"W-wait... P-please spare me!"
"Do you know anything about your employer’s doings?"
"I-I... I don’t! BUT PLEASE DON’T—!"
SNAP!
Thud...
After snapping the neck of a guard and dropping his body, Marionette dusted off her hands as she stood at the centre of a beautiful rose illustration made of blood and in the middle of a rain of illusory red petals.
Upon cleaning things up, she continued moving through every room and floor possible, retrieving any information she could get, whilst also dealing with the guards that got in her way.
She would uncommonly encounter a few mages, but most of them were only of the 1st Tier.
However, the moment she encountered two 2nd Tier mages, though...
She was left disappointed.
Marionette looked around her surroundings, noting how the current room she was in was much more luxurious than the last before glancing at the wall beside her—that was dripping in blood.
Pinned to the wall were the two Tier 2 mages with their limbs pierced through with dark javelins that kept them stuck on the wall. By now, they had either lost consciousness or their lives.
Marionette shook her head slowly, sighing.
"I expected you two to last longer... What a twin of disappointments..."
Standing before the final door, she entered and found herself in an awfully messy office that had its floors covered by strewn documents and photos.
She then glanced towards the side and scrutinised the glass wall and door that separated this room from the balcony.
"..."
Something was off.
There was also no one apart from her inside the room...
...
Well...
No one that could be seen with the naked eye, at least.
After pulling out a device that scanned the room for traces of invisibility, she was able to find a humanoid figure huddled up in the corner, far from the desk.
Her body immediately flashed over and grasped the man in a tight chokehold, pulling him up into the air, while tossing aside the Item he used to turn himself invisible.
"U-urgh!" The man groaned as he grasped the hand clutching his neck. He then scowled as he recognised the mask on Marionette’s face, "D-damnit! The Lady?! How did you Roselles catch on this quick!?"
"... Because we’re wise enough to cover our tracks."
After knocking the man out, Marionette nonchalantly drank a mana potion before muttering, "Mission complete..."
Now all she needed to do was transport the man back to the estate for further questioning.
Clap... Clap... Clap...
Marionette froze as she heard the sounds of rhythmic clapping behind her.
She immediately twisted herself around and found a tall, young man in his twenties sitting nonchalantly on the wooden desk behind her.
He had messy dark hair and a lazy smile, as well as a conspicuous white blindfold, which had several kinds of patterns stitched onto it.
He wore a tight-black shirt and a casual fur coat over his shoulders. He also wore a pair of fingerless gloves and lightly armoured black leggings.
Eventually, the man stopped his clapping and uttered in a laid-back voice:
"You’ve put on quite the show, member of the Roselle family. And I must say that it was definitely an entertaining one. Quick. But still entertaining. Oh! And efficient too."
He then waved his hand around before gesturing towards Marionette’s target.
"But, I’m going to need you to hand him over. He’s kindaa... Needed for my work." He then rubbed his index and thumb together, "And that guy you have there is quite pricey~ for his services..."
The mysterious man then watched as Marionette slowly took a cautious stance and sighed.
He raised both of his hands in a surrendering manner as he watched the Assassin charge towards him with a dark sabre and stated in a relaxed and carefree manner:
"Alright, I tried."
Marionette, who was ready for a battle to unfold, watched as the man flicked the edge of his sabre and felt her body shoot backwards.
In a fraction of a millisecond, her body had already crashed through the concrete walls behind her and out of the room she was in, by several dozen metres.
It happened so fast that the pain from crashing through the wall had only just been transmitted into her brain.
Her eyes widened in shock as she fell from the top of the building, which was around 12 stories.
Falling from that height, Marionette crashed into the ground below.
But fortunately, due to her body’s constitution, she was able to survive it with minimal injuries.
Slowly sitting up from the ground, she noticed that a partial bit of her uniform was torn slightly, and even her mask was showing signs of cracks.
Looking up, she found the blindfolded man staring down at her as he held onto the back of her target’s neck.
"Just because I don’t want to make any unnecessary enemies with the Roselles, I’ll leave you alive, so I can make deals with them in the future."
The air around his body began to warp, as well as the space. And right before he magically disappeared, he yelled out one last thing:
"Do tell the Crown of Roses about me! I would like to schedule a spar or job with him in the near future!"
As soon as he disappeared, Marionette continued to stay seated where she was before lying back down. She breathed a sigh of relief before feeling a buzzing in her right ear.
The earpiece she had worn had begun to speak into her ear:
"Status report."
Marionette thought for a moment about what to say before slowly raising a finger to the earpiece and tapping it.
Her lips shook for a moment as she said:
"The mission... Was a failure..."
***
While Marionette was going through that, Lillian couldn’t help but think about the Assassin for a bit before sitting up from her spot.
She was currently riding around on a beetle, storming through the jungle found on the island she was on and letting it do all the fighting.
With a swipe of her hand, Lillian summoned her system shop and looked at her available Points.
[52,758 TP]
"Gehehe~..."
A wide and silly grin spread across her face as she let out a giggle.
She felt the need to buy something...