The woman stopped screaming after the third cut.
Kael Vortis watched her eyes glaze over with the detached interest of a butcher examining meat. Blood pooled beneath the chair, spreading across expensive marble flooring that probably cost more than most families earned in a year. He'd cut the femoral artery cleanly—a mercy, really. She'd bleed out in minutes instead of the hours her husband's contract had specified.
"Fuck the contract," Kael muttered, wiping his blade on the dead woman's silk dress. The client wanted information about her lover's identity, wanted Kael to extract it slowly, painfully. But eighteen years in this world had taught him that unnecessary cruelty was just sloppy business. Information could be gathered from letters, servants, divination magic. Torture was for sadists pretending to be professionals.
He was an assassin, not a monster. There was a difference, even if most people couldn't see it.
The mansion's wards flickered as Kael moved through shadow-draped hallways. C-rank fire magic wasn't impressive—barely enough to qualify as a mage in most circles—but he'd learned to use it efficiently over nearly two decades. A small flame to melt door hinges. Superheated air to trigger fire detection wards prematurely. Heat vision to spot guards through walls.
Twenty-three levels of grinding with mediocre talent had taught him to be creative.
"Target eliminated," Kael whispered into the communication crystal embedded in his collar. "Cleaner than requested."
Static crackled. Then a woman's voice, cold and professional: "The client specified—"
"The client is a sadistic piece of shit who gets off on suffering. I killed her. Contract fulfilled. Transfer the payment."
A long pause. Kael could almost hear his handler weighing options. Report him for insubordination? The Crimson Veil Assassin Guild had rules, but they also had pragmatism. Kael completed contracts. Bodies dropped. Money flowed. In the underworld, results mattered more than methodology.
"Payment transferred. Minus ten percent for contract deviation."
Kael's jaw tightened. Ten percent. Fifty gold drakes, gone because he'd chosen efficiency over theatrical cruelty. Eighteen years ago, when he'd first woken up in this world as a seven-year-old street rat with memories of Earth, he'd thought the transmigration novels had lied. No golden finger. No system. No overpowered bloodline. Just a scared kid with fragmented memories and C-rank fire magic that marked him as slightly above trash tier.
He'd expected a cheat. Something to compensate for being torn from everything he'd known. Instead, he'd gotten eighteen years of clawing through life the hard way.
The guild had found him at twelve, starving and willing to kill for bread. They'd trained him, used him, molded him into a weapon. And he'd let them, because what else was there? At least assassination paid better than begging.
"Kael." His handler's voice cut through his thoughts. "Return to headquarters. Guild Master wants to see you."
His instincts screamed warning. Guild Masters didn't summon mid-tier assassins for casual chats. Either this was a promotion—unlikely—or someone had noticed something they shouldn't have.
"When?"
"Immediately."
Kael glanced at the corpse one last time. The woman had been someone's wife, someone's daughter. Probably someone's lover too, if the contract was accurate. In another life, on another world, maybe he'd have cared more. But Earth's morality seemed distant now, worn away by years of survival in a world where power determined everything and weakness invited death.
He'd killed forty-seven people over the last six years. Some had deserved it. Most hadn't. All had been paid for.
This world didn't reward righteousness. It rewarded strength, cunning, and the willingness to do what others wouldn't. Kael had none of the first, moderate amounts of the second, and eighteen years' worth of the third.
He left through the servant's entrance, slipping past guards who never thought to check shadows near the laundry chutes. Outside, the city of Blackreach sprawled beneath a moonless sky, all crooked spires and sulfurous alchemical smog. Somewhere in the distance, a fight broke out—shouts, the crack of combat magic, screams.
Kael didn't look. Not his business.
The Crimson Veil headquarters occupied an unassuming building near the merchant district, hidden behind illusion wards that made it appear as a struggling textile warehouse. Kael pressed his palm against the entrance, feeding a trickle of fire mana into the recognition array. The stone shimmered and parted.
Inside, the true headquarters sprawled across five underground levels. Training yards where initiates learned to kill. Armories stocked with enchanted weapons. Cells where targets were held before "accidents" could be arranged. And at the bottom, the Guild Master's sanctum.
Kael descended, nodding to assassins he recognized. Most ignored him. A few sneered. Level twenty-three with C-rank talent made him expendable, barely worth acknowledging. The guild's real stars—the A-rank and S-rank prodigies—probably didn't even know his name.
"Vortis." A hand clamped on his shoulder.
Kael turned to find Allen Bloodthorn grinning down at him. Thirty years old, Level forty-two, A-rank fire talent. Everything Kael wasn't. Allen had advanced more in twelve years than Kael had in eighteen, his natural talent devouring mana like a bonfire consuming kindling.
"Allen." Kael kept his voice neutral. No deference, but no challenge either. Assassins who challenged Marcus tended to have unfortunate accidents.
"Heard you botched the Westmoor contract. Made it quick when the client wanted slow." Allen's grin widened. "Guild Master's pissed. Might demote you back to initiate work. Or..." He leaned closer, breath reeking of wine. "Might just decide you're more trouble than you're worth."
Kael met his eyes without flinching. "Contract was fulfilled. Target's dead."
"Contract was fulfilled exactly as specified, or it's breach of agreement. You know the rules." Allen patted Kael's cheek with mock affection. "Maybe if you had real talent instead of that pathetic C-rank trash, you'd be valuable enough to keep around. As is..."
He walked away laughing.
Kael exhaled slowly, forcing down the rage that threatened to ignite his fire magic. Allen was right, in a way. C-rank talent was trash compared to A-rank. The difference was exponential—Allen absorbed mana fifty times faster, his spells hit twenty times harder, his reserves were an ocean to Kael's puddle.
In this world, talent was everything. And Kael's was barely sufficient to survive.
The Guild Master's door loomed ahead, carved ebonwood inscribed with death curses that made Kael's skin crawl. He knocked twice.
"Enter."
The office was sparse—a desk, two chairs, walls lined with sealed contracts written in blood-ink. Guild Master Soren sat behind the desk, a thin man with gray-streaked hair and eyes that had witnessed thousands of deaths without flinching.
"Kael Vortis. Six years with the guild. Forty-seven confirmed kills. Success rate: ninety-four percent." Soren tapped a file. "Efficient. Professional. And apparently, selective about which contract terms you follow."
"I completed the contract."
"You ignored specific client instructions regarding extraction methodology."
"The client wanted entertainment, not information. I'm an assassin, not a torturer."
Soren's expression didn't change. "The client paid for both. You delivered one. That's breach of contract."
Kael said nothing. Arguing was pointless. The guild had rules, and he'd broken them. Not out of mercy—he'd shed that weakness years ago—but out of pragmatism. Torture took time, increased risk, and often yielded unreliable information anyway.
"However," Soren continued, "your completion rate is valuable. So I'm offering you a choice. Accept a punishment contract—high risk, high reward—or accept demotion and reduced rates for the next year."
A punishment contract. Suicide missions they gave to expendable assassins. Targets too dangerous, situations too volatile. Most who accepted ended up dead or crippled.
But reduced rates meant starvation-level income. Meant falling further behind while prodigies like Allen ascended.
"What's the contract?"
Soren slid a sealed envelope across the desk. "S-rank difficulty. Target: Lord Marcus, Foundation Realm cultivator, Level thirty-eight. Multiple B-rank guards. Estate protected by military-grade wards."
Kael's blood went cold. Foundation Realm was an entire cultivation stage above him. Lord Harrow could kill him with a thought.
"Why not send Allen? Or anyone with actual talent?"
"Because Lord Marcus knows the guild's high-tier assassins by sight. He's paranoid, expects A-rank threats. He won't expect..." Soren's thin smile was cruel. "Someone expendable."
There it was. The truth beneath the professional veneer. Kael was disposable. A mid-tier assassin with C-rank talent, barely worth the cost of training. If he succeeded, the guild gained a fortune. If he died, they lost nothing of value.
Kael stared at the envelope. Eighteen years. Eighteen fucking years of grinding, surviving, killing, all with the hope that somehow, someday, things would change. That maybe he'd awaken a hidden bloodline or find a lucky encounter like the protagonists in those transmigration stories.
But life wasn't a story. It was cold, brutal, and indifferent.
"I'll take the contract."
Soren nodded, unsurprised. "You have one week to prepare. Payment is three thousand gold drakes on completion. If you fail..." He shrugged. "Well. The guild will send flowers to whatever's left."
Kael took the envelope and left without another word.
Outside, the headquarters' training yard echoed with the sounds of combat. Initiates sparred under harsh instructors' eyes, their movements sharp and desperate. Kael remembered being one of them, remembered thinking that if he just worked hard enough, trained smart enough, he could overcome the gap in talent.
He'd been naive.
Talent was everything. Hard work meant nothing without the raw potential to absorb mana, to advance realms, to reach for power. C-rank talent meant he'd probably cap out at Foundation Realm if he was lucky, assuming he lived that long. Meanwhile, prodigies like Allen would ascend to Emperor Realm and beyond, reshaping reality with casual gestures.
The unfairness of it burned worse than any physical wound.
Kael returned to his apartment—a cramped space in the guild's residential district—and unsealed the contract. Inside, detailed intelligence on Lord Marcus: his schedule, his guards' rotations, his magical defenses. And at the bottom, in small text: Client requests public death, maximum humiliation preferred.
Another sadist. Wonderful.
Kael tossed the contract aside and stared at his hands. Scarred from eighteen years of fighting, stained with forty-seven deaths. These were the hands of a killer, a shadow in human form, someone who'd sacrificed morality for survival.
And for what? To be called expendable? To be sent on suicide missions because his talent wasn't good enough?
"Fuck this world," Kael whispered to the empty room.
No system responded. No golden finger activated. No mysterious old man appeared offering miraculous pills.
Just silence, and the crushing weight of knowing that no matter how hard he tried, he'd always be mediocre in a world that worshipped the exceptional.
Kael pulled out a bottle of cheap whiskey—one of the few comforts he allowed himself—and drank until the burning in his throat matched the burning in his chest.
One week until the contract. One week to plan the impossible.
One week until he'd probably die trying to kill someone so far above his level that the attempt itself was insulting.
He laughed, bitter and harsh. Maybe death would be a mercy. At least then he wouldn't have to watch Allen and his ilk ascend while he scraped by in the dirt.
The whiskey bottle emptied. Kael's vision blurred.
And in the darkness of his apartment, surrounded by the tools of murder and the weight of eighteen years' disappointment, he finally let himself admit the truth he'd been avoiding:
He was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of surviving. Tired of being mediocre.
If this contract killed him, maybe that would be fine.
At least it would be over.