Some Things Can't Be Judged by Appearance

Using pain to extract information isn't a great method.

But with two people, the certainty increases.

You can verify information between them, and while one is being squeezed, the other talks freely hoping to save themselves.

This was human psychology.

She sighed while washing the filth from her hands. It had been a tedious time.

She didn't enjoy seeing blood, and watching strangers writhe in pain was nothing but unpleasant.

Though teasing Yohane was fun.

She cleaned and wiped down the tools.

She'd gotten the necessary information.

The interrogated men had broken quickly and were still alive.

"I'll leave the rest to you."

"Thank you for your business."

The man spoke with a raspy voice, surprisingly polite.

He was a cleaner she'd called through her underground connections after the interrogation was done.

"I've been in this business a long time, but to get work in the royal castle… unusual things do happen."

"You know the deal, I trust."

"Yes, yes. Of course I do. Our motto is trust comes first, so we never leak information. Rest assured."

"Good. Has your price changed?"

"Actually, we've raised our rates slightly. Two gold coins for two men."

She handed over two gold coins.

As long as he was paid properly, he wouldn't betray her.

"Confirmed. Leave the rest to us."

His subordinates put the two captured men in bags and carried them off.

They cleaned the area spotlessly too. Maybe she should have called them sooner.

She didn't know what would happen to them afterward.

At the very least, she'd never seen anyone who'd been taken by the cleaners.

When she'd dealt with a fellow operative before, she'd left the cleanup to the Kingdom's army, but this time she couldn't let anyone know something had happened here.

She felt terribly tired.

Perhaps because she was doing assassination work after so long.

The smell of blood had never bothered her, but now it was even unpleasant.

She was hardly one to accuse others of being soft from peacetime.

She'd apparently grown quite dull while working under Yohane.

Based on the information she'd gotten from the men, she headed to their hideout.

At first she'd assumed it would be somewhere on the capital's outskirts, but it was in an unexpected location.

Apparently the hideout was in a district where fairly respectable nobles gathered, though not quite the high-end residential area.

It was the middle of the night, so the lights were out and everything was pitch dark.

Barely any sounds either. Just occasional dog howls in the distance.

When she actually went to the location the information indicated, there was a noble's mansion.

It wasn't well maintained by any means.

Small and shabby compared to other noble mansions.

But the walls alone were remarkably sturdy, designed to prevent easy intrusion.

The shabby exterior was a front.

Looking carefully, traps were densely packed everywhere, unlike other mansions.

Anyone trying to enter through anything but the proper entrance would certainly lose their life.

This was definitely a fortified assassin's lair.

Finn's eyes wouldn't be fooled.

She licked her lips. This was getting a bit more interesting.

She could break the lock and go through the front, but she deliberately chose the route with the most traps.

Traps reflected the personality of whoever set them.

So examining the type and arrangement of traps revealed their personality, thinking patterns, and habits.

(Whoever set these has a twisted personality. Every single one prioritizes making the target suffer over dealing lethal damage.)

Needles with barbs that couldn't be removed once stuck, wire stretched to make wide, shallow cuts.

But to Finn, these were child's play.

(Trivial.)

The intent was transparent.

The traps were easily disabled and avoided.

There wasn't even a complex either-or choice where you had to accept one consequence.

She ran the gauntlet of traps and touched a window.

It had the same mechanism Finn had set up.

But she didn't bother with the lock.

She stuck tape to the window and struck it with her knife handle to break it.

This way she could get in without making noise.

The interior was nothing compared to the hideout of the fellow operative she'd infiltrated before.

Back then, there had been real tension.

There were no traps inside the mansion.

She moved silently, checking room by room.

Barely-above-amateur thugs. Eliminating careless opponents was easy.

They weren't on alert at all because they trusted the traps.

Eventually she reached the innermost room, where she saw a nearly naked woman clinging to a boy.

The boy's appearance was different from the others.

Probably a noble.

Had they seduced a boy of noble standing, using his mansion as a hideout to do as they pleased?

It would certainly be hard to find, but…

When she opened the door and entered, the woman frantically gathered the sheets and backed away.

The boy didn't move at all.

Looking closely, the boy's eyes had burn scars and were closed.

He was probably visually impaired.

They must have figured he could be easily won over.

"Who might you be?"

"I have no intention of giving my name."

She knew the moment she entered the room.

This woman wasn't just a prostitute—she was an assassin.

And this boy was…

"This is my mansion. I must ask you to refrain from unauthorized entry."

"Could you stop the act? The smell of blood is overwhelming, boy."

People who have killed carry the smell of blood.

No matter how much you wash your hands, cleanse your body, or whatever you do, it never fades.

And Finn's nose was sharp.

From her experience as an assassin, she sensed that the boy before her was not what he appeared.