“Actually, Jake Spencer didn’t intend to kill Hans from the very beginning.”

He didn’t intend to kill him?

That was hard to believe given the marks of torture etched across Hans’s body.

“According to the Assassin Guild’s intelligence, Hans was just an ordinary player. For a player like that to take first place with an assassin deck? It meant he had a powerful backer.”

That much was true.

After all, I was the one who had taught him the Hardcore Assassin deck.

“No matter how bold the Assassin Guild might be, they aren’t stupid enough to carelessly murder someone with a backer without a proper contract.”

Not all Assassin Guilds were completely lawless.

Typically, Assassin Guilds were divided into two distinct factions.

The underworld and the overworld.

Underworld Assassin Guilds would accept any assassination contract as long as the price was right.

Having chosen the path of criminals, they operated in the shadows, evading the Empire’s watchful eyes.

However, looking at the overall population of assassins, those in the underworld were ultimately a minority.

The majority of assassins.

Those belonging to the overworld lived lives entirely divorced from crime.

Their primary duty was collaborating with the Empire to hunt down and eliminate criminals.

There was a reason the Empire outsourced work to assassins.

The Empire’s territory was vast, and there simply weren’t enough Adjudicators to handle every single incident.

To maintain the Empire’s strict legal order, someone needed to pursue these criminals.

Since the ones committing the crimes were ultimately champions, it naturally took other champions to deal with them.

Imperial Investigators would first ascertain the full details of an incident. Once the culprit was confirmed, the contract was passed on to the Assassin Guild.

Because assassins were optimized for interpersonal combat—tracking, stealth, and setting traps—they made excellent operatives for these tasks.

The work was dangerous, and with the Empire involved, the compensation was astronomical. Naturally, people flocked to where the money was.

This was why assassins made up such a large portion of the champion population.

“Jake Spencer had two objectives. One was to gather information on the assassin deck and report it to his superiors. If he achieved a major breakthrough, it would be a perfect opportunity to leave Luteran and join the headquarters.”

The Assassin Guild branch in Luteran leaned heavily toward the underworld.

Its branch master, Jake Spencer, had a record of committing multiple crimes himself.

No matter how capable he was, a criminal was still a criminal.

Which fundamentally meant his path to promotion was blocked.

However, there was one place that only the most exceptional underworld assassins could aspire to reach.

Headquarters.

That was where Jake Spencer’s ambitions lay.

“The greatest enemy of an underworld assassin is the Holy King. If he could bring back information that would pull the wool over the Holy King’s eyes, getting into headquarters wouldn’t be difficult.”

There was a time limit to this.

He had to move as quickly as possible before more people learned of this information.

Information from the battlefield was bound to spread as rumors eventually.

It was impossible to silence every single champion and player who participated in the battlefield.

“That is why Jake Spencer went straight to Hans.”

Just as I had suspected, the reason Hans became a target was because of the Hardcore Assassin deck.

The realization that I had played a part in Hans’s death weighed heavily on my conscience.

Regardless of my feelings, Yuki continued.

“The other reason he sought out Hans was to explore an unforeseen possibility. He might stumble upon a better opportunity than simply joining headquarters.”

Jake Spencer, the 3-Cost assassin champion.

While building his strength as the master of the Luteran Assassin Guild branch, he eventually hit the limits of his growth.

It was only natural.

Only a rare few champions with innate talent could ever hope to breach the wall of the 4-Cost tier.

Jake Spencer simply did not possess that level of talent.

“What he really wanted to meet was the backer behind Hans. The player who had shattered the Holy King’s Placement Method and created the Hardcore Assassin deck.”

A copy of the Rorte Newsletter lay on the table.

Yuki’s eyes were fixed on me.

“That’s right. He wanted to meet you, Mr. Shin.”

Both of the reasons Jake Spencer had gone after Hans traced directly back to me.

I asked Yuki,

“Why did he want to find me?”

“To form an Original Contract. Serving under an outstanding player would become a catalyst for far greater growth than simply joining headquarters.”

An Original Contract was the most important decision in a champion’s life.

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

It was essentially a knight’s oath of fealty to a single individual.

He wanted to meet me in person to see if I was worthy of such a pledge.

“Jake Spencer failed to achieve either of his goals. Because player Hans was incredibly tight-lipped.”

As a dwarf who valued promises above life itself, Hans supposedly maintained his silence until the very end.

Until he lost his life.

‘Because he had promised never to reveal my information to anyone.’

Jake Spencer had even resorted to torture to extract either piece of information.

But in the end, the only thing he managed to take was the Item combination formula Hans had won as a reward from the Einthoven Private battlefield.

After murdering Hans, Jake quickly fled the scene.

For a 3-Cost champion, evading the gaze of an Imperial Investigator was no difficult feat.

Returning to his hideout, he began investigating the people around Hans to uncover the identity of the mastermind.

During this process, Yuki was reportedly dispatched under Jake Spencer’s orders to conduct the investigation.

“It was the first day I saw your face, Mr. Shin.”

Yuki had hidden near the crime scene, keeping watch to see if anyone visited Hans’s house.

Anyone close enough to visit his home would naturally be a prime suspect.

It didn’t take long.

When Hans failed to show up at the promised time, I went to his house looking for him.

And Yuki was quietly watching the whole scene unfold.

“I didn’t expect you to report it to the Imperial Investigator. Anyone else would have tried to slip away from the scene…”

I actually almost took the blame for it myself.

There couldn’t be many people willing to shoulder that kind of risk.

“And then, something happened that even I didn’t expect.”

“An Adjudicator…”

“That’s right. The Adjudicator from the Einthoven family. No one had any idea that Ariel had returned to Luteran.”

For an Adjudicator—one of only 111 in the entire Empire—to be in Luteran was a bolt from the blue.

Jake Spencer hadn’t accounted for this possibility at all.

“An opportunity presented itself to me. A perfect chance to dispose of Jake Spencer.”

Having witnessed the Adjudicator’s presence, Yuki withheld this information from Jake Spencer.

And Yuki became certain of one thing.

That the man who had appeared that day was the player backing Hans.

“I overheard Imperial Investigator Johanna’s words. She was lamenting the fact that you, Mr. Shin, whom she had assumed was just a 1-Cost Shieldbearer, were actually a player hiding your true identity.”

Yuki relayed the gathered information to Jake Spencer.

However, she conveniently left out the intel regarding the Adjudicator.

“By then, you had already vanished somewhere, Mr. Shin.”

I had left Luteran at dawn on the very day the incident occurred.

It was a decision born from a vague sense of anxiety, but looking back now, it was an incredibly wise choice.

Because there really had been someone targeting me.

Yuki recalled the memories of that time.

“Tracking your trail wasn’t easy. There wasn’t a single trace of mana left behind where you were staying.”

If I had been a normal 1-Cost champion, I would have left mana traces, and they would have been right on my tail in no time.

It was the first time my inability to wield mana had actually been helpful.

Still, I couldn’t underestimate the Assassin Guild’s intelligence network.

“After asking around, I figured out that you were heading to Artemis.”

They had eventually deduced my destination.

Jake Spencer, having business with me, personally set out to follow.

That was when it started.

When Yuki began her efforts to break her shackles.

“The guild’s hideout was equipped with a concealment magic circle, so even an Adjudicator would have struggled to find it. But once he left the burrow, it wouldn’t be difficult.”

Jake Spencer, completely unaware of the Adjudicator’s existence, had headed to Artemis to pursue me.

“I immediately went to find the Adjudicator. To tell her Jake Spencer’s destination.”

What followed was exactly as Ariel had told me.

Upon receiving the report, Ariel had immediately trailed Jake Spencer.

Sensing the Adjudicator’s pursuit, Jake Spencer utilized his abilities to shake off her gaze.

As a 3-Cost assassin champion, he was a seasoned expert in evasion, so the chase dragged on for quite some time.

“During that time, I was able to arrive in Artemis first.”

While Jake Spencer was distracted, Yuki made her move.

The reason she couldn’t escape the Assassin Guild was because of Jake Spencer’s skill.

Mark of Tracking.

Because of this skill, no matter where she fled, she could never escape Jake Spencer’s watchful eye.

“Then, knowing my location was also…”

“Yes, I learned that same skill and used it on you, Mr. Shin. You don’t need to worry. I’ve already released the skill now.”

‘Was that what was attached to my device earlier…?’

Because her skills were inferior to Jake Spencer’s, she required a long casting time.

But since I had fallen asleep, she was able to successfully cast the skill without being caught.

The reason Yuki had been able to track my destination was because of the Mark of Tracking skill.

“My goal was to board the Magitech Train while the Adjudicator kept Jake Spencer tied down. As long as I had enough time, I was confident I would never be caught.”

The Magitech Train ran on a weekly cycle.

A week was plenty of time to put a massive distance between her and Jake Spencer.

“I originally planned to go to Trivik to hide myself in the Herseba Desert. If I disappeared into that barren wasteland, even Jake Spencer would have no choice but to give up.”

However, things resolved themselves far more easily than she had anticipated.

“At dawn on the day the train arrived. The Mark of Tracking on my body vanished. It meant that the skill’s caster, Jake Spencer, was dead.”

Even she hadn’t expected someone as formidable as Jake Spencer to die so easily.

A deep fear of the Adjudicator carved itself into her heart.

Without the Mark of Tracking, escaping the Assassin Guild wouldn’t be difficult.

She was finally free.

“After gaining my freedom, I became curious. Whether the things written in books actually existed in reality. What I wanted to see the most were the ruins.”

Yuki’s field of interest had always been topics related to the battlefield.

And among them, her greatest curiosity was the ruins, the legacy of ancient battlefields.

Information about the ruins was also stored within her mind.

Because she remembered absolutely everything that existed in written form.

Boarding the train with a fluttering heart.

It was her first journey since gaining a new lease on life.

That was when it happened.

She spotted someone boarding the train.

“I was so surprised. I never expected that you, Mr. Shin, whom I had seen at the crime scene that day, would be boarding the same train as me.”

You looked a bit different from that day, though.

Since I hadn’t bathed in half a month.

No one wanted to go anywhere near me, so naturally, the seat beside me was empty.

Only Yuki, who had taken an interest in me, could bring herself to sit there.

“You were a surprisingly ordinary person, completely different from my expectations. So much so that you wouldn’t have noticed if I did anything to you while you were sleeping…”

A chill ran down my spine at her words.

If she had harbored any murderous intent, I would have been dead right then and there.

But Yuki had simply placed the Mark of Tracking on me and left it at that.

“I wanted to observe what kind of person you were. I even thought about secretly helping you out if you ever found yourself in danger.”

Her methods were flawed, but it meant she held a sense of gratitude toward me.

Yuki pouted slightly.

“But it turned out my help wasn’t needed. Chasey Einthoven. Because that woman was there.”