Chapter 29: Volume I – Chapter 28: The Assassin

I gulped, then took a deep breath.

Clara was shaking, scared. I was scared too.

“Brother… wh- what’s going on?”

She held my hand tightly, then I realized how her body was actually shaking.

My eyes widened, and my mind suddenly cleared.

I… what am I doing?

Just a few days ago I thought I could sacrifice the millions of people I could save in this world if it meant protecting her… and now look at the situation I’m in.

I clenched my fist and teeth at the same time.

No… I’m not going to die here, and I’m not going to get Clara killed.

I have to think of something. How do I get out of this situation? Where does this happen in the main story? How does Celine get out of this?

I dwelled on this last thought for a while and then suddenly realized another fact: this assassination was nowhere in the game.

No matter how much I think about it, I can’t remember such a scene.

Ah, there’s no such scene in the game! That’s right!

“Calm down and don’t do anything unnecessary, Clara. I’ll get you out of here no matter what… Don’t worry.”

I said these words even though I had never experienced such a moment in the game, even though I was shaking like crazy.

I had an idea, and I was trusting myself.

More than myself, though, I trust the girl standing fearlessly in front of me with her sword. Because the fact that this attack is happening now means that something like this is happening in the story of the game, even if I don’t know it.

Based on this, if I think that in the future Celine appears at the academy without any problems, she should have gotten out of here alive. And also that the attack has already been exposed… They don’t need us anymore. So they probably won’t be interested in us any longer.

“Don’t you have a weapon?”

Celine asked me with a frown, but she kept her gaze on her opponents, her expression of pain from earlier completely gone.

“My only weapon is the sword I use for training and it’s at the academy.”

My voice was unintentionally shaky, and although I was determined, it was not easy to control my body.

“Didn’t you ever buy a dimensional button?”

“That was my next goal, but unfortunately, so far, no.”

Celine clicked her tongue. The situation was hopeless, at least from her point of view.

“Can you fight?”

The men began to walk slowly toward us, and Celine gripped the hilt of her sword tightly.

“I would only be a burden to you.”

The girl’s expression darkened as she stood there fearlessly, she was about to say something to me, but then one of the men in black disappeared.

Celine swung her sword horizontally in a swift movement and a metallic sound echoed in my ears. The man in black then appeared right in front of her, but he didn’t stop there.

He took a short step backward, twirled the dagger in his hand, and swung it at Celine again. But this time Celine’s violet eyes flashed with fury.

There was a brief spark over her body, then a wave of electricity shot from her other hand, striking the assassin and knocking him backward.

I grabbed Clara’s hand tightly as the assassin was thrown back by the wave. As soon as I turned around, I started running and shouted.

“I’m sorry! But believe me, you’ll fight better without us!”

Celine looked at me for a moment.

Honestly, I expected her to make an expression as if she was shouting ‘coward’ at me, but on the contrary, she just nodded at me and focused on what was in front of her, as if that’s what she wanted from the beginning.

Well, I don’t know if she trusts me or if she doesn’t care. But I’m not going to dwell on that too much because if we want to live, we really need to escape.

“B- brother, it hurts…”

I was holding Clara’s hand so tightly that she complained to me, but I didn’t let go. I can’t hesitate now.

It’s not hard to understand from the sounds of the battle behind us that the battle is still going on, so the assassins must be totally focused on Celine…

Great!

I kept running, dragging Clara behind me, and then stopped when I came to a grave that looked like it was made of pure gold.

Oswell Potenbea was inscribed on the gravestone… It was the same one I remembered from the game, and frankly, it was a bit too flashy to be a tombstone, but I ignored it and focused back on where Celine and the assassins were fighting.

Even though I was their first target, Celine was their main target. So even though they were trying to kill me, they weren’t going to follow us… Because for them, my purpose was just to be bait.

Celine’s Sixth Sense skill gives her a great advantage in situations like this. So if they had attacked her first, it’s very likely that she wouldn’t have even gotten a scratch…

But if someone standing in front of her was suddenly attacked and collapsed in a pool of blood, she would be confused and distracted for even a moment. That’s what they were aiming for. That’s why they attacked me and not Celine, even though she was the obvious target.

“‘Wh- what’s going on…? Who are they?”

I looked at Clara and saw that she was pale, as if terrified.

Well, I can’t question her… After all, it’s her first time experiencing something like this. And so was I until a few seconds ago…

No, even now I was like that. Even now I was shaking with fear.

I thought about how Celine hadn’t hesitated for a second during the assassination and I gritted my teeth again.

She was used to such things. She had been the target of maybe dozens of assassination attempts since she was a little girl.

But what about me? I am someone who has lived in a small room for twenty-one years and doesn’t even exercise. Neither my body nor my mind is strong.

And like that, I realized something very important: I need to strengthen not only my physique and strength but also my mind.

I had underestimated fantasy worlds, I had laughed in vain behind the backs of all those main characters who went into such worlds and shit their pants.

This is no longer a game. This is reality and I had never thought about it from their point of view until now.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself as I continued to check my surroundings.

I actually feel bad for leaving Celine alone, but at the same time, I believe she will win. She might be a little bruised and battered, but I’m sure she will survive. After all, in the original game, Celine continues to appear in the future as if nothing happened. So she must be getting out of here.

I have no choice but to trust that because I’m weak right now. There’s nothing I can do to help her at this point.

I looked at Clara, who was looking back and forth with anxiety. I was about to open my mouth to comfort her a little, but then noticed a shadow standing behind her.

I felt goosebumps all over my body, countless questions appeared and disappeared in my mind.

Why did they follow us?

Why are we still under attack?

Are they… trying to eliminate witnesses? But why would they try something like that when their identities are already hidden?!

Damn it!

For a moment I was afraid to freeze. I was afraid that the shadow would attack Clara and injure her, but contrary to my thoughts, my body moved even faster than I had imagined.

I quickly used my mana to strengthen my senses and my body, then grabbed Clara by the shoulder and pushed her aside, so she lost her balance and collapsed. That’s when I came face to face with the dagger that was coming right at me.

The damn dagger was so fast that I couldn’t avoid it, but thanks to my mana-enhanced senses I could pick out the attack, even if it was blurry.

This was a very good thing for me. Because the fact that I could see the attack meant that this guy underestimated me. So I have a chance, but…

Fuck, this is going to hurt.

In a swift motion, I moved my hand to the dagger, which was milliseconds away from reaching me, and it pierced through the center of my palm and out the back of it like a nail driven into a wall.

I felt a sharp pain radiating from my left arm through my whole body. I felt nauseous, like my world was turning upside down, and it was hard not to faint.

Deciding that gritting my teeth wasn’t enough, I bit my tongue, doing everything I could to resist the pain.

The dagger was stuck in my hand and the man’s movements were now restricted. This was my first and only chance, I had to make the most of it and so I poured most of my mana into my right leg.

The mana, almost all of it gathered in my leg, overflowed my still underdeveloped muscles and started to tear them apart. I was in pain as if my leg was being torn off, but I ignored it and kicked toward the man with my leg, which was overflowing with power.

He tried to pull his dagger out of my palm to retreat, but I squeezed my palm where the dagger was lodged and gripped his arm tightly with my other hand.

It hurt like hell. My vision blurred, but I knew I wouldn’t have another chance after that.

My painful but determined shout filled the entire cemetery.

“AAARRRGHHH!”

After I had stopped the man from running away, I swung my kick exactly on his right thigh bone, with the very tip of my shoe on top of it, specifically to increase the pressure and the force of my attack.

As my kick hit its target, the man’s foot twisted into a strange shape, and he groaned in pain.

No matter how strong he was, he had let his guard down because he underestimated me, and I took advantage of the gap to specifically target the muscles on his thigh bone, which are more fragile and have more nerves.

I also used the tip of my foot to reduce the surface area and increase the single-point damage, so I was able to deliver a kick that was both accurate and solid.

As the man groaned in pain, the hand holding the dagger loosened, and I pulled it out of my palm in one go.

My palm was burning like crazy. I was sure it was going to get infected, but I poured all the mana I had left in my body into the dagger and attacked the man’s stomach without mercy.

The man, in the pain of his broken leg, barely noticed the dagger approaching him, but he was no novice like me… Now he knew that I was no pushover and therefore he would not underestimate me.

As the dagger was approaching the man’s abdomen, he broke a dimensional button from his pocket and pulled out a new dagger. So he met my attack and then lunged at me, trying to ignore his broken foot.

That was the moment when everything became difficult for me. Because I could see the seriousness in his eyes, it was unlikely for me to survive this attack, but I still had a smile on my face.

The man hesitated for a moment with my smile. He didn’t know why I was smiling and it couldn’t be a good sign if I was smiling in such a situation. So he paused, even for a second, and that’s how I achieved my goal.

My sister, whom I had pushed aside at the beginning to dodge the attack, hit the man who hesitated to attack me on the head with a large stone.

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