I wasn’t an idiot. To try to fight as I normally would in my current condition would be suicide. For that, Yukiko’s concerns were completely justified. 

“Hey, brat. You look sensible enough, so why don’t we make a deal, eh?”

The leader stepped forward and removed his hood to reveal his weathered face, the lower half covered in an unruly beard while the rest was dotted with scars. He was, undoubtedly, a seasoned warrior. 

From a sheath attached to his hip, the man produced a sharpened dagger, which he proceeded to point directly at his own throat. Just what was he trying to do?

I could hear Yukiko loudly gulp behind me.

Suddenly, the man flicked his wrist, severing previously unnoticed string from around his shoulder, and causing a heavy pouch to fall to the floor with a thump. He picked up the pouch and tossed it to my feet.

“20 gold. Whaddaya say? I bet those frugal idealists aren’t paying you anywhere near that much. You’d be set!”

Who does this guy take me for? If anything, his unfamiliar currency of a foreign land looked more sullied and repulsive than anything.

“Listen, I’m giving you an offer that’d allow you to get outta here with that body of yours intact. 20 gold for the girl’s head”

I had heard enough of these ramblings. Tossing the spearstaff to Yukiko, I gathered my aura into my legs, kicking the pouch of gold back at the man’s head before dashing forwards. I had to minimize how much energy I was consuming with each movement, only manifesting my aura on the actions that mattered.

Once more, I could feel Yukiko’s familiar aura enveloping the battlefield, emanating from her staff. 

“I warned you”

 What? The man had suddenly vanished from before my eyes, his voice now echoing around as I heard the whizzing of something moving through the branches above like a hawk circling their prey.

“Wide open”

Something lunged at me from behind. I could briefly glimpse the glint of a blade, and that was all the signal I needed. Aura to my left arm, twisting my body, I planted my left hand into the ground. Now, aura to my right leg, kicking upwards at the foe behind me. Only, the presence that was just there a moment ago had already vanished again. This guy was moving way too fast… Could Yukiko’s aura only slow targets she could see?

There was a stinging pain and something wet dripping down my back. I had narrowly avoided a fatal strike, but couldn’t fully avoid the slash nonetheless. A shallow cut trailed diagonally across the length of my back. However, such minor injuries were right up my alley, with my azure aura quickly staunching the bleeding and closing the wound across my back. 

“Ohoh… A healing attribute… You’ve had your chance, boy, but now, I think I’ll make quite the profit off you as well!”

He struck once more in tandem with his last word, forcing me to leap out of the way again. This time, I struck two of his slowed goons in addition to my retreat knocking them out as they fell to the ground.

Another glint caught my eye, this time aimed for my head, as I whipped my upper body back. I tried to grab ahold of where I presumed his arm would be, yet only caught empty air. In frustration, I struck at the remaining two men. Rapidly relocating such a small concentration of aura was beginning to feel more natural.

“So, is that fashion statement of yours nothing more than a decoration?”

He took a swing at my right arm. For the first time in this fight, I moved with all my effort to avoid his blade. It wasn’t time to let it get hit just yet.  

The leader’s barrage of attacks continued to rain down from every direction.

Head. Lower my body, kick to counterattack. Left arm. Twist my upper body, grab and punch to counterattack. Legs. Jump up, twist, and deliver a downwards angled kick. 

“Ack!”

I was rapidly adapting, fast enough to now pose a threat to his prized stealthiness. That one kick had sent him ragdolling across the dirt, but he quickly regained his balance and vanished from sight again. 

Tch. I hated to acknowledge it, but in my current state, I had no way of winning a battle of attrition. I needed a proper opening, some chance in which he could be caught off guard.

Pang! The atmosphere switched in an instant. He was now directing the entirety of his killing intent towards Yukiko. 

Aura to my left leg, kick off the ground and propel myself forwards. Aura to my right leg midair, cushion the landing with the spring of my knee. I had repositioned myself directly between Yukiko and his blade.

Throughout the short course of this fight, I had managed to gather two pieces of information on this guy. First and foremost: he possessed the concealing attribute, which could treat the user’s aura as a sort of invisibility cloak. That explained his ability to immediately ‘vanish’, but reappear when caught off guard by an attack. Those instances were when his concentration was broken. Additionally: his aura wasn’t powerful enough to expand to fully cover his dagger, which would be the most probable cause for that gleaming tip being visible in each attack. 

Right now, that gleam was traveling directly towards the center of my forehead.

“Yukiko, I want you to target him with your aura the instant I grab his blade”

“Got i- wait, ‘GRAB’?!”

Throughout the fight so far, I had feigned being unable to use my right arm, but now, I moved it with the utmost conviction towards his blade, palm open. The air around his presence flickered as I could glimpse the edges of his clothing more visibly. I had successfully disrupted his concentration.

“Now, just what do you think you’re doing? This fight is between you and me”

The blade dug into the skin of my hand, but the sensation was next to nothing. By now, my right arm had almost entirely lost the ability to feel pain, aside from the dull, lasting, burning sensation that reminded me of the injury I had inflicted upon myself. If anything, right here, right now, I felt more alive than ever.

Aura to my right arm.

Boom! A blast of unstable mana and smoke erupted from my right arm, obscuring all vision and launching back my opponent a considerable distance.

I dropped the dagger, blood still freshly dripping from my hand. This was my wild card, an improvised ‘technique’, if you could even call it that, that capitalized on the unstable state of my right arm. In essence, it was the same as trying to spray water through a hose riddled with holes. The hose wouldn’t be able to fulfill its original purpose, only haphazardly spraying water uncontrollably through said holes as they diverted the flow of the water, yet something just like that could still prove useful in the right situation, say a water fight.

The only downside to my gambit was that I could no longer channel my aura into my right arm to heal the cut. That and the fact I had damaged the glove just given to me by Yukiko. I inwardly hoped she wouldn’t be too upset-

As the smoke cleared, I caught sight of that man trying to lift himself off the ground, his mental state clearly jumbled as he muttered to himself, “Just who the hell is this kid…”.

Of course he’d be confused. To him, what I had just done would seem to be a deliberate ploy, and more importantly, an offensive and elusive technique from a person whose attribute was supposedly related to healing. 

I clenched my right hand into a fist. I couldn’t let him see the wounds I couldn’t heal.

He was now slowly standing up- Wait, slowly-?

Sure enough, faint traces of white mana were circling around his body. Yukiko had successfully applied her slowing technique on him! Now, it was time to finish this-

In an abrupt motion, the man slashed away the air around him with two newly obtained daggers, which had unfolded from within his palms. He had somehow cut away Yukiko’s mana.

There was something else… the two daggers in his hand had a familiar composition. The realization suddenly struck me: Could they be magetech? Just like Yukiko’s spearstaff, that would explain how they seemingly ‘unfolded’ from a smaller, more compact form. 

Now this was getting interesting.

“Yukiko, I’m going to need to borrow your spearstaff again” 

“Hah, you can’t get anything done without me”

She replied jokingly while tossing the staff back to me. Her support ability wouldn’t be too useful in the moment anyways, with our aggressor being able to easily cut through such abilities.

I activated the spearstaff’s armament, steadily channeling my aura through it from my left arm alone. 

“I see… You’re quite well versed in other forms of combat too”

The edges of his figure began to blur. He was beginning to activate concealment again-

BWAAAAAAHP! The very ground itself shook as a foghorn blared out in the distance, the treetops dancing as flocks of birds took to the skies in a startled fright.

The two combatants of our battlefield stood frozen.

That man was the first to move, flicking one of his hands into the air to reveal one of his daggers had vanished. Had he sheathed it?

“Such a shame… I was really hoping to kill some real talent this time…”

He slit a shallow cut on his forearm, letting the blood drip to the ground. Soaking into the dirt, the red stains darkened to a crimson hue I could never forget, forming a large runic circle before me.

So the people who were after Yukiko were also in cahoots with the corruption, huh?

“We will meet again in due time… Give my worst regards to the ‘King’”

As if without a care, he tossed the unconscious bodies of the other four onto the circle before jumping atop their bodies himself. Scarlet lights leapt from the circle, enveloping their bodies- A teleportation spell.

His figure now fading from view, all that remained was an echoing voice from where he once stood.

“Brat with the strange arm, it’ll do you good to remember the name… Assassin of Nightfall”

With that, all traces of his presence vanished. Unlike the situations with his concealment abilities, he had actually vanished for real.

I heaved a sigh of relief. Despite my eagerness for battle, I couldn’t have been certain that I could’ve won such an armed exchange- No, such a flawed reassurance was nothing but pride speaking. The truth remained that I couldn’t have won in a battle of endurance and experience. 

“Well… it’s now over”

I turned back to face Yukiko, her right arm dripping with blood from the shoulder-

By the time my brain processed the situation, my body had already dropped the spearstaff and rushed over, kneeling next to her body. She was clutching her shoulder in pain, and lodged in that shoulder was the same dagger I had assumed that guy sheathed. 

I was too careless. I wasted risks on being a showoff. I had been negligent. I still wasn’t anybody’s hero.

A slip of paper stuck to the dagger caught my eye- A note scrawled by the guy who had done this to Yukiko, reading “A makeover gift for the Princess. Now you're matching with your little boyfriend”.

Two people. There were now two people who would leave this world by my hand.