down this opportunity. It was a very strange situation indeed, but it seemed like she was a magnet for such things.

  “Just tell me what you want.”

  Someone had sent a Vlandos after Larlo. An actual menace of a Vlandos. But why? The people who had problems with him were weaklings—none of them could afford someone of that child’s caliber.

  And he doubted the kid worked alone. Someone had to have raised her to be an assassin. It was the only thing that made sense.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He kept thinking about it as he ran. He had one destination. One person.

  That person needed to know. He had the means to kill her.

  And at this hour, on this day, he would be in one place.

  The burning pain of his shoulder contorted his face, but the pain had almost disappeared as soon as he spotted a man tossing biscuits into a pond. Of course, not a single biscuit ever touched the water. The fish would leap up, snatch it midair, then vanish below the surface as quiet as a thief in the dark.

  A person standing behind him turned toward Larlo. “Who scared you?”

  Rezac also looked his way, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, you look like you saw a Darsean cultist.”

  Larlo panted out, “Someone sent an assassin after me—said they were coming for my boss and everything.”

  Rezac didn’t react. “I hear that all the time.”

  “It’s a big shot. I swear.”

  He barely blinked. “Uh-huh?”

  “It’s a kid. A little girl with brown hair. A Vlandos too. And she was strong—really, really strong. I don’t know how the levels work, but she had to be high.”

  Larlo took a deep breath. “If someone can groom a powerful Vlandos assassin, it’s a big shot, man.”

  That finally caught Rezac’s attention.

  “What color hair?”

  “Brown?”

  “How old did she look?”

  “About twelve?”

  Rezac raised his chin, thinking. “…And they came after you first? You?”

  His eyes hardened—cold, sharp, like he could see through him.

  Larlo’s heart froze as he stammered, “It’s true, I got attacked and—”

  “Mela, you trust him?”

  “I trust that he was attacked. But he’s probably just trying to get you to kill his attacker,” the woman answered.

  Rezac leaned against the railing that kept pedestrians from falling into the small public pond. “What kind of businessman am I now?”

  “Clean,” she replied.

  “So what are the chances an assassin would come after me through someone like him?”

  “Nada. None. Zero.”

  “Get rid of him.”

  Wait… what?

  “No, no. Let me explain!” Larlo rushed toward Rezac, desperate for a chance, but that was a mistake.

  His last one.

  

  Vernisha returned to Abella’s estate to sleep. Brenda would've heard the news the next day. She needed rest.

  Before leaving Sundawn, she stopped by the Adventurer Guild to buy healing elixirs—ten in total. Since she was level 33, they recommended Class ||| elixirs. She bought seven of those and three Class V|.

  They were far from cheap. Actually, the prices were outrageous. One Class ||| cost 23 silver pints. The Class V| was 31 silver pints. She needed them so that her silent admirers wouldn't question her ability to fight for so long and heal from severe damage too much.

  The next morning began the usual way: training with Abella.

  But she made one change. The man she met yesterday wanted three Flaqouse hearts, the skin of an Obercruh, and the skull of a Twindec.

  She didn’t know anything about those monsters—it was her first time hearing their names, but the Network answered everything for her. She didn’t like using the Network, but money was money.

  And it turned out she had faced all of them before. Within four hours, she’d killed those monsters and several others.

  Selling monster parts to regular people was very illegal, so she didn’t cut out the hearts or skins inside the forest. She planned to do that outside of the Monster Forest at night.

  She sold the usual monsters to the Guild, then met Brenda at the same place she fought the thugs chasing her the night before.

  Brenda was resting against a wall, head hanging low. When Vernisha called her, she jerked awake.

  She looked at Vernisha with dead-tired eyes. There was only redness and exhaustion in them.

  “You’re okay? I’m glad…” Brenda licked her lips anxiously. “You actually did something to them, didn’t you?”

  “Larlo escaped, though.”

  Brenda raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? He was found dead. Headless.”

  How odd.

  The timing was strange—a little too convenient—but it worked out in their favor. Vernisha didn’t care enough to investigate. She had more important things to do.

  “Someone did us a favor, then. Shouldn’t you be happy?”

  “I am. I am now.” Brenda’s expression didn't change in the slightest.

  “Yeah, you don’t look very happy.”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night. But I think I’ll get some tonight. What about you? After everything you did, did you sleep okay?”

  “I slept great. But I’ve got business to handle, so I gotta go. See you.”

  Brenda pushed herself off the wall. “Goodbye.”

  **

  The man inspected the five monsters by circling them and touching them.

  He checked the Flaqouse first. The charcoaled, rat-like creature had the temperature of a steaming pot, and the white spikes on its back held even more heat.

  “Yeah, these look solid. Larlo told me it’d take a good while to get those… You’re better than that shit.”

  “It wasn’t too hard,” Vernisha said with a shrug.

  It had absolutely been a pain in the ass. It was fast—really fast. Dodging its speed wasn’t the worst part; having those spikes sink into her body had been hell itself.

  If not for her armor, she’d have been in serious trouble.

  The man moved on to the other monsters: Obercruh and Twindec.

  Obercruh was a strange one—a giant, coiled snail that could stretch out its body like a snake. It was just… unsettling.

  Twindec, on the other hand, was a jet-black bird with a neck as long as its body.

  Satisfied, the man pulled out his wallet and counted 267 silver pints.

  It cost that much because it was extremely illegal.

  He handed her twenty six rolls of silver pints. In each black roll of thin leather, there were ten pockets, which held a single pint. He then gave her the remaining silver pints as singles.

  She tucked the money into her large purse with a big smile.

  “Pleasure doing business,” she said.

  “Yeah… same. You have other clients? Like a black market or something?”

  That immediately caught her attention. “Nope, not yet. I’ve been thinking about it, but I don’t know any spots.”

  “Really?” He slipped his wallet back into his pocket and pulled his coat forward. “I know one. The Dearest Den. It’s an invisible spot near a tall yellow tree about two miles east from Sundawn. But you’re a kid—or disguised as one—so you’ll wanna fix that if you expect them to let you in.”

  “I see. What do you do for a living, by the way? To afford all this, you must be making quite a pint.”

  “None of your concern.”

  …She forced a smile. “Of course. My bad.”

  Afterward, she headed to her cave through the tunnels she had created. When she entered, she was immediately reminded of how dark the place was. Then the smell of the decomposing corpses came second.

  It was so bad she nearly threw up. She covered her nose and summoned Aquaren. But before she commanded it to use [Snakes of Water], she checked his armor for any valuables.

  There was nothing on him.

  Well, except for his sword, which was now hers. But she wanted more—a lot more.

  She sighed and got rid of his corpse with [Snakes of Water].

  Through Aquaren’s nose and eyes, she sensed the environment far better. That’s how she realized the mind-hijacker’s corpse wasn’t rotting. She found it hard to believe that stench was from a single corpse.

  Not a single scavenger had even touched the mind hijacker's body.

  She wasn’t even sure what caused him to… turn into that. He’d been in her mind, then she attacked with the fog, and… that was it.

  There was no way she had actually corrupted him. Her actions were probably just a trigger for something already happening.

  Still, she got rid of his corpse the same way. Watching it sink into the pond and get torn apart by the water snakes made her oddly relieved that it could be handled normally.

  She hadn’t come here for nothing. It was time to check the stuff she had looted from that crazy man she had killed in the cave.

  There was money too.

  She didn’t touch the items—especially the cup—out of caution, but the books didn’t feel strange. Only the cup did. So she figured it wouldn’t be too bad to check the books.

  She had Meloporion retrieve them for her. They were a bit damp, but the brown leather case was still in good condition.

  She laid out the four notebooks and opened the oldest-looking one.

  …

  They weren’t written in Terra. Actually, the writing reminded her of a language from Earth.

  One she knew well: Creole. She used to speak it all the time because the swears felt so much grosser and more intense.

  But that was ages ago. There was no way she remembered a language she hadn’t spoken or even thought in for over a decade.

  Fucking hell.

  She grabbed a fistful of her hair and bit down on her lip. This was a different kind of frustration.

  Then, in a burst of anger, she leapt up and stomped down hard.

  With each stomp, she cursed out loud. If she’d only kept her cultural ties from Earth, maybe she’d remember the language.

  At the very least, she should’ve tried. She used to love Creole Day, Independence Day—eating the foods tied to it and everything.

  But alas…

  Her heart pounded against her ribs, but she refused to walk away from a possible treasure.

  She stopped throwing a fit and actually thought.

  She just needed to remember. It sounded ridiculous—even to her.

  But honestly… it wasn’t as crazy as it seemed.

  Whenever she enhanced her mind, her memory improved. And mind monsters existed.

  She could take advantage of both.

  She felt satisfied with the plan. It was realistic, not too bad. Sure, it would take time and definitely wouldn’t be worth the effort for most people, but she was still going to do it. Information about the golden cup would be worth it.

  Also… the guy spoke Creole. That made him like her—from Earth.

  Not just that—most likely from Dominica.

  Well, he could’ve been St. Lucian; their creoles were similar. Or maybe she was wrong entirely.

  But the possibility was exciting.

  And it could also mean there was a reincarnate teaching Creole somewhere.

  She doubted it.

  But who knew?