“Well your job is quite easy if I do say so myself, you only have to ‘get rid of’ this one evil guy and all the rewards we talked about previously will be yours. How you accomplish that feat is up to you, but I want it done quietly, without much collateral damage. I don’t care if the murder can be traced back to me, but if you personally leave evidence behind, the Black Bear organization might take revenge on you.”

“You don’t care if the Black Bear organization comes after you?”

“Ha! Those scum? Oh honey, did you forget I run this black market? Like they could take revenge on a platinum Machia, you’re funny kid.”

I guess she’s right, the only reason she wants me, a newbie Machia, to murder that guy, is because he would run away otherwise.

“Do you have any information on him? Like habits or places he visits often?”

“Well, my intelligence agency only gathered some basic rumors on him, if I were to thoroughly investigate him, he would most likely get wind of it and run away… That rat-bastard… Anyways, here’s everything we got on him.”

*THUNK*

She plops down a hefty pile of papers in front of me on the table. If these are just basic rumors, I wonder how big the pile of a thorough investigation would be… *GULP* Yet again, I’m reminded of the enormous power that Miss. Izumi wields…

“T-Thanks… When’s the deadline of this request?”

“I want it done within a time period of 3 weeks. Think you’re up for the challenge darling~?”

Ugh, she’s highlighting her chest again with the pose she’s striking… Well, the time period does seem quite reasonable.

“Alright, I’ll take the job, please let me sign the contract.”

“Very well, *CLAP* *CLAP* VIKTOR, ready the contract!”

Suddenly the old man bursts through the door holding a stack of papers.

“I already did madam.”

“Well done Viktor!”

She hands me the contract and shows me where to sign, it annoys me a bit that the old guy already knew I was going to accept the job, but whatever.

I sign the contract and get up, ready to leave.

“Please don’t die, my dear Reo~”

“S-Sure.”

D-Did I ever tell her my name? Scary…

…

I finally arrive back at the dorms, but nobody’s waiting for me, well, it is quite late already. I enter my own room and let myself fall on the fluffy bed.

I already read the documents that miss Izumi gave me while on the train back to the dorm.

*SIGH* This isn’t going to be as easy as Miss. Izumi made it out to be. Thompson Hendricks himself isn’t that difficult to deal with, he’s a regular human after all. The problem is his Machia bodyguard that follows him around everywhere. The documents said his bodyguard has an ‘earth-rook talent’ or whatever that means, apparently he specializes in defense and only has one offensive cartridge: wind-claw…

I definitely don’t want to face off against that bodyguard, he’s different from that rat-man I defeated, he’s a professional Machia…

Alright, I’ll just have to separate Thomson from his bodyguard. I should first stalk him for a while and observe his routine, see if he’s ever alone...

The document said he visits the same food stall every morning and often drinks at a certain pub: Bandit’s Cave. It also seems that ‘Bandit’s Cave’ is controlled by the Black Bear organization. I’ll hang around those spots for a while.

Alright, I decided! If I want to assassinate Thomson stealthily, I need a better attack magic, ‘explosion’ makes too much noise and causes too much collateral destruction. I only have one blank cartridge, so the universal movement magic I originally wanted to program should be postponed in favor of this new attack magic.

But what should it be? It’s an orange cartridge, so I can be pretty creative, I have 3 modifiers after all… Maybe a long spike that comes out of my palm? But if someone grabs the spike while it’s extended, I’m basically fucked…

I think about other possible magics as I fall asleep.

…

I got it!

I get out of bed, brush my teeth and head to the kitchen for breakfast. It looks like Juniper and Sara already left for classes, Luckily Juniper was sweet enough to leave some eggs on toast for me… I knew she was the one who prepared the toast because it wasn’t charred. She really is a sweetheart, I should make it up to her as soon as possible.

I leisurely sit myself down on the couch in front of the tv and grab my laptop. The genius idea I had for my new magic is: a water cutter jet!

It would almost leave no traces at a crime scene, just like how some serial killers use icicles as a deadly weapon. Plus, I have seen some water-jets on YouTube that are able to pierce through solid steel, so the power definitely isn’t lacking either.

I google some water magic cartridges as a reference, but all of the water cartridges that I found hold defensive magic such as: water shield and turtle defense…

I guess they probably would keep the really good water magics a secret. Alright, Let’s look at actual water-jets then.

…

Okay, they simply spurt out water at high pressures through a very small nozzle, sometimes they even add little abrasive substances to increase the power. I should be able to replicate that with magic right?