Chapter 12: A Secret Worth Killing For
"So, what's our plan to stop the [Poison Fang Faction] from killing all of us?" Venture asks Gat and the others.
"There is a plan?" Gat asks in disbelief, then look at Bout and Edify, "Since we did you guys make a plan?"
"We didn't." Bout gives his leader a wry smile. "I think it's because Venture's [Skill] requires lots of information and this includes planning his assassination. So, he thought we came up with one. Is that right, Venture?" Bout looks at Venture with a look, that says he guessed right about why Venture asked if they have made a plan already.
"Exactly." Venture nods his head with a serious look on his face. Yet, Venture wonders if he will live through this whole thing without losing anything important. Hopefully, not his sanity. "If there no plan being made, can I at least get some kind of basic information about our enemy other than what Bout explained to me about the [Poison Fang Faction] or are we going in blind?"
"We're going in blind, make it more fun that way." Gat grin at Venture, finding this new member of her faction will soon become a regular of their common activity since she really does like this Venture person. As he is someone who could face her without ending up dead as most people would.
"I see." Venture looks at Gat with a forced smile, where he begins to regret, that he hasn't written down even more gambles. Luckily, he got a few ones he could use right away. So, he did exactly like that and bring out his only bronze coin and trigger his [Unique Skill] on one of the pages in his book filled with written gambles.
Evolution Path: Evolve both the knowledge, instinct, and the ability of the master assassin and master illusionist into something powerful and deadly to the very peak. This includes no side-effect whatsoever.
Fusion Path: Merging both knowledge, instinct, and the ability of the master assassin and master illusionist to become something very unique and powerful to the very peak. This includes no side-effect whatsoever.
Condition: A coin flips. Heads: Evolution Path | Tails: Fusion Path.
With a coin flip, Venture found the coin land on heads. Then, Venture felt like his head was about to split for a second before it disappears and his previous knowledge over the master assassin and master illusionist expand into something similar to legacies. However, Venture wonders if maybe his [Unique Skill] and [Title] had to grab something from this world and gave it to him, because he doesn't think this is normal or something he heard before. Going by his gut feeling, these two sets of knowledge, instinct, and their abilities are actually a legacy of deceased powerful beings from this world.
Just to see if his gut feeling is right or not; Venture opens his status, hoping maybe his gut feeling is wrong.
Name: Venture
Title: [Gambler of Fate] - You are fate's gambler and making the impossible possible.
Hidden Titles: (1st) [I Am ALIVE!] - As long you have a single breath in you, never will you shall fall from your injuries. | (2nd) [The Cunning One] - Can be cunning or foolish or both; you are often funny, even when considered sacred or performing important cultural tasks. {Invisible}
Health: 100/100%
Physical Fatigue: 7/100%
Mental Fatigue: 1/100%
Unique Skill: [Everything Is A Gamble] - The user is able to use anything to gamble with fate. [Price]: The medium used will disappear afterward.
Hidden Unique Skills: (1st) [Solitary of Silent] - The user possesses transcendent abilities in the art of assassination, they can dispatch any target regardless of strength, status. Even immortal or undead, and distance without a struggle, covering or not leaving any tracks. [Price]: Never speak during the assassination. | (2nd) [No Explanation] - The user is able to generate illusions that are realistic to the point where they can confuse all the senses of the target, making it impossible to break free unless willed by the user. They can also create illusions on a large scale, from a small region to planetary or galactic region, etc. [Price]: The user can never tell anyone what the illusions are used on the target. {Invisible}
The corner of Venture's mouth twitched for a second at the sight of his new additions on his status window.
Now, Venture can say for sure, that he will do his absolute best not to allow others to find about his [Unique Skill: Everything Is A Gamble] and his [Title: Gambler of Fate]. Since with the two new [Unique Skills] and [Titles] just made Venture stronger and boosting his survival rate, but at the cost of raising the risks of being discovered extremely high if Venture does something out of the ordinary and/or catch the attention of some powerful beings.
If that wasn't worrying enough; Venture can say for sure, there is a high chance of people knowing the previous users of these two [Unique Skills] and [Titles], and if they knew Venture possesses even just one of these. The outcome would be unimaginable and Venture would be hunted down forever, for many reasons.
Venture is curious about the invisible part on his status and focuses on it, then to his surprise, his status went back to how it originally is, other than the new addition of [Hidden Titles] and [Hidden Unique Skills], but Venture can guess only he could see them unlike someone have [Obsever-Type Skills] to see them. The odds of someone having the [Skill] are quite low.
"Hey, Venture. You mind me asking you a few questions?" Edify asks Venture, who is currently zoning out while sitting against the wall near the door. Something she thinks that maybe here sitting there is to have the ability to react in the shortest time when the [Poison Fang Faction] appears.
"Sure, what're your questions?" Venture gives Edify his attention while thinking about what he should do if during a fight, with killing involved, he will have to think about a way to communicate with others since the [Solitary of Silent] will make him temporary mute.
"Have you ever visit the other cities before?" Edify asks Venture due to the fact, that she can't find any background on Venture, other than he would always go to the local library, with hers and Gat's information network; therefore, he must be from the other cities.
"Nope." Venture spoke the truth and starting to think about everything he could think of about why Edify would ask him this. None of them are good; well, 99% of the guesses Venture came up with are not good.
"Interesting." Edify said mostly to herself. "I know this is a bit personal, but have you lived in City N during your entire life?" Edify carefully studies Venture's face for any signs of lies.
"Pretty much." Venture didn't change his facial expression for a second, giving off a good poker face and such a thing became easier for Venture thanks to the [Title: The Cunning One]. Improving his acting abilities massively. "I am planning to visit the other cities in the future though, but I still have to work on improving my fighting ability to even have the slightest chance of surviving long enough outside the cities to reach back to a city." Of course, what Venture didn't mention was that he planning to push the idea of visiting the other cities near the end of his lifespan if he truly stuck in this world forever. Because he knows that the outside of the cities are extremely dangerous from all the warnings he got from the books he has read so far.
So for Venture's newest main goals are to get strong enough to be those overpowered background characters that only show up for the main character to help them out and whatnot. Just remove everything else, but being a background character is what Venture desire.
"I see. Anyway, since you're an assassin. I would let you know, that your main role is mostly to lower the numbers on the enemy's side and if you can, take out the troublesome ones that out of the ordinary members." Edify takes out her phone, tapping and swiping the screen with her thumb before handing it over to Venture. "Here the files on the potential candidate members of the [Poison Fang Faction] coming to attack us." Edify knew that Venture would mostly be useless if he doesn't have much info on the enemies and did some info gathering just for him. She can't have her newest comrade die on her. Even if Venture isn't truly a true member of the [Dark Star Faction] just yet.
"Let's see here... Oh... This is a lot." Venture begins to sweat due to the fact, that there are lots of profiles, and the only good thing in Venture's opinion is that the profiles mainly have [Skills], appearance, and main fighting styles. Yet, the numbers of the profile are so many, that it made Venture speechless. Because he has been trying to reach the bottom of the list by scrolling to the bottom for almost a few minutes now and there is still no end.
"Well, of course, there is a lot. The [Poison Fang Faction] is one of the top factions in City N." Edify commented, as she let out a yawn before deciding to give Venture the benefit of the doubt and move a bit closer to Venture, then sit down next to him to get some shut-eye. "I'd saved you the trouble of having to research the [Poison Fang Faction] on your own. So do your best not to get killed by them." Once Edify spoke out the last thing she had on her mind, then shut her eyes and fall asleep while in a sitting position against the wall. Not caring if this ends up hurting her back when she could just use her own [SKill] to treat it easily afterward.
Venture glance at everyone else, yet none of them seem to care that Edify is sleeping near him. Then again, Venture would definitely die very quickly by both Bout and Gat, with the latter is already enough to almost kill Venture and adding Bout would just raise that 70% to 100% for Venture's death. So, Venture made sure to not have any thought about Edify nor dare make any physical contact with her and just focus on trying to memorize all these profiles as possible. Luckily the [Solitary of Silent] and [The Cunning One] boosted Venture's memory recalls almost giving him a photographic memory. Cutting down the times he will need to memorize things.
-LIABG-
After memorizing many profiles of these people from the [Poison Fang Faction] and Venture bring up his status, check on his mental fatigue if he has been overdoing it for the past few hours now.
Name: Venture
Title: [Gambler of Fate] - You are fate's gambler and making the impossible possible.
Hidden Titles: {Visible}
Health: 100/100%
Physical Fatigue: 11/100%
Mental Fatigue: 26/100%
Unique Skill: [Everything Is A Gamble] - The user is able to use anything to gamble with fate. [Price]: The medium used will disappear afterward.
Hidden Unique Skills: {Visible}
Seeing this, Venture wonders if [The Cunning One] improved his mental state and reduce the mental fatigue raising or not, because it usually is around 40% or higher after a few hours of research. So, seeing this,
"Hey, Cope just let me know the [Poison Fang Faction] has arrived, so get ready people! We got people to kill!" Gat yells at everyone, causing Bout to tense up and Edify just opens her eyes calmly before standing up. While the child in mind starting to look everywhere as if the enemy will start popping into existence on this floor at any second now.
Venture hand the phone over to Edify, "I didn't go through all of them, but it should be enough. Thanks for letting me see these."
Edify took her phone back and place it into her pockets, "No problem. Glad to help out." Edify gives Venture a tired smile.
"Remember, Bout, you are to stay here and watch over the child. Edify, you're with me on the rooftop. We're going to make sure none try to climb from the walls and onto the roof." Gat said to Edify, who just quietly nod her head. Then, Gat looks at Venture. "Cope is already on the ground floor waiting for you, Venture. So you want to go down there now and help her out facing the enemy." Once she finished giving her order. Gat picks up her firearms and head to the roof, with Edify is following right behind her.
Venture hopes there won't be too many enemies because Venture is still new to this whole fighting and killing thing, even it should be a lot easier for Venture to do so with his new [Unique Skills] and [Titles].
-LIABG-
"Hey, Gat told me to come here to help you out with the enemy coming from the front entrance. So, anything you want me to do? I'll follow your lead since I'm not even sure about what to do in a situation like this." Venture said to Cope the moment he saw her behind the counter after coming from the stairs.
Cope blankly stares at Venture before looking at the front doors and ignore Venture for a few seconds before replying, "Just make sure none reach the third floor and leave everything else to me."
"Got it." Venture quickly rushes back to the third floor, then sat down on the stairs where Venture can see the enemy climbing up the stairs right away. Afterward, he took out a pair of fully loaded handguns. But, rethink about using handguns and use something else; however, Venture shook his head as he currently already used to using handguns for the time being and will switch out for other firearms or just any weapons later after this protection job is over.
Soon, Venture begins to hear the sound of fighting on the ground floor, with most of the sound like a scream of pain and horror. Venture begins to worry, but at the same time dread of what's going on the ground floor. Mostly out of instinct, that's warning Venture not to go down the stairs to check on Cope or else he will regret it for the rest of his life. So, Venture will follow this instinct and stay put. Better to not know, as there are certain things not meant for others to know no matter how many people would say otherwise.
Of course, Venture uses the extra equipment he requested from Bout and begin placing down traps that are mostly remote control activation instead of motion trigger. This is just to help Venture out lowering the numbers from the start instead of having to deal with a bunch of them. Furthermore, by going for remote control; Venture won't have to worry about causing harm to Cope if she the one climbing up the stairs instead of the enemy. Though, Venture still wonders how does Cope fights with the [Skill: Territory Control] and what exactly her [Title] is to allow her to fight when the average [Territory Control] holders can't.
Venture frown, for some reason he can feel something a bit weird in the area. Quickly, Venture finishes the last trap before walking next to the door to the third floor and takes a couple of deep breathes while holding one of the two handguns with his right hand while the other one is put away to have a free hand, to hold the remote control to trigger the traps.
Relying on the instinct belongs to the [Solitary of Silent] on what to do right now other than setting up traps before facing the enemies. Then, Venture begins to slow down his breath pace of inhaling and exhaling. Afterward, Venture continues to follow his instinct on how to suppress his emotions and minimize his movements.
Going by his instinct; Venture leans against the door, but not to the point of pushing it and focus on his sense of hearing. He waited for a few minutes when he starts hearing the slightest sound of someone coming up the stairs from below the third floor. Something Venture shouldn't be able to do yesterday, but now it's so easy to do. Even with the noises going on at the ground floor, to cover the sound of people going up the stairs.
Then, on pure instinct and reaction; Venture moves into a crouching position and slowly move towards the stairs going down until he is in front of it. With his handgun pointing in front of him and with the remote control still in his left hand.
A second later, Venture fired once. Sending a bullet through someone's head the moment their head pops out from the corner of the stairs, causing the body to fall on the ground. Venture was about to relax. But instead, his body tenses up, even more, causing Venture to know right away there are more. Luckily, going by the sound of fights going on the ground floor. Cope is still going on good and these people must have sneak passed her or she was held back enough, for others to bypass Cope.
From Venture's instinct alone; there are more enemies just underneath him and going by how he killed one of them. They are high on alert, where they know I'm waiting on them to show up to be killed by me.
Moving his handgun to the ground; Venture fired twice, causing the enemies below me to shout in a panic as I must have either injure one of them or killed one. Going by the sound of people cursing, then vowing to kill me. I must have killed another one.
I roll to my left, where there is a spear piercing through where I was at a second ago. The spear happens to be made out of wood, but Venture can tell there something extremely deadly from this wooden spear and wasn't going to find out the hard way and did a quickfire at the wooden spear's tip while it still in Venture's sight.
Sure enough, the wooden spear wasn't even damaged at all from the bullet and the person wielding the wooden spear pull it back down, causing Venture's instinct to pick up the next attack is coming right where he currently at. So, moving again, Venture moves back where he was before and fire once more at the exact same hole the wooden spear made. Where Venture heard the sound of another body collapse to the ground dead.
Venture hopes that Cope would soon finish with her fight so she could deal with these people below him, because he has no idea if he can take on all of them. He still doesn't know how many there are and just knows there are more than two for sure.