Chapter 18: First Blood!
I raised the bent steel pipe in my hands and slammed it down on the kid in front of me.
The kid groaned in pain and collapsed to the ground.
I snorted in disgust at the pipe that had outlived its usefulness before throwing it away.
The pipe clattered around producing a cacophony of sounds before it finally came to a stop.
'This much should be enough.'
I mused to myself as I saw the scene taking place around me.
Two gangs of masked teenagers were taking up arms against each other.
Even though the weapons were strictly limited to non-lethal implements like pipes, sticks and baseball bats, the threat of death was ever-present.
On one side was the infamous group of delinquents from No.3 High School – the 'Wolves of Blood'.
While the name did not make the most sense grammatically, they made up for it with their sheer fucking passion.
Wolf masks covered their faces, their voices couldn't be distinguished from the barking of stray mutts, and they howled in agony each time they got smacked in the face.
All telltales of where the unsightly group had gotten their name from.
The blood that splattered every time I took one of them out also did wonders in helping them live up to their name.
Why was I fighting these good-for-nothings?
It was because the other party involved in this shit show conflict that these uncultured swines dared call a 'war' were the 'Vipers of Death'.
The group of bullies under my command from No.1 High School.
As much as I would like to say that the edgy name and the idea of wearing green viper masks were all Jimmy's doing, the cold harsh truth was that it was the doings of my high school self.
I cannot even say that it was just an aberration caused by the alternate timeline as I had done the same thing myself back then.
Thus when my 'gang' was at war with another, as a responsible leader, I couldn't really keep my hands out of it.
I needed to take care of the mess myself.
At least that is what I will be telling the police officers that will be coming to arrest us in about an hour's time.
Sending a signal to Jimmy, I slipped out of the 'warzone' - an abandoned building under construction.
I took off my viper mask and switched it for a black mask with a red cross on it.
I picked up my backpack full of supplies and hopped onto Jimmy's motorbike that I had asked him to leave a street away.
Revving the bike to a start with a roar, I raced off in the direction of my target's house.
Today was the day Gammon Sylvester would breathe his last.
The gang war was something that I had specifically planned as my alibi for his assassination.
All it took was sending a challenge letter with a time and place alongside the words '-from the Vipers' to get those brain-dead mutts charging in blindly at us.
It all worked out in the end for me though.
There was no better alibi for a crime than getting caught committing another one at the same time.
I grinned sinisterly under the helmet as I felt the cool night wind race past me.
I checked my watch.
It was 10:55.
I needed about 10 minutes of travel time to get back to the 'warzone'.
This gave me around 20 minutes to break in, kill the target, erase the evidence and leave.
Only then would I be able to make it back in time.
Stopping the motorbike in front of the target's house, I bided my time for the lights to turn off.
My heart was leaping within my chest as adrenaline rushed through my veins.
I was going to assassinate someone for the first time after all.
I couldn't help but get a little excited.
I took deep breaths to calm myself down and erase my sense of presence.
I remembered all the combat training I did for my Assassin Class.
It was finally time to put it to use.
Gammon Sylvester lived in a relatively small-sized two-story apartment.
The target's room was on the second floor.
His current routine would involve scouring the internet and researching the different soul beast species before going to sleep.
I picked up my phone to look at the feed of the camera looking into his room.
The moment I saw him turn the lights off and hit the bed, I pressed the kill switch that I had prepared earlier.
This not only fried all the spying equipment that I had placed around the target, but it also temporarily blocked the feeds of all the CCTV cameras in the area that could possibly detect my presence.
After making sure that the coast was clear, I slithered my way up to the balcony like the snake I was.
Picking the lock and entering the house didn't even begin to qualify as something that could be considered a 'challenge'.
Due to the increased number of Initiate-level Beast Tamers in society, the number of petty crimes had drastically reduced.
As everyone relied on their soul beasts to take care of their homes, 'traditional' security measures were more or less non-existent.
Smirking at the irony of the situation, I quietly sneaked into the House.
Considering the fact that the target's parents were both novice beast tamers, it would have been reasonable to expect at least 4 beasts with a heightened sense of smell within the house.
Yet… I wasn't worried about that in the least.
All it took was a free coupon to a nearby resort for the weekend for a couple, pets included, to empty the house; leaving the target all alone for my visit.
Something like this wasn't even qualified to be considered a conspiracy.
Just hearing about the couple complaining about being overworked via the bugs I had planted was enough to devise this solution.
They probably thought it was a sign from above to enjoy a well-deserved break.
Unfortunately for them, the coupon was nothing but a death sentence for their child sent by the devil himself.
They left to enjoy a vacation but would come back home to see their son murdered in cold blood.
I smiled in schadenfreude as a thought popped up in my head.
The real son of the couple had long been replaced by a doppelganger.
Rather than being upset, they should be thanking me for getting rid of the 'fake'.
Barely able to contain a sinister giggle from escaping, I inched my way closer to the target's room.
I pushed the door open at a snail's pace and glanced within.
Good.
The target was already in bed.
Things couldn't get easier.
I steadily removed a dagger from my pocket and advanced toward the bed with silent steps.
One step.
Two steps.
I stopped.
The target's breathing was even.
Perhaps a little too even.
I immediately came to a troublesome conclusion.
The target wasn't asleep.
He was just pretending to be asleep.
This wasn't good.
Yet it was still a better situation than I had thought.
I knew that the target was pretending to be asleep, but the target didn't know that his ruse had already been exposed.
Two more steps.
I stopped moving right at the distance the target's nerves started to tense.
I tightened the grip on my dagger as I steadily increased the pressure on my soles.
This distance was enough.
But I paused once again before taking action.
What if the target had already figured out that I knew he was pretending to be asleep, but was still continuing with his ruse to take me off guard?
But now that I knew that…
No.
I almost trapped myself within the circular reasoning.
Since I wasn't sure what was going on, I should make it so that there is only one outcome left.
I whispered to the target in a hoarse voice.
"Password?"
The target's breath paused as his mind cycled through a hundred different situations he might possibly be in.
He never got the chance to release that breath though.
*SHINK*
I unleashed the pressure that I had accumulated on my soles and explosively shot forward like a viper; instantly burying the hilt of my dagger into the target's chest.
The entire series of actions took no more than 0.3 seconds from start to end.
It was the result of me training for this single moment hundreds of times over the course of the past two months.
Stealth, Poison and Explosiveness.
These are the traits that both a good assassin and a venomous snake possessed.
I was aiming to be both.
The target's eyes widened in horror as he looked at the dagger stabbed into his chest.
He opened his mouth to say something but he could only manage to cough up some blood before his body went limp.
I stared into the target's eyes as the life slowly faded from within them.
Savouring. Every. Moment.
I engraved this feeling into my mind.
This was going to be my new life.
It was no longer about destroying and taking over others' businesses to get to the top of the business world.
It was about killing my opponents before they could kill me.
However, this thought didn't scare me for even a second.
No.
It only made me shiver in anticipation of what was to come.
It was as if something had been awakened inside of me.
I had been kidnapped against my will to take part in what essentially was a series of battle royales.
Yet I was not angry about it at all.
I was enjoying this.
I was loving every single moment of it.
This tastes so much sweeter than just revenge!
"HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
I couldn't help but cackle gleefully at the top of my lungs!
[Mission World Announcement: Congratulations to Candidate Nagi for scoring First Blood!]
[Mission World Announcement: Congratulations to Candidate Nagi for scoring First Blood!]
[Mission World Announcement: Congratulations to Candidate Nagi for scoring First Blood!]
I paused for a second before losing myself in laughter once again.
This was just perfect.
I didn't need to figure out a method of announcing my presence to the rest of the candidates myself.
Now they knew.
They were getting hunted down...
...by a Venomous Snake!
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ThePotatoKing
ThePotatoKing “If we act like prey, they’ll act like predators”― Alyxandra Harvey
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