Heroine Survival Vol 2 Chapter 6

Assassin Guild

What greeted me at the assassin guild underground the chapel is a  girl in strange dress, sitting on a table that seemed to be created from  scraped rock.

She seemed to be at the middle or the late of her teenage years. Her  skin is surprisingly white with well-featured face. Her long black hair  are arranged to look like a spring at both side of her face. The black  dress she is wearing has over the top decoration. It’s really similar  with what is called as 『goth loli』 in that woman’s “knowledge”.

「You are that evil race’s disciple right? It looks like you have  quite the amount of mana, as to be expected from a sorcerer’s disciple  but, I wonder if you can kill with combat strength of that level. Though  it seems like you can at least serve as a knife throwing target.」

Just like how I’m observing this goth loli woman, she seemed to have analyzed me and insulted me with her crimson lips.

「Who?」

「You senior, sweet rookie. Be careful with the way you speak. I hate a  brat who don’t know their place, so I might kill you by accident you  know?」

「…………」

.

▼ Goth Loli Woman   Race : Human

【Magic Power : 115/120】【Stamina : 173/177】

【Overall Combat Strength : 242 (With Body Strengthening : 297)】

.

She is strong despite her appearance. With this value, it feels like  that she should at least have one element in sorcery, but I assumed that  her fighting style is that of a rank 3 light equipment warrior or  weapon thrower. Normally it’s rare for someone who isn’t twenty years  old yet to become rank 3, so if she has this much combat strength at  this age, she must be very skilled.

But, this is the guild’s assassin……?

「What’s wrong? Is the dark elf’s disciple can’t even give a  “greeting” properly? You, it seems that your appearance is not that bad,  so I don’t mind to make you my pet if you’re to my liking you know?」

The shape of the goth loli woman’s grinning lips distorted. She kept  sitting on the table as she pointed her well polished black leather  shoes toward me.

Is the “greeting” that this woman meant refer to 『lick my shoes』? Of  course I don’t plan to do anything like that, but after that I’ll  definitely get into conflict with this woman. ……No, perhaps that’s her  intention from the start by provoking me like this.

I think, I can’t win against her if I fight her head on. Perhaps I’ll  be able to win if I used all of my tricks but, I don’t want to expose  my hands right now. Now then, what to do……. This kind of person would  only get even more carried away if I acted humbly. Even so I don’t want  to cause a problem in my first day just because of that…….

「Keira, what are you doing over there?」

A voice suddenly came at that timing. The goth loli woman turned  around slightly toward that voice. I too turned my gaze toward that  direction while still keeping my attention to the goth loli woman.

「……Dino, I’m not doing anything.」

「Then, what are you doing in this place?」

「I got nothing to do, so I thought of giving some pointers to the newcomer, that’s all. Fufu.」

「Is that so.」

The one who appeared was Dino who became the leader of this branch  assassin guild. From their talk, this goth loli woman──Keira seemed like  she came here whimsically knowing of my my arrival in order to meddle  with me.

Apparently even though this is an assassin guild, not all of its  members are taciturn professional. Keira’s expression kept changing  frequently with whimsy before the pressure that she was radiating until  now vanished. She then smiled sweetly.

Impression wise, this guild seemed similar with other guilds where  carefree people gathered, but the people here seemed excessively strong  willed compared to adventurer.

Dino slightly frowned at Keira’s attitude. He might be thinking that  it would be pointless even if he questioned her any further. He avoided  pressing at Keira and turned his gaze toward me once again.

「Welcome, my fellow apprentice. The assassin guild welcomes you, Aria.」

Dino spoke a welcoming sentence with an exaggerated gesture like a stage actor.

「Then the job?」

「……You are so stoic for a brother disciple of mine. Well, I’ll have  you gradually relax more as time passed. First I’ll show you around this  place. At this time there should be other guild members being present  here too.」

「You can just let me do that in your place instead~」

Keira cut in from the side with an ingratiating voice while smiling  at me. But this woman, she had been directing faint killing intent that  only I could feel several times since Dino turned his attention at me.

Assassin……or rather, she is more like a murderer for pleasure. Why is  someone like this in the assassin guild? Could it be, this kind of  murderer is more common here compared to professionally trained  assassin? ……Annoying.

「Both of you, stop quarreling. Private quarrel is forbidden inside  the guild. There will also be punishment if you draw out your weapon  toward fellow member, so be careful both of you.」

「Yee~s」

It seemed that Dino noticed Keira’s provocation. Keira only gave a  casual reply when she was rebuked for that. She hopped down from the  table as though she was only going for a stroll──

*Shu-!*

She came swinging with a knife that came out from her sleeve along with the momentum of her drop from the table.

It’s a playful strike that isn’t even using body reinforcement. I dodged it with the minimal movement of averting my face.

I didn’t even have a drop of trust for Keira from the start. There is  punishment meant that there are people who would do something like  that. All of this woman’s action and words can’t be trusted, but she is  “reliable” in a sense because of that. I “believed” that Keira would try  something.

I made several predictions based on the knowledge that something is  coming. Keira’s knife grazed my cheek slightly, at the same time I also  left a shallow graze on Keira’s cheek using my hidden weapon.

「──tsu!」

She must not have expected that counterattack. As both of our bloods  scattered in the air, Keira leaped back to take distance from me. I kept  her within my sight vigilantly while talking to Dino.

「You aren’t going to claim that I’m in the wrong here right?」

「……It can’t be helped.」

As expected Dino can’t give the order to not counterattack when getting attacked. He sighed in exasperation.

「My……my face, is scratched……」

Keira moaned in a low voice. Killing intent oozed out like thick mud from her whole body.

「This “ash covered” shitty brat-! How dare you against this me-!!」

Keira brandished her knife in a blurring speed.

「Keira-!!」

But, Dino’s angry yell stopped Keira who is about to attack me again.

「If you’re still going to continue, then your opponent will be me you  know? You have been making problematic actions since some time ago but,  if you’re going to cause another problem, you will become a purging  target next.」

「……tsu」

Although she looked furious, as expected she is still not crazy  enough to go against the assassin guild. Even so Keira doesn’t give any  reply to Dino’s statement and kept glaring at me wordlessly with eyes  that are filled with hatred.

Dino sighed again seeing Keira like that and turned once more toward me.

「Aria, you also shouldn’t answer the provocation of others. Well  then, I’ll give you a light tour of this guild before talking about the  job.」

「Got it.」

I wiped the wound on my cheek with my hand and started walking deeper  into the guild following Dino who said that he will show me around.  Behind me, Keira’s hatred filled gaze kept clinging at me until our  figures vanished from view.

.

In the end I caused a problem but……that woman was really troublesome.  I wondered if her face was really that important for her but, I guess  just the fact that her important face was wounded by a kid like me must  have injured her arrogant pride.

It will be really troublesome if there is only that kind of people in  this guild, but during the light tour, I almost saw nobody else.

「There isn’t really anybody here.」

「Please don’t group this guild with adventurer guild or thief guild  where even beginner can join easily. We are different from the hypocrite  adventurer scout or the foolish thief who is driven by their greed.」

……Surely the scout and thief will also say the same thing about the others.

Based on the job characteristic of assassination, only people who  have received special training can become assassin guild’s member.  Special technique. Special ability. Only people who can kill their  fellow human can reach the gate of the assassin guild, Dino said.

The number of adventurer in this Claydale Kingdom is tens of  thousands including the rookies. As for thief guild, if beggars and  criminals in the slums are included then the number will be even greater  than that. But, for assassin guild, it seemed that even in this whole  country there is no more than several hundred of them due to the  peculiarity of the job. The assassin guilds also have observers and  cooperators in every city that are hired by money but, those people who  never killed will never visit this guild.

But, there is no accurate number of assassin. There are also  freelancer killer out there, and there are also assassination squads  that the nobles raised on their own. But, the biggest cause why their  number can’t be grasped accurately because there are some who hid  themselves after finishing and surviving a job and some who died for  real.

According to master, the number of branches of this country’s  assassin guild can be counted with two hands. It seems that this  northern frontier district branch is also in charge of the assassination  of the area including Dandall, but according to Dino, even this branch  doesn’t even have a hundred of people who can be called members who will  show up in here.

Even in a guild with this few member, if you searched then perhaps  you will be able to find someone who can use Cure to treat Keira’s face,  but even I can’t heal her wounded pride, nor do I have any intention to  do such thing.

「…………」

There are few people here but, even so I’m feeling a few gazes from the darkness as I’m walking.

I’m being watched. They are trying to evaluate me. Am I really  useful? Can a kid do something like assassination? What is my weapon?  How much is my combat strength? And then can they “kill” me. I’m feeling  such gazes evaluation me.

「Is something the matter, o brother disciple of mine?」

「It’s nothing……」

Dino’s lips slightly smiled. ……I already knew but, this person really has bad personality.

「Is that so? Then, let’s talk about the “request” that I originally was going to ask our beloved teacher to do.」

After going around for a lap, we arrived at a place that seemed like a  break room with chairs in it. There Dino started talking about the job  after we are seated.

The assassination target is a party of four adventurer pretender, the  Mercenary of Twilight. I heard that they are a rank 4 party, but  actually the rank 4 is only the leader while the remaining members are  rank 3. Those guys are called as adventurer pretender because they  aren’t proper adventurer, but recidivists of embezzlement.

Adventurers sometimes received request to gather precious material or  item. But these guys, in case the requested items has greater value  than the request fee, they would claim that they failed the request  before absconded with the items.

But this time they tricked the wrong person. Their client this time  is a noble. Apparently these guys collected the family heirloom that the  noble requested before running off with it. I thought that the noble  should just persecuted them as criminal and asked the adventurer guild  to take care of this matter, but it seemed the collected item itself is a  kind of item that will be bad if it become known by public. In respond,  the noble client requested the assassin guild to recover the item as  well as their assassination for revenge.

「First, just as I said at the beginning, I’ll test you to see whether  you have the capability to complete this request or not. I’ll put my  trust in you if you can assassinate them. But, if you fail or run away, I  will ask Serjura to take responsibility in your place you know?」

「What’s the test?」

Dino threatened me slightly with words and pressure. Even so my  expression is unchanging before that and I asked back dispassionately.  Dino made a theatrical shrug seeing me like that.

「The client is a former adventurer. The assassination target is a  trio of adventurers, but it has come to light that their actual  profession isn’t adventurer. They are members of thief guild.」

That former adventurer got attacked by those thieves in a certain  place. He got into a trap and his lover who was his childhood friend got  killed. In order to catch the culprits, he pleaded his case to the city  guards, but due to the peculiarity of that place, they judged that  there was not enough proof and the culprits weren’t charged.

The client, the former adventurer despaired toward the surface world  and made a request toward the assassin guild even if he has to be  burdened with great amount of debt. He wished for the death of those  thieves.

That place is a place that nobody will approach and it won’t be  strange for anyone to die there……. Those thieves are a band of robbers  who specialized in “rookie hunting” inside a dungeon.

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