A New Star Chapter 73 (Patreon)

I now had a slight problem, one in the form of a strange assassin in the middle of my guest room in the early hours of the night. Well, if there was anything I was good at, it was delegating responsibilities.

“Emmanuel,” I spoke, pulsing my power as I did so. It didn’t take more than a moment before the Silver Lady burst into the room, as I had not contained my voice, and she was even faster than the Count. The difference between Y-rank and Z-rank was not to be underestimated. Emmanuel followed along on her heels, looking rather put out, though I knew that neither of them would have yet been asleep at this hour. Quite frankly, I myself needed little sleep as it was, but I still enjoyed a certain number of hours a night, and I enjoyed getting to bed early so I could start the day early. It also helped that if there were any interruptions (though not usually assassins), that I had the option of simply sleeping in until a what many would consider a normal time of waking.

“Young Lady,” the Count said, looking at the unconscious person on the floor. “I take it this isn’t some kind of odd prank?”

“I do not typically employ strange assassins in my pranks, Count,” I said sarcastically. “This unfortunate fool tried to sneak into my room, already a failure, and then attempted to stealthily attack my. Well, they’re not particularly skilled or strong, so it was little bother to subdue them, but it raises some interesting concerns.”

“I should say so,” Emmanuel said, watching as the Silver Lady investigated the person. If the random assassin already had trouble dealing with a fourteen-year-old, they weren’t going to pull anything over on someone that had lived for centuries and had enough power to crack apart mountains with a gesture.

“She’s young,” the Lady said, not surprising me in the least.

“Young fools,” I snorted, getting a slightly odd look from the Lady and a slightly exasperated one from the Count.

“Less and less these days do you act your age,” the Count said.

“It is, in fact, the inverse, my dear Count,” I said calmly.

“Ah, yes,” the Count said adroitly after a moment, catching on to what I was implying.

“Back to the assassin,” the Silver Lady cut in. “This young lady is F-rank, or thereabouts, and feels like she freshly raised two of her affinities.”

“So, someone that was just recently at E-rank decided to become an assassin? Or is this policy of the guild, to send weak children after hardened targets?” I asked caustically, examining the young woman sprawled on the floor in front of the Silver Lady.

“I doubt very much she’s officially licenses,” the Count returned rather mildly. “I would hazard a guess, if I may be so bold, that she is an unlicensed assassin sent on a fully illicit mission.”

“As if any assassination missions are licit,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

“Did you blast her with electricity,” the Silver Lady asked, doing something with her healing power, which I assumed to be analyzing the young woman’s condition.

“I pushed electricity into her brain while putting her in a sleeper hold,” I replied, rolling my eyes again at the questioning looks. “The brain operates on electricity and sending an interrupting signal disrupts those options, usually without longterm consequences. And a sleeper hold is when one cuts off the flow of blood through the carotid arteries, which cuts off the flow of Oxygen to the brain and renders a person unconscious. It will render them dead if not stopped at that point, but I, unfortunately, have much experience with situations such as this and know exactly what I’m doing.”

“We shall have to discuss this later,” the Count said as he examined me, stroking his beard in that slightly thoughtful way of his. “For now,” he continued, turning his head to the woman still passed out on the floor, “we have a little bigger fish to fry. Come, Jeanne, let’s take our erstwhile guest to a more comfortable environ.”

“Of course,” the Silver Lady replied, perfectly polite, but there was an edge in her smile that would have made many a lesser being shiver in fear.

The Silver Lady lifted the woman off the floor with an affinity I wasn’t familiar with before binding her with silver chains. Given that these were chains created from a Z-grade affinity, they would be stronger, to a low-rank person, than titanium armor would be to an un-enhanced soldier. Not that the assassin was actively resisting; it was rather amusing, but she had found herself in possibly the one household, other than the royal palace, with multiple people able to tell more about her body and current condition than she could herself. I could tell from her breathing, the rhythm of her heartbeat, and various subtle signs, such as nerve responses when she was lifted off the ground, that she was still out like a light. The Silver Lady had bound her tightly, so the young assassin would have very limited options in terms of movement, and she floated the young woman down the stairs and to the parlor, where the Count lit a fire and turned on several of the lamps.

“So, shall we wake our sleeping beauty?” the Count asked a bit rhetorically as he removed the mask the assassin had been wearing. This revealed a very young face, someone I would guess was maybe two or three years older than Alex’s body, remember that this wasn’t really ‘my’ body. She would likely be considered my host’s contemporary in terms of generations, the thought getting a brief flash of amusement from that deep part of my mind where my affinities lay. Well, at least someone was amused by the whole thing.

“Let’s see what she has to say for herself,” I said coldly, standing in the center of the room with my arms crossed as I observed our culprit. The Count took a seat to the side as the Silver Lady used her healing magic to quickly mend any damage I had done and refresh the would-be assassin’s body, bringing her to full health, and awareness, in just a few seconds. She woke with a slight gasp, though she immediately tried to control herself, not opening her eyes and clearly scanning the area around herself to try to assess her situation.

“You can look for an opening all you want; you’ll not find one here,” I said calmly, sensing her heartbeat pick up at my words. “Why don’t you open your eyes, now that you are awake, and we can have a nice, long chat.”

She kept her eyes closed for another few seconds, causing me to scoff and the Silver Lady to shake her head. I said, “Listen, my would-be doom, you were just fully healed by one of the most powerful healers in the world. Do you think she did a bad job? Do you think she wouldn’t be able to tell your condition, including your level of consciousness? Or do you think a healer can’t put someone to sleep or wake them up at will?”

The assassin opened her eyes, showing dark black pupils that drank in the light surrounded by thin, golden bands that passed for her irises, an unusual and slightly captivating look, but I had seen far more esoteric, and beautiful, things in my time, and so I was rather unimpressed. I watched as she glanced around, seeing her take in the three people in the room, Janice now having taken a seat next to Emmanuel while I still stood in the center of the room. The assassin still didn’t speak, instead subtly, or what she likely thought was subtly, trying her chains and attempting to see if there was some way to get out of her current situation. Again, trying to break the silver created by a Z-ranker was like a baby trying to break steel plate with just their pinkie, but there was no way for her to really know what she was up against.

“How did you capture me?” the woman finally asked, having a kind of hoarse, raspy voice. I wasn’t exactly sure what went into creating a voice like that, but I had some memory that it often occurred due to damage to the throat when a child was very young, such as some kinds of coughing fits when the person was still a baby. It wasn’t an unpleasant voice, not to my ears, but it wasn’t something that wasn’t all that common, especially here where healing magics were so common they were basically a dime a dozen.

“How could I not?” I asked in a very sarcastic tone, flicking a finger and causing a chair to appear behind me before I sat down, seeing the woman’s eyes widen. What I had done was both a display of power and of skill, and the casual manner I had executed the move also, in itself, spoke volumes about my capabilities. I crossed my legs at the knee as I made a show of examining the woman, simply staring at her until she spoke again.

“W-what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, a mixture of some anger, confusion, and fear in her voice, though she was trying to keep both that and her face neutral.

“I’m not here to answer your questions,” I replied coldly. “When were you licensed with the Guild?”

“I’m not licenses with the Guild,” she said.

“Admitting it so readily? Does your life mean so little to you?” asked the Count.

“I doubt I’m going to live through this anyway,” the assassin said, a slight despondent tone in her voice. “Whatever you’re going to do to me, just do it.”

“You are inexperienced, aren’t you?” I asked, back to my calm demeanor.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, seeming a bit thrown off by my changes in attitude and question.

“An experienced assassin would never utter such a cheesy, pointless line, even as a provocation,” I scoffed, shaking my head. “Nor would an experienced assassin even take the contract you did. Nor would they operate unlicensed, especially not in the capital. Honestly, this all scream so much of amateur hour that I’m, quite frankly, stunned by the ineptitude.”

I could see her mouthing the words ‘amateur hour,’ as I continued, likely not a phrase that was of common parlance here. “Who hired you for this contract?”

“Why would I ever reveal that?” she asked, getting just a bit of fire to her.

“Why would you ever assume that you could hide anything at this point?” I shot back, setting my hands on my knee and lacing my fingers together. “In fact, do you even know where you are right now? Do you know who’s sitting in this room? I imagine this will be a very enlightening conversation in more ways than one.”

“I know who you are,” the assassin said, thrusting her sharp chin at me with some force, about the most she could move at this point. “You’re that crazy who messed up the baron’s plans a couple years ago and tore through half the city with little regard for the consequences.”

I raised an eyebrow and said, “A very interesting interpretation of events. Please, do continue.”

“You wrecked the gang and put a lot of us out on the street! What was I supposed to do in that circumstance? Then th-they…” she swallowed heavily here, “they came and made me an offer. They would get me training, gear, and most importantly, feed me and give me work. In exchange, I just had to do a few missions for them. Small things, they said, simple things that even I could easily carry out. It started out harmless enough; stealing a few items from a small shop. Then it was a little more involved, but still nothing I couldn’t handle. I’m skilled, you know! I know what I’m doing.”

“The countermanding evidence is overwhelming, but do go on,” I said, idly gesturing with my right hand before relacing my fingers.

“Well, things kept going,” she continued, her earlier reticence having been melted by her own explanations and her thought of her current employers. “I had to steal more things, both more things at once and more things overall. Then, th-they, uh, started paying me to…uh, well, they paid to hurt people. I didn’t want to do it, you have to believe me! But they’re so strong, and they knew everything about me. There was no way I could get out at that point, so I did what I was told to do and hurt who they told me to hurt. Things just kept going and they kept escalating until they gave, well, th-they gave me this mission and told me to take care of it as quickly as possible.”

“So, they finally figured you were a liability and decided to get rid of you,” I said, leaning back in the chair and swinging my leg for a moment before stopping and focusing a piercing glare on her. “And what, exactly, did they tell you about this? This mission and this place, and especially, this target.”

“I, uh, I was told there was a small manor of a minor noble-“ the Count started sputtering and muttering something at this point, “and that I should, uh, sneak in and k-k-, uh, k-kill a young woman in the manor. That she was likely on the second floor and that the manor was lightly guarded, so it would be easy to find her. I could get in, kill her quickly, and get out without anyone being any the wiser.”

“I see people have forgotten my name,” the Count said darkly, power swirling around him. It wasn’t a massive display of strength but merely the energy that was released as a small excess just from his anger, a little byproduct that darkened the room and created a heavy pressure in the air.

“Emmanuel! Go outside and take a lap if you lack so much control,” I snapped at him. He glared back at me for a moment but then settled down, muttering even more darkly to himself.

The assassin just looked back and forth between us, her face decidedly pale at this point, likely started to get some inkling of exactly what was going on and exactly how deep in it she really was. She also seemed rather surprised that I could command Emmanuel, though I knew that at least part of it was a bit of an act we were throwing on, or he was throwing on, something to try to intimidate the girl and change the tone of the conversation. It was a decent effort, but I doubted it was really necessary. She had already been both resigned to her fate and willing to talk, and I doubt her lips were going to be any looser now than previously, but from the dawning realization of dread on her face, maybe she would spill more than I thought.

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