Given permission by the police, and completely cleared of suspicion, we smoothly left the cordoned-off crime scene.
Looking at the dejected figure of our target in the distance, who had lost his wife and child, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for his tragic fate. Illumi, who had picked up his phone, was also looking in the target’s direction, wondering what he was thinking.
Perhaps he wasn’t thinking much at all. He reported the mission’s success to Silva, his tone as calm and steady as ever.
“Huh?!” He suddenly looked surprised.
What, what, what?! Could it be that I had made a mistake somewhere again and was going to be punished?! No!!!!!
I nervously leaned closer, wanting to hear what Silva was saying on the other end of the phone.
“Dad said that as a first independent mission, I did alright, so we each get a reward of fifty million,” Illumi relayed the contents of the call to me.
“?！！！！！！！！！！！！！”
Fi-fifty million?!!
Good heavens! Did I hear that right! Was I dreaming!
I, I, suddenly had fifty million! Fifty million had suddenly fallen into my lap!
The prices in this world were around a hundred jenny for a can of juice, which was roughly equivalent to eight to one in Renminbi exchange rate with the “real world.” But fifty million, converted to Renminbi, was… ah, I was too excited to calculate, so let’s just say it’s ten to one, which would be five million Renminbi!
Oh! Five million Renminbi! My biggest dream in the “real world” was to live off bank interest! Five million was more than enough in a small town in the eighteenth tier! It was plenty! Financial freedom! I could lie around and not work!
The countless days and nights of hardship and pain during my training with the Zoldycks instantly vanished in the face of this five million Renminbi!
How wonderful this job was! Earning five million in one go! This was an amount I could never save in my entire life in the “real world”!
It was so good, so good, so good. The result of over a decade of hard study in the “real world” was far less than being born into a prominent family. At seven years old, oh, at seven years old, I could earn so much money in one go!
As long as one was born well, even an ordinary person like me, once adorned with a beautiful coat, could conceal my ugliness and unworthiness and quickly prosper.
Ah! I love the Zoldycks! I love Silva! I love jenny!
Even Illumi’s face looked so kind at this moment, like my own family!
Please let me die immediately!
I have no regrets left!
My life has reached Mount Everest, the pinnacle!
“…Sister? Sister!” Illumi was shaking my shoulder.
Having no regrets in this life, I was cleansed of all emotions as if by Buddha’s baptism, leaving only peace, peace, and more peace.
Everything in the world was irrelevant to me.
Someone, anyone, give me a quick end, so I can die at the moment of greatest happiness.
That would be supreme, truly eternal happiness!
There is no eternal happiness, no eternal joy, no eternal love, only death. Only death is truly eternal, it can fix me, freeze my life at its happiest moment, without having to endure the subsequent decline.
Let me die now! Let me die here! Let me…
Ah, it’s better to rely on oneself than on others. If no one acts, I’ll do it myself!
My “temporary guardian” and Illumi simultaneously moved to stop me.
The phone fell to the ground mid-fall, transmitting Silva’s broken question, “What’s wrong?”
Seeing that the “temporary guardian” had gripped my wrists and successfully restrained me, Illumi bent down to pick up the phone and stated in a flat tone, “Sister seems a bit too happy; her emotions are quite agitated.”
The pain in my wrists brought me back to a slight sense of clarity. Kikyo’s criticism that followed from the phone was like a splash of cold water on my face, pulling me back to “reality,” no, to the “game” that was like “reality.”
The tone of a mother when scolding her children… it’s so similar, no matter which world. The blurry lines, indistinguishable who is who, which world is which world, who she is, who I am, what my name is. I felt extremely disoriented.
The sound, the image, the mosaics, the Gaussian blur, the chaotic color blocks tangled and melted.
“…Millus? Millus!” Kikyo’s intense voice, like the thinnest string of a violin about to snap, as if she would crawl out of the phone and whip me like Sadako from the television next moment.
It didn’t matter; I felt no fear at all.
The “temporary guardian” stuffed the handkerchief into my mouth… Why, I’m mute, I can’t make any sound.
She hugged me tighter, or rather, it felt like restraint.
Illumi’s expression, I don’t know how to describe it. I wasn’t using my eyes to see; I couldn’t see anything clearly. I was judging based on inexplicable feelings. In any case, his inorganic black eyes remained inorganic.
Something is wrong with me. I am the one who is wrong.
No, no, no.
I can’t continue like this.
Otherwise, they’ll think that fifty million jenny, no, that the fifty million jenny influenced me. No, then they won’t give me any more rewards, and I’ll have to work for free from now on… No, they might stop letting me work… No, then it would be meaningless… Why am I alive… Why am I alive?
[“Why are you alive?”]
Mediocre, foolish, reclusive, selfish, jealous, despicable, shameless, hypocritical, affected, vulgar, lowly, poor, stingy, ungrateful, sycophantic, sarcastic, pretentious, insatiably greedy, petty, wolf-hearted, disloyal, heartless, loveless monster.
My sins are heavy, and I am beyond redemption.
I don’t believe in God, because someone like me would surely go to hell.
An eternal, inescapable, Avici hell.
My heart pounded violently.
It felt like the only organ left in my entire body.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My limbs trembled, my mind trembled, my torso trembled, the earth trembled, the sky trembled.
If I can’t work, if I can’t earn money to support myself, then living is meaningless. Living is a burden to society, a burden to the family, a joke in the mouths of others, a waste of the Earth’s limited resources.
I am a walking corpse, a parasite, a ghost feeding on my parents’ sweat and blood.
…No, I can’t lose this job. I have to do it well. I will do it well. I can’t find a better job. I can’t be fired. I can’t.
Cannot, cannot, cannot.
Absolutely cannot.
To please clients, in the “real world,” I once accompanied people to dinner parties for drinks. That’s when I learned that I had inherited my mother’s constitution and was allergic to alcohol. I didn’t know if this could be considered one of the few “advantages” in my life. I was always “disagreeable” in my speech and actions, and I once spoiled everyone’s mood. I remember the large patches of red rash that spread from my neck; they itched terribly, and I scratched my skin open.
I “breathed” deeply, I “yelled” loudly, I desperately “reached out.”
The noisy sounds of the amusement park flooded back into my ears.
I wasn’t breathing deeply, I wasn’t yelling loudly, I wasn’t reaching out desperately. In reality, I stood still, held in the arms of the “temporary guardian,” the handkerchief stuffed in my mouth being the only “reality.”
The sensation on my head was Illumi stroking my hair.
I looked at him, as if a lifetime had passed.
“Mother knows about the dessert,” he said.
“Because of the credit card transaction record,” he said.
“But we don’t have to go back immediately. Dad said we can spend the remaining time before the mission deadline as we please,” he said.
He pulled the handkerchief out of my mouth.
“The mission is over, we can go play,” he said.
He took my right hand; it was cool.
He held me, walking through the crowd.
We walked to the lakeside.
The sun was low in the sky, like hot tears about to fall into the lake.
After a while, I came to my senses, followed Illumi’s gaze, and saw a familiar figure in the distance by the lake, the figure of the target we had been tracking for four consecutive days.
As the saying goes, the most painful things in life are losing one's father in youth, one's spouse in middle age, and one's child in old age.
The middle-aged man, who had lost his wife and child, stood alone by the lake. There were no bodyguards around him; perhaps he had dismissed them, or they were waiting out of his sight.
“Does he want to die?” Illumi asked.
“Should we save him?” Illumi asked.
“???” Who are you? Are you Illumi Zoldyck? Are you also an isekai character?!!!
“If he wants revenge, will he hire our family?” Illumi looked at me. “We killed his family, and he would pay us instead. Assassins are a good job, aren’t they?”
“……” It was definitely Illumi Zoldyck himself.
As expected of you, the eldest son of the Zoldyck family, a model of professionalism in the assassin world, Illumi Zoldyck.
“If only I had a business card; this would be the perfect time to give him one,” Illumi said.
“……” The man just lost his wife and child, and you’re trying to solicit business? Read the atmosphere, be a decent human being, Illumi!
Illumi seemed to have the intention of going over to solicit business. I put a little more strength into the hand I was holding, making him look back at me.
“Don’t be redundant. Be discreet, Illumi,” I mouthed.
“……” He thought for a moment and retracted his steps. “Okay. Sister is right.”
Compared to the amusement park’s attractions, Illumi was more interested in the “entertainment project” of “observing the target’s subsequent life.”
Since we were here, I idly looked up at the moon from a hidden spot, listening to the chirping of insects in the woods.
Ah, Lolita dresses are great. Long sleeves and long socks. And with Illumi in shorts nearby to distract attention, I didn’t have to worry too much about mosquito bites.
The sound of glass impacting made me instinctively look towards the source of the sound, that private villa, the private villa belonging to the middle-aged man who had just lost his wife and child.
The curtains, which had been tightly drawn, were pulled aside by a disheveled woman and then moved by a bare-chested man. From my angle and eyesight, I could clearly see what they were doing.
“???” x2
What? So stimulating? No, what are you doing?!
The grass is greener on the other side, and men are indeed no good!!!
Silva, aren’t you the same kind of person? “Busy with work” is the most common excuse for scumbags. Is your assassin work really that busy?!
Wait, I almost forgot that I’m not the only viewer.
Watching an adult film alone is fine.
Watching an adult film with children is not.
I reached out to block Illumi’s view and put on a stern expression.
“What’s wrong?” Illumi’s big eyes, full of small confusion.
Should I explain the origin of life to him?
No, no, no, for a child, this topic is a bit beyond the scope. I’ve never asked about it, and the Zoldycks didn’t teach me. My sudden “self-taught” ability would be too suspicious.
I decided on the simplest explanation, mouthing: “It’s rude to watch someone naked without their permission.”
“…Oh.” Illumi thought for a moment. “In that case, it would be inconvenient to act when the target is taking a bath, wouldn’t it?”
Enough, Illumi, please don’t be so dedicated to your job. Your mother Kikyo would surely be moved to tears if she heard this.
“Work is work, but what we are doing now is purely peeping,” I said, having at least a little bit of a bottom line. “Stop watching, there’s nothing to see. I want to go back to sleep.”
“Mm.”
Illumi was, to some extent, a normal child in this regard. He wasn’t interested in adult films and, following my suggestion, left with me without any hesitation.
For the remaining three days of our holiday, Illumi and I ate, drank, and played everywhere (on a fifty-fifty basis).
Not only me, but Illumi was also visibly in a much better mood due to the fifty million jenny he received, finally showing some of the playful habits of an ordinary child.
Desserts were bought freely, snacks were eaten freely. In any case, Kikyo’s punishment had already been decided. No matter what, it was a death sentence, so it was better to let loose. When you have too many lice, you don’t fear them.
Have a good meal before dying, eat your fill to embark on the journey.
[Starvation: Level 3]
Ah, my skill level dropped again… Whatever!