I resented it, despite it being my skill.
A snap sounded from far off. Amy had her palm raised at me. Sparks were gathering before her hand.
That’s…
“Indignation.”
She was planning on unleashing it in my direction.
With an explosive sound, the strongest skill—the hero’s skill—lanced forward.
I leaped onto a roof. Had I not seen the skill many times before, I might have taken a direct hit.
At the same time, I felt something odd I hadn’t noticed in the past.
“…Amy, you think abandoning weaknesses makes you stronger. And I agree when it comes to training an assassin.”
“Oh, do you feel grateful now? After all this time?”
“But I don’t need the kind of strength you put your faith in. Not anymore.”
In the old days, there was no home for me. There was only a building in the mountains I retreated to for a brief reprieve. I had targets and rewards, the smells of blood and iron, and warmth from sleeping back-to-back.
“If you feel that the normalcy I seek, that I threw my life as an assassin away for, is weakness… Then I guess I’m trying to become weak. However, it’s brought about a strength that your value system doesn’t appreciate.”
My blade would never reach her unless I pulled this off perfectly.
Fighting her was mentally and physically exhausting, however.
The next strike…
…would be the last.
“Listen, when you get home, you make sure to report right to your client. Otherwise, there’s no point.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what it means to work as an assassin.”
Amy had taught me that when I was young.
I’d thought over how to take her by surprise many times. I’d failed in the end, but there were other possibilities.
The air was tense as I waited for my opportunity.
I still wasn’t accustomed to fighting someone straight on, especially against a strong foe. And the same likely applied to her, as well. When I got too close to her and felt the pressure coming from her, I could hardly breathe. The closer I stepped, the more overwhelmed I felt.
She tried to unleash another Indignation. She probably didn’t expect the first one to hit me, but it was a little too strong to call a half-hearted attack.
I dodged the bolts swiftly and ducked behind a house. Amy ran around the opposite side toward the same spot, as though in sync.
There was a gap. A split-second gap. Because it was the greatest skill in the world.
Similarly, there was also a gap between the next-nearest buildings.
I readied myself and activated Unobtrusive.
We both seemed to have sensed this would be the decisive moment.
Amy invoked a skill that hardened her body. I was familiar with that one.
Once she saw me, I simply used my ability over and over.
Amy was the one who said it best.
“Don’t become something else. Just dive deeper.”
But had she taken her own advice?
She’d employed a handful of convenient skills already. However, she surely knew that I’d recognize them. This time, she would definitely try something I wasn’t familiar with.
And in that momentary gap, as she chose the best power to call upon…
…I dove deeper.
Deeper into my one and only ability—my worthless skill.
This was all I’d ever had.
It was the only skill I could rely on.
I couldn’t change or abandon it, leaving me no option but to live with it.
I’d continued to hone a skill that no one else would have been proud of.
This skill was me. It was all I had.
Amy triggered another ability I wasn’t familiar with.
At the same time, I called upon my own loser skill.
She’d lost track of me, if only just.
“This is an absolute must, okay. You never yell as you attack.”
“Hraaaaah!”
“Next, you never attack someone from the front without a feint.”
I was attacking her straight on. It had to reach!
Fwoom! Something slipped through the air from my blind spot, and my right arm, the one clutching the knife, came away.
A curved blade of some kind had cleaved through the limb at the shoulder. That must have been her skill.
Oddly, there was no pain. Likely because I was so amped up.
Well, soon it wouldn’t matter whether it hurt.
“Finally, you need to live so that when you get home, you can report right to your client immediately. Trading blows means you’ve got a bad plan.”
In the best case, we would both land a blow. But it was unlikely to go that well.
Winning didn’t necessarily mean defeating Amy.
Even if I couldn’t inflict a mortal wound, a lasting injury that hampered her enough for Almelia to defeat her was sufficient.
My survival was irrelevant, so I staked my life on this.
Protecting Almelia was my win condition.
“What’s an arm!” I said.
“Rolaaand!”
I lost my balance without one of my limbs, staggering. However, that turned out to be a blessing.
Amy’s sword cut through the air. I hadn’t meant to dodge; I’d intended on stabbing at her.
My lack of an arm made me lighter.
I invoked my skill.
To anyone else, it was a loser skill.
But to me, it was the best in the world.
I used movements imparted through close combat to get behind her. Amy hadn’t been able to spot me, and immediately invoked Almelia’s Magic Barrier when I vanished.
Amy, that skill is useful for attacks coming from the front and the sides, but is severely lacking in the rear.
I wreathed my left arm with all the mana I had to create a Magi Raegas.
“Hraaah!”
My hand pierced Amy’s shield, destroying it, and then it passed through Amy.
Ah… Right… That earlier sequence of movements…
“Rush right up to them and crouch. When you think you’ve distracted them, get behind and do this! Want to try it out? Hah. You’re hopeless.”
I’d repeated it thousands of times until it came to me as easily as breathing.
It was the first assassination technique she taught me.