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A dense forest of towering trees, the deceitful sunlight frozen at the break of dawn.

A woman clad in church armor dragged a heavy greatsword with an air of emptiness, leaving a stumbling trail of bloody footprints behind her... Despite her desperate efforts to flee, she couldn't escape the calm stride of another man behind her.

A man wearing plain robes walked cheerfully, casually keeping his pace with the woman in the church armour, his small knife gently swaying in his hand.

With just a single strike of his small knife, the dense forest split open like a gorge.

The woman screamed in pain and fell to the ground, frantically checking her legs, only to find that her lower body was no longer under her control. There were only gory entrails slowly spilling out.

"Huh? You didn't even try to fight back! Didn't I say I'd let you go if you defeated me? I wasn't lying, you know!" Laughter echoed around the forest, haunting like a nightmare, filling the air as the woman looked up and saw the demonic face before her.

The man crouched down, his right hand gripping her hair, lifting her head.

"...Urgh..." The woman tried to speak, but fresh blood spurted from her mouth.

"Please! I'm just a [Mage] who can only cast small fireballs! How could a mighty holy knight like you be killed by my small knife? You're truly pathetic!" The man laughed and berated her, then delivered a gentle slap that nearly shattered the side of her face, sending shattered teeth flying.

"Why... why did you....want..."

"Oh, the reason why the higher ups want you dead? Well, as a noble holy knight, you were gentle and amiable to the people, you were also polite to your subordinates, and even often donated most of the income you made on your quest and activities to the needy and to various orphanages! You are nothing but a good person! Here, Let me applaud you first!" With that, the man began to clap, but he used only his left hand while the other side was his cheek.

Clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

"...Unfortunately, you made a mistake of rejecting Lord Tokuma's bribe and proposal, so he went to the people above me and asked me to get rid of you!"

Clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. They must have wanted you to die a gruesome death to request me of all people."

Clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

The man released his hand, which was covered in chunks of flesh and hair, and shook his sticky left hand.

In the next moment, the space around him distorted, wooden walls appeared around him, and he found himself in a small workshop.

"Even a [Holy Knight] couldn't defeat me in the end. Indeed, as long as It's in my world, I am the strongest." Said the man with a smile, then, he picked up a glass sphere from the table and looked at the exquisite sculpture inside.

The forest that had been split into a valley, along with a fragmented and mangled corpse that are once a just knight of the church.

To be honest, this kind of job is a bit boring. The only stronger targets lately, apart from this woman who died without knowing her place, are just a useless priest who refused to sign documents due to his excessive integrity.

As for Morality? Honestly, to survive in this world, people like him have abandoned something like that a long time ago.

Within the exclusive assassination organization of the Vantinom-Grella branch Church, known as the Scythe, moral judgment was considered unnecessary, and not a single of them can be considered as anything but evil and monster.

When some orders came from the above, he would carry out the killings that needed to be done, then he would return to some brothel to embrace some women.

Just like how the cardinal had told every member of the church, no matter how vile and cruel what they did, as long as it's done for the better of the church, after their death, the cardinal had told them they would be given forgiveness by the goddess!

But it was still so boring! Lately, most of the mission that he got from the higher up was to kill the civilians.

If only a war would break out, then he could show more enemies that even as a talentless [Mage], he could torment them until they regret ever being born!

With such thoughts in mind, he wandered in the cellar, hidden ten meters deep underground, and arrived at the infirmary.

"Hey, [Infiltrator], how does it feel to be a useless bastard?" He taunted his colleague who had failed the mission a few days ago.

"...[Collector]." The person lying in bed, wrapped in bandages from head to toe, weakly replied.

After he came back from his mission, he had suffered severe burns, and if it weren't for his extraordinary stealth skills, they would have probably abandoned him by now.

'What a shame! It would have been great if I had been the one told to do this mission, that way, I can annoy this bastard even more!'

The [Collector], a man named Geka, thought happily.

"I heard your target was just a mere [Villager]? And yet you still failed? You're truly useless!" he jeered.

Gustav remained silent.

"Speak up, you waste of space!" Geka laughed and berated him.

"..."

Finally, Gustav just turned his body over and began to recall the details of that failure.

Gustav couldn't understand why that operation, which should have been flawless, had inexplicably failed at the critical moment.

Why would a mere villager be able to see through his meticulously hidden killing intent?

How could a mere villager use those eerie magic spells without even uttering a single incantation?

Why was a mere villager completely unaffected by the paralysis toxin he specifically concocted?

Why?

Why?

The intelligence that he got was completely wrong from the beginning. They had thought that as long as he wasn't near those heroes of the capital, success would come easily.

The higher-ups even spent money, organizing a prayer event to coincide with his arrival, just in case something went wrong. But they failed to consider the possibility that the target also possessed formidable combat abilities.

What in the world was happening?

"Bastard! Do you think you're looking down on me?" Gustav snapped back to reality as his colleague named Geka started kicking his bed.

"..."

"I'll tell you something interesting! The higher-ups have given me the mission that you idiotically failed!"

"..."

"Hey! You fucking waste of space! Are you deaf!?"

Without batting an eye to the yelling man, Gustav closed his eyes and let out a yawn and fell asleep amidst the noisy yelling.