The emperor called for a 60-minute break so that the fighters can prepare themselves for the next match and so that Nova could rest for a bit.

The crowd’s reaction to what they witnessed—

“I’m betting all my coins on sir Nova to win this!”

“Even though I wasn’t in the ring with him, I could still feel his killing intent.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t even breathe properly while looking at him.”

“The guy’s a monster…”

“Do you think he can make it to the top and beat Breuk or Mian?”

“I’m not sure. He didn’t use his full power, right? But he was able to beat an Earthly Ascendent like it was nothing. Maybe the rumors are true.”

“Which rumors?”

“That he’s the next Celestial Saint—”

‘I made the right choice allying with him.’ Thief Girl thought to herself as she walked through the crowd.

That guy’s name was coming out of everyone’s mouths. How could someone as powerful as him hide all this time? Was he just not interested in showing his power? If he was from a powerful sect, then said sect would’ve placed him on a pedestal and presented his strength to the whole world.

The most likely conclusion is that he’s either a commoner from a rural village blessed with extraordinary strength or someone that his sect perceived as trash who has actually been hiding his strength well and only began showing it after Ko and Funiji wiped out all the sects.

‘This reminds of all those martial art novels I read at home…’

The trash who can’t even practice martial arts turns out to be the strongest martial in existence—is this really a trashy cliché plot come to life?

‘Ah, found the bastard.’

The person she was looking for was chilling on a bench outside, eating meat on a stick as usual. Looking around, there were a lot of stalls specifically for people to buy food whenever there’s a break between matches. This guy is always near a meat stall chewing on something.

“Breuk.” She stood in front of him, looking down at him with a glare.

The bald bearded man was about to bite into another piece of meat but stopped.

“I expected you.” He spoke in a thick accent foreign to this empire.

Thief Girl tore a talisman that created a bubble to ward off sound and prevent information from getting out. It also puts a mosaic over the mouths of whoever is inside it.

“Explain yourself. I thought we had a deal. My brother won’t like hearing that you broke our deal.”

“Kukuku, you are still using your big brother to threaten me? How cute, how very cute. Listen, girl, I can’t let you steal the book. That will just put a target on my head. Think of it like this, a new martial joins the inner circle then suddenly the book vanishes right after the martial took the oath. This oath questions our dignity as martials so few have the willpower to break it. Since I am the newcomer, I will be the most likely suspect—I do not want to jeopardize my position for a little thief.”

“You! You’re walking on thin ice!”

“Oh? What will you do, girl? Will you bring your brother here? That is impossible, no? I know men like him—that is, heads of assassin clans. He won’t help you fix your own mess. It’s either you do it yourself or you’re exiled. Item retrieval and killing people are the exact same in families like yours—failing to succeed in either has the same consequences, kuku. Tell me, what you need the book for? If you can be honest with me then I will consider helping you.”

“…That’s my family’s business.”

He laughed again, “If you won’t tell me or even give me a reward that equals the risk then I think our discussion is over.”

She knew what reward he was talking about since he had brought it up before—which she clearly refused at first. By “reward that equals the risk”, he meant he wants ten artifacts from her family’s vault. No kind of job is worth that kind of reward. Think about it, ten artifacts crafted by the hands of true gods and passed down in her family for 500 years—only to be handed to someone in exchange for a pure martial art.

He knew he was being unreasonable.

This greedy bastard, she spat.

“You know no job is worth that much. It’s absurd to give you that much…” She didn’t let her frustration show in her tone.

“Absurd? But that’s the price, girl. If you aren’t willing to pay it, then this conversation is over.”

Her fists trembled at her sides, frustration boiling over. “Why did you even agree in the first place if you were just going to cower?”

His grin vanished, replaced by a stony seriousness. “At first, I believed your brother was a greater man than even Ko Johun. A man worth following. A man who could make the world move with his strength. The heir to a household with ties to a devil and a legacy of raiding relic tombs? It sounded promising. I follow strength, girl, and your family’s reputation intrigued me.”

He stood, towering over her, his presence oppressive. “But you’ve shown me nothing but empty words and childish threats for two years. Your brother isn’t here to prove himself, and you? You’ve proven even less. This alliance is over. Find someone else to save your cute little butt.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

She bit back a sharp retort, knowing it would only make her seem weaker. Her heart pounded as the reality of her situation hit her like a hammer. He wasn’t going to budge.

She had been entrusted with two tasks by the head of her household—one involving a target and the other the book itself. Success in both would determine her standing, though neither path came easily. To an outsider, the first might seem straightforward, but it would mark her first attempt at something she'd never trained for. The second task carried its own share of risks and uncertainties.

Failure in either would seal her fate, casting her into the shadow of her sister, becoming little more than an unwitting pawn to be used at will. A fate of two sisters. The target had originally been her sister's mission, but she had failed to eliminate them. What followed became a defining moment for her sister—and a warning for her.

“You’ll regret this,” she said finally, her voice shaking but determined. Even if she fails to get the book with Nova’s help, she’ll make sure this bastard dies by the time she goes back home.

Even if she never killed before, she was ready to go through with it and she will definitely make him her first target.

“Kukuku,” he laughed as he sat back down, dismissing her with a wave.

The talisman’s bubble shimmered and popped as she stormed out, her mind racing for a plan B.

“Oof!” she suddenly walked into a stonewall, no, a person’s chest.

“Look where you’re going, scum—” she was about to confront the bastard standing in the middle of the pathway.

The one in front of her was Nova.

“There you are.”

“E-Eh?”

“Let’s talk for a bit.” The way he said that left no right for her to refuse.

**

“That book you’re looking for—give up your search.” That was the first thing he said when they reached a secluded spot in an alley near the coliseum.

“What did you say…?”

“I overheard your conversation with that Breuk guy. So, that’s why you needed his help for some mysterious book. He’s one of the only two people capable of helping you since he’s one step away from becoming an inner martial.”

“…Give up my search… Give it up…” she repeated something to herself, “Two years of planning… Countless punishments for failure to succeed… just to give up…”

“Tch!” in a flash, she took out a dagger covered in purple liquid and aimed for his neck, “Kuh!”

Arnold caught her wrist and threw her against the wall, holding her arm in place. There was absolutely no way for her to escape his iron grip.

“It’s not fair!” she screamed, her voice cracking. Her glare burned into him, her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall. “Why does nothing ever go the way it’s supposed to!? Every time I get close—every time I think I’ve found a way out—someone like you has to ruin it! And I’m the one who pays for it!” Her words came out in rapid-fire, each one laced with venom, her breath ragged.

“I have to take the punishments!” she continued, her voice rising as if she was shouting not just at him but at the entire world. “I have to bow my head to a man I once trusted, once loved—a man I grew up with, ate with, slept with, bathed with! And now that devil’s power has rotted him to the core, he’s turned my older sisters into neutered husks of themselves! I’m the last one left, the only lapdog still under his thumb… Do you have any idea what that’s like? To lose everything and still have to crawl!? No!? Then why can you tell me to abandon my search so easily!?”

Her voice dropped to a seething whisper, “I’m sick of it. I’m sick of him. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of every man who thinks they can take whatever they want and leave the rest of us to suffer!”

The dagger fell and her arms fell limp to her sides when Arnold let her go.

“I’m not a killer… but they’re trying to force me to be one…”

“When you say ‘not a killer’ what does that mean? The poison you used yesterday was clearly meant to kill.”

“I didn’t mean to use that poison while in that crowd! I lose all focus of my surroundings when an enemy appears. That’s how… That’s how those people raised me—” shadowy figures, her family, flashed past her mind, “—trained to see only my enemies. They’re the ones I want to kill, not innocent people.”

“Poison is the tool of assassinations.”

“I’m not an assassination! At least I don’t want to be! I’m ashamed to even feel relieved that my first attempt, at assassinating the target my brother assigned to me, failed… But I can’t even say this to my family, only keep it bottled up inside, and follow every order like a loyal dog while hating everything they make me do!”

She wore agile armor, had hidden throwing weapons, daggers laced with poison and a hood. Who else knows what else is hidden in her clothes. The point is that all of this points to what assassins favor. They almost always have the Thief/Rogue class as well.

Classes are given naturally to NPCs in the game depending on which path they take. For people with mana there’s cleric, magician, alchemist, magician, wizard, etc… The girl in front of him was trained in the path of an assassin despite not liking it.

“Your little emotional outburst won’t make me give up on the book. I’ve been through worse than you to get this far and will be damned if some angry little girl wants to take that away from me.”

She glared at him through her hair.

“Can you not leave by covering your tracks and adopting a new identity?” he tried to bargain.

It would leave a bitter taste in his mouth if he just ends up taking the artifact from her and leaving her to her own fate. It didn’t benefit him and there were no obvious risks to hearing her out or just offering advice.

“An assassin clan wouldn’t let their family member go without a little failsafe being in place.”

“Memory wipe?”

“That’s a big maybe depending on what I know. Magic can easily dig up memories depending on the caster.”

“That makes sense, I suppose…”

“…I need to go back home and tell him that it’s impossible to get the book.” She lowered her head more, “Maybe I’ll get another mission to prove myself or maybe he’ll make me kill his personal target as a last chance to prove I can be part of the family. Whichever it is, it doesn’t matter to me anymore—” she took off the illusion artifact that was hiding behind her ear.

“!”

Arnold’s eyes widened when he saw her real face. Her light-green hair became a light brown and her green eyes a honeypot brown.

‘R… Ruria?’

He couldn’t find a voice to speak her name aloud, only gawk at her as she held out the artifact to him.

“You can take this from me whenever you want so just take it when I’m giving it willingly.” Her voice was higher pitched than before, matching the same voice who lovingly greeted him for the first time back when they first met.

“No… Keep it. I’ve done nothing to earn it.”

“What? This thing isn’t that important to my family if you think about all the other stuff they have in their treasure stash.”

“….” Arnold silently took the earring. It’s unbelievable how this little thing has the ability to shield its wearer from even the system that’s supposed to be a god-like thing that knows all and sees all.

What else can he say except: as expected of the magic item created by the hands of gods.

"…When are you going back?" He resisted the urge to ask her about her family name. The system wasn’t helping either; when he tried to check her surname, it was left blank. Mentally questioning the system about it, he received the response: 'Level 3 update is required.'

Is whatever family she belongs to, that mysterious in the main story that the system is unable to accurately detect their identities?

“I’ll stay around for a bit to watch the outcome of the tournament. It’s not like I’ve been gone from home that long. This is farewell.”

Her mannerisms, tone, and gestures were unlike the cute fluffball he remembered, who spoke with a high-pitched voice and radiated a carefree innocence. Now, her demeanor carried a composed confidence, and her voice held a weight that hinted at experiences he could only guess at.

If he ever thought it was all too perfect to not be an act, he was right.

“We’ll be seeing each other again, then.” Arnold left that passing remark.

“Eh?” When Ruria turned around, he was gone.