"...Hm?" Anaiel widened his eyes and stared at Merui in confusion. Alex realized what Merui had said and immediately shushed his friend.
"Haha! What a joke Merui! But you really shouldn't joke like that-"
"I'm being serious." Not once did Merui glance back at Alex, he carefully observed Anaiel's reactions to his words. He then noticed Anaiel's hands were slightly trembling. This was enough for Merui's suspicion to rise further.
"....Well.....I really don't know what your talking about." Anaiel's eyes showed concern and confusion, but Merui's gut feeling was giving him such a bad feeling.
"If there's anything I can do to help, you can just ask me." Lin smiled in his mind, judging by Merui's reactions, Lin knew that he had executed his plan perfectly.
"Thanks, I will." Merui coldly thanked him. "I'll take my leave now, I'm sure you have many other matters to attend to."
"...I hope you feel better Merui." Despite Merui's attitude, Anaiel still smiled softly. This made Merui pause and almost doubt himself. After abit of hesitance, he sighed. "Goodbye."
_______
"Elliot, find another assassination firm that is more reliable this time. If they fail again..." Anaiel's glare held dark intent.
"Y-Yes Young Master! I will not disappoint you this time." Elliot hurried to get out of Anaiel's sight incase he just decided to blow up and kill him right then and there.
Lin sighed once Elliot left the room. After the previous incident, Lin was worried that something would go wrong. So this time, when he would send the new assassination firm in, he would go personally to supervise just in case anything unexpected would happen.
"Simply a genius..." Lin muttered to himself.
...
Lin knew he was the villain and all...he had to be flashy, a bit dumb, and had to always have it out for the protagonist yet....
In Lin's hands was an over the top, white masquerade mask decorated with multiple gems, feathers, and had a beautiful design.
"Aurgh, hopefully these isn't something like chuunibyou in this world." He didn't want to trouble his already hard working butler, so he just wore the mask. Thankfully Anaiel's good looks didn't make it look tacky.
In his original world, he was soft spoken, easily shy person. {Well he was when talking to people..online however…..}Now look at what he has come to....
Sighing, he wore a soft black robe and pulled the hood over his head. Though you couldn't recognize Anaiel at a glance now, if you saw his iconic eyes and hair, then it was over.
Using magic, he temporarily turned his eyes green, and his hair brown. Satisfied, he nodded to himself and discreetly left the estate.
____
Arriving at the spot where the assassin's were supposed to ambush Merui, he cast cloaking magic on the tree he was on, and his presence immediately disappeared. Since Merui's rank was pretty low, the assassins that they would send should be one or two levels above, which was measly compared to Anaiel's A rank.
After around 15 minutes, Lin finally spotted Merui's figure riding a horse. He was wearing typical adventuring clothes, and his natural charm was showing, even Lin had to admit that Merui's looks were worthy of his protagonist title.
"Now that I think about it...Merui looks Korean..." Maybe it was because the author was Korean? Anyways, the black hair and black eyes really reminded Lin of his world.
Just as Merui passed the tree, a dagger flew right towards Merui. Merui seemed to had sensed something was a bit off in the first place, so he immediately used his skill to dodge effortlessly. Just as he hopped onto the ground, a man wearing similar clothing to Lin tried to stab his sword into his heart.
"Mana shield." Merui tried to stay calm as multiple cloaked figures began to emerge from the trees.
"...Sh**." Merui cursed as he smiled grimly.
....
"Wow, as expected from our protagonist!" Lin thought as his eyes widened at Merui's excellent skills. Although those assassins were all probably ranked higher then Merui, he was still holding his own and was able to knock out 2 of the 5 assassins.
Though it wasn't at a cost. Merui's arm was severely bleeding and his breathing was getting heavier and heavier. Lin was prepared to step in anytime and had his magic ready.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light and all the remaining assassin's fell to the ground, blood dripping from there throats.
"Sensing severe mental stress from host! Activating mental barrier!" The system beeped. When Lin saw those people get killed, his mind went blank. He wasn't expecting their deaths would be so realistic. He thought it would be like a game system, like instead of dying, they just fade off.
The barrier seemed to be working though, and Lin slowly got his rationality back. He noticed Merui had collapsed on the floor, seemingly he had used up all of his remaining energy to strike those final blows.
Avoiding the bodies carefully, he saw Merui's state. He was breathing weakly and the cut on his arm seemed worse then he had initially thought.
"Will Merui be fine if I leave him be?" Lin asked the system.
"Merui will die due to blood lost and hypothermia if not treated carefully." Replied the system. It's attitude seemed to have become more serious once those assassins died.
After making sure the knocked out remaining assassins were truly knocked out, he carefully healed just a small amount of Merui's wounds, to not cause too much suspicion.
He felt abit of pity for the assassins that were merely pawns in this game. But, that was all. Lin knew those assassins probably killed alot of innocent people like Merui.
Anaiel then took Merui and dropped him in a nearby cave, to make it seem like he had wandered there with his last shreds of consciousness.
"Sorry that you'll have to experience this." Lin said before leaving. Even though it was the author's fault for making him experience all these hardships, it still made Lin feel bad.
"Goodbye." Anaiel turned to leave, not realizing one of Merui's eyes were slightly ajar.