Chapter 29 – Apprentice Assassin? Part 2

【Valerius PoV】

Minutes passed, and the girl was still trembling.

Her eyes hadn’t left Jin, not once, and she looked like a rabbit staring at a wolf that had just caught her but hadn’t decided whether to eat her yet.

Clara moved closer with silent, graceful steps that were perfectly refined and completely terrifying.

“Poor girl.”

Her voice was soft and sympathetic in a way that made it even more frightening.

“Master Valerius is scary, so you must have had a reason to try to kill him. Don’t blame yourself.”

Wait. What?

I stared at Clara while my brain struggled to process what I’d just heard.

“I’m not scary! I’m not the bad guy here!”

Clara turned to look at me with a perfectly neutral, perfectly polite expression that made me feel like a child who’d just said something adorably stupid.

“Of course, Master Valerius. Whatever you say.”

She didn’t believe me at all. My own maid didn’t believe me, and the girl who just tried to murder me was getting more sympathy than I was.

“She tried to kill me! With a knife! Multiple knives!”

“And she clearly failed, which perhaps should tell you something about the quality of the attempt.”

Jin moved, crouching down in front of the girl who flinched so hard her whole body went rigid and fresh tears welled up in her eyes.

He studied her with that same bored expression, like he was examining a piece of furniture he was thinking about buying but probably wouldn’t.

“She’s a killer, but she’s very inexperienced.”

His voice was flat and matter-of-fact as he reached out and grabbed her wrist. She didn’t resist because fear had locked her muscles in place.

“She can barely hold a blade properly. Look at her grip – all wrong. No wonder she missed.”

He dropped her wrist and it fell limply to her lap.

“You know what? I’m not going to move. You can try to kill him again.”

The words hung in the air and I blinked while the girl did the same.

“What?”

My voice came out as a strangled yelp while the girl’s voice echoed mine with the same pitch and panic. We both stared at Jin like he’d just suggested we set ourselves on fire for fun.

“You heard me, kid. Do what you have to do.”

He stood up and walked over to the wall, leaning against it with his arms crossed and his expression bored.

“Yes. You can kill him.”

Clara nodded and moved to stand beside Jin with her hands folded in front of her and her posture perfect.

“This is an excellent learning opportunity.”

They’d joined forces – my bodyguard and my maid had just teamed up to let a teenage assassin take another shot at me. This was beyond insane, whatever came after insane.

“Are you both out of your minds?”

The girl looked between us with a pale face and shaking hands, like she was about to throw up.

Mist began to seep through the broken window.

It wasn’t natural and moved wrong, crawling across the floor like something alive while tendrils of white fog curled around furniture, broken glass, and the girl’s legs.

The temperature in the room dropped until my breath came out in visible puffs and frost formed on the inside of the window frame.

Jin’s eyes sharpened just slightly and the bored expression vanished, replaced by something cold and focused.

“Interesting.”

A figure materialized from the mist and stepped through the window like it was a door, like gravity was just a suggestion they’d chosen to ignore.

Another assassin, but this one was different – older, professional, moving with fluid confidence where every step was deliberate, controlled, and deadly.

A woman in dark leather armor that looked like it cost more than my entire wardrobe stood tall and lean with sharp features and dark eyes that swept the room in a single glance, taking in everything and cataloging threats.

Her gaze landed on Jin and stayed there, forgetting about me completely like I’d stopped existing the moment she saw him.

“What’s going on?”

Her voice was smooth and calm with the kind of calm that came from someone who’d killed enough people to stop counting. She looked at the girl on the floor and her expression shifted to surprise, then something that might have been pity.

“This girl is so young, so it’s not worth me getting involved.”

She took a step back with her hands raised slightly in a gesture of non-aggression, though her eyes never left Jin.

“I see. I’m sorry because I thought Valerius was just a weakling.”

She said my name like I was a footnote, an afterthought, and the main character in this scenario was very clearly not me.

“If I’d known someone of your caliber was his bodyguard, I would never have accepted this contract.”

Jin pushed off the wall and walked toward her with lazy, casual steps that belonged to someone who knew they were the apex predator in the room.

“Don’t worry. This girl is so weak.”

He gestured vaguely at the trembling teenager on the floor.

“Is she your apprentice?”

“Yes.”

The woman’s shoulders relaxed slightly as recognition passed between them, some kind of professional courtesy I didn’t understand.

“My name is Yuna, leader of the Shadow Claw guild. This is Mei, my apprentice.”

She gestured to the girl and somehow the name made her seem even younger, even more out of place.

“She’s weak, just like your employer.”

Yuna smiled and it wasn’t cruel but almost fond, the way a teacher might smile at a student’s mistake.

“I sent her because the target was supposed to be easy – a spoiled noble with no combat experience, no guards, no protection. Just a simple elimination.”

“Simple until it wasn’t.”

“Exactly.”

Jin stopped a few feet from her and the air between them felt charged, thick with something I couldn’t see but could definitely feel while my skin prickled and the hairs on my arms stood up.

“I detected an absurd amount of energy coming from this direction, like a bonfire in the middle of a dark forest. Impossible to miss.”

Yuna tilted her head with narrowed eyes.

“That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Probably.”

“You didn’t even try to hide it.”

“Why would I?”

Yuna laughed and it was a genuine sound, light and almost playful.

“I like you because most bodyguards would have hidden their presence and tried to lure me into a trap, but you just let it all hang out like you don’t care who knows what you are.”

“I don’t.”

The mist began to thicken and swirl around Yuna’s feet while patterns formed in the fog, shapes that looked almost like claws and teeth.

Jin didn’t react but just watched and waited.

“Your mana control is interesting – very refined and disciplined.”

“Thank you.”

“Mine is better.”

“Is it?”

The temperature dropped even further as the frost on the window spread and ice crystals formed on the walls and ceiling while the mist turned into a solid presence, a weight in the air.

Then it vanished all at once, like someone had flipped a switch.

The room was warm again as the ice melted and droplets of water ran down the walls.

Yuna’s mist was gone completely, like it had never existed.

Jin hadn’t moved but had just stood there, and somehow without any visible effort he’d crushed her technique like it was made of paper.

Yuna stared at him with wide eyes as her professional composure cracked just for a second, just long enough for me to see genuine shock underneath.

“You’re a monster.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

She laughed again but this time it sounded a little strained, a little forced.

“Fight.”

They both said it at the same time in perfect synchronization, like they’d rehearsed it.

I looked at Jin, then at Yuna, then back at Jin.

“What?”

“Your apprentice and my employer – they should fight.”

Yuna nodded enthusiastically as her shock transformed into excitement and her eyes practically glowed.

“Yes! This will be a great chance for her to learn because she needs to fight someone weak to build her confidence. Your employer is perfect.”

“He is exceptionally weak.”

“A natural training dummy.”

“Completely defenseless.”

They were talking about me like I wasn’t standing right there, like I was a piece of training equipment or a convenient punching bag for a traumatized teenage assassin.

Clara stepped forward after being silent this whole time, watching and processing, and now she looked genuinely interested.

“This could be beneficial for Master Valerius as well since he needs practical combat experience.”

“No. No way. Absolutely not.”

My protest fell on deaf ears as all four of them looked at me now – Jin, Yuna, Clara, and even Mei who had stopped trembling long enough to stare.

“She tried to kill me!”

“And failed miserably, which is why this is a fair match.”

Yuna walked over to Mei and pulled the girl to her feet, brushing glass from her apprentice’s clothes with gentle, maternal movements that were completely at odds with the fact that she was a professional killer.

“Mei, listen to me because this is a gift – a chance to fight someone at your level, someone who won’t hurt you, someone who can barely hurt anyone.”

Mei looked at her master and then at me while the fear was still there, but something else flickered in her eyes like determination or maybe just desperation to not disappoint her teacher again.

“Master Valerius, I suggest you prepare yourself.”

Clara’s voice was perfectly calm and perfectly polite, and she was enjoying this because I could tell she was absolutely loving the idea of me getting beaten up by a teenage girl.

“I just survived one assassination attempt!”

“Then you should have some experience to draw upon.”

Jin picked up one of Mei’s dropped knives and examined it, flipping it in his hand before tossing it to me.

I caught it barely, and the handle was cold while the blade was slightly bent from where Jin had shattered its twin.

“Don’t die.”

That was his advice – don’t die. Thanks Jin, very helpful and super specific.

Yuna untied Mei’s hands and the rope fell away while Mei rubbed her wrists, took a shaky breath, and picked up another knife from the floor.

She looked at me and I looked at her, both of us terrified and completely out of our depth, both being forced into this by people who found the whole situation hilarious.

This wasn’t in the original game and none of this was scripted because the game didn’t have Jin, didn’t have Clara acting like a sadistic cheerleader, and didn’t have professional assassins showing up for training sessions.

What the hell was going on with my life?