As far as I remember, there wasn't really a time I properly lost my composure. I daresay that equanimity is one of my strong points. Although, I may have to credit that to the orphanage for making me a soulless utility tool.
After all, there is nothing to gain, nothing to lose, nothing to worry and nothing to fear. All we did were to follow instructions. If we had free time, we would probably talk for information exchange, or train to hone our skills. All we did was for the sake of upcoming operations and tasks. If anything were to remain human, it was probably only the bonds we had with one another as fellow people in the orphanage.
But now that I have been released and seen the outside world, things have changed. Whether for better or worse, the fact remains that my views and perspectives has definitely changed.
[VIOLET!] (me)
My subsequent motions felt so fluid, I thought I had relived my days of my operations where assassinations are just part of another day.
I dashed towards him linearly and kept my posture low. All these while, I can feel his eyes trained on me as I moved. I knew he was keeping me in his sight, but that mattered little.
I'll make sure that the only time he got me was the one he did with the element of surprise.
The next step I took pushed the ground downwards slightly more, slightly elevating myself off the ground. The moment I catch his eyes following my movement, I put my next foot down and changed my direction to the opposite side. Using a sidestep manoeuvre, I successfully get the past adventurer to slightly lose track of me.
I did it. But this isn't enough! I cannot expect such low levelled tricks to work on a high rank adventurer who had seen battles enough to harden his reaction skills.
The next one will have to get past his visual defence.
I see him ready his sword, preparing to welcome my charge. The shaft which belonged to me continued to be held on by him, and he propped the vampire princess up just like that. I felt anger from how she is treated like a ragdoll, but I forcefully quelled it. The only way to quench the fire burning within me is to properly kill this man.
As though reading my emotions, he leaked out a disgusting smile.
Seeing his posture within my expectations more or less, I stepped again. I can properly feel the pair of eyes hone on me, and my peripheral vision tells me that his sword stance is going to hit me from the opposite direction.
That's right – I want you to think that I'm going to sidestep again.
The moment I feel my foot touch the ground, I stomp hard and injected force into my leg. I step down hard, pushing myself forward in the same direction. Immediately right after, I lowered my posture to the point where I am almost parallel to the ground. At the same time, the past adventurer swung his blade at an unseen speed.
I can hear the blade pass above my head, taking off a few strands of my hair. His swing would have caught me regardless from the opposite side, and if not for his wrong judgement I would have been dragged to the orphanage, dead or alive.
As expected of an experienced fighter, the past adventurer only left himself a small opening even after swinging his sword in the wrong direction. Even if it is small, an opening is nevertheless, an opening.
He recovered quickly, with his sword already positioned in a well-trained stance. But I have already reached him.
I dodged the incoming swing by a hair's breadth and swung my dagger directly from its sheathe. With deadly accuracy, I manage to draw blood from the wrist of his sword arm. I hear a grunt, followed by the sound of downwards cutting wind.
Familiar with this movement I've done as training back at the arena in the orphanage, I spun to the side in a full turn. I allow the dagger in my grasp to draw a full arc around me, using the generated centrifugal force to the maximum. Though the situation slightly varied, the movement of the opponent isn't too different from trainings I've done and I barely manage to pinpoint my target in sight.
Without hesitation, I rode the momentum and drive in the entire length of the blade into his wrist, putting all my weight behind the stab. I palmed the hilt of the embedded dagger with my other hand, and forcefully twisted it, thoroughly destroying the ligaments of his wrist. I bite down hard on my gums and endured the pain from the hairline fracture in my left arm.
I could hear his shout of pain and anger as he felt his sword arm rendered useless.
However, in the short moment I paused from my technique, I have unfortunately left myself open for his unexpected counterattack.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see this past adventurer fling Princess Violet at me, along with the shaft still impaled in her chest. Unable to react, I took the brunt of the force and flew backwards with her, rolling on the ground as far as the momentum could carry me.
Just like that, I have unexpectedly swapped my dagger for my shaft, and one Princess Violet.
"Argh! Fucking hell, this fucking hurts!"
I found it weird that he reacted more strongly to this compared to when his eye got damaged. Now that I think of it, my opponent may face me as a skilled human, but his base as an existence is not.
Is there a difference in the factor of pain or the type of anatomy to expect?
He brutally yanked out the dagger and threw it away in frustration, before ripping off his shirt to bandage his mangled wrist. It seems that whatever entity from the orphanage that took over the adventurer, truly have no care for the body.
As expected of someone from the orphanage. Nothing matters except for the task at hand.
I keep an eye on him while holding onto the vampire princess in my arms.
"Shit, shit, shit. Violet, don't you dare get taken out like this. You idiot, telling me not to die but getting hurt like this..." (me)
Discovering the place of which she got stabbed, I sighed slightly in relief. True to his words, the lack of one eye has fortunately decreased his accuracy and narrowly missed the heart. It is a fortune that I am grateful for. Though, the casualty in question seems to be hyperventilating with her eyes closed. The hit may be a miss, but the close proximity to the heart may have damaged and injured her more than it looks.
I forcibly quell my rising anxiety and directed my attention to alleviating her situation.
[I'm going to pull it out now, please endure. It won't be any different from when I found you by the river. You're going to be fine. You will be fine.] (me)
The final words I spoke, seems not just for her.
I slowly pulled the shaft out of her chest, and the hole in her body slowly begins to close. I see her wince in pain as the metallic pole left her, but her breathing slowly began to regain its normal pace.
Just as I laid her down on the ground, I hear a grunt. Knowing that the bastard has done bandaging himself, I looked up quickly, only to find him gone.
Shit! I was careless!
Damn it. I wouldn't have made this mistake in the past. But there is no point in lamenting my mistakes now.
I quickly closed my eyes to try and feel the presence around me. I desperately stayed calm in order to catch the presence of the one I previously failed to. I have to.
He definitely won't leave. With my injuries, lack of reinforcements and the skills of his host, there couldn't be another better chance to drag me back to the orphanage. That, I am confident of.
I continue to focus on detecting his presence while remaining calm.
Suddenly, something tore through the wind from my left, as if aiming for my injured left arm. Facing it, I swung my iron sheathe in one hard stroke and tried to repel whatever is there to come. However, I felt myself slightly off balance as I had misjudged my use of strength and tilted forward.
I had felt a light metallic clank and realised my mistake.
I deflected my own dagger, which was thrown by him as a decoy.
I have overlooked it the moment I saw him toss it away in anger, and I had underestimated his resourcefulness.
Moving entirely by instinct and pure hypothetical guess, I swung my body entire around, marginally catching the blade of the short sword and redirecting it to the side. This only caused me to fall backwards more, displacing my already unstable stance.
"Got you."
The short sword which was supposedly deflected snaked back up like a cobra ready to strike, and swung down at my broken posture with immense pressure around it.
The best way to deal with this would be to dodge to the side and counterattack, but I found myself hesitating. I immediately paid for the consequences dearly as the short sword clashed and pushed against the hastily raised shaft.
If I had avoided the straightforward strike, I would have won with certainty. Knowing that, the man before me had chosen this particular action. He knew the things about me that even I had trouble realising it myself, which frustrates me.
That if I had chosen to counterattack, I would have to allow Princess Violet to be stabbed in the heart.
I have truly been caught.
"Kaahk!" (me)
My knees cracked and crumbled under the tremendous force. With my already injured arms, I could barely resist and fight against him. The fact that he is pressing me down with his non-dominant hand doesn't make it any better.
Just like that, I have been restrained by him once again.
"Truly foolish."
You don't have to tell me that.
"If it was the old you, I'd have been dead."
You don't have to tell me that!
"Has the world outside corrupted you past the point of no return? Your change has made it clear that if the orphanage has any intention of taking you back, they'll have to spare extra resources to reforge a mere tool like yourself."
The moment I tried to push back against him, I felt a stronger pressure against my left arm. He had shifted his weight with a mere turn of the wrist and concentrated it on pressing down on my injured left arm.
The pain was white-hot; I couldn't even emit a sound from my scream.
"Damn it… Damn that man, causing an incident so big we lost many of ours… Whether it is escape or death, our association still suffered from such a grave loss. That hateful bastard, and you who is most affiliated to him, all deserve punishment which you all will instead crave for death."
You fucking asshole, you had no idea how much I desired death before I escaped that hell on earth.
My left arm which held the shaft could no longer hold, twisting the joint at my elbow. The fracture probably grew as a result. The entire shaft smashed down on my left side, the end hitting the ground.
The pain hit me like an army of horses, but there was simply no avenue which I could direct myself into in order to distract myself from the pain. I felt my mind sizzle from bearing the brunt of it.
With my left arm rendered useless, I'm forced to endure with only my dangerously creaking right arm.
"Don't worry. The moment you get back, you can get treatment from our healing mages. They're pretty competent. After all, they spent a lot of time practicing on you. Hahaha!"
At this point in time, I could hardly think anymore. The only thing I could make out from my vision is the overly clear focus of his revolting smile, and the blurry sight of the limp body of Princess Violet.
Violet…
Damn it all. There isn't anyone I could push the fault onto except myself.
If only, I was stronger.
She wouldn't be hurt, Amy wouldn't be hurt, and Selena wouldn't have died.
I clenched my teeth, out of regret and frustration.
All I wanted was to live peacefully. If life was all about changes, mine would be one with changes for the worse.
Someone once said that life is full of ups and downs, and if one ever felt his life is going downhill, one should not worry. Eventually, a light will appear at the end of the dark tunnel one treads, and bring about a turning point.
I couldn't find the light of the dark tunnel which everyone else sought.
The only thing I felt is the continuous downward sloping path that changed from that of a hill to a mountain. My life only depicted endless depreciating, and any hope for a turning point which was said to come out, gradually eroded away into the darkness.
If that actuality is the truth, I wish for everything to stop before things get any worse than this.
While I could still grasp onto any form of happiness around me...
How I wish, for all of these to stop.
However, as if to hammer in reality, the strength of the past adventurer increased explosively, determined to break through my final defence.
"I'll see you back in the orphanage."
My right arm broke and bent from the force, and the shaft with nothing left to support it came crashing down on my neck.
***
Or so I thought, but somehow, my right arm managed to hold on.
In fact, the pain which I felt increasing has ceased to worsen.
Sure, the pain is still there; but I still noticed this subtle change. My opponent, however, failed to understand how I continued to resist even though he pressed down on me harder than before. He attempted to use more force, but somehow I only felt the force and not its effects.
"The utility of the lack of pain to bypass natural body limitations and increase strength explosively? Is this brat using it now?"
While letting his words float past me, I remained puzzled.
It is a strange and hard-to-describe feeling, but that was truly how it felt. In fact, if I thought hard enough, I could describe it that I am experiencing this from a strong person's perspective. Strong enough to measure the use of strength my opponent is injecting into his weapon. Yet, it just makes me feel weirder because I am conscious that my strength had not increased at all.
If not, I would have broken out of this deadlock the moment I felt this phenomenon.
"Stubborn cockroach… How the fuck are you even doing this."
I see him raise his leg and stomp on my thigh, but strangely the same feeling occurred once again.
Nothing is broken or bruised. Only the feeling remained.
Bewildered, I tried comprehending this situation, but quickly concluded that I should find a way out of this as soon as possible.
After all, there are too many unknown factors around.
I don't know how long this effect can last. While looking at his frustrated face is indeed amusing, it wouldn't be funny if this effect disappeared the moment he stomps on my groin.
If he decides to use Princess Violet as a chip, I won't have any chance to run. I should try to resolve this situation while he is still obsessed with only me.
But I found myself stuck.
My injuries persisted, and show no signs of recovering despite this baffling circumstance.
The only working parts of me are probably my right arm and my head…
I forcefully swung my right arm upwards suddenly, aiming for the moment he raises his foot to stomp on me. Without both feet on the ground, I manage to throw him off balance and have him fall towards me. Seeing his confused face as it approached mine, I leaked a grin.
And smashed the bridge of his nose with my forehead with all my strength.
I immediately swung my shaft to my right while his head flew backwards from the recoil, throwing him to the side. Blood that flew from his eye and nose traced a crimson arc in the air.
While he got stunned by my unexpected retaliation, I quickly got myself up and retrieved my dagger nearby. I nearly stumbled due to my lasting injuries but stubbornly held on.
I immediately went for his remaining left arm while he is still writhing on the ground.
"You fucking cockroach!"
As though sensing my approach, he thrust his short sword in my direction. Just like his short confrontation with Princess Violet earlier, he had shockingly dealt with a barrage of magic projectiles and splendidly responded in time to her physical assault. It displayed his overwhelming experience and senses that few would be able to overcome.
However, I avoided that easily as he did it blindly. Right now, he is only an injured person full of openings. I sliced his elbow deeply, severing his tendons and ligaments altogether.
That is right – after all, your base is still human after all. With such circumstances, I who specialise in assassination wouldn't fail to kill you. Even if it is luck, or cheating, or whatever. Right now, I am more than capable of killing you. And I will definitely do it.
"You cocky bastard!"
I will end you.
"You will do best to watch out for the orphanage coming for all of you!"
"You don't have to tell me that." (me)
The last bite of the dagger went to the neck of the past adventurer and stabbed deep into his artery, properly ending him and gifting him a peaceful afterlife.