Inside a tall, decrepit building within the outskirts of the Underworld, guards patrolled around the periters. They talked amongst each other with boredom clear in their voice.
"What the hell are we even guarding against?" A man asked, standing beside a door as he hovered his hand over his mouth and let out a loud yawn.
"Like... We’re on the outskirts—sitting right between the border of the Darkhound territory and the Roselle’s. I doubt anyone is going to co here!"
Another guard, under the na Kriss, shook his head with a sigh, "I hear you, man... All I know is that there is a high-valued target inside this building, that’s all..."
Kriss then paused before asking the man, "But are you really complaining?"
This left his colleague speechless for a mont.
"W-well, no, but—"
"Oh, shut it." A separate guard stated as he idly passed by. He then turned around, still walking back as he faced the two guards standing beside each other.
He then said:
"This job actually pays well. So, unless you want to escape the Underworld, Micky, you’d better shut up and just do what you’ve been told."
Micky rubbed the back of his neck, watching as his colleague turned back around and walked away. He was right, unless he wanted to escape the Underworld, which was priced at around 1,500 Semis...
He needed to stop complaining.
He only needed around 200 more Semis... Sothing that he would be given once he finally accomplished his mission.
Since being born in the Underworld, he would hear countless great things about the Surface and how bright it was because of what was called the Sun.
When he finally made it to the Surface... He would make a start with his brand-new life. That was sothing his mother wanted for him more than anything before...
...
As soon as Micky and Kriss turned towards each other, intending to change the subject of their conversation, they missed the sight of their passing colleague, who had suddenly disappeared.
Then, without their knowledge, the surrounding guards soon began to disappear as well, with the only thing that could be traced back to their disappearance being a wave of darkness that occasionally appeared from thin air.
Micky waved at Kriss, who had decided to patrol around the periter of the building instead, finding that standing around was a bit too uneventful for him.
"Haa..." He sighed, "Maybe I should go patrol around as well... Maybe that might get a bonus due to my hard work, hopefully."
After settling down on that idea, he looked towards Kriss, intending to patrol along with him before realising that his colleague had already disappeared.
He widened his eyes, "He’s... He’s fast..."
As soon as he muttered that, he raised a leg. But when he was about to take a step, he discovered soone standing next to him in the corner of his eye—moving towards the door.
In the split mont that he had available, he was able to quickly note down the person’s features in his head.
An outfit that was fully pitch-black with a rose attached to their right chest, a mask that was in the form of a blooming rose...
This wasn’t soone from his group! Nobody wore any outfit like this!
After reaching that conclusion, his hands instinctively gripped the handles of his rifle as he yelled out:
"W-who are—!?"
BAM—SQUELCH!
But before he could even get his sentence out, the unidentified person flashed their fist out and crushed their entire skull against the wall behind them.
Micky’s corpse trembled for a mont before dropping to the ground in a puddle of blood. But before his blood could stretch out too far, his body quickly sank into a dark puddle that had appeared beneath his corpse.
The person who was the cause of his death looked down at their blood-covered gloved fist before muttering in a disgusted tone:
"Filthy..."
The identity of this mysterious person was, of course, Marionette Von Roselle—the Heiress to the Roselle Family.
And currently... She was tasked with bringing back a high-value target—apparently, there had been a strange traffic of individuals passing through the streets of their territory recently, as well as the Darkhound territory.
There had also been sightings of a rather powerful rcenary mage, who seed to have been hired by them for so odd but most likely malicious reason.
Looking up at the building, Marionette eventually placed her hand over the door handle and tried to pull it open gently.
"..."
She couldn’t.
She looked beside the door and found a keypad. It seed that the door needed so kind of code to get into the building.
"... Haa..."
She wasn’t given any information about the need for a code to enter.
Placing a hand over her mask, Marionette shook her head as she thought for a mont.
She rembered that another family mber was on a mission related to this case as well...
Just because this was her first mission back didn’t an that she should be left out on so details as a test.
"How irritating..."
***
Flick... Flick... Flick...
A guard flicked the light switch on and off before being told off by his colleague. He gave an irritated sigh as he gestured towards the lightbulbs, which had been flickering on and off for hours now.
"So, our boss is able to pay each of us 200 Semis, but can’t even get soone to fix the lighting issue? What’s up with that?"
His colleague shook his head tiredly.
"Just leave it. Your flicking is annoying..."
"What the—? What the hell did you say to ?! Just because you had your earnings snatched in our ga of poker, doesn’t an you should still be pissy about—"
"What the hell is that!?"
The two guards turned towards the end of the corridor they were in, finding that a few of their colleagues, who were with them, were looking towards the entrance into the building.
And what they saw was a figure rising up from the ground with a shadowy aura around it.
They... They weren’t told about anyone with these descriptions before.
"INTRUDER!"
Seeing that this mysterious individual didn’t look like any personnel they were aware of, the 14 guards within this singular corridor imdiately raised their weapons and dashed towards the intruder.
However...
Flick... Flick... Flick...
Within the first two flickers of the light, Marionette’s figure flashed past the guards several tis.
And on the third flicker, all the guards were carved and sliced into pieces, soon being dragged into her darkness.
Without a single drop of blood staining her surroundings, Marionette reached the end of the corridor in calm and elegant strides.
Fortunately, the door she was now standing in front of didn’t need a code to be pushed open.
Click.
However, right before she opened it, she released a Mana Pulse to detect the number of guards behind the door—sothing she had just learned to do only recently.
And what she sensed... Caused her to sigh.
There were perhaps around 50 guards currently inside this one room, with there being even more beyond it.
"Such a long night this will be..."
When she pushed open the door and imdiately leapt towards her enemy, she couldn’t help but wonder what Lillian was up to at the mont.
Was whatever she was doing more fun than what she was currently doing?
Was she thinking about her currently?
...
She hoped Lillian was...
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