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After having Maxwell standby at the balcony, I proceeded into the hallway. I was still advancing vigilantly, of course, so I haven’t been discovered yet.

According to the previous intel, other than Klein there was also the slave trader here, on top of the Jend Sect’s leader and eight of his subordinates. Eleven, in total, but since I have already dealt with one, they were down to 10 now.

Judging from the earlier man’s skill, these subordinates weren’t quite on Mateus’ level. It seems that he really was only second to the leader in strength. And yet, he was no match for Lyell at all, which showed just what kind of a monster that guy was.

At any rate, assuming that fat man from before is the slave trader, it’s hard to consider him a threat, and these subordinates aren’t that much of a problem, either.

I didn’t know about Klein’s own ability, but considering how he made his escape during the Tarkashire’s incident, it was probably nothing big.

“So it all comes down to that leader, huh?”

Just from the fact that he held the Jend Sect together and raised Mateus, I could tell that he was extremely strong. It would take far too much effort to assassinate Klein while avoiding his eyes.

As I was thinking about that, I heard footsteps from the next curve in the hall. The floor here was using polished marble, so it was quite luxurious. Thanks to that, it also made footsteps very audible.

I crouched down next to the corner and planned an ambush. As my height fell below people’s line of sight, it was hard for them to spot me right away.

As expected, the man didn’t notice me as he turned the corner and almost passed by me. That said, he of course noticed me crouching there eventually, revealing a shocked expression. The reason why he hadn’t raised his voice was that I had already wrapped my thread around his neck.

I then pulled down on him with my full body weight. Given my weight, I’d have normally just dangled in the air instead, however, this specific technique made up for that and broke his posture, dragging his entire body forward and making him fall on his face.

I immediately straddled his back, took out the dagger with my left hand, and stabbed it diagonally under his arm. The blade invaded his body from under his ribs and dealt a finishing brow straight to his heart.

“…This makes it two.”

After confirming that he stopped moving, I dragged his corpse to the nearby room while muttering those words.

There were nine of them left, but my priority was Klein. I had limited time, so I wanted to try and finish him off promptly.

Following that, I dealt with three more underlings. As I hadn’t been discovered yet, the search was still going smoothly. However, it was probably not long before they would notice it. I had to hurry up and find my target or it would become troublesome.

The mansion was three stories tall, not to mention, each floor had over ten rooms. It was too troublesome to search through them one by one. That said, skimming around could let my target escape.

Thus, I persevered and thoroughly checked each room on the third and second floors, and then headed to the first.

Outside of the window, there were two carriages, one was decorated, and another had a cage. Neither had a horse tied to it. I could see five or so horses peeking their heads from the stables, so there was a low possibility of them having left somewhere on horseback.

“Would’ve been a huge pain if there was a detached building somewhere.”

Fortunately, this place was at the top of a peninsula, so there was not enough land to build something like that.

Thanks to that, it was quite a pain to get inside, but with Maxwell here, there was nothing we couldn’t do. His personality aside, he could be very dependable in situations like this.

“…Oops.”

I got too distracted and almost peeked my head out of the corner, but I managed to stop myself. There were still six of them left, so I wished to avoid getting found out and be stuck with a brute-force approach.

Using my dagger as a mirror to peer to the corner, I saw two guards stationed in one room.

“Well well…?”

There were three guards left in this mansion. As well as the slave trader, Klein, and the Jend Sect leader.

“Wait… The leader should have confidence in his skill, so he wouldn’t station guards in his room. This means, there’s either the slave trader or Klein inside. Given that he is the wanted person, it’s more likely for this to be Klein’s, huh?”

If that was the case, making my move first would guarantee my victory. I took out two throwing knives from the belt hanging on my shoulder, taking one in each arm.

Throwing techniques weren’t my strong point, but it’s not like I wasn’t trained in it at all. I was confident that I had enough skill to take down two unprepared men.

I leaped soundlessly from the corridor and swung my right arm. The thrown knife spun in the air and pierced the neck of the nearest man. He then collapsed on the spot without raising a single sound.

As he did, the other man became visible behind him. That also meant that he was in my shooting line. Thus, I followed up with the knife in my left arm.

The man finally noticed the abnormality of his comrade and looked my way. But the next moment, my knife reached him and embedded itself deeply into his throat.

“Kagh!”

After leaking a cough-like voice, the other man also collapsed on the ground.