Keimen City, Red Light District

Inside a lavish bar filled with jolly drunkards and women in obscene outfits moving about, serving drinks, sat a man in black with a mask on his face. Grimm Black was his name and everyone had come to fear it. Rumours had it that he wasn't human. Some say he was a beast person, others said a markari. People went so far as saying he was a vampire from the Realm of Eternal Night. If not, at least one of the many terrifying races from there.

Most steered clear of his path. This could be attributed to his reputation as a fine mercenary. One of the best around. Never missed a target. There were even some claiming that they had seen him beat B rank adventurers easily like they were a joke. Some said he could take down the famous Kings of Larm easily if he wanted to. Cold, calculating and quiet. The ultimate assassin.

So when such a person sat next to a beauty, drinking a cup of alcohol and heartily laughing his heart out, it raised suspicion for all those around him. Albeit interested, they refused to let him know that, so they would half-heartedly do what they were doing.

"You know, I've always wondered how you drink with your mask on."

The woman, a fair maiden with cherokee-like skin, a nice figure in a revealing outfit that covered only the bare minimum and cherry red hair braided into a locks said in amusement.

"There's a trick to it… hic… I could show… hic… you."

He said lazily, hiccupping in between words. He kept spinning about and laughing.

"Wow. You're in quite the cheery mood, no? Even having a drink with me out in public."

She took a sip of her cup and smiled brilliantly at him.

"Sorry… hic… about that… hic… but you know w-… hic… why, right?"

Grimm rested his head on the table. His hood fell down, revealing his beautiful silver hair that was a mess. The woman passed her hands right through his hair and caressed him.

"Of course I do, my love."

Her dazzling emerald eyes looked on his image with a gaze of interest, confusion and a hint of tender sweetness. This was a very stunning feature of hers that had many men fawning over her. Even now, Grimm was captivated by them.

"Did I ever tell you that you have the most beautiful eyes?"

"Every single time we meet out in secret, darling. Still, I wonder why we can just meet out like this all of a suddenly."

"Hic… Well, the truth is… hic… I- I wanna get m-"

One of the women working in the bar walked over to their table and put down a tray. She leaned in close and whispered something into Grimm's partner's ears. She sighed and removed her hands from his head.

"Darling, it would seem that you have more work to do. Let's leave this for later, ok?"

Her facial expression was now one of obvious disappointment and anger. She got up from the table and leaned into the man's face. With a kiss to his head, she walked away, her mere steps showing grace and elegance one wouldn't expect a person living in the slumps to possess.

Another figure replaced her seat. It was Maude, her dirty blonde hair was a bit ruffled and she was huffing heavily.

Grimm looked up at her, although it wasn't easy to know that. His lack of words and calm, paced breathing would have lead anyone to believe that he was fast asleep. However not Maude. She knew this guy like the back of her palm.

She took out her hand and removed the thick gloves covering them. She sliced open a wound in her palm and blood dripped onto the table. On lookers just observed quietly, causing the whole room to turn silent, all eyes hungry for information on what would happen next.

Grimm stood up abruptly, causing his chair to fly off, same for some tiny black balls which rolled all around the room.

"W-What are th-"

Just as someone asked, the balls caused an explosion of black smoke which blinded everyone.

"S-Smoke bombs?!"

"What the hell!?"

In the midst of the confusion, the duo had snuck out of the room and were currently at the roof of the building. Maude was stunned by the sudden change in environment, but when she looked up, all she saw was a hunched up Grimm puking his guts out.

She sighed and wiped the blood off her hand, before wearing her gloves again.

"How are you still not used to it?"

She stood up and dusted herself.

"Gaaaaaahhhhhh…. *HIISSSSS*."

She noticed the hissing sound and looked up at him. From the corner of his face, she noticed the red eyes glowing violently and staring at her hungrily. His mask wasn't on his face anymore. Slowly stumbling towards her caused her to reflexively put her hand to the sword on her hilt. Grimm however stopped in front of the mask and picked it up, wearing it quickly and calming himself.

"Phew… for a second there I thought you were going to g-"

Before she could finish that sentence, her body was lifted over the ground. Grimm was grasping her collar and growling angrily.

"Damn it, Maude! How many times?! How many damned times do I have to tell you not to pull such stunts before you realise that showing me blood will be the end of you? You'll die one of these days you know?"

While looking angrily at her, he noticed her eyes were expressionless, with a blank smile on her face.

"Didn't we already agree that we were going to die anyways after what would come next?"

His grasp on her collar loosened and he slowly lost his temper.

"He… I thought you knew that I already died before, so you doing so wouldn't really affect me."

Having been dropped, Maude promptly straightened her shirt. The air around them both was a bit awkward, but this wasn't the first time they had argued like this about this very matter, so it quickly cleared up.

"So? What did you want?"

"Sorry for ruining your date, but it would seem like some monsters are in the city."

"Huh? So why are you telling me? You know I don't care about Adventurer stuff anymore."

"True… except that this isn't adventurer stuff. The city's Adventurer Guild doesn't even know of its appearance."

"Hmm? Get to the point."

"Well… this is a sort of unfinished business for you. Remember when you sent that squad into Larm to retrieve the experiment?"

"Ah… the monster that markari spoke of?"

"Yep. I got reports of such a creature appearing through a portal gate in Old Co's Bar."

"Tch… am I supposed to go subjugate them?"

"No… just watch it. It could prove useful to my plans. If possible scout its strength too."

Grimm scratched his head and walked towards the edge of the roof.

"Anything else?"

"Nope. Just make sure not to confront it."

After receiving that order, Grimm jumped off the roof.

"Oi! Get me off here first! It's freezing cold ya bastard! Grimm?! Oi! Oi! Get back here!"

Her screams just went out into the cold night. Some noticed her and threw their empty bottles at her to shut her up.

------------------------------------

"We didn't mean to startle you guys. We just wanted to talk to you."

The elf in front of me said. She looked quite distressed. Since she wasn't human, I assumed I could just use [Telepathy] without raising any suspicion.

'Why?'

Her eyes widened after hearing my voice in her head, but they calmed down.

"Y-You're searching for someone, right?"

'Ulva.'

I dug my leg into her stomach.

'Where are you keeping my sister?'

"W-We don't have your sister!"

She grunted out the words. With her skill set, escape from me was practically impossible. Stalling for time was useless since I had proved to her that sneak attacks were useless against me. I even used [Devil's Miasma] in order to scare the answer out of her.

"P-Please… I-I d-don't know."

She begged, crying in front of me. I almost wondered what she was seeing to break her morale so quickly.

I dropped her then looked at her unconscious partner. She kept shivering on the ground and I moved on to Yokino.

'Yokino. Did you find anything from him?'

I got no response. I moved to edge of the building and looked down. She wasn't there. Even on my map, I couldn't track her. Her sudden disappearance got me so angry I just snapped and my magical aura burst.

'Damned spider. Now isn't the time for pranks!'

I was just going to leave them there, but then the guy from before called out to me.

"Hey! Tori, right?!"

I moved to his side quickly and looked him in the eye.

"How… do… you… know… my… name?"

I asked and even though he was blindfolded, I could sort of sense a bit of fearlessness from him.

"We know where she is. Your sister."

I tore apart the web from his eyes and he screamed in a bit of pain. I grabbed his shirt and brought him down to my eye level once again.

"Go… on…"

I ordered and he looked down.

"Hehe… can't I just see you without your mask?"

He said then I just punched him in the face, certain that I knocked him out. I let out a sigh and looked around. Their organized attack made me assume that they were working together. And they knew about Ulva, meaning I couldn't just ignore them here. So I shoved them all into the spatial storage that the suit carried and decided to find somewhere to hide out for the night till they all woke up.

I ended up moving about the entire night and even stumbled upon the red light district of the town. They didn't pay any attention to me since I was a little girl, although there were some drunk weirdos like that.

Someone eventually came up and asked why I was standing there. They were two succubi carrying bottles of wine. They said they had been sent to go buy the wine for some clients. Why they told me this? I had no idea, but I decided to ask where I could find an inn. They pointed me in the right direction, so I managed to get to an inn. They even gave me two silver coins to get myself a nice apartment for the night.

I was really weirded out, but I simply took it and moved, so I rented out a room for one night in a sort of luxurious inn. I got myself a really comfortable room at the top floor of the building and even some people came to attend to me with nice room service.

At first, I was suspicious, but after piecing one and two together, I realized that the two women from before thought I was a little succubus, so they were trying to be friendly with me. I was surprised that they would go out of their way to give me two silver coins though. That felt abnormally generous.

I removed the attackers from my inventory and dropped them onto the floor and removed their cloaks. Could you believe that the cloaks had the option for [Undetectable Stealth]? That was better than mine by far, although they were light and provided practically no defense whatsoever. Still, I was sure I could find a way to fuse them with my cloak to get something good.

They were two humans, two cat girls and one elf. All unconscious and I stripped them of their gear. All of them but the small human possessed nothing interesting. Simple mediocre gear. The blonde human though was carrying a sword called Crooked Dainsleif. I wondered if it had any relation to the one I was thinking about, and its stats were absurd.

[Item Name: Crooked Dainsleif

[Type: Soul [Unawaken] (Non-Consumable)

[Item grade: Low Epic

[Item Description: A poor imitation of the original that was once wielded by the Legendary Hero ****. This weapon is crooked and clearly can't possibly be the actual Legendary Weapon. Still… if one listens close enough, one can hear a heartbeat and a voice.

# +300 attack power

# -150 speed

# -200 dexterity

# +5% magic power boost

# Attack Resistance

# Magical Attack Nullification (1 charge per 5 days) [0/1]

[Value: 20 gold coins]

[Market price: 15 store points]

'Ah… if one's stats weren't abnormal on their own, wasn't this sword practically a nuisance? And what's a soul type of weapon?'

<<Notice: A soul weapon is a weapon that possesses a soul within it>>

'A soul… huh? Still this is some cheap knock off of the original and its creator didn't put in much effort into properly making it. It's freaking unbalanced. I don't know much about making weapons, but I'm sure everything is supposed to be balanced and this guy who is using this weapon, isn't it a pain in the ass, especially with his stats? He was barely C - rank, let own having high enough stats to use something like this. Is he dumb?'

While I was thinking about that, I heard the sound of something falling down from outside. I moved to the window, but I didn't see anything out there. I just found the view of the city. It wasn't something to boast about. Well, I was in the nice part of town, but beyond that was just darkness. No lights, no happy night walks, nothing but lifeless streets.

'I didn't expect this to be how my first time in a city would go.'

At least I had somewhere to rest in case I got tired. I didn't expect that finding Ulva would be easy, but I needed to do a little bit of information gathering. If they had mages on their side, jumping straight in to fight would be suicidal and stupid. Or if there were B or A ranked humans around, I'd be in for a doozy.

I didn't want to leave the humans here by themselves, but then I didn't know exactly what to do. Leaving them with only binds would be dumb since the elf had the skill [Trap Escape Level 8]. She would simply free herself and then the others.

After thinking for a while, I realized that I needed Yokino here to watch over them for me, but I couldn't even contact her and that was infuriating. In the end, I came to the conclusion that I needed help from one of the monsters in the West. So I informed Gorm and he said Nukeme was ready. At first, I wasn't interested, but since I was just going to be leaving him alone with the humans, it didn't matter much.

I opened a teleport gate for him and he came through, full of happiness. I gave him the order and he followed it to the letter, allowing me to rest assured that I could go scouting the area.

***

Day 28

"Hinotori-sama, Hinotori-sama, please wake up!"

I heard Nukeme cry for me. Slowly, I opened my eyes, only to be met by an unfamiliar white ceiling. For a second, I was confused as to where I was, but when I looked around, I realized I was in the room I booked the previous night.

[You are now level 20/30]

[You have acquired the skill [Sharp Talons]]

[Your magic power has grown! A new portion of the dark arts has been unlocked!]

[You have acquired [Shadow Being Summoning]]

[A new branch of magic has been acquired! [Summoning Magic]!]

I slowly sat up and noticed an arrow being pointed at my face. The elf was shockingly close to my body, alongside the two cat girls with their claws also in my face and the other two guys on top of Nukeme, all half naked since I stole their gear and stored them in my item box.

'What kind of wake-up call is this?'

I wondered to myself and scratched my head. I had one nasty headache and I couldn't remember why.

"I-I'm sorry."

The hob-goblin remorsefully said and I looked at him. He was quite pathetic under their knees.

"Move an inch and your minion gets it, and I stab you."

The elf said. She was acting like the leader of the group, although if this was the cliché adventurer party, the blonde guy would be the edgy leader.

I looked at my hands. They felt a bit numb so I tried flexing my fingers. Something just didn't feel right. It felt like I was sick, but I couldn't feel the sickness even though my body was acting weirdly.

'Agent… status report.'

<<Notice: Last night you got attacked by an unknown assailant who shot you with an Arrow laced with a strong Neurotoxin. You made it out alive, but the poison still has lingering effects and your skill [Poison Resistance] evolved into [Great Poison Resistance]>>

'Ah! First of all, I'm acting pretty cool, aren't I? Second… Oh right. I almost died last night. I barely made it out alive, huh? So that's why I feel weird. Well, I guess. I can still use magic, right?'

"Oi! Are you listening to me?!"

The elf screamed in my face. Damned Tsundere.

<<Notice: Although at a weaker level than you normally possess, your weakened state should have better magical power than those present in the room>>

The Agent just made my morning a bit good. The elf on the other hand decided it was a great idea to proceed with trying to stab me. With [Shadow Manipulation] I grabbed her and the others, hanging them, inches above the ground. They kept squirming as I drank a renosue half potion and gave one to Nukeme. My health points were dangerously low from earlier so using this was good and refreshing.

Nukeme went on one knee and was apologizing greatly to me.

"I'm sorry, Hinotori-sama. Because of me, you almost got killed."

'You idiot. I told you to call me Tori here. And I also ordered that you didn't treat me as if I were your boss.'

I let out a sigh and dragged a chair to where I was and sat down on it.

'It's getting exhausting speaking anyway. Nukeme, translate whatever I say for them.'

"As you wish."

He moved next to my seat and looked at them, his back straightened up. That was a bit weird, considering how he normally never did that. He even had a different air about him. I gave him the first sentence.

'Ask them if they are ready to listen.'

"Listen up. My mistress is ready to let you go, if you are willing to speak. Are you willing to speak?"

He asked them and majority of them nodded. It was only the elf who shook her head angrily. Majority ruled so I let them down, except for the elf since I couldn't trust her.

The others glared at me except for the blonde guy. He crossed his legs in his underwear in smiled brightly at me.

"My name's Marcus! Those two therianthropes are Mika and Nika. The big guy over there's Daryl and the rude elf is called Celica."

"You idiot! Don't give out our names just like that."

One of the twin cat girls said. She had short-cut magenta coloured hair with a head band covering her forehead. Her large eyes were now glaring daggers at him

"Don't go too hard on him, Mimi."

The other cat girl said, her ears dropping. She on the other hand had black green hair on a freckled face with large sky blue eyes.

"Hehe… Sorry Mimi, but that person said we should help her, so I think it's all good."

Marcus said nonchalantly.

"Your trust in that person is unnerving."

Daryl said. He was a big guy with dark skin and a rough looking face. He seemed to be in his early thirties with his left ear pierced. He also possessed a sort of mature disposition. He was probably the big brother figure of the entire group.

"No, no. It's all good. That person has gotten us out of many situations befo-"

"Oi! Silence!"

Nukeme ordered them and they looked at us, as if now realizing that they were my captives. I couldn't really use my aura because I was in a building filled with other people and I was still numb from the previous night.

'Ask them who "That person" is.'

Nukeme did so.

"Hmm… to be honest, I'm not sure who that person is. Just that appears out of nowhere, gives us advice and has white hair. She must be your friend since she wears a mask just like yours."

He pointed to my face and I suddenly became conscious of the mask. She was probably someone who just owned a variant version of this mask. It didn't seem like something rare so I just shrugged it off since they didn't know who exactly she was. Although the white hair probably made me flinch.

I doubted I'd get any more information without consuming their souls, so I would just move on to the next question for now. If nothing was satisfactory, I would take their souls.

'Damn… I don't like how this is starting to be a normal for me.'

'Ask them why they were searching for me?'

"Ok, so what do you guys want?"

"It's like we said. We just wanted to help you find your sister."

The Marcus guy said.

"Why?"

"Because that person told us to do so. She said we should help a little girl with blonde hair, wearing a black mask like hers find her sister."

"To what benefit?"

"None!"

One of the cat girls said defensively.

"So why would you guys just help me if you aren't getting anything out of it?"

"Because it's the right thing to do. I mean, for The Hero Party, helping out anyone in need is a norm."

Marcus said boldly and looked up at me with a weird gaze. For a second there, I could have called him heroic, but I simply couldn't see him that way. Simply put, there was no one here who was the hero.

'Is the hero somewhere in the city?'

I asked, curious. I really didn't want to get on the bad side of the main character of this stupid game.

'You're looking at him.'

Marcus said with a wide crazy grin. I looked around and the others expressions didn't change. If anything, they became more assertive of the matter. The elf was still wriggling about in her binds though.

'Does he have the ability to turn invisible or something?'

I tried to go for a joke, but they were all dead eyed and serious.

'Hero Party, huh? You don't possess a Sacred, neither are you blessed by any gods or divinities. Even your oldest member isn't a B rank adventurer. You are too weak to don such a title for yourself.'

"Well, I'm not the hero yet, but I'll become one soon."

I couldn't help myself but laugh at his delusions. This guy was basically a chuunibyou. He wasn't worth anything.

"Fufufufu…"

"What's so funny?"

'Sorry, but I couldn't help myself. You? A hero? Absolutely laughable. In that case, I shall let you know that I am The Demon Lord. You and I are destined to do battle, so shall I kill you here?'

Hahaha! Jokes on this guy. I was a chuunibyou in my former life as well. Calling myself the Crimson Herald of Justice with my Eternal Flames that engulfed everything! Now that I look back to then, I feel like I was quite cringe and weird.

All of them looked at me with a sort of skeptical gaze.

"Yeah, I just can't see you as a demon lord, little lady."

"What are you? Like 8 or something? Don't go joking around about something so serious."

"Shut your filthy mouths, you damned humans! Tori-sama speaks to you and you dare ridicule her? I should cut your tongues out and steal all your money."

'Ah… Nukeme sto-'

"Ah! You see? I told you guys That Person wasn't wrong. We definitely met someone interesting here."

He yelled, getting all the attention.

"Torisama, was it? Future hero here! I'm destined to fight you once I get my title and you don't look like someone who wants a boring fight. Let me live here and when I get strong, we duel it out!"

The guy ended up saying something absurd, but strangely enough, he managed to rile up my inner chuuni.

'Fufufu… I don't dislike this idea. Very well then, Future Hero Marcus, let's go save my sister!'