*Huff* *Huff*
Panting his breath, Francis entered the forest and wiped his sweat. Glancing over his shoulder, he quickly calculated his next strategy.
'I can't get caught by Arthur which means I don't have much time to take out the monster before he comes. Damn! Where is it-'
"ROOOOAAARRR!!"
'...Nevermind.'
He turned around and was instantly met with the sight of a massive creature with glowing red eyes and whose body emitted dark miasma, charging straight for him.
'Wait a second…' Francis realized the creature looked familiar. 'A minotaur?'
Minotaurs were well-known mythological creatures in his former world. They were portrayed in many ancient Greek legends and used as a popular antagonist in various books, movies, and games such as the famous Dungeons and Dragons.
To think that it existed for real in this world, Francis was a little surprised.
'Crap, okay, no time to think!'
He immediately cleared his mind of any unnecessary thoughts and stuck out his hands.
The beast bellowed with rage and jumped in the air ready to slam down on Francis.
The boy gritted his teeth before shouting; "WIND ARROW!!"
*Whoosh*
A large blast shot out from his palms and the wind arrow flew toward the minotaur, striking its chest.
"ROOAAR!!"
The beast cried out in pain as the blast threw it off balance in the air. A bloody wound appeared on the spot where the wind arrow hit but it wasn't dead yet. After receiving the sudden blow, the minotaur was naturally enraged and pounced toward Francis who flinched.
Instinctively, Francis shot another two wind arrows at the beast; one of which hit its leg and the other, its neck. The wind arrow pierced the C-rank demon beast's neck and killed it.
The body of the monster dropped to the ground with a large *thump* and then, it was quiet.
Francis, who'd tripped over himself a little earlier when firing the arrows, let out a sigh of relief and slumped on his back.
'Fuck. That was way more terrifying than I thought…'
Despite running off to fight the beast in confidence, once he actually faced the demon creature, he felt immense fear. Even now, his hands were still shaking and his back was wet with cold sweat.
'I was able to kill it…thanks to my platinum-rank mana core that strengthened the skill.'
Francis didn't possess any other skills aside from that one so if it weren't for his platinum mana core, he may have found himself in a precarious situation.
[Ding! You have completed a task!]
[Rewards Earned:]
MP: 85/100(+10)
SP: 40(+100)
Inventory: 1 Lottery ticket
Francis let out a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off his head. His efforts were luckily, not for naught.
'Shit, I've been too complacent lately. I should purchase more skills…'
Without waiting for a second, he opened the system store ready to add more skills to his arsenal but suddenly heard the voice of his brother.
"Francis!! Francis, where are you?!"
'Ah, crap. I forgot about that!'
Francis quickly connived a plan in his mind and messed up his appearance a little before running to hide behind a tree. He waited until the footsteps of his brother neared and waited till he saw the corpse.
'Play it off. I just need to lie…' he thought to himself.
"FRAN- what the…W-Who did this? Francis?! Francis, are you here?!"
"I-I'm here brother," Francis said in a stuttering voice. He shuffled out from his 'hiding' spot and wore a terrified expression on his face.
Arthur, who'd been anxiously looking around, spotted his form immediately and marched over to him with panic written all over his face.
"Francis? Oh my god! What were you thinking running off like that?! Are you hurt anywhere?!" he quickly assessed his body for injuries and held his cheeks, "Why did you run off so suddenly? You could've gotten hurt!"
'Damn, he must really care about his brother. His worry doesn't seem forced or fake…' Francis let his brother manhandle him until he was satisfied.
Eventually, Arthur let him go with a sigh and in a serious voice, said, "Explain to me what happened. And don't leave anything out."
Glancing between the fallen beast and his younger brother, Arthur thought something was amiss. How could the beast have been killed so quickly? It had only been around five minutes since Francis ran off. That time window for the beast to have been killed was incredibly short and coincidental.
'It couldn't be…' Arthur looked at his brother's appearance.
"A blackhood," Francis started. He looked up into his brother's eyes and lied with a straight face, "A man wearing a black hood appeared from the trees and took down the beast before it attacked me."
"A man wearing a hood?" Arthur asked, his eyebrows drawn together. "What else did you see?"
"He had a tattoo on his forearm…of a snake around an eye," Francis said seriously.
"What?!"
'I knew he'd be shocked,' thought Francis. 'There's only one group in this world that has such a tattoo; one of the game's mob antagonist groups; the Snake-Eye assassins organization.'
They barely made an appearance in the actual otome game but one of their members tried to attack the main protagonist but was beaten by the capture targets. It was just an event created to push the characters together and otherwise had no use. However, the game's description of the group made one think it had a great role in the game as one of the major villains. But they ended up as mob characters.
The reason he placed the blame on the assassins' organization was simple.
They were an evil group of people that the world didn't need. Since they were just mob characters and the event they were in didn't really have much significance, Francis saw no reason not to take them out.
And how was this taking them out?
The Snake-Eye assassin organization was a unique assassination group known for its chaotic methods of eliminating its targets. Often, the members would create a scenario or a major event and use that as a distraction in order to carry out their jobs. They were known for forcefully luring demon beasts to noble's compounds or creating them from scratch and planting one right inside the vicinity of their target.
Then, while everyone is distracted by the beast, they'd be able to easily carry out their real objective.
They were unique assassins who utilized the chaos and relished in it, unlike the others who worked in the shadows in silence.
'Pretty sure there was something else about them in the game description I read…' Francis thought. He sighed and shook his head, 'Hmm, it probably wasn't anything important.'
If only he knew at that time, the events that would unfold due to his hasty decision.
****
A/N: Okay, so like I've written in the synopsis, I didn't really think this plot through so if you spot any plot holes or mistakes, please let me know, and if it's fixable, I will try to fix them. If not...then I'm sorry...heh.