If you ever walked up to me and asked a question, I would sooner kill you than give a reply. Yeah... that's how messed up I am.
I am the world's best killer. The ultimate assassin. A name I earned at a very young age. Even in the criminal underworld, I was called a madman. A lunatic.
It wasn't because I possessed the best skills or methods, or whatever criteria was used to measure an assassin's lethality. It was for one simple, undeniable fact: a target marked by me was dead by default.
There was no escaping me. You could run anywhere, everywhere, but I would find you eventually. And when I did—
"Mr. Bane, I asked you a question."
The professor's voice cut through my thoughts like a blade, dragging me back to reality. I took a deep breath, grounding myself in the present moment.
All eyes remained fixed on me with unwavering intensity—a feeling I despised. Given the nature of my work, I had avoided the spotlight my entire life. There had been rare occasions when I'd donned disguises to infiltrate highly secured locations or impersonate influential figures to get closer to a target.
Countless times I'd done this, including when I eliminated a prime minister. That mission had been one of my most dangerous—from the moment I stepped into that conference hall where my target stood at the podium delivering his speech, a single wasted second could have cost me my life. But I had remained calm, as I never entered the spotlight without a plan.
This was not one of those times.
"I don't have an answer," I said simply.
The professor's eyebrows rose in surprise. "That's odd. I expected you to know this, Mr. Bane."
The man stepped forward on the platform where he stood. I found myself in a massive amphitheater-style classroom, filled to capacity with students. I was a student myself now, though I still couldn't fully comprehend how this had happened.
I offered him a strained smile. He looked away and swept his gaze across the classroom.
"Can anyone else attempt this?" The bespectacled professor asked. Numerous hands shot up throughout the hall, but he selected the young woman sitting two seats ahead of me. "Ah yes, Miss Melissa."
She stood gracefully. I couldn't see her face from my angle, only long white hair cascading down her back. "There are four methods to conceal one's presence," she said, her voice cold and measured.
"Which are?" The professor clasped his hands behind his back, waiting.
"The use of a concealment-related ability, a spell, an artifact with concealment properties, or a sylph with said ability." Her tone remained indifferent throughout.
From her voice alone, I began constructing a mental profile. She was the cold, unapproachable type.
"Correct... but not completely so," the professor replied. She sat down without another word.
Whispers and murmurs rippled through the classroom, but my attention remained fixed on the short man as he turned to write something on the board: Resonance.
"There is a certain level of power you may or may not attain," he explained, still writing, "which allows you to adjust to atmospheric energies and achieve a state of 'resonance.' This state represents absolute harmony with the exact frequency at which atmospheric energies exist. In such a state, it becomes nearly impossible to be sensed—true invisibility."
Interesting. My eyes narrowed as I absorbed this valuable information. Such knowledge was something any assassin would trade a limb for.
But that wasn't my primary concern right now.
____________________________________________________________
INITIAL OBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE UNTIL THE NEXT DAY
TIME: 12:32:12:03
REWARD: A HINT
PENALTY: DEATH
TRIALS: 2/3
NOTE: NEVER, EVER LET YOUR TRIALS REACH ZERO
____________________________________________________________
Above all else, that message unnerved me. I despised uncertainty. Throughout my entire career, across countless missions, I had always maintained control of every situation. Even when cornered, it was always a possibility I had accounted for. Living in a situation beyond my control was a nightmare—and I was living that nightmare now.
I didn't know what would happen when the trial counter hit zero. That uncertainty terrified me more than any target I'd ever faced.
I took a deep breath, thinking back on how it all came to this.
It began with a mission from an enigmatic client—though that wasn't unusual, as most of my employers preferred anonymity. The problem was the mission itself: assassinating a convict already awaiting execution. That's what struck me as odd. The money being offered was no joke—in fact, it was ridiculous—and the target was already facing inevitable death.
But I attempted it anyway.
I don't know why I did. Perhaps it was my obsession with stories that made me accept it. An obsession that had earned me that particular nickname: the Lunatic.
Stories.
This whole thing started after a mission where I had to infiltrate a palace in a European sovereign nation. It was some petty battle of succession—I was hired by one sibling to eliminate his sister. I didn't question the politics; that wasn't an assassin's job. My thought process was simple: get in, complete the job, get out.
And that's exactly what I did. Only, before leaving, I spotted something on her desk.
Her diary.
I don't know what compelled me to approach it, or even pick it up. But I did. I read the first page, then the second, the third, fourth, fifth. Before I knew it, I was seated in my dead target's room, reading about her life. I enjoyed it. I took it with me.
That became my obsession. I began collecting the stories of every target I eliminated, only accepting missions involving targets with somewhat interesting narratives. I would extract their stories, collect them, and then end them.
This mission was no different. I found a loophole to infiltrate the prison—difficult, no doubt, but eventually I stood before my target with an empty notepad.
But... the target turned out to be the most infuriating, irritating, disgusting, and frustrating person I had ever encountered. I couldn't even kill him.
That lunatic.
That unhinged maniac was the reason I woke up here in the first place.
He called himself the Narrator. The Storyteller.