41: Kill the Mage
She, Lizlit Finis, was an assassin.
Initially assigned to the Dark Knights, her aptitude was quickly recognized, and she was transferred to the capital’s guard unit. A cover, a front for the assassin unit. And later, she rose through the ranks to join the Royal Guard.
Since then, she had lived as an assassin.
Even now, dressed as a maid, she was undeniably an assassin.
An exceptional assassin, known as the Darkling Blade, a title she lived up to, one of the top five assassins in the Listrea Demon Kingdom.
A blade that killed without hesitation, following orders.
“…Be careful, Liz.”
“That’s not something you say to an assassin…” she muttered, as if shaking off those parting words. The fleeting emotion that had crept into her heart was unnecessary now.
She raised her red scarf, covering her mouth. The scarf, which had been swaying as she walked, now wrapped itself around her arms like a snake.
Lizlit, shortened to Liz. A name once reserved only for her family. The fact that she’d allowed me to use it… And now, not just duty, but a desire to strike down her enemies for my sake…
None of it mattered on the battlefield.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. That simple action activated the magic.
[Optimization].
Her vision and thoughts became crystal clear. All she had to do was what was necessary, as it was necessary.
No exhilaration. No excitement. For warriors on the battlefield, exhilaration and excitement were useful for suppressing fear. There were even spells specifically designed to induce such states, but those were unnecessary for an assassin.
Discarding fear brought ease. But that wasn’t the way of an assassin.
[Optimization] was a simple spell. A basic, rudimentary mind magic used for emotional regulation. And because it was so basic, it was the most difficult to master.
Humans couldn’t simply discard their fear of death.
Or rather, no living creature could. Even the undead feared the annihilation of their existence.
Even with this magic, the fear remained. The pain, too. But priorities shifted. What was necessary took precedence over fear, over pain.
Only those who could adhere to their self-defined priorities could truly master this basic spell.
Define yourself as an assassin.
Define yourself as a blade, meant to obey orders and eliminate the target before you.
That was all that mattered.
She clung to the wall on the second floor of the open entrance hall, holding her breath. A narrow ledge, barely two inches wide, formed by a protruding wooden beam.
And she used no magic, not even physical enhancement.
She closed her eyes, sensing the presence of the intruders. Since she wasn’t using any magic herself, their magical signatures—physical enhancement, defensive magic, and the powerful magic items they wore—were incredibly loud, echoing in her mind.
Three of them.
She couldn’t determine their exact races without seeing them, but at least there were no undead or demons. The magical signatures of dark elves and beastmen were indistinguishable from humans.
The front door was blasted open by an attack spell.
A bolt of lightning, [Lightning], one of the three primary offensive spells, shot through the doorway and down the hallway. Incredibly powerful.
Traps along its path were triggered. Poison darts, offensive magic, pitfalls. The traps set in the entrance hall were almost completely destroyed. If that level of power had been deliberately calculated to trigger the traps, they were clever.
She calmly assessed the enemy’s strength.
“There might be traps… no, there are definitely traps. Be careful.”
“Hopefully, that spell triggered them all…”
“I’ll go first.”
Male, female, male. All relatively young, judging by their voices.
…Well, all humans were ‘young,’ relatively speaking. Their lifespan, even for mages, was only about a century.
She watched the first intruder, a knight in white, gold-trimmed full plate armor, enter.
And when she saw the second, a blonde woman in a deep blue robe, holding a slender metal staff, she moved. She couldn’t wait for the third.
There was no way they could detect a shadow falling silently from above, amidst the chaotic mana fluctuations from the [Lightning] spell.
“Behind you!”
But she could see them from above.
As the warning shout echoed through the hall, she channeled mana throughout her body, enhancing her physical abilities.
The third intruder’s warning had been timely.
“—[Shield]!”
The defensive spell was deployed just in time.
But that was all.
The spiked hilt of her right-hand knife, propelled by her falling momentum, shattered the [Shield] with a sound like breaking glass.
The thick, single-edged blade plunged into the woman’s neck, slicing through flesh and muscle, avoiding bone, nearly severing the head.
The woman’s slender body crumpled silently, without a scream.
Liz landed cat-like, silent and graceful, avoiding the gushing blood, and smoothly plunged her left knife into the woman’s heart.
She withdrew her right knife, reversed her grip, and drove it through the woman’s skull, destroying the brain.
Kill the mage. Make sure they’re dead.
That was an assassin’s common sense. And battlefield common sense.
Illusions, defenses, healing—all magic.
The woman deserved praise for being able to deploy a defensive spell so quickly. But that was all.
Her physical enhancements were weak, her defensive magic items mediocre. She didn’t possess any ‘something’ that would allow her to survive a precisely executed blow to the neck, a knife through the heart, and a shattered skull.
Having confirmed the kill, Liz withdrew both knives. She stepped over the body.
Having eliminated the second intruder, she turned to face the third.
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