Magical User Aozaki Aoko Case Files Chapter 051

At first, there was only a slight, dull thud, followed by a short, strange whimper.

More than a scream or a moan, the sound was more like an instinctive reaction, like a knee-jerk reflex.

A member of Tohno’s private army fell silently.

Like countless animals that had died in this mountain forest over thousands of years, his body was stained and buried by the damp soil, eventually to rot and return to nature without anyone ever discovering it.

However, unlike those animals that died naturally or were left behind by wild beasts, this fully armed mixed-blood soldier had only one wound on his entire body: his skull had been shattered from the front by someone who had avoided the protective area of his helmet. He struggled for several seconds before finally succumbing to death.

In the few seconds before his death, he had tried to use the consciousness remaining in his brain to control his body and warn his companions, but the attacker had undoubtedly considered this possibility, so he had now lost that ability.

The deceased’s companions did not notice the anomaly of their comrade’s death, who was too far away from him due to the tactic of spreading out the encirclement.

Or rather, this silent way of dying was precisely the result deliberately created by the assassin lurking in these mountains.

Another dull thud sounded. The companion the first victim had tried to call out to also suffered the same fate this time.

He died as meaningless and silently as a mouse caught in a mousetrap.

A shadow silently landed beside the corpse of the mixed-blood, who had been so arrogant moments before. His face bore a bright smile, and he had neat, easy-to-manage short hair.

This was undoubtedly a human, a human who had instantly killed two fully armed [mixed-bloods].

And in this human’s hand was only a cold weapon: a short stick resembling a drumstick, without any sharp point, its grayish-black surface reflecting the luster of metal.

This human ignored the victim, who still had some faint signs of life remaining, and sought out his next target.

The assassin was like an absurd nightmare, reaping one by one the private soldiers carefully cultivated and trained by Makihisa Tohno.

After only a short while, more than half of the invaders in the mountain forest had been slaughtered. This anomaly made Makihisa Tohno, sitting in his car by the roadside at the foot of the mountain, restless.

He tried to contact the private soldiers’ captain via walkie-talkie, but the captain replied that he hadn’t found anything unusual, only that some of the soldiers’ radios were temporarily unreachable, possibly due to unknown interference in the mountains.

Makihisa Tohno immediately thought that this must be the trick of their old rivals, the so-called demon hunters, these mixed-blood families.

He should have acted to eliminate them long ago, Makihisa Tohno thought bitterly. When this matter is over, he would do just that, he decided.

Starting with the Wijn.

He immediately contacted Koga軋間紅摩, who was advancing straight into the mountains, urging him to speed up. But Koga’s reply was merely a simple “Hmm.”

Soon, the young assassin, a pure human, had slaughtered all the invaders except for Koga, but he felt no joy. He was merely thinking, “Ah, today’s work is almost done too.”

The young man left Koga as his last target because he recognized this tall, one-eyed mixed-blood.

It was a child he had encountered years ago while on a mission to slaughter a mixed-blood family.

The ultimate assassin, Kiri Nanaya, for the first time in his life, saw his own demise.

He could feel that the child in front of him would be the one to kill him in the future, so he made his move.

After a muffled grunt, Kiri Nanaya destroyed one of the child’s eyes but did not kill him.

Because unlike his mentally unstable kinsmen, he did not take pleasure in killing but merely regarded assassination as a skill, a job, and constantly strived to master it.

Unbeknownst to him, the young man named Kiri Nanaya had already reached the pinnacle. He surpassed everyone around him and became the head of the Nanaya family.

Kiri Nanaya, out of fear, destroyed Koga’s eye but did not kill him because he was still a child.

—Dividing line—

Kiri Nanaya’s pulse quickened. His face was taut, and like a spider, he silently and agilely climbed up to the treetop along a steel thread, intently watching the one-eyed young man.

“…Kiri Nanaya, is it.” Koga spoke for the first time, merely indicating that he had discovered and remembered the assassin’s name.

In Kiri Nanaya’s supernatural vision, known as the “Pure Eye,” Koga’s crimson thoughts flowed with intense fervor.

That was the strongest fruit, the sole descendant, obtained by the Koga clan through repeated inbreeding and reproduction, solely for the pursuit of destructive power.

However, when Koga was less than ten years old, he went mad and slaughtered all his family members, and then was imprisoned deep in the mountains until he met Kiri Nanaya.

Neither side exchanged any words. Koga instantly made his move.

He merely raised his right hand faintly and then advanced without any technique, effortlessly shattering the tree where Kiri Nanaya was perched.

Kiri Nanaya lightly leaped up before the tree fell, twisting and turning in the air in a way that defied physical laws, dodging Koga’s attacks.

Koga’s moves had no discernible technique; they were purely fast, purely violent.

Kiri Nanaya dodged one of Koga’s punches in an instant, the wind from the punch stinging his cheek.

But Kiri Nanaya didn’t care about such trivial matters. While dodging Koga’s attack, he launched a counterattack, thrusting his iron rod fiercely at Koga’s heavily muscled arm.

Normally, this blow would have crippled Koga’s arm, but the result was no injury at all. When Kiri Nanaya’s weapon collided with Koga’s arm, it actually produced a strange metallic clanging sound.

Kiri Nanaya did not hesitate. After the ineffective blow, he immediately backflipped away from Koga.

Koga’s counterattack struck the mountain rock, and a huge cracking sound heralded immense destructive power.

Taking advantage of the rock fragments flying, Kiri Nanaya transformed into a blurred shadow and arrived at Koga’s side.

His iron rod struck the same spot on Koga’s neck dozens of times in a very short period, yet it left not even a single scratch.

Koga’s giant hand swung backward like an iron pillar with a strong gust of wind, but it failed to catch the assassin’s figure.

Because Kiri Nanaya was hiding in the blind spot of Koga’s right eye, a flaw he could never compensate for.

For the first time that night, Koga felt the fear of death. Kiri Nanaya stubbornly and repeatedly attacked the same spot on Koga’s neck with full force from the blind spot.

—Just a little more effort, and he could kill this monster, Kiri Nanaya thought.