It is a quiet night. Silence reigns in the old industrial estate of the city of Lugria. For about a century, the place emptied little by little, until today, only a couple of factories remain.

A man, in his forties, looks out from a window located on the first floor of one of those abandoned buildings. He releases the content stored in his mouth, tobacco smoke, and in his right hand he has a lit cigarette. It is a mania for him to start smoking while waiting for someone.

The noise of an engine breaks the tranquility of the night. A family car pulls up in front of the weathered building, and the noise stops when the vehicle is turned off. A girl, judging by the silhouette, gets off and approaches the entrance.

He smiles, and drops the cigarette on the ground, only to put it out on the spot using his shoes. His plan will start now.

One of the doors opens. They are unlocked, and they are also not locked with any chain and padlock, so the girl has no trouble getting in. But as soon as you set foot inside, the walls light up. Engraved on them are numerous magical formations ready to activate at the right time. And it is now. Shining brightly, a large number of fireballs shoot out towards the girl.

Then an explosion occurs. The flames begin to rise, filling the entire entrance with fire.

"Done, job done," he mutters to himself.

His mission was to eliminate a certain journalist. His bosses didn't tell him why, just to take her to a discreet place and take care of her. That's why he chose these abandoned warehouses. Here he could kill her and later dispose of the corpse.

That trap, which he had prepared in advance, is his specialty. It is a trap used by fire-based sorcery. Unfortunately, his talent for magical arts is not high. Magic, sorcery and enchantment. Of the three ways of using magical power, he only has an affinity for sorcery, which is considered the easiest.

Through an intense study on the different formations of magic circles and runes, and with hard work, he was able to reach a fairly acceptable level. The experience helped him improve and develop his skills, and better understand how to use them to get the result he wanted.

If anybody wanted to measure their battle skills, the most obvious would be to say that they are fighting-oriented. He specialized in cheating and assassination, so there would be no point in evaluating him in that regard. However, if the standard system was used, which is used by both the Freendoom Guild and the defense forces of the different kingdoms, it would rank as silver, the second lowest.

He prepares to leave, watching as the fire still burns. The yellowish-orange flames caused by the traps continue to burn and roar with great force. No one has survived them, he doesn't have to worry. In addition to the serious injuries they cause by themselves, they also have a small curse added to them to cause them to worsen.

Curses are a form of non-elemental magic. He has no affinity for magic, but this is a bit of a special variation. The same talent is not needed as for elemental magic or for other non-elemental magic. You just have to have the necessary knowledge.

Guess the girl should be dead, that's what the experience says. But, for some reason he doesn't understand, something inside him is screaming 'danger'.

"I see. It's an interesting spell. Did you carve magic circles on the walls and the doorway to make them activate the moment I walk in? It really is impressive and very well thought out. You don't often see something like this in battle."

Can not be!

He yells to himself in surprise. A girl's voice can be heard clearly from within the flames, and there is not the slightest trace of suffering.

"This would be... a C rank spell? No, it even reaches that level? Anyhow, something that weak obviously won't do anything to me."

At that very moment, the flames completely take on a beautiful shade of crimson, and begin to move, as if they were dancing. Slowly they move away, until one figure is fully visible.

Not a single burn on her elegant clothes or on her face, it seemed like that fire spell was a mere breeze for her.

Her beautiful crimson red hair glows, as if on fire, and a mischievous smile can almost be seen.

The crimson flames roar with greater ferocity than before, and before he could react, they rush past the man. They barely brushed against him, hit the wall, but his clothes were already affected by the heat, melting.

He falls to the ground unable to stand. All his strength was suddenly gone as he realized the truth.

A mana user!

Elemental magic users, also called mana users, are extremely rare. Fire magic users, among all, are considered to be the most dangerous.

And that girl is much more dangerous than he initially assumed. It's not Laura White, the journalist he brought in. He knows who she is, he's seen her countless times in magazines, but according to the information he has, she shouldn't be of that caliber. Without him realizing it, that girl took the flames from his spell and made them her own, and now he's being attacked with them.

The difference between their abilities is as great as the distance between heaven and earth. Gold rank? No... maybe even more... That thought crosses his mind.

Bronze, silver, gold, diamond, platinum and orichalcum. Among the six ranks of the system established by the Freendoom Guild, he would be placed in the silver rank. He never obtained a certification as such, he did not need it for his work as a hitman for the organization. But the girl in front of him is of a much higher rank. And the worst thing is that he feels that he is hiding his true powers.

You need to escape if you want to survive. You know perfectly well. If he had turned around, he would have seen how that previous attack of fire magic caused where there was once a wall, now there is nothing. The big hole that was left is proof that something has happened.

Gather all the will possible and the will to live in his legs to get up and start running. He has to escape. He has to inform his superiors of what happened. He starts running, but in the opposite direction. She's at the entrance to the building, so he can't get out that way.

He is on the second floor. If he can get to the fire stairs that are with the emergency exit on that floor, he can get out of there. She would have to make a detour to get to the second floor, so she would have some time.

As she watches as he runs for his life, she just looks at him smiling. For her, he is nothing more than a mere insect that, after having fluttered and annoyed, now tries to flee. If she had to make a comparison, she would even say that the mosquitoes that are there at night, looking for a delicious blood to feed on, are more annoying than the one that just tried to kill it.

Footsteps are heard loudly on the fourth floor, looking for a way to escape. Although he thoroughly studied the building plans when he was preparing the trap, now he is unable to find the emergency door. He's going around in circles, feeling like he's trapped in a labyrinth.

Initially, he tried to escape both through the emergency stairs of the first two floors, but he could not. The doors were completely locked, as if fate wanted him to use them. Given this, he had no choice but to try it on the following floors.

But, when he got to the third exit, there was a person sitting on the ground protecting it. Wearing a white snake-patterned mask and covered with a cloak, it seemed like he was standing guard, so he couldn't use it either, but that person noticed his existence.

That led to him now being on the fourth floor. His legs are screaming in pain, but he doesn't have the luxury of running. He needs to get to his destination as soon as possible. But, before he could do so, a shot rang out from the depths of the darkness, and a cry of pain can be heard from the old abandoned building.

A terrible pain runs through his entire body, even though it is possibly of a small caliber, and yet he is unable to bear it. He leans against the dirty wall of the empty corridor, leaving it stained with blood.

The sweat is all over his body, due to the effort generated from having run all that time without even stopping. His clothes are singed, even in areas completely melted, and on his face there are signs of severe burns.

He recently saw hell, such an abyss of power that terrified him. He managed to escape so far from that girl. But now, a physical bullet hit him in the right shoulder. The blood does not stop flowing from the wound.

Little by little, his consciousness is fading, it is getting harder and harder to stay awake. The pain has already disappeared, in its place most of the body is asleep.

Poison?

That's the answer you get. The fact that a simple bullet caused him, first that pain, and now that his body is so dazed, can only be explained by the fact that the bullet was coated with some kind of poison. If he had been hit in a nerve or in some vital point, it would be another story, but that is not the case. 

He takes out his mobile remote communication device, but, unfortunately, he does not receive any signal. He has already checked this before, and in this area he should have sufficient coverage. If he hasn't now, something must be interfering.

Most likely, that girl had created a magical barrier to seal off the building. That way, the low-frequency magic waves used in communication devices can't get out.

But, he has a double problem. If it was indeed that girl, it means that she is not only skilled in elemental magic, but also in sorcery. Barriers, although they can be created with magic, are generally considered to be spells. This is because it is more convenient to use magic formulas and engrave them at key points than to maintain the barrier oneself. And, in the event that it was not her, it would indicate that it could have been an accomplice, such as the masked person.

Sighs. The pain prevents him from taking another step, and he also has no way of communicating with his superiors. He has understood that he never had a chance to escape. That mere fantasy has vanished like smoke. The only option left for him is to kill the girl and that accomplice and, when he gets out of range of the barrier, call for him to be picked up.

The sounds of footsteps draw closer, though not in a hurry, as a voice echoes. Someone is speaking to him, but he can't catch everything they say. His consciousness is almost gone.

“Wow, it is impressive that you are still conscious, Ager Dalh.”

His pursuer has already caught up with him, and he spoke to him again. This time he was able to understand it well, it is just a few steps away. He looks carefully, only to find a person with a cloak as black as night, which covers him completely. His face is covered by a white mask that represents a snake. Looks like it's the accomplice who was on the stairs.

All this together makes it impossible to identify the person, but, judging by the voice, it is very likely that it is a young man.

"It seems that the Princess's plans always turn out well... Even her barriers are on another level", the masked man murmurs.

His left hand protrudes from the cloak, and in it he is holding a small artifact. Constructed of refined steel, it is molded to fit a comfortable wearing shape. The ammo used is small pointed cylinders, magic steel bullets, and fired with magical power as a catalyst. With the name of 'guns', it is an invention that was born during the industrial war of the countries, and only legal state forces are allowed to carry them, although it is not uncommon for criminals to smuggle them.

Ager Dahl, a well-known assassin in the underworld, is someone who is capable of killing anyone if the reward warrants it. His preferred method is to use booby traps, but he has other ways as well.

But, what not many know is that he belongs to a criminal organization that moves in the darkness of the kingdom. Drugs, murders, prostitution, extortion... They cover many fields of illegality. The person who leads this group is totally unknown, he only deals with those who hired him.

A few days ago, they contacted him to do some work. It was well paid, and it seemed simple. He would only have to kill one girl, the journalist Laura White. The motives behind this are unknown, he was also uninterested.

He was following her for a whole day, he wanted to know her routine and find out where the girl lived. As soon as he found out, all he had to do was leave an anonymous letter in her mailbox, quoting her in the place that was most convenient for him. Obviously, it would appear, he put a very attractive bait on it: a piece of news that could interest him.

But, the plan he laid out did not work. Sure enough, a girl showed up and the trap, which she carefully created, activated, leaving everything engulfed in flames. However, that same girl, without even showing herself to have been affected, took control of the fire and showed herself. It wasn't Laura White, it was someone completely different.

With a single attack of fire magic, he destroyed the wall beside him in an instant, forcing him to flee. Never before has he been in such a situation as he is now. And the worst thing is that one of his hunches could be true.

"Damn... you... who...?"

Ager already finds it difficult to speak. He barely has any strength left in his body because of the poison that was impregnated in the bullet. But, he is cut short. A second shot rings out. This time, where the blood comes out is on the other shoulder.

At the moment, that masked person has no interest in killing Ager Dahl. If he wanted, he could have shot him directly in the head, or in the neck, or in any other vital spot. He's keeping him alive on purpose.

“Shut up, Ager Dahl. Your voice is very annoying.”

That male voice again. It is not possible... That he feared the most, is correct. There were more enemies in this old abandoned building, and they set a trap for him.

And, as if waiting for Ager to come to that conclusion, new noises can be heard from behind. A girl with beautiful crimson hair approaches smiling while clapping her hands. Her clothing, in contrast to the place, is refined. She wears a dark red evening dress and high heels.

She didn't need to rush to try to catch it. That Ager Dahl was going to fall on this very floor was set in stone. At the moment when she is next to the masked person, she throws something at Ager so that he can see it well.

It rolls for a few moments, until it is completely stopped in front of him. It is somewhat oval, but appears to have something similar to threads attached to it.

The moon, which had been hidden behind the clouds, is shown high in the sky. Light enters through the broken windows, to allow Ager to see what has been thrown away. His breath hitches as he realizes what it is: it's a human head, a woman's. He knows her, he knows who she is. After all, it's the head of the one you quoted in that old factory. This is Laura White's head.

"As you see, we went to the trouble of killing her. I suppose that, in normal situations, you would collect the reward, although, unfortunately, it will not happen this time, since you will soon die", says the girl in a sweet voice. "Ahh, now that I think about it. I didn't give you any prizes for guessing this was a trap! How about if I give you a quick kill as a reward?"

Smiling, she asks. There is no evil in it. But, for Ager, that smile on her face reminds him of Death personified, an utterly terrifying existence.

"So long, Ager Dahl. Not even with the death of your physical body will you be able to pay for all the crimes you have committed. But don't worry, you'll pay with your soul."

The girl slightly raises her right hand, pointing with her index finger, while muttering. The next moment, a small fire bullet comes out of the finger, shot towards Ager, hitting his heart. At that moment, Ager Dahl, a wanted hit man, met the end of his life.

After looking at him for a few seconds, the girl turns, intending to leave. It is not a problem for her to take the life of a living being. She won't hesitate, and she won't regret it either.

"Princess, wait a minute!"

The masked man calls out to her, causing her to pause for a moment. She turns for a moment, to see what he wants.

"Tell me, Sei."

"Are you going to leave the journalist's head here?"

"Do not worry about it. Ahh right", and throws him some keys. "You drive. Drop me off at the restaurant, and then take back the car to Laura White's house. I borrowed it from him in the meantime.”

Without saying much more, she walks off, disappearing into the darkness of the building, leaving her partner sighing.