Episode 143
Chapter 48: The Nameless (Part 2)

“Are you asking me to lend you a room to stay in?”

“That’s right.”

The man looked down at Jin with an expressionless face.

He was a towering figure, easily over two meters tall, with a fierce, intimidating presence. Usually, cadets dressed in the pale white nameless uniform looked softer thanks to the bright color, but this man was different.

He looked less like an assassin and more like a brawler—or perhaps the leader of a mercenary squad wielding an axe.

Jin had wandered the streets until dusk before choosing this man, basing his decision on the sound of his footsteps.

If the footsteps were loud enough to be heard without effort, that meant a beginner. If they caught your attention with some focus, that was intermediate. If the footsteps were almost silent, that was advanced.

And if you had to sharpen all your senses just to detect them, that was the level of a cadet soon to enter the Nameless Hall.

By that standard, Jin judged the man to be intermediate. He had already dealt with beginners through the gatekeepers and stablehands, so those were filtered out. Starting off by targeting an advanced cadet would be too risky.

“Wouldn’t it be better to stay at an inn?”

“I don’t like having too many guests coming in at night. I’ll pay the lodging fee without hesitation, so please, I ask you.”

“That’s quite unpleasant…”

The man’s brows furrowed slightly.

It wasn’t because Jin suddenly asked for a room. The man couldn’t help but interpret Jin’s request as a provocation—like saying, “You can’t kill me.”

“You must be the heir of some martial family, coming in with a nameless badge. You must have impressive martial skills for your age. I understand your confidence. But this place is Samil—there’s no such thing as a fair fight here.”

“I know that well. That’s why I avoided the inns. If you won’t lend me a room, I’ll find someone else.”

“I’ll lend it to you. I won’t charge you. But remember, you’ll probably pay with your life. This is all your own doing.”

“Thank you.”

After about five minutes of walking, they arrived at the man’s house—a two-story building.

Jin chose to use the relatively small room on the second floor, and as soon as they entered, he offered dinner.

“Don’t worry about poison in the food.”

“I figured you weren’t that amateurish. I’ll eat well.”

The meal was efficient—some meat and eggs mixed with vegetables—and, as the man said, fresh. Jin quickly swallowed his food, finishing before the man, then sat quietly at the table, watching him.

“Even at intermediate level, I can’t afford to look away or let my guard down.”

Though the man seemed relaxed, Jin wouldn’t lie if he said he wasn’t tense.

The man could have slipped poison under the table, jabbed Jin’s neck with the fork he used for the meat, or fired a hidden poison needle from his sleeve.

If Jin let his guard down for even a moment, any of those could happen.

Even with superior strength, facing a trained assassin meant considering many more possibilities.

“There are two poison needles hidden in his sleeves. And he always leaves the center of his mouth empty when chewing, so he’s probably hiding poison needles or venom inside his mouth. But I can’t let myself be distracted by just those.”

Jin’s training as a cadet had taught him the basic habits of assassins.

“When facing assassins, think of them as magicians or con artists, young master. If you focus on the weapons they subtly hide, they’ll use a completely unexpected dagger.”

That was advice from his beginner class instructor, Garon Artemiro, and also from his comrades in Tikan before coming to Samil. Jin had been applying those lessons carefully.

Especially the warnings from Quicantel, who knew the Nameless well, were always on Jin’s mind since arriving in Samil.

“One thing to watch out for in Samil: if a door suddenly opens somewhere, don’t take your eyes off what you were watching. The moment you reflexively turn your head, you’re as good as dead.”

Thud!

How lucky was Jin to have such good instructors and comrades?

Thanks to them, when the front door suddenly opened to his left, Jin didn’t panic and kept his eyes on the man.

“What the…? Did he know the door would open?”

On the other hand, the man had expected Jin to turn his head, and had planned to smother him with the tablecloth—poisoned on the underside—and strangle him to death in that moment.

But he couldn’t act.

Even three seconds after the door opened, Jin maintained a steady posture.

Creak, creak…

The door swayed, the hinges groaning.

But no one came through. Only the chilly evening wind brushed past Jin and the man.

“That’s their training method. Instructors disguised as cadets sometimes open doors and pass through without a sound. Especially in houses with visitors—it’s mandatory. Assassins’ basic virtue is to stay alert 24/7, waiting for an opportunity.”

If Jin hadn’t heard this from Quicantel before coming to Samil, he would have been in danger.

For a moment, Jin stared intently at the man.

“Should I close the door?”

When Jin asked, the man nodded, suppressing surprise.

“He’s not an easy kid after all. No, he’s a chilling one. Even if young, he must be an elite from a martial family… I almost got played. I’ll watch him for a few days and find my chance. I can’t afford to underestimate him.”

If the man had attacked Jin by force, the nameless instructor who just passed through the door would have expelled him from Samil at sunrise the next day.

That’s not how the Nameless operate.

“Then may I go upstairs and rest?”

“Do as you please.”

Jin went up to the second floor and immediately began a thorough inspection.

How many possible infiltration routes were there? Were there traps? Was another assassin waiting in ambush? There were many things to check.

“There doesn’t seem to be any problem upstairs. Only one window, so infiltration routes are limited, and even that’s too small for anyone bigger to use. No special devices on the ceiling, floor, or walls…”

After about an hour of inspection, Jin sat on the bed and thought about the ‘instructor’—the one who had opened the door during dinner.

“The Nameless are beyond imagination. Could all the instructors be like that? How can a person be so ghost-like?”

During dinner, Jin had been on high alert every second, every hair standing on end, fully expecting the door to open suddenly and break his concentration.

Yet, he hadn’t sensed the instructor’s presence at all when the door opened.

It was as if the door had opened by itself, not by a person turning the handle.

For Jin, this was a realm so impossible that even if he tried to erase his presence with spiritual energy for a long time, it would be out of reach. He couldn’t even guess how deeply one had to erase their presence to pull that off.

“That instructor could kill me anytime if they wanted. Even if this were my room in Tikan, not Samil. Even if all my comrades were protecting me, I couldn’t guarantee survival.”

A chill ran up Jin’s spine, creeping up to his neck.

“I can’t get cocky just because I saw through a few cheap tricks from an intermediate cadet. If an assassin at instructor level comes after me, I might be killed before I can even show what Quicantel gave me.”

Only now did Jin truly realize where he had come.

But there was one more thing Jin didn’t know yet.

If he found out, even someone like him who had overcome countless hardships would be left weak in the knees… an astonishing truth.

“Is it true? No? Maybe? No, is it?”

A woman had been watching Jin the whole time, sitting upside down on the ceiling.

She had stuck close behind him without missing a moment, even while he finished his meal and inspected every corner of the second floor.

Then, as Jin sat on the bed, she settled into her spot on the ceiling.

For about an hour, she had observed him from just a few steps away.

“Is it true? No? Maybe? Ugh, should I just ask? No, if it’s not her, I might have to kill her. She really does look alike…!”

Just as Jin sighed and reached for his sword, Bradamante, to prepare it, the woman’s eyes sparkled and she smiled.

Her name was Yona Runkandel.

The Nameless’ top assassin and Jin’s youngest sister. She was the instructor who had just passed through the door.

“Bradamante! She really is the youngest! Wow! Nice to see you, little sis!”

Clap!

Yona couldn’t hold back her joy and clapped her hands.

“Clapping!?“

Jin jumped up reflexively, taking a defensive stance. At the same time, he looked toward the ceiling where the sound came from.

But Yona had already slipped behind him again.

“Phew, that was close.”

She seemed weightless, not even leaving a wrinkle on the bedding she stood on.

Even as Jin spun around to scan the room again, Yona clung to him like a shadow, never revealing herself.

“Little sis, can’t you just pretend you didn’t hear it?”

It was no wonder Yona was the focus of all the Nameless King’s love and attention. The skill she was showing now was something even the Nameless King couldn’t pull off.

“Did I hear wrong? What was that? There definitely was a clapping sound from the ceiling, right? Am I just too sensitive and imagining things? I can’t use magic or spiritual energy…!”

Unlike the delighted Yona, Jin was going crazy.

He had been sweating bullets for over an hour now, but still couldn’t figure out the source of the clapping sound.

“Could it really be that instructor from earlier? No way. Even if it were him, there’s no way he could’ve been hiding in a space this small all this time.”

Jin quickly dismissed the thought as an auditory hallucination—or maybe just a trick of the mind. Anything else would be impossible to accept.

Huff…

Still, sitting back on the bed, she couldn’t afford to let her guard down. Tonight, sleep was out of the question.

I haven’t fully opened my third eye yet, so there’s no way anyone can find me. Hehe. But wow, this is impressive. Just how much have you grown?

Yona knew Jin’s achievements were rated at five stars.

But the youngest member she’d just seen radiated an aura closer to seven stars. That alone was astonishing, but Yona hadn’t forgotten how the youngest had blocked every assassination attempt on the first floor earlier.

Luna probably couldn’t have done that at your age, no doubt about it. Sure, Luna would’ve shrugged off poison needles or daggers and counterattacked without a scratch, but stopping the attempts before they even started? That would’ve been impossible.

Feeling proud to the point of wanting to pull the youngest into a hug right then and there, Yona hesitated for a moment—should she reveal herself and praise her?

Shaking her head, she thought, I have so much I want to teach you. Hehe. From today until you leave, let’s have some fun together, little one.