Chapter 196: Handles

Outside my window, everything looked completely peaceful.

Fifty meters past our back wall, deep inside the forest, two figures stood hidden under the shadows of the thick branches.

Jane adjusted the heavy dark cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She pressed her back against the rough bark of a pine tree, her sharp eyes fixed on the second-floor windows of our villa.

Beside her, Bane stood with his arms crossed over his dark vest. The pale moonlight reflected off the thin silver frames of his glasses. He raised his right index finger, pushing the bridge of his glasses up his nose with a dry, quiet click.

“The spatial energy signature vanished,” Bane whispered flatly. His voice was cold, measured, and completely devoid of emotion.

Jane didn’t look at him. Her hands tightened into hard fists under her cloak, her leather gloves creaking in the silence of the woods.

“She was out here,” Jane murmured, her voice trembling with an intense, quiet heat. “My sweet Viora was standing right here in the cold forest. With him.”

Bane sighed quietly, pushing his glasses up his nose a second time. “He is Woo Jin. The nephew of S-Rank Hunter Elena. And according to our intelligence reports, Viora stays beside him by her own choice.”

“She is being deceived!” Jane snapped under her breath, turning her head sharply toward Bane. Her eyes burned with a dark, obsessive light. “Viora is pure. She is delicate. She is blind and helpless, surrounded by dangerous Hunters who treat her like a shield! She doesn’t belong in that house with an S-Rank monster like Elena!”

“Viora is neither helpless nor delicate,” Bane pointed out deadpan. “You are projecting your weird fantasies again, Jane.”

“Shut up, Bane!” Jane hissed, stepping closer and poking him hard in the chest with her gloved finger. “You don’t understand her like I do! Look at that villa! It’s a cage! A shiny, high-security cage! When Elena leaves for the Director Summit on Thursday, I am going to tear down those walls and take Viora away from him!”

Bane didn’t even flinch. He adjusted his glasses again, looking down at his younger sister with pure annoyance.

“You sound like a creepy stalker,” Bane stated.

“I am her savior!” Jane whispered loudly, glaring at him. “You are just jealous because you don’t have a noble purpose like mine!”

Bane’s left eyebrow twitched slightly behind his thin lenses. He reached up, tapped the side of his silver frames, and let out a long, irritated breath.

“I am an analyst,” Bane said. “And my analysis says you are acting like an idiot.”

Before Jane could whisper another insult back at him, the quiet forest air behind them shifted.

CRACK.

A small pine twig snapped forty feet to their left.

Bane’s eyes narrowed instantly. The annoyed expression vanished from his face, replaced by absolute, predatory focus. He reached into his dark coat, his fingers wrapping around the hilt of a thin, black steel rapier.

“Someone is here,” Bane whispered, his voice dropping into an icy whisper. “Keep your mouth shut.”

Out from the deep shadows of the thick bushes, three tall figures stepped out onto the mossy ground.

They wore ragged black leather jackets marked with a strange, dark red snake symbol on their shoulders. Their faces were covered by dark cloth masks, and their eyes glowed with an unstable, muddy yellow light—the distinct mark of rogue mercenaries from a dark guild.

The leader of the three men stepped forward, holding a heavy, two-handed iron broadsword across his shoulder.

“Well, well,” the lead mercenary sneered softly, his voice rough like grinding stones. “What do we have here? Two rats creeping around our target?”

Bane didn’t answer. He stood completely still, his left hand tucked casually in his pocket while his right hand held the thin rapier at his side. The moonlight caught the sharp edge of his glasses.

“We saw you two watching the house,” the second mercenary spoke up, drawing twin short swords. “Are you scouts from the Central Bureau? Or independent scavengers trying to steal mana cores?”

Jane took a step forward, her eyes wild and full of dark fury. “Get out of my way,” she hissed softly. “You are standing in the forest where Viora walked. You are dirtying her air.”

The lead mercenary blinked under his mask, then let out a rough laugh. “What is this crazy girl talking about? Kill them both. We can’t have anyone messing up our ambush setup for Thursday.”

The three dark guild mercenaries surged forward at the same time.

The lead mercenary swung his heavy broadsword down in a brutal, diagonal cleave aimed straight at Jane’s head. The air howled as the heavy iron blade cut through the night.

SWOOSH!

Jane didn’t move an inch.

CLANG!

Bane appeared right in front of her in a blur of motion. His thin, black steel rapier caught the heavy broadsword right near the hilt, deflecting the massive weight of the blow off to the side with effortless precision.

The lead mercenary’s eyes widened in shock. “What?!”

“Your balance is terrible,” Bane noted flatly, pushing his glasses up his nose with his left hand while holding off the heavy sword with his right arm. “And your swing speed is pathetic.”

FLASH!

Bane’s thin blade thrust forward like a black lightning bolt.

STAB!

The tip of the rapier pierced right through the lead mercenary’s shoulder, popping out the back of his leather jacket. The man let out a agonizing scream, dropping his heavy broadsword onto the soft moss.

Bane kicked him hard in the chest, sending the leader flying backward ten feet into a pine tree.

“Jane,” Bane said calmly, adjusting his cuffs. “Clean up your side.”

“Don’t order me around!” Jane shouted.

She lunged forward like a phantom, her curved purple dagger trailing a streak of dark violet light through the air.

The second mercenary tried to raise his twin short swords to block, but Jane was already gone from his line of sight. She dropped low to the ground, her bare boots sliding across the damp moss, her blade slicing clean through the back of his knees.

SLASH!

The man shrieked, collapsing onto his face. Before he could turn, Jane slammed her heel down onto the back of his neck, pinning him to the earth. She bent down, her face inches from his ear, her eyes wide and unhinged.

“Did you look at the villa?” Jane whispered in a terrifyingly sweet voice. “Did you look at her window with those filthy eyes of yours?”

“S-Spare me!” the mercenary choked out, struggling under her boot.

“No one looks at Viora except me!” Jane shrieked softly.

She reversed her grip on her purple dagger and plunged it straight down through his shoulder, locking his body to the ground.

The third mercenary panicked. Seeing his two comrades destroyed in less than ten seconds, he turned around and sprinted toward the deep woods, trying to escape into the darkness.

“He’s running,” Jane said flatly, standing up and wiping a speck of dirt off her cheek.

“He won’t get far,” Bane replied.

Bane didn’t run. He simply raised his left hand, his index and middle fingers extended. A sharp, dense needle of compressed wind mana formed at the tip of his fingers, spinning with a high-pitched, metallic buzz.

ZIP!

Bane flicked his fingers.

The compressed wind needle shot through the dark forest like a sniper bullet, passing right through the fleeing mercenary’s right thigh.

THUD!

The third man collapsed onto the pine needles, groaning in pain as he held his bleeding leg.

Bane walked over slowly, his leather boots crunching softly on the forest floor. He stood over the wounded mercenary, looking down at him through his clean glasses with zero emotion.

“Who sent you?” Bane asked, his voice cold and steady. “Which organization are you working for?”

The wounded mercenary spat a mouthful of dirt onto the ground, glaring up at him. “Go to hell! The Blood Fang Guild will tear this entire villa to pieces when Elena leaves! You can’t stop us!”

Bane stared at him for two seconds, then pushed his glasses up his nose.

“Blood Fang Guild,” Bane repeated smoothly.

Bane raised his foot and brought his boot down hard on the man’s temple, knocking him completely unconscious.

“Now help me tie these three up and drag them deeper into the woods. If anyone finds these bodies, they will raise the perimeter defense level, and our scouting mission will be ruined.”

Jane let out a long, dramatic groan, but she grabbed the lead mercenary by his collar and began dragging him across the moss. “Fine! But after Thursday, Viora is coming with me!”

Ten minutes later, the three dark guild mercenaries were bound with heavy mana-suppression ropes and hidden deep inside a dark cave three miles away from the villa.

Bane pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose one final time, dusting off his sleeves as the entrance to the damp cave vanished into the surrounding darkness.

“That handles the immediate garbage,” Bane said, his tone as flat and dry as a instruction manual.