Noah’s badass exit lasted about two seconds before he realized how stupid it would be to leave without looting the idiot he’d just killed. Money didn’t exactly grow on trees, after all. He made it exactly one step before turning on his heel and striding right back into it.

  The man’s pockets ended up being empty. That was probably for the best, as they were already completely soaked through with his blood. However, Noah did spot a bronze ring similar to the one that Lee had given him on his former employer’s corpse.

  He liberated the ring and wiped it off on a piece of the dead body’s clothing. Then he paused for a moment.

  Leaving a corpse in the alley didn’t seem like a particularly clever move. There were a lot of ways to track something like this, and even though he highly doubted that the suspicious man in a dark alley was going to have the closest of friends, it still felt like a bad idea to invite trouble.

  Damn. I wish Lee came with me. It’s so easy to dispose of bodies when she just eats them. The hell am I supposed to do with this guy? I feel like half the disposal methods I’m capable of are probably just going to end up drawing more attention than just abandoning the body would have.

  Noah scratched his chin. He wasn’t sure what kinds of magic would be able to track a murder. For that matter, he wasn’t even sure if anyone here cared. There was a good chance the city couldn’t have given less of a shit about who killed each other within its walls.

  The cities in the Damned Plains certainly hadn’t. But until he confirmed things one way or another, tempting fate was a bad idea.

  I could shove it underground, maybe? But on the other hand, fucking with the city itself might actually piss the Coral Empire off way more than just killing some random guy. There are so many damn imbuements here that I wouldn’t be surprised if they could feel every single scratch the stones get.

  His head tilted slightly to the side as he tried to dig for some ideas. Then his eyes narrowed. There were matter aspects within Unraveling Disruption. That magic had completely melted through materials before. He’d never tried to straight up delete somebody from existence, but it was probably his best bet.

  Noah drew on Unraveling Disruption. He threw one last glance over his shoulder. Nobody was watching. The alley was just deep and dark enough to get him the cover he needed, at least a few more moments.

  He suppressed a sigh as he crouched down beside the split halves of the dead man, just outside of the spreading pool of blood on the ground.

  Then Noah got to work.

  ***

  The door to the inn room clunked shut behind Noah.

  Lee sat on one of the two beds within the room. She was folded like a piece of laundry. Her back laid against her sheets, her legs raised up and folded back over herself like she was trying to squeeze into a little ball. It was a pose that could have been either a bizarre stretch or some manner of unfathomably evil ritual.

  Her head lolled back to look at Noah.

  “Oh. Hello,” Lee said.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Noah asked, pausing by the door as he fought back a laugh.

  “I was just resting,” Lee replied. She unfolded herself and rolled over to sit up properly. “My body felt crunchy, so I had to twist it up a bit.”

  What is she, a glow-stick?

  “Logically,” Noah said. He walked over to the other bed in the room and flopped down in it, letting out a weary sigh as his back hit the soft mattress. It was incredible how much more comfortable a bed became after traveling for a while without one.

  The room really wasn’t anything that impressive. It was nothing more than a pair of beds with a tiny table separating them and a small but clean window looking out into the streets of the city outside, but that was still leagues better than what they’d had in the recent past.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Did you register for the tournament and stuff?” Lee asked.

  “I… think so,” Noah said. He paused for a moment. Then he pulled the black badge out and examined it for a moment. Then he held it out to show Lee. “Probably. Do you have one of these?”

  She squinted at the badge for a second. Then she shook her head.

  “Nope.”

  Noah grimaced. “Maybe you’ve got to pick it up or something?”

  “You didn’t find out?” Lee tilted her head to the side. “Well, I dunno. I guess we can do that tomorrow, right?”

  Noah nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure. Probably shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Didn’t you get one yourself?” Lee asked. “Why would it be any harder for me? It should be easy, right? Was it easy for you? And why do you keep saying probably?”

  Damn. Lee normally would have been able to smell the fact that I’d killed someone in the process of getting the badge by now. The limitations this city’s put on everyone are seriously screwing with her.

  “Well… I might have used a slightly nonstandard method to get into the tournament,” Noah said. He scratched the back of his head. “Not that it was intentional.”

  “What do you mean?” Lee asked. Frustration creased her features. “Damn it. I can tell that you’re supposed to smell like something. But I can’t tell what it is. This is so annoying. If I figure out who set these Imbuements up, I might kill them.”

  “It’s not getting any better?” Noah asked. “Do you think you’ll adjust to it eventually?”

  “No,” Lee grumbled. “I am in a bad mood. I want to kill something.”

  “The first step of getting out of a bad mood is acknowledging it,” Noah said with a sage nod. “And, ah, speaking of that…”

  Lee blinked. “You didn’t.”

  “It was entirely justified,” Noah defended, raising his hands before himself. “He was hanging out in a dark alleyway wearing a suspicious cloak. Then he tried to get me to swear a Rune Oath to kill some random Rank 6 bloke for him in exchange for the badge.”

  “And, what, you just killed him?”

  “Well, no. I swore the Rune Oath,” Noah replied. He cleared his throat. “Then I killed him.”

  Lee stared at him. Then she crossed her arms in front of her chest and narrowed her eyes. “Without me? You waited until I went to my room and then killed somebody without even inviting me?”

  “Sorry,” Noah said sheepishly. “I wasn’t planning on killing someone. But he had a pass to the tournament. One that he confirmed was real through a Rune Oath. And he just wanted me to go kill some innocent person. It felt like a pretty reasonable—”

  “What did you do with the body?”

  “I… kind of deleted it,” Noah replied. “With Unraveling Disruption. I used the matter decomposition parts. It was a bit of a pain in the ass. Especially getting the blood out of the cobblestones. But don’t worry. I don’t think anyone saw me.”

  “You didn’t even bring me back a piece or something?” Lee asked with a huff. “That’s just…”

  Noah pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing a somewhat bloody forelimb.

  “Come on, now,” Noah said with a grin. “Did you really think I’d forget about you?”

  Lee’s eyes lit up. She jumped out of bed and snagged the arm from Noah, shoving the whole thing into her mouth. Bones crunched as she bit down, devouring the entire thing in moments.

  Noah took the brief reprise to draw slightly on Unraveling Disruption. One of the benefits he was really coming to appreciate of his new clothes were that they stayed clean, no matter what he stuck in the pockets. That made it considerably easier to carry chunks of bloodied flesh around.

  But the blood was still there. He sent the rune’s power into it, vaporizing the final traces of the suspicious man’s existence and leaving behind nothing but a memory.

  “Thanks,” Lee said, licking her lips. Then she glanced at Noah’s other pocket. “Did you…”

  “Just one, I’m afraid,” Noah said. “But he did have one of those rings. I think there are some crystals in it, but I haven’t figured out how to open it yet. I can feel all the stuff in your ring easily, but this one is stiffer. I think there’s an imbuement keeping it shut or something like that.”

  “Meh.” Lee scrunched her nose. Then she flopped back onto her bed. “I can’t eat the ring. Thanks for the snack. But bring me the next time you’re planning to murder someone.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” Noah protested. “It just happened. Don’t you worry. This isn’t something that’s going to get repeated. I’ve got access to the tournament now, and I’ve done the city a favor by removing a bad actor. Really, they should probably thank me. But this was a one time thing.”

  Lee sent him a sidelong glance.

  “Right,” Lee said. She didn’t sound very convinced. “Sure.”

  “Right indeed,” Noah agreed. “One-time thing.”

  “Sure, sure.” Lee flopped back on her bed.

  They were silent for a few moments.

  Then Lee craned her neck to look up at him.

  “But bring me the next time you kill someone, okay?”

  Noah sighed.

  “Okay.”

  Patreon (50 chapters ahead!)