Enigma of Sin

Kayn wasn't able to get to the contract's location before sunrise, so he set up the Villa as usual and went about his normal daily routine, which was taking care of Lara and research. He talked with Kinzie when evening came and even told her that he would visit Rowen's shop in a few days so they could spend some time exploring the city together before the next semester.

His goal was to complete the five contracts he picked up before the end of this first week of break. Then he would spend a few days with Kinzie before trying to reach at least E if not D-rank before the break ended and he would be restricted to maybe one or two contracts a week because of time constraints.

He honestly lamented the fact that he had to teach now, as even leaving the academy the night of his lecture and returning before the next one only gave him a day and a half to take care of business.

Palatine was massive, so the travel time alone could take him half of his available time. There had to be a faster way for him to travel, he just hadn't learned it yet.

For this, he was going to focus on his study of the void element. He had a very shallow understanding of it and had yet to be able to use it on its own.

Yes, he had succeeding in fusing it with fire and lightning for his two Extinction elements, but he had a reference for them beforehand. His main concern was his struggle to manifest the void element on its own.

The void element and deviant spatial element had a lot in common, but if Kayn was honest, he always hated anything dealing with physics in his last life. He knew that he couldn't apply logical thought to how mana worked, but he couldn't help it and this was his stop-gap. He was having a hard time coming to terms with spatial effects in general.

However, if he was able to understand the spatial element, teleportation by creating portals from one spot to another would definitely become a possibility. He had read about beasts capable of innately using space to blink around the battlefield, but that was a far-off desire for Kayn.

He mostly just wanted to learn how to portal himself around in order to travel faster. Even if he could only open portals to places that he had been before, it would be a tremendous boon for him and would make going in and out of the academy much easier.

This only made Kayn feel even more overwhelmed. There was just too much on his plate currently. He had so many spells and elements to study, lessons to plan and teach, assassination contracts to complete, looking for information on the slave trading ring, making progress with Kinzie, taking care of Lara and raising her properly, the list goes on and on.

Setting everything else to the back of his mind, Kayn decided that he would just put his full focus towards whatever task he was working on at the time, and right now that was completing these five contracts within the next few days.

The first contract was simple. Free the client of their wife that beat the client and their children on a daily basis after getting drunk and gambling away all of their money. The only requirement was to not kill her in front of their kids.

No proof was required by the client, but the client would report the completion by placing a lit candle on the family's apartment window which an information team member would check daily.

For this contract, Kayn didn't have to work very hard. He found her making her way back to the apartment with a bottle in hand while rambling about losing and that they cheated. She also blatantly stated that she was going to beat the money out of her husband tonight to pay off the debt she had accumulated as she knew he was hiding it somewhere.

Kayn sent out a simple blade made of wind and decapitated her in the middle of the road before swooping up her head and placing it into a sack. He then arrived at the client's window and placed the sack on the windowsill before knocking and dashing off towards his next target.

The next target was a local thug who acted as the leader of his little ring. The client was anonymous, but it stated that the target extorted funds from people in exchange for "protection". The guy was apparently just beating up his own gang members when they would show up to make a mess of the peoples' places of business.

Kayn figured that the client was either one of the people who had been taken advantage of or a disgruntled groupie that was tired of getting beat up for measly pay.

Not seeing any harm in taking out the entire group of thugs, aside from maybe killing the client, Kayn walked into their hideout and killed everyone by waving around a Mana Thread. He then grabbed the coin pouch the leader was carrying as well as the proof of completion, which was a set of golden dentures.

Thinking that he might have killed the client, Kayn only shrugged. The client had already deposited the money and the only proof needed was the dentures. As far as the Black Hand Society was concerned, the client's part in this whole thing was over.

The next two targets were both rapists. One was an unassuming man with a family that appeared clean by all outer appearances, but enjoyed overpowering and violating men in the dark. The second, was a woman that would drug and take advantage of young men and women alike. She was ugly as a bat and it was no wonder that she had to drug people.

Kayn took both of them out on the second night after his arrival at this area. He would have liked to find evidence on the man with a family as from what he observed, nothing was out of the ordinary with the guy, but he was supposed to be an assassin and he also felt constrained by time.

So, ignoring the itch in the back of his head, he killed the guy as he slept next to his wife with a simple air bullet to the head.

The client had even asked that he be taken out next to his wife which Kayn thought was a little cruel, but once again it wasn't his job to worry about. However, to Kayn's surprise, as he was exiting the house he heard a woman's voice yelling thank you over and over again.

'Whelp, guess that tells me who the client was.' Kayn shook his head and continued on with his work.

The woman offender was in the middle of carrying a young man into her room when Kayn found her and he honestly couldn't believe how often he was coming across these people actually in the act. Did the guards around here not do anything to protect these people? How was crime so rampant?

Lost in these thoughts, Kayn followed the client's request, to make it look like she hung herself. As she threw her latest victim onto the bed, Kayn threw a Mana Thread over a ceiling beam and wrapped it around her throat before pulling her up roughly, snapping her neck.

He then used a rope he had brought and set up the scene to match the request. However, when he finished, he noticed the young man staring at him with wide eyes. Kayn placed a finger up to the mouth of his mask, and whispered "Shhh," as he slipped back into his concealment.

Surely the drug addled young man would have some inconsistencies in his memories, not to mention the passive effect of his Deceivers Mask that would cause those with lower mana thresholds to only remember the creepiness of the face.

The next day, Kayn unexpectedly spent the entire night looking for the next target without any luck. He was supposed to kill a local bartender that was an accomplice to a serial killer who was already caught and in prison.

The guards had investigated the bartender previously, but they supposedly found no evidence of his assistance in the killings.

The next night, Kayn gave up searching around and removed his mask, covering his face and hair with dirt before entering the establishment the guy was supposed to work at. Unsurprisingly, the guy wasn't there.

'Could he have fled?' Kayn thought to himself as he decided to inquire about the old bartender to the current one after a drink or two and subtly complaining that the old guy used to give him free drinks on occasion.

It was only then that he learned the man was actually arrested within the last couple days and was currently being kept in the dungeon of the local guard barracks. The situation caused Kayn to become displeased as the contract was now much difficult than it was supposed to be.

Any prison or dungeon would have higher security by necessity, but it wasn't like Kayn could just not complete the job as he had taken it. He could pay off the forfeit fees as it wasn't that much money, but it would stain his record and possibly reduce his chances of promoting.

Kayn spent the rest of the night scoping out the dungeon, learning the patrol schedules, the change of guard times, and when food was brought. The guards of the prison were all magic warriors with 1st and 2nd stage cores, so that made it all the more annoying for him to deal with.

With the entire entrance being lit up brighter than the sun, the set effect of the Garments wouldn't work, and he was nervous about his concealment spells failing him while walking right in front of a mage in such bright light.

Fortunately, he had a spark of inspiration and quickly put his plan to action. There was a small outhouse for the guards to use the restroom situated around the corner from the entrance to the underground prison. Using this as the perfect distraction, Kayn lit it on fire and hid back in into the shadows.

As expected, one of the two guards at the entrance to the dungeon left to check it out while the other became more vigilant. Vigilant wasn't exactly the word Kayn would use though as he only had to throw a pebble to get the guy's attention away from the entrance so that he could sneak in.

If only the entrance hadn't been bathed in light, he could have just walked by the guy right in front of his face without being noticed.

It was almost comical how the guards reacted, as if their actions were predetermined and they were nothing but programmed NPCs in a video game.

Now came the difficult part. He needed to explore the layout of the prison to find his target, avoid the guards, and make it look like the bartender killed himself from guilt. Kayn decided that he would honor the request if he could, and if not, he would just end his life and move on as it was only the special ask of the contract and wasn't a requirement.

Fortunately, the lighting in the dungeon was sporadic and dim as the guards typically carried around their own light. Keeping the prisoners in the damp darkness was a form of torture in itself, but this only made Kayn's job easier.

He had to explore multiple cell blocks before he found his target, laying on a bed in a small cell. The cells in this block were a little more comfortable as they had a bed and blanket. It appeared that the prisoner's crimes in this area weren't viewed as seriously as some of the others. Kayn thanked his lucky stars and began his work.

He remained in the shadow of a mana torch and sent multiple Mana Threads into his target's cell. He covered up the bartender's mouth and wrapped other threads around his arms and legs in order to control his movements.

Kayn made the man stand up before moving his arms in various ways to make it look like he was picking up and tying the blanket into a noose while it was really just Kayn using more Mana Threads.

The other prisoners noticed his odd movements, and one even noticed that there was something off about the bartender's and the blanket's movements as it didn't look like he was actually holding onto the blanket.

Eventually Kayn gave up on trying to make the movements of the man match the action as it was just too much work, and no guard would believe the prisoners anyway. The blanket then tightened around the man's neck before dragging him to the cell bars and lifting him into the air by the neck and tying itself to the crossbar of the door.

"GHOST!! AHHH!" a few of the prisoners began to scream, but Kayn easily knocked them out with a wave of his hand and a bit of mana. He stuck around until his target stopped breathing then silently made his way out of the dungeon, using a similar distraction tactic to get out of the place.

Kayn smirked as he left the area. This job was more difficult than the others, but it was entertaining. He couldn't help but think that he was actually in a video game he played due to how ridiculous the guards' actions were.

Now all he needed was to approach another guard and have him say something about being an adventurer before sustaining a knee wound and the perfect video game picture would be complete.

With this though, his work was done. After turning in the contracts and proof, he was going to take a nice relaxing few days off spending his time with Kinzie.