Fresh blood ran red over the white marble, but most landed on the large, crimson rug. At least it was absorbent, and it wouldn’t leak down the stairs.
Aless stood over her kill, her knife and hands red with blood. It dripped off the edge of her blade to splash into the growing puddle at her feet.
She stared at the corpse for a long moment, not moving, not even breathing.
Then she blinked and let out a heavy breath. Her shoulders loosened, and she finally looked up at me, searching my eyes for something.
Approval.
I smiled and whispered. “Good kill.”
She nodded, a smile gracing her lips as she knelt and wiped her blade clean.
When she wiped the blood, I dragged the body out of sight of the stairs but left it in the hallway. There was too much blood, and if anyone saw it, they’d know what happened. It was pointless to put more effort into moving the corpse.
The two of us headed downstairs. From the sketch Captain Bernard gave us, the second floor had a string of bedrooms for guests, a lounge area, and even a music room. The guard presence on this floor was minimal as well, with only two guards on patrol.
Aless and I dispatched both with ease.
As soon as the guards were out, we checked the floor, but none of the rooms housed the count. This floor was as empty as the third.
If he’s not in his bedroom or on the second floor, he’s either in the kitchen or the library.
Both of which were on the first floor. Which if that’s where the count was, it’d be heavily guarded.
I turned to Aless and spoke, keeping my voice low. “Okay, so he’s not here either. Means he’s on the first floor somewhere.
“But that also means that there will be a lot more guards. And that means we will probably be spotted as soon as a guard shouts or calls out.”
“So, we take them down one by one if that happens.”
I shook my head. “You’re not ready for something like that. A fight against one person is simple. Against multiple, it’s a nightmare, even for me.” I pulled my crossbow from the holster and handed it over, along with my quiver. “Back me up with the crossbow if you can. You remember what I taught you?”
She nodded, taking the weapon.
“Then let’s get to work.”
Aless quickly strapped the quiver to her belt and loaded a bolt. When she was ready, we headed downstairs.
The manor's first floor was a little larger than the rest of the house, more rooms, more corners, and more guards.
Two guards passed by in under a minute as I peered around the marble banister that partially concealed me from view.
Each of the guards looked a little worse for wear, which meant the poison was doing its job, but I didn’t know how much it would slow them down. Even a little helped, but if the alarm sounded, I’d find myself swarmed before long.
Which is a matter of when, not if. There’s no way I can kill that many guards and hide the bodies before someone finds us.
So I don’t even try to stealth this. Kill as many as I can before someone shouts and the rest of the guards come running.
It wasn’t the best plan, but the margin for error was much higher than if I tried to kill everyone one by one.
I would never attempt something like it normally, but most if not all of the guards were poisoned, and that gave me the upper hand, even fighting two on one.
There was really no other plan but to wait, and with the guards already on high alert and a few dead, I had to act before I lost my window of opportunity.
I quickly relayed the plan to Aless, and we waited for another patrol to pass by. As soon as they appeared in my vision, I hopped the banister, drew my second dagger, and attacked.
The first guard turned at the noise. His mouth opened as if to shout, and I shoved my blade to the hilt through the roof of his mouth and into his brain. He was dead before he even started to fall.
As I killed the first, the second guard reacted to the first guard's death. The second's eyes were glassy, his movements sluggish.
I stepped toward him and chopped the blade of my palm into his windpipe as hard as I could. A sickening crunch filled my ears before the man gasped for air. I kicked his leg out from under him, and he hit the ground face first, shattering his nose on the stone.
He let out a low moan that was quickly silenced by my blade jammed into his neck.
The guards were all wearing armor. It was far faster simply aiming for their unprotected throats. With both guards dead, I retrieved my daggers and took off, rushing through the halls of the manor. Aless raced after me as I turned a corner and found two more guards walking away from us.
These guards only wore leather and had no helmets. I couldn’t see their faces, but their posture and thin bodies seemed young to me, probably barely out of their teens.
Their conversation overshadowed the slight thud of my boots on the carpet.
I slid in between them and brought my daggers up. In a single arc, I sliced through the sides of each of their necks. They stopped, shuddering as my blades sunk deep into their flesh. I let the momentum of my cuts carry my steel out of their throats as I stepped through.
As my knives came free, I pivoted, narrowly dodging the spray of arterial life, and turned to face them. My hands came up once more, and I shoved each blade through their chests, taking both to the ground.
I was right. Both guards were young, just over twenty years old. Clean-shaven faces stared at me with terror-filled eyes as their lungs filled with blood. It slid out the side of their mouths as they both exhaled and breathed their last.
Aless ran up behind me as I pulled the daggers out of the two guards. She was wide-eyed, staring at me.
“Thought I heard someone say something,” she said, still staring at me with that strange look on her face.
There was no time to respond as a shout echoed loudly through the manse.
“Murder!”
“You definitely heard something.” I turned as boots thudded down the hall towards us. “Ready yourself. This is where it gets difficult.”
Three guards sprinted around the corner with their swords drawn. They weren’t like the two young guards I’d killed. These men were older, bearing the look of seasoned warriors.
They all shouted at us and rushed forward.
A sharp twang sounded next to me, followed by a dull metallic impact.
The lead guard had a hole in his armor, right over his heart. The heavy crossbow bolt’s fletching just barely stuck out from the man’s armor. He had just enough time to look down at the hole in his chest before he died.
I didn’t have time to praise Aless for her shot, as I used the distraction of the lead guard's death to close the gap between the soldiers.
“You fucking scum!” the one on the left shouted and lunged at me.
His blade arced down toward me. I shuffled to the side and forward, keeping the guard's body in between the second guard and me. As I stepped, his blade whipped back towards me.
I caught it between my daggers and stopped the swing cold. The other guard tried to get around his friend, but Aless intercepted him with her knife.
As our weapons were binded, the guard surprised me and pulled a dagger from his off-hand. He brought it up swiftly. The polished steel blade shined in the candlelight. I leaned back on reflex, but I wasn’t fast enough.
His knife flashed and sliced a thin groove across my jawline. Cold surged through my face, followed swiftly by a burning ache that radiated up the side of my face.
The man’s eyes glinted in satisfaction as a splash of my blood fell to the ground.
I couldn’t afford to keep binding with the man, not with him having a second weapon to strike me with. I disengaged, stepping back just as he thrust out with his dagger.
As soon as I put a bit of distance between us, I grounded my stance and threw both daggers at the guard.
He wasn’t expecting me to throw them, and there was a slight hesitation as he r
eacted. My first dagger sailed through the air aiming for his chest, but he managed to deflect the dagger with his sword.
But the second, I’d aimed for his thigh, right where his femoral artery was. He couldn’t deflect both. It landed, splitting through his chainmail and sinking deep into his leg.
He hissed in pain as it struck, and his eyes flared with rage. A mess of blood pooled around my knife, and I knew I’d cut into his femoral. He’d weaken in thirty seconds, dead in under three minutes.
“You son of a bitch!” he screamed and lunged at me.
I stepped to the side and lashed out with a low kick aimed at his knee. It connected hard, and his leg bent at an awkward angle, snapping with a loud crack.
He howled in pain, all thoughts of attacking me forgotten as he clutched at his ruined leg. His sword and dagger lay discarded on the pristine white floor.
I knelt, ripped my dagger free from his leg, and slit his throat from end to end.
He was dead.
I stood and wiped the blood dripping from the cut on my jaw. It wasn’t deep, but it’d still leave a scar. But I didn’t have time to worry about such a small wound. I glanced over to find Aless walking toward me, her fight already finished.
She had a cut along her arm, but it didn’t make it past the leather. Her knife dripped even more blood.
“Wipe your hand. Don’t want to lose your grip on your blade because it’s covered in blood,” I told her.
It had been less than a minute since the shout had gone up, but we had to hurry. The count was surely aware of us by now.
“Aless. Head back to the gate. It’s the only exit for the manor. I can’t risk him escaping. If you see him, use the crossbow.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
Just as she was about to leave, I stopped her, my hand on her shoulder.
“Be careful. I’d rather not lose you.”
She nodded and took off.
I left my daggers where they were. They were drenched in blood, and I didn’t have the time to clean them. I still had my throwing knives and the short sword Terrance forged for me.
It slid silently out of its sheath, and I gripped it in my bloodstained hands.
It was time to find the count and end this.
Chapter 26- At the Edge of a Blade
As soon as Aless was out of sight, I took off. I rounded the corner of the hallway and found a group of guards surrounding a terrified looking Count Vohra.
He’d changed since I’d last seen him only a month ago. Stress had aged him ten years in such a short time span. His hair hung lank, out of place, and there were deep circles under his cold, muddy sea-green eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights.
As soon as I turned the corner, he spotted me.
His eyes widened even further, and he visibly paled. He jabbed his finger at me.
“That’s him! Assassin! Kill him!”
The four guards immediately stopped trying to corral the count and formed up in a defensive line in the hallway.
“Reginald, Branson. Take the count and get out of here. We’ll handle the assassin.”
Each of them gave me the hard-edged stare that all lawmen have. It was a good stare, but they didn’t have anything on me.
The light bled from my eyes, and ice water flowed through my veins.
They paled, their confidence shattering under my gaze. I didn’t even have to check to know that I’d leveled up Killer’s Stare.
Your Killer’s Stare skill has increased by 2! [Killer’s Stare: 11 (Novice)] +50 Exp!
“Give me the count, and I’ll let you walk out of here,” I said.
One of the men worked up the courage and spat in my direction. “Go fuck yourself, bastard.”
I shrugged. “I gave you a chance.”
In a single fluid motion, I drew a throwing knife and flung it in a half spin. It spun half a rotation and buried itself in the skull of the man who’d tried to spit on me.
The blade's weight and the spin had kept most of the force from the throw, and it punched through bone with little trouble. Though it didn’t go all the way into his head, it punctured through enough to hit his brain and kill him.
He lurched, a word dying in his throat, and he fell onto the ground. As he landed, the hilt on the knife was shoved further into his skull.
Well. I’m not getting that knife back. I sighed.
“Anyone else?”
Two men rushed me while the third took the count and tried to run.
I’ll need to make this quick.
My sword was already out when the men rushed me.
I attacked first this time.
The man on the right brought his sword down in an overhead cleave. It whistled as it cut through the air. I stepped toward him and threw my hand up, grabbing the man’s wrist. I sunk my hips to absorb the impact, and the back of my hand stung where the guard's sword's pommel struck.
As I caught the blade, the second man lunged at me. I leaned away from the strike and kicked the man in the kidney as he passed. His armor absorbed the brunt of my strike, so I didn’t do much damage, but the momentum was enough to throw him off balance, and he stumbled to all fours, his sword sliding out of his grasp and skidding against the marble flooring.
While I still had the first guard held, I pivoted to the right, throwing my weight down on his sword arm and bringing him off balance as well. My left knee came up swiftly, sinking into his groin. All the air was expelled from his lungs as he gasped, his face scrunching in pain.
As he doubled over in agony, my blade met his neck and ripped a savage gash through his throat.
I whipped my sword around and slammed it through the man’s back, taking out his heart even as he fell to the ground.
Pulling a knife from its sheath, I approached the last man. He was crawling for his sword. Just as his fingers brushed the leather hilt, I stuck the blade through his hand.
“Fuck!” he screamed, bellowing in rage and misery.
I yanked the blade from his hand, kicked the sword away from him, and plunged the knife to the hilt in his chest.
I didn’t even bother wiping the blood from my knife. I left it sticking in the man’s heart and turned, only pausing long enough to pull my sword from the first guard’s back as I passed.
You can’t have gotten far, Vohra. Where would you head?
The most logical answer was the front door. He’d try and flee the manor, take refuge at one of the other noble's mansions.
That was the most likely place they’d run to, so that’s where I went.
I ran back through the manor, keeping my eyes peeled for signs of traps or disturbances. There was nothing but the dead. The first floor was built like a giant square, with the hallways framing the outside, so there were two ways to get to the front door: the way Vohra and his guard had taken and the way I’d sent Aless through.
As I reached the front door, voices exploded in frantic shouts.
“Hurry, he’s right behind us. Go, dammit!”
I came upon Count Vohra and the guard just as they got the front door unlocked. From the number of keys on the ring, it’d taken a few tries.
The door swung open, and the guard stood in the doorway.
He turned to usher the count out of the house when a metal bolt punched through the side of his skull and out the other, lodging itself deep in the wall.
Blood and brain splashed across the wall and over Count Vohra’s clothes. He was standing next to the guard when his head exploded and was drenched in the man’s vile fluids.
Count Vohra panicked at the sight.
“Oh, god!” he screamed and fled.
He didn’t make it halfway down the hallway before my knife cleared leather. Vohra turned around, looking behind him as he ran. As I pulled my knife free and threw it, he ducked, throwing himself to the ground.
My blade flew harmlessly overhead and bounced off the wall at the far end of the hall. Count Vohra didn’t waste any time picking himself up, only to thr
ow himself around the corner when another of my knives came towards him.
He disappeared around the wall, and I cursed—slippery bastard.
I chased after him, rounding the corner at a sprint to catch up to him. As I came around, I caught just a flash of his once fine suit as he entered a room on my left.
Even as I approached, I knew it was the door to the library. There was the subtle click of a lock engaging followed swiftly by a woman’s scream.
I planted my feet and kicked the door right beside the knob. There was no way I could kick through solid wood, but I didn’t have to when I could just break the hinge that held the lock in place. The metal strained and then snapped, sending the door flying inward. It rebounded off the back wall and came back toward me as I strolled into the room.
It was a rather spacious and open library filled with comfortable leather chairs, a few wooden counters with crystal decanters filled with amber, and identical tumblers. There was even a piano in the far corner. A cute young maid with thick, golden-brown hair sat huddled near the leg of the piano, sobbing, her eyes wide and frantic.
Count Vohra stood next to a chair, a large hardback book in his hand.
“Stay back!”
I pulled a knife free and activated Assassination. I chucked it towards the count. It sailed through the air, glowing bright as my skill took hold. Just as I threw the blade, he raised his book, and the knife struck the cover, saving his life.
The glow disappeared and a shimmering haze expelled off the edge of the knife. It ripped through the pages and cover of the book with ease, sending torn pages flying everywhere. They floated around us to the floor.
“Ha!” he shouted, grabbing the knife that had fallen to the ground and brushing a loose sheet of paper from his shoulder. He pointed the blade towards me. It wobbled in his trembling fingers. “Come any closer, and I’ll slice you to ribbons.”
I chuckled, passing my short sword to my right hand and raising it. “Will you, though?
“Because your hands are shaking.”
Isekai Assassin: Volume 1 Page 31