The revelation that I now had a target painted on my back was fucking frustrating, but it was too late to turn back now. The contract was signed, and unless I was willing to breach it, I was stuck in this job for an entire year.
And here I was hoping for an easy and laidback job at the Laborer's Guild. Should've known my life wasn't going to be that easy.
“You don't have to worry too much,” Camille said with a calm I wasn't feeling. “Unlike the ones that came before you, you are far stronger and harder to kill.”
“Just means the enemy is gonna try even harder to kill me,” I said with a sigh.
“Which is why you must strive to be stronger. Hence, I will be putting you under combat training starting tomorrow.” Before I could complain, Camille continued. “Don't worry, your training will be considered part of your job and thus you will still get your daily salary.”
Then I have no complaints.
“That will be all for today's debriefing,” Camille said as she started organizing paperwork on her desk. “Bob, I suggest that you sleep with one eye open tonight. I haven't made a public announcement yet regarding your appointment to the position, but the important people in the city are already in the know. Expect trouble.”
“Don't have to tell me twice. I already know that trouble always finds me.”
•••••
After the debriefing with Camille, I headed towards the Finance section of the City Hall to get my pay. They gave me one gold coin's worth of silver, and it turned out that it was a lot of silver.
One gold was equivalent to a hundred silvers, and a silver was equivalent to a hundred copper coins. Considering the tacos I ate earlier which had cost less than a silver, I finally had a grasp of the true value of money here.
In other words, I was fucking rich!
As soon as I got my money, I made my way to the commercial district of the city and began my eating spree. The first restaurant I went to was a posh one that offered delicious food, but the portions were atrocious. A dumpling the size of my finger cost an entire fucking silver.
After the posh restaurant, I decided to try out the various food stalls lining the streets of the commercial district, and boy did it not disappoint. From meat skewers to egg rolls to sausage buns to fried monster meat, I tried it all.
It was heaven.
Never have I imagined that the time would eventually come when I could eat all the shit I wanted without having to worry if I'd still have the money to last the rest of the month. This was basically my dream, to be free of the burden of poverty. And to think that I literally had to travel to another world just to attain it was ridiculous.
Barring the monsters and the smugglers and the killings, life in this other world was almost a blessing for me. Here, I wasn't a powerless man at the mercy of a gang. Here, I was a cockroach of a bastard who could fall hundreds of meters down the mountain and live to tell the tale.
Here, I had power, and no asshole street gang would be able to abuse me anymore. I just wished Ma was here with me.
My eating spree lasted deep into the night. For some reason, I just didn't seem to become full, so I just kept on eating and eating. I even got to the point that I blew my entire daily wages and began digging into the money I got from Morgman.
Was this a wise financial decision? Hell no. But then again, money was meant to be spent.
Eventually, my eating spree did have to end, not because I finally felt full, but because the stores and stalls were closing. A bummer, but I guess it was a good thing, too. My savings were, uh, not in a good spot.
I began walking back to the Silver Foal Hotel where I stayed in, the streets mostly empty of pedestrians. This was the first time I was walking the city's streets late in the night, and despite my expectation that I'd be mugged, no such thing occurred thanks to the numerous guard patrols roaming the streets.
Heck, I think I was the one being suspected as a mugger from how the damn guards were looking at me.
“Welcome to the Silver Foal Hotel,” Ada greeted me as I entered the lobby. The receptionist had a practiced smile on her face, though that practice was put to the test when she saw me. “A-Ah, Mister Bob. Welcome back. Will you be extending your stay here?”
“Just for a few more nights. I just realized you guys are charging a damn arm and a leg for a single room,” I said as I placed a gold coin on the counter.
“T-Thank you for your patronage, sir.”
Leaving behind the nervous and stuttering receptionist, I went to my room, took another good long bath to wash away all the oils that clung to my skin and beard after my eating spree, and then went to sleep.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
My sleep was disturbed several hours later.
•••••
Five black-clad men walked through the dark alleys of the city, tracking a giant man eating his way through the commercial district. The shadows of the night clung to their figures tightly, concealing their appearance and presence from the mundane eye.
When the mark finally retired to his hotel, the men waited an entire hour before moving. One climbed up to the roof of the hotel, one waited by the front and rear entrance each, one watched the window of the mark's room from a rooftop across the street, and finally, one entered the mark's room through the window.
The assassin crept across the room, a dagger held in hand as he approached the sleeping mark with nary a sound. As soon as he got in range, the assassin plunged the dagger into the mark's throat and stepped back.
But he was not fast enough. The mark had been awake all this time and was waiting for him.
The moment the dagger reached its target, the mark's eyes opened and his hand reached for the assassin's arm. The assassin failed to dodge in time, but he did not panic and stabbed the mark again in the arm.
But instead of steel plunging deep into flesh, the dagger's tip barely breached the mark's skin. He felt like he just stabbed a piece of thick leather.
The mark pulled the assassin into an embrace and started crushing the man. The silence of the night was soon shattered as the assassin's screams and crunching bones filled the air.
And then it was abruptly cut.
The watcher assassin spied through the window as the mark dropped the dead assassin's body. The mark plucked the dagger out of his throat without care and tossed it aside, and like taking out the trash, the mark carried the corpse across the room and tossed it out the fifth-floor window. The body landed on the ground with an unpleasant noise.
And as if nothing happened, the mark went back to sleep.
The watcher assassin pondered for a short moment. A moment later, he brought out a pendant, and through it, he instructed his team to converge on the mark's room and engage him all at once.
The watcher coughed silently as the smell of cigarette smoke entered his nostrils. Somebody must've been smoking on the floor below.
The three assassins began moving. The rooftop assassin climbed down the side of the building, aiming to enter the mark's room through the window. The two others entered through the front and rear entrances, easily evading the sleepy receptionist.
Soon, the three assassins were positioned just outside the mark's room: one by the window, two by the door.
At the watcher assassin's signal, all three infiltrators burst into the room, blades gleaming. The mark startled and tried to stand up, but all three assassins reached him before he could. The first assassin stabbed both his poisoned daggers into the mark's heart, the second slashed at his throat but failed to penetrate the skin, and the third threw a pouch at the mark's face that burst into a poisonous cloud at impact.
The assassins stepped back as the mark stumbled off his bed and began shouting in pain. It would soon wake up the tenants of the hotel, but the assassins could not leave yet. They had to make sure the mark died.
But instead of succumbing to the poison, the mark pulled the daggers out of his chest and charged at the assassins with a furious roar. All three assassins easily dodged and struck as they went, inflicting more wounds on the mark's body.
But the wounds were superficial, and they closed quickly thanks to the mark's regeneration. He continued chasing the assassins across the room, too slow to keep up with their speed. But the assassins didn't remain advantageous for long.
The mark lunged for one of the assassins, who easily dodged. But as soon as the assassin was midair, the mark threw the poisoned dagger and hit his target right in the chest. The assassin fell with a cry, and the mark didn't let the chance go to waste. He rushed at the fallen assassin and, using his bare hands, literally folded the man at the waist in the wrong direction.
The two others tried to help their comrade, but the watcher assassin had seen enough. He sent the signal for retreat, and without hesitation, the two assassins left their teammate behind to die.
Soon, the two assassins met back up with the watcher on the neighboring rooftop. With a gesture, the watcher gave the command to return to base. But just before they could leave, a figure emerged from the shadows.
Warner exhaled smoke from his mouth as he dropped his cigarette on the ground and smothered it with his boot. “Going somewhere?”
•••••
My night was pretty much ruined when some asshole in a ninja costume broke into my room and tried to kill me. It was easy enough to take out the bastard since I'd taken Camille's warning to heart and kept myself wary of an assassination attempt. What I didn't expect was for three more of the cocksuckers to break in after the first one. They were fast and danced around me like I was some clumsy fool, and it was only due to blind luck that I managed to hit the last fucker with his own dagger.
And the poison. Damn their fucking poison. My body was resistant to it, but holy shit did it still hurt. The poison cloud made my lungs burn, and the poisoned daggers made it feel like liquid fire was flowing through my veins.
On the bright side, I at least got something out of the shitty encounter. The experience, for one, pushed me to the next level.
[You have slain an Umbral Assassin Lv. 28. Experience gained.]
[You have slain an Umbral Assassin Lv. 26. Experience gained.]
[Congratulations! You are now Level 21.]
Aside from the level, I also earned another Skill without having to waste a Skill Choice.
[Through sheer effort, you have learned the Skill ‘Minor Poison Resistance Lv. 1.’]
Now that's what I'm talking about. Leveling it up would be a pain and a half, but if I continued getting assassination attempts like this one, I'd level it to the max in no time.
The benefits I earned from the fight didn't simply stop at levels and Skills. I also gained valuable insight into my new Skill Masochist, and boy was it gonna be a game changer. When the assassins had poisoned me, the immense pain I felt gave me so much strength that I felt like a literal god. It was so exhilarating that I, uh, got creative with my last kill. Folding someone to death was not something I was proud of.
It just sucked that I had to be in a world of pain to reap the benefits. The power-up was massive, but I don't see myself inflicting self-torture anytime soon.
Now that the rewards I gained were out of the way, it was time for me to face the thing I was trying to avoid: what the heck was I gonna do with the bodies? I already tossed one out the window, thinking I'd just report it tomorrow morning. But then there was one more dead guy in my room and the fact that the fighting probably woke up the entire building. It was only a matter of time before—
There was a loud shriek at the ground level. I sighed. “Dammit.”