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chapter 52
“Why have you gone quiet?”
When a frog meets a snake, its whole body instinctively freezes.
“You threw an apple on my head, didn’t you?”
In that sense, the woman who was grinning now was unmistakably a snake.
And the man — a veteran of the assassins’ guild, with plenty of calluses from the trade — was nothing but a frog.
How?
It had been less than three seconds since Kanis Escliff slipped out of the man’s field of view.
They were more than thirty meters apart. The main road was so crowded with moving people that you could easily lose sight of someone standing right next to you.
If the man hadn’t been a seasoned professional who’d done this for years, he would already have lost his target.
How did she get here?
Common sense said it was impossible to run that distance and appear before him in under three seconds.
Even if she had awakened after twenty years and possessed the makings of an archmage, she still lacked experience.
Yet Kanis Escliff had done it.
Honestly, for an ordinary person that would be a bizarre event that could make you keel over right then.
But the man was a professional.
No — there was no time to be surprised. If she had noticed him, he had to do exactly as instructed: escape as fast as possible and report what happened.
He thought calmly.
“No time to be surprised. If I was spotted, follow orders: flee as fast as possible and report this.”
“W-what…!”
“Is that what you were thinking, roughly?”
Her gaze flicked across him.
The princess let out a short laugh after sweeping him up and down in an instant.
Her face was beautiful, bearing a strong resemblance to the former duchess, but in front of that smile the man felt the blood run cold.
“Does she read minds or something?”
“It’s not mind-reading, just a simple trick.”
“No way!”
The man denied it, but Kanis’s words weren’t exactly wrong.
She hadn’t used any skill at all.
She’d only guessed a bit of the other person’s thoughts based on his terrified expression and the situation he was in.
That alone, however, made her look like a devil to a man already witnessing an uncanny phenomenon.
His decision was simple.
“Run.”
Escape.
Run as far as possible and get out of the sight of that elusive figure.
“Hey? Where do you think you’re going?”
“Damn it!”
But Kanis Escliff wouldn’t allow that.
If she’d pretended not to notice to the end, perhaps, but the moment she realized someone had seen her, she had no intention of letting him go alive and well.
The man also saw the fierce madness in Kanis’s eyes.
“She intends to kill me.”
If he stayed here, he might very well lose his life.
Even if he was lucky enough to survive, he could end up with his tongue cut out and be unable to speak ever again.
That chilling thought drove him to desperate action.
“Let go of me!”
They were on a main road.
He couldn’t recklessly act either, but neither could she.
He shouted, veins bulging in his neck.
“What rudeness is this to someone minding their own business?! Hey! Someone help!”
That should have been an effective tactic.
If they had been on the familiar busy avenue where such stunts were common.
“Who are you talking to right now?”
“Well, obviously… uh?”
At her casual question, the man’s heart sank.
“Damn, where is this place?”
He was in a completely different place from a moment ago.
Thud.
Under his feet was not well-paved road but fresh earth.
Still, he continued to try to run until he tripped over a thick protruding tree root.
What—is happening? What’s going on?
He had trailed many targets over a long time, some of them rulers who stood at the head of their nations.
They’d all fallen before his skill. He’d infiltrated risks, fought life-or-death battles, and spent similar years as a mercenary in a harsh, crude world.
He was seasoned to sudden occurrences.
But suddenly someone appeared before him, and now he’d been dropped into a place wholly unlike where he’d been a moment ago.
How many people in the world could remain sane in that situation?
If you asked that question, Chan Jiwoo inside Kanis Escliff would probably answer:
“Most hunters on Earth.”
The reason was simple.
“While running dungeons, being teleported somewhere else is nothing uncommon. You clear mobs and rest, a monster respawns in front of you, and some things that aren’t bound by rules will just teleport onto you and piss you off. Being weak and powerless is a crime, I tell you.”
A change in scenery like this is ordinary for those who do hunter work. It’s like modern people not being impressed by flying metal in the sky or objects launched into space: because they’re used to it, they don’t flinch.
So conversely, how many humans in the world could remain calm under circumstances like this?
The answer came quickly.
“Only one person.”
There was only one person in this world who could see an object slice through space on its own and find it merely ordinary even when she herself was placed in the same situation, without any disturbance.
“Only me, right?”
Kanis Escliff had tumbled through until she became the F-rank hunter Chan Jiwoo and landed in this world.
She was the only one.
“Damn it! What are you saying!”
Of course that was said from the position of someone who knew everything; the man about to die could see none of that.
“Feeling wronged?”
Kanis squatted in front of the fallen man and smiled brightly.
“Then why do you do things like that?”
“……”
“Don’t you know people get punished for killing others?”
“When did I—!”
The man tried to protest but shut his mouth at the sudden change in atmosphere.
“You lot stick out like sore thumbs even if you just sit still. Do you think I’ve only seen one of you?”
To be precise, he couldn’t have helped but notice.
“There are tons of jerks who rush into dungeons thinking they’ll handle anyone and grab the loot. Meanwhile, I was a weak, exhausted pack mule carrying all the tempting dungeon drops.”
The princess pressed her hand to her cheek and rattled off words that made her seem truly crazy.
“How could I stay sane back there?”
In front of the stunned man, Kanis mumbled.
“When you’re weak you can control your anger, but when you get strong anger-control disorder kicks in. Humans are so petty… right?”
“Huh……”
What kind of lunatic is this?
The man swallowed what he wanted to say.
And he had to.
“I was going to ask who sent you and what your purpose was if I caught you… but then I realized, there’s one more person tied to Aiden now.”
Kanis’s outstretched hand touched the crown of his head.
“Then I think trying out an experiment might be fun.”
A blue current sparked.
“I hope you don’t die.”
“Failure.”
I straightened my legs after sitting in a crouch for a while and stood up, my limbs tingly.
“Is it impossible to read memories with this ability?”
The archmage skill I’d been given allowed me to use all magic that exists on Earth.
In other words, I couldn’t use magic that didn’t exist.
The ability to read another’s memory fell into that category.
‘Truth’s Eye’ only discerns whether the words someone speaks are true, and yet it’s an S-rank skill — that says a lot.
“This one… is too dangerous.”
I looked over at the man who had died as a result of the ‘experiment.’
Was I really that kind of person?
I had killed before.
While clearing dungeons, sometimes someone would throw themselves in for me; sometimes I’d survive by pushing others into danger.
Pushing comrades into peril to survive—if that’s murder, then yes, it’s murder.
But today was the first time a life had ended purely by my own hand.
Yet why—
“Do you feel anything?”
