As we jogged toward the town of Hyke, I plotted my next moves. After the Enchanted Wood, the only E-rank dungeon remaining in the royal canton would be the Black Burrow, but that was the opposite side of the capital. The Enchanted Wood was unlikely to net me much experience, but I was hoping the experience for reporting the completion of the orc quest would be enough for another level, after which I'd be more than qualified to start clearing a few D-rank dungeons. There were a few nearby. If I found one that was 'farmable', in the rapidly respawning, high experience, quickly killable monster sense, I might stick there for long enough to reach the next growth milestone.

  Maybe the Orc Camp. On the one hand, I'd had enough of orcs over the past twenty-four hours, but on the other, it meant I had experience of them. I knew how easy they were to backstab.

  "Hey," called out Ryan as we ran. "Out of morbid curiosity, if you were some secret puppetmaster determined to pour as much experience into Robin as possible, and you heard that his useful distractions wanted to quit, what would you do?"

  "Well, for a start, I wouldn't be so roundabout in the first place," answered Daniel. "I wouldn't send him after a few orc villages. I'd send him into the Orc Camp and leave him there. I wouldn't waste time clearing E-rank dungeons; I'd assign a few knights to him and have him clear out the C and B-ranks. Useful distractions we might be, but putting a more powerful group behind him should be far more efficient."

  "I'd been thinking the same thing myself," I admitted. "There was a kid back in my birth village whose parents paid adventurers to bring him tied up monsters. He just stabbed them one after another, levelling easily at zero risk to himself. Imagine that, but with dragons. I could level more quickly and far more safely."

  "You might run into issues like the secret passage of the Goblin Den not opening," said Lee.

  "Maybe, but if I was being fed monsters in an B-rank dungeon, would five percent difference in the experience boost matter? It may well not be time efficient to bother conquering dungeons at all."

  "I think it's to do with achievements," said Daniel.

  "In what way?" I asked. "If I was embedded in some high-rank team, I could get Marks for clearing much higher rank dungeons."

  "I'm not talking about Marks. I'm talking about... Well, do you have any Skills at the final stage of C-rank?"

  "Yes?"

  "And have you been offered any evolutions for them yet?"

  "No."

  "That's a little surprising, given what you've been through, but given your age, maybe there simply hasn't been time to build up enough of a... profile? I'm not sure what the right word is. I'm sure you'll get one eventually, but if you did nothing but had experience handed to you through no effort of your own, you probably never would."

  I never had got around to reading up on B-rank Skills in the guild library. I had other things to spend my points on first, and hence more immediate concerns to read up on. Maybe that had been a mistake... It was certainly true that Tristan had warned against John's levelling plan.

  I couldn't wait to get back to the capital. I was going to inhale the entire damn library.

  "So B-rank Skills are customised, depending on how you've been using the Skills they evolve from?" I guessed.

  "Hold that thought," demanded Lee. "We have a problem. Speed up, and don't stop running."

  "What's wr..." started Ryan and then his voice was cut off.

  Literally.

  A wet gurgle sounded from my left, and I'd slit more than enough throats to recognise the noise. I reacted immediately, my dagger in my hand before I'd even consciously worked out I should probably draw it.

  The metallic scraping of more weapons being drawn indicated the rest of the party were of the same opinion.

  "Heal!" exclaimed Felicity, sealing up the slash in Ryan's throat before he'd finished falling to the ground.

  A momentary flash of surprise flickered over the eyes of our assailant. His eyes were the only part I could see, with the assassin cloaked in green, a hood covering his hair and a cloth mask covering mouth and nose. His outfit blended well into the grass, but even so, how the hell had he approached us closely enough to hit Ryan without anyone noticing anything beyond Lee feeling something was wrong? The road was passing through a flat meadow. There was no cover around!

  Stacy—who had no need to draw weapons, and thus reacted the fastest of any of us—punched, but the assassin simply leapt onto her arm, kicking off in a graceful movement that was far beyond even my triple digit Dexterity. Lee was next up, his split-second forewarning having permitted him to react slightly ahead of the rest of us, but the assailant twisted in mid air, casually avoiding Lee's sword swing despite the complete lack of footholds.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  From his direction, it was obvious he was coming for me. Still, I was ready. With two extra stages of [Dagger Mastery], projections of his movements and potential countermeasures flickered through my mind at such speed that he appeared to be moving in slow motion. His dagger pointed at me just as mine pointed at him.

  Exactly like.

  I was about to use [Stab], which meant he was presumably going to try the same thing.

  I desperately redirected my attack, aiming for his wrist. "Stab!" I yelled. He could dodge it, but doing so would cause his attack to miss completely.

  He didn't.

  "Envenomed blade," he whispered, his quiet voice overlapping my own, yet the words clearly audible despite that fact.

  I desperately tried to twist out of the way, but he was too much faster than me. I felt a small sting in my upper arm as his attack grazed me, thankfully not hitting anything important.

  At least pressing his attack meant that mine had hit him. From the sparks and jarring impact, it was obvious he had some good armour on under his cloth cloak, but the way his dagger fell from a limp hand—not to mention the spreading red patch over the cloak—implied that it hadn't offered complete protection.

  His mask wrinkled in a way that suggested a small smile was forming on the mouth beneath it, and then he ran.

  Daniel thrust his spear at the back of the retreating assassin, but despite looking in completely the opposite direction, he simply stepped to the side.

  "Earthquake!" yelled Ryan, who was still lying on the floor.

  The ground beneath the assassin split open beneath his descending foot, the foot, ankle and half his shin vanishing into the new hole. And then it closed.

  Something went crunch.

  Our attacker obviously favoured Dexterity over Strength, but he still managed to rip his leg free with barely a pause, Ryan's greatest spell not even slowing him for a full second.

  "Rain of Stones!" shouted Ryan, who sounded somewhat cross. I couldn't say I blamed him.

  The assassin dodged again, ducking under the magical pebbles despite still having his back to us. He clicked in annoyance before turning back to face us.

  He was thus quite well placed to see Stacy's fist heading directly for his nose.

  I saw the twitch as he tried to get out of the way, followed by the wince as the weight on his injured leg slowed him down. Fist impacted face. Something else went crunch, more loudly.

  For a moment, no-one moved.

  "Fuck," exclaimed Ryan, with feeling. I couldn't say I blamed him.

  "Don't relax just yet. There might be more of them," said Lee.

  I didn't say anything, on account of being too busy screaming. My upper arm was in burning agony, but my forearm felt like ice.

  More disturbingly, my hand didn't feel like anything. Nor could I move it.

  "Robin? The heck?" called Daniel.

  "Heal!" exclaimed Felicity, but the pain barely receded.

  "Poison!" I gasped through clenched teeth.

  "Cure!" exclaimed Felicity, switching spell.

  This time, the pain receded further, but I was still in agony, and it didn't take long for the burning to redouble. I desperately tore off my armour—not a great idea when we were out in the open and there may be more assassins around, but I needed to see what was going on.

  "Cure, cure, cure!" repeated Felicity, but the magic achieved nothing but to slow down whatever the assassin had inflicted me with.

  I remembered the way he'd smiled immediately before retreating. He'd thought his work was done.

  Daniel and Lee stepped in to help get my armour off, revealing a blackened patch of dead flesh on my left arm, where the assassin had wounded me. Black veins spread from the site, spreading as I watched. Some were reaching upwards, almost as far as my shoulder.

  There wasn't time to spare. I took my dagger, held it under my armpit and forced it upward.

  Strength fought Constitution. Strength had [Dagger Mastery] on its side, but Constitution had geometry. At the angle I needed to hold my dagger, I couldn't put full force into it. Metal slid through flesh, but caught on bone. I still had seventeen unspent stat points. Would putting them into Strength help, or would Constitution be enough to fight off the venom?

  Before I could decide, Stacy was suddenly there, gripping my wrist in one gauntleted hand, and the blade of my dagger in the other. Before I could say anything, she pushed upward.

  I screamed again, this time for reasons other than venom.

  "Heal! Cure!" exclaimed Felicity, before collapsing onto her knees, panting, sweat pouring down her face. Despite the complete lack of physical exertion, squeezing out that many healing spells had obviously taken its toll.

  Thankfully, this time the pain not only ebbed, but stayed down.

  "Thanks," I said. Not just to Stacy and Felicity, but to everyone. They could easily have let the assassin leave—it was obvious that he was after me, and not them.

  Then why had he started by slitting Ryan's throat?

  ... The look of surprise when Felicity had healed him. He'd thought Ryan was our party's healer. He had good enough information to intercept us, but had bad info about our capabilities. That seemed... unlikely. Another sign that someone was manipulating things from the shadows? Well, screw them. They'd cost me an arm. Felicity had sealed the wound, but she couldn't regrow it any more than she could regrow Daniel's missing eye.

  "I'll tell you what: stealth Skills are far less fun when it's an enemy that has them," muttered Lee.

  I watched my severed arm in morbid fascination as the entire thing blackened and shrivelled up. Much faster, in fact, now that it was detached, and my Constitution was no longer fighting the infection.

  "You never did admit why there are assassins after you," said Daniel. "You claimed it was localised to the capital, which was obviously not true. Not to mention that level... That wasn't some random thug hired off the street; that was a professional. I think it's time you came clean."

  "Fair enough. If you must know, I killed a prince."

  The party stared at me in disbelief, including Stacy, who radiated an impressive amount of incredulity for someone hidden inside a metal box.

  "Not one of this kingdom's!" I added hastily. "And he really deserved it."

  The disbelief didn't fade.

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