FIB Prologue

PR by neji

The man swung his sword at the hidden weapon.

The weapon bounced off the sword and went in the opposite direction, towards the assassin. Unable to completely avoid it, blood began to trickle down from his neck.

“Ugh!”

As soon as the assassin evaded the weapon, the man’s sword pierced his heart. Stepping in the pool of blood, the man swung his sword in a different direction. As soon as he did this, the other assassins that had caught up collapsed to the ground, blood spraying from their bodies.

When the two assassins fell, the others who had now gathered around the man stepped back. The man maintained his distance from the others as he wiped off the blood from his face.

“If you all back down now, I’ll let you go.”

When they heard the cold, hard voice, a murderous spirit began to burn among the assassins. The man tightened his grip on his sword and brandished it into position.

He was the son of the royal concubine who received all of the emperor’s love. The Chief Commander.

To many, he was a nuisance.

If he had to regret one thing, it was the fact that he had so carelessly come out without much thought. However, it was too late for regrets now.

“Gah!”

Avoiding the attacks of the assassins who came at him from both sides, the man blocked the sword that swung at him from the front. His sword followed the line of the attacker’s sword and cut off the assassin’s wrist. Then he pierced the neck of the assassin who ran towards him from the right.

“Aagh!”

Pulling out his sword from the neck of the squirming assassin, the man then pierced the shoulder of the assassin on his left. While the assassin avoided being stabbed too deeply, his shoulder was soon drenched in red blood.

Although almost half of the assassins had been felled by the man’s sword, eight still remained. The man staggered, and, as if the assassins had been waiting for this moment, they all charged at him at once.

“Ugh!”

After blocking two of them, he barely managed to avoid the swords of those who came at him from behind. The man bit his lip. He did his best to evade the attack, but his hand and his side were wounded in the process.

As the man barely regained his blurring senses, he managed to block the swords of the assassins in front of him and swung his sword at those behind.

Before his sword could touch the assassins, the others who were watching threw themselves at him.

As the man lost his balance, the assassins readily grabbed him. Now that he was held back, the assassin in front of him raised his sword.

“Die!”

Seeing the sword rising over his head, the man grit his teeth. It’d be better to lose an arm rather than his neck. As the sword began its descent, the man wrenched to the side when he heard a sound pierce through the wind.

“Ugh!”

As the assassin holding the sword staggered, the man took this opportunity to move. He shoved the one holding his arm and grabbed his sword from the ground. He turned around and felled the assassin who was behind him. Before anyone could take a breath, he pierced his sword through the assassin who had been in front of him.

“You… ugh.”

The assassin wasn’t even able to shout as he collapsed. Glancing at the assassin’s arm, the man’s eyes narrowed. Then he heard the sound of shouts once again.

“Get him!”

One of the six remaining assassins collapsed after being hit by an arrow.

Looking in the arrow’s direction, he saw an unfamiliar woman holding a bow. Despite the volatile situation unraveling before her, the woman didn’t flinch.

“Agh!”

The assassin at the front collapsed as he grabbed his arm. Soon, one of the shadows began to go after the woman. Tossing the bow away, the woman took out a dagger. She evaded the assassin’s attack like flowing water and stabbed his arm.

“Ugh!”

As the blood gushed out of his wrist, the assassin staggered back. The woman didn’t miss this chance and stabbed his leg.

“You dare!”

The assassin collapsed. As the woman escaped him, the other assassin who had followed began to attack her. He was too close to evade. She raised her dagger at the sword as it swung down in front of her.

Clang!

The woman’s brow trembled at the assassin’s strength. It wasn’t easy to block the attack of a sword with a dagger.

The woman moved to put some distance between her and the assassin, but the assassin noticed this and pushed down even harder.

“Ugh.”

“How dare a girl like you! Ugh!”

The assassin’s murderous, smiling eyes suddenly widened. The blood spurting out of his body dripped onto the ground. When he saw the sword protruding from his body, he collapsed.

“Haa.”

The woman sighed as she looked around at the bloody scene.

She had taken care of her family by hunting animals before, but this was her first time seeing a human corpse. She was the one who had interfered, but it was still difficult to breathe as she took in the horror around her.

“Are you alright?”

She asked the man who was standing in the middle of this bloody scene. She truly didn’t mean to interfere, but she couldn’t turn a blind eye to someone who was about to lose their life.

The man turned his eyes away from the corpses and looked at her.

He had very cold, sharp eyes. Although only their eyes met, it was as if chains were winding around her body. She felt a bit afraid.

She did her best to gather her courage and stared back at him.

“Your wounds…”

“They’re fine.”

His voice was as cold as his sharp eyes. Should she just ignore him now? But she had already inserted herself into this situation. The woman pondered this for a while before she finally began to approach him.

The man avoided her sudden movement, but she grabbed him before he could escape.

“Hm?”

“Stay still.”

The man’s eye twitched at her determination. Meanwhile, the woman ripped off the hem of her skirt and began to bind it around the man’s wound.

She didn’t stop until she had firmly bandaged the man’s hand. Then she stretched out her hand towards his side. Her fingers brushed against his abdomen as she observed the wound.

The man recoiled in shock at her touch, but she remained resolute.

“Thank goodness the wound doesn’t look too deep.”

After saying these words, the woman ripped another strip off of her skirt and began to wind it around his wound. Despite being in such a bloody scene, the woman didn’t faint. Instead, she remained calm as she endured it all. However, the man’s expression looked grim.

“It seems that you are quite experienced at handling men like this.”

At the insulting remark, the woman’s face stiffened. Although she had just saved his life, it seemed that the man thought she was trying to seduce him. Anger began to rage inside her chest.

“At times like this, all you need to say is ‘thank you’. How can a grown-up man like you not know this?”

The man’s eyes widened at her unexpected response. The woman glared at him for another moment before she stood up and walked over to the corpse of the assassin who had been hit by her arrow. She gathered her hands together in prayer.

“Praying for a dead assassin’s peace in death… Your nosiness knows no bounds.”

Although she knew that she shouldn’t discriminate when it came to helping people, the more time she spent with him, the more she wondered whether she should have saved his life at all.

“No matter what kind of life one has lived, in death, whether it be animal or human, they are all the same. I know that there was nothing else that I could have done, but there’s no reason not to do this, don’t you think?”

This woman seemed to talk back to him no matter what. Despite her calm, serene nature, she wasn’t a pushover.

“I will repay my debt at a later time.”

He didn’t want to use up any more emotion when it came to this woman. Although he told her he’d repay her, he knew there was no reason for them to meet again.

After looking around at his surroundings with dull eyes, the man left.