Kiara, noticing the princess’s confused expression, stepped forward. With eyesight sharper than most, she stayed calm as she scanned the battlefield. That was why she immediately spotted the danger—a new group of five shadows was closing in on their five-member party, and they were fast.

  The boy noticed this too and said, “Hmm… so I’m not enough, right?” The boy opened his eyes.

  “Four o’clock!” the hunter screamed, alerting the boy to the direction. She fired an arrow to mark it.

  The boy, following the warning, spotted the controller of the shadows, bloody from his encounter earlier. The Red-eyed Shadow hadn’t escaped the boy’s ambush unscathed. The boy initiated the chase, and the shadows that were supposed to attack the princess’s party redirected their target to him again.

  “I got your bloody scent, you can’t escape now!” Simon kindly informed the red-eyed shadow so that it would stand and fight.

  “Is that so, boy?” the master of the shadows sneered—then froze.

  Something was off.

  The boy’s eyes were not normal.

  A faint yellow glow shimmered in the darkness, piercing through the gloom. ‘Snake eyes?’ was the description the red-eyed shadow could think of.

  Then the boy moved—fluid, fast. His glowing eyes tracked each summoned shadow as he slipped between them, dancing through the dark like a ghost avoiding death.

  ‘Slow, so slow,’ the boy, Simon thought. He knew that the shadows conjured by the man in dark garb would prioritize their conjurer’s safety first. Using the weapon he got from the thieves, he continued to parry their cws.

  And just after a few exchanges, Simon was sure that he was faster than the shadows. On this note, he predicted their positions and drew the bright fme arrow from the ground. He started a dual-hand combo, effectively hitting the ten shadows, and the master of the shadows was surprised by Simon’s skills.

  “I will fulfill my mission!!!” the shadow master protested as the smaller shadows slithered back into him. He tore off his cloak, revealing the cws strapped to his arms. Darkness immediately flooded over them, and he swung.

  Simon was caught off guard, but he managed to dodge and parry twice before leaping back. The thief’s bde shattered in his grip, and the fming arrow split apart at the same time.

  ‘They corroded?’

  “My cws can corrode any weapon!” the shadow master decred, brimming with confidence. “You’re dead!”

  “BOY!! Be careful!!! He's an assassin!!!” the hunter, watching from a bit far, warned him again. She saw it even from afar; there was a crossing sickle and stiletto tattooed on the assassin’s cheek; it was the mark of the Assassin’s Guild.

  But Simon didn’t care; fighting him had been his goal from the start. The bandit leader warned that this man—the one who’d given them the information—was strong, or in his words, “Not to be fucked with!” That only made Simon more determined.

  ‘Time to test the limits!’ his snake eyes glinted in excitement before rushing in.

  Simon dodged the attacks. He was reluctant to use the old man’s sword to deflect the shadow imbued cws after the cws broke the thief’s sword. ‘Sorry, old man!’ But it was the only way to fight.

  The assassin could sense the boy’s doubt, so he took the chance. It might be a misunderstanding, but if he were right, this would all be easy. “If you give up, boy… I will make it painless… You are all going to die anyway!!” a grumbling plea from the bck-garbed assassin.

  “You are fast… I give that to you… But I’m more skillful,” Simon smiled and taunted the assassin by waving his hands ‘Come here!!’ But the killer remained calm; he knew it was just a taunt. The two started a deadly rondo of dodge and ssh.

  The five women of the princess party stood still, ready for anything. They observed the fight; it was the first time they had seen an assassin fight.

  “Princess, we can fire some arrows to support the boy,” a knight suggested.

  “No, princess… the boy looks like he is enjoying this,” Kiara smiled, she could see the battle precisely. The princess was a bit confused about what she was supposed to say.

  Still, Diana remained calm; she had been in this kind of situation before. ‘We will support the boy if we have to, clearly the assassin was aiming for us… or for me!’ Her eyes were glued to the back of the boy who could possibly be in the process of saving her.

  After a few exchanges, the shadow’s advantage in speed and agility began to fade.

  “Who the hell are you?” the assassin demanded, noticing how the boy was steadily adapting to the fight.

  “Just let me do my job,” the sweating assassin urged, forcing a grin. “I’ll reward you. The artifact they carry is worth a mountain.”

  ‘His sword… how can it still hold?’

  That was the real question gnawing at him. The corrosion was working—but it needed more time, and his magic was already thinning.

  Under the contract binding him to the shadows—the Gremlins—he knew the cost. Once his magic ran dry, or if his body took damage beyond repair, they would devour him.

  The power they granted was immense. The price was absolute.

  Simon then paused, “If you give up, I will not kill you, I will just cut off your arms. You keep your life anyway.”

  The assassin lost his composure. His shadow stretched unnaturally, hardening into a spike that shot toward the boy—but Simon slipped past it as if guided by instinct.‘He could sense that!?’

  Still, blood spurted on Simon’s shoulders as it was not a clean dodge. It made the assassin smile, and he attacked again.

  “... that attack… I’ve seen that before,” Simon decred. The assassin’s attack was a feinting pierce that flowed into a swing. He was right; Simon precisely predicted where the assassin’s head would be when it dodged; he just had to pce his sword there.

  The assassin’s head rolled free, his expression frozen in shock—no pain, only disbelief.

  “Damn it… the old man’s sword,” Simon muttered.

  His grip tightened as he saw the damage: the bde’s surface dulled and eaten away where it had deflected the shadowed cws.

  “It’s not yet over,” Diana warned her party as the assassin’s body fell.

  From the darkness, the shadows gathered and slowly shrank, taking form until it stood no taller than a child. It was a shadow-type monster—creatures known to be considerably strong.

  Yet instead of attacking, its shadow spread outward, engulfing the assassin’s corpse.

  “Gremlin… be gone,” the boy commanded.

  With a snarl, the Gremlin sank back into the darkness and vanished into the night.

  The boy then stared at the princess’s party. There was a moment of silence before the boy attempted to leave. “Hey, wait!!!” the hunter who was watching tried to call out to the boy, but the princess stopped her.

  “No… that boy… he is a monster!” the princess said. ‘Bask… the one who eats thieves,’ Diana remembered a story, a story that was often told to children so that they wouldn’t stray from their path to becoming thieves.

  Kiara had never seen the princess act so afraid. ‘Wait… I’m sure he was making a sour face!’ It seemed that she was the only one who clearly saw it.