She stood in front of the door to the only inn in town, filled with a healthy dose of trepidation.

  This was, as far as she knew, the first black quest in the entirety of Zenith. So caution was the name of the game. Despite that, she made sure not to look jumpy, carefully arranging her posture and appearance to show a confidence she didn’t really have. It tended to deter people from attacking.

  Once she was happy with her appearance, she checked her inventory. Most fights were decided long before the first sword was drawn, and she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be the one to die due to lacking preparedness.

  She checked her inventory again. And her belt. And her sword. Her inventory a third tim—

  No! She stopped her frantic equipment checks, took a deep breath and stepped through the door.

  *DING*

  You have completed stage 1 of the quest Vengeance.

  The quest contents are now updated.

  Quickly reading through the new contents, she was once again surprised at how easy the next step seemed. Especially since it was supposed to be a completely new level of difficulty. Still, she couldn’t get careless. Nowhere in the world did black signify easy. All of this was probably just a trick to make her let down her guard. Zenith was nasty like that.

  Pushing her doubts to the back of her head, she sat down at the table she was supposed to wait at, and ordered herself a drink.

  A few hours later, Azarynth was slowly, but surely, becoming annoyed. The quest had given her no information, beyond waiting here for something, or more likely someone. Hell it didn’t even tell her who or what she was waiting for.

  Luckily for her nerves, or rather what was left of them, a voice rang out behind her, “Are you the one who took my quest?”

  Without giving an answer she gestured towards the free seat across from her, a slight act of childish pettiness, for having been made to wait for multiple hours. The quest-giver naturally understood what she was trying to express with the gesture, and sat down while apologising.

  “Sorry for being late. I am being actively hunted, which makes meeting someone in secret pretty damn difficult.”

  A bit of frustration had snuck into his voice towards the end. He was obviously on edge, which Azarynth would have realised, had she not been preoccupied with being annoyed at having been made to wait. As it was, she had just acted on her emotions, and only now looked at her conversation partner more closely.

  It was obvious in hindsight.

  From his left arm that, while not quite limp, was damaged enough to make it unusable in pretty much any activity more strenuous than breathing. The way his eyes darted across the room. To his, admittedly well-hidden, limp. A plethora of tells, that she should have seen, but hadn't.

  All of them made it pretty damn obvious he was on the run, or would have been had she bothered even just giving him a single closer look. But this was not the time for this. Analysis of her mistakes could come later, for now she had to stay in the here and now.

  “So what is this quest about in the first place? Please don’t tell me you made me run across three kingdoms for no reason.”

  “What I want you to do is simple.” He stood up and bowed. “Please avenge my daughter.”

  It had taken him almost an hour to fully explain what had happened. The short, scream and hystericsless version was this: His daughter had been raped by a player, who had actually done this many times before without consequences. There had been no retaliation, because the players were protected by the system for the first year, and were as such not attackable by NPCs. He had only figured out it was possible to give out assassination quests, because the system had given him a quest to give out the first assassination quest. So here they were.

  He had sworn a truth oath, so Azarynth knew he was telling the truth. With that in mind, there was no hesitation in Azarynth’s mind. She’d accepted the quest and was already in the region where she was planning to attack the player.

  The location was chosen with care.

  A giant dark forest, with a mist so thick, a regular human would barely be able to see his own hands. He frequently used this route to enter the village for supplies. Now she just had to wait for him to arrive.

  Azarynth took a deep breath. She’d spent a lot of time considering how she wanted to approach this. Her level was far lower than that of her opponent, after all. A natural consequence of spending time acclimatising to a new body before starting to grind.

  This had led to her levelling far faster than her peers, once she had finally regained her old level of techinque. But while she would definitely overtake most regular players in a few months, those few months made the difference between being overleveled, and blatantly underleveled. And the quest had a time limit of a month, so she would not be able to just level beforehand.

  She had considered stuff like preparing traps, explosives in the ground or jumping him with a lot of other people. Sadly, she had to shelve all of those ideas, due to her not having the resources needed for these ideas. Luckily, she was sure she was far superior to him in terms of skill. Enough to somewhat offset the level difference at the very least. So old school style ambush it was.

  She sat down in a seiza, blocking out all sensations except sound. That was why she believed she would succeed. Sound was vision here, and regular modern humans were ridiculously pathetic in that regard. Even one year in a different world wasn’t enough to fix that, and she would most definitely make use of that weakness.

  She began meditating, making sure to preserve as much of her strength as possible.

  Breathe in.

  Breathe ou–

  *rustle*

  Her eyes shot open. There was someone here! One quick use of analysis and she knew she had the right person. It was finally time. One last deep breath and he was there.

  A flash of silver cut though the fog, as she dashed out of her seiza, her wakizashi closing in on her target’s throat. She could see the shock in his eyes, but it was too late to dodge. He didn’t have the space to do so. Not anymore.

  Blood splashed onto her, while Azarynth scrambled to create distance by jumping backwards. A black silhouette flashed past her, not even a finger’s width away from her stomach. He had managed to survive her attack, and counter in the process! At the cost of a deep cut into his left arm. This was about to get nasty.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  It might have seemed like Azarynth came out on top in that exchange, but reality was different. Her opponent had already stopped the bleeding, and would now contest with her in a direct fight. This was where the advantage in levels would show its importance.

  Both of them stood almost still, preserving as much strength as possible. This would be a long fight, and they both knew as much. Reality was not a tournament. If a fight between professionals didn’t end within the first exchange, it could potentially drag out for hours. Survival instincts guaranteed no overly aggressive attacks happened, they were easy to counter after all.

  Usually this was where the opponents would make small attacks and feints to get a feel for their opponent, but in this case that could be a fatal mistake. An assassination focused player was fighting a frontal fighter. Both of them specialised in dealing damage, if by different methods. A single mistake, a singular moment of carelessness, and this fight would be over with one of them six feet under. Neither of them wanted to be that person so they waited…

  And waited…

  And waited even longe–

  Suddenly movement erupted. The two fighters burst into motion almost simultaniously. Azarynth attempted an overhead slash. But had to pull back when her opponent's black gauntlet closed in on her upper body, while her sword was still up. She scrambled backwards, as he followed up with a right hook. Then he threw a left cro–

  Now!

  He leaned backwards, effectively turning himself into a half-circle, a silver flash passing just above his face. His messed-up balance forced him to stop his attack. They were once again back at their starting point.

  Both of them feared attacking the other. Azarynth’s slip-up had made both of them cautious. Had that panicked swing not worked, this fight would have ended right then and there. All because her opponent had managed to read the attack and counter accordingly.

  Once again, the duel calmed down. Both of them circled around one another, making sure to stay just outside the range of the other, but close enough to connect to their opponent with only one additional step in their direction.

  They circled like this for another five minutes until Azarynth – once again – had enough of it. Her opponent immediately saw the change in her posture and prepared to counter her attack.

  Only to swing into empty air as she stepped backwards, becoming one with the surrounding fog.

  She had no clue why she hadn’t done this in the first place. This was where she held all the cards. A few steps away from him, and he’d no longer be able to see her. And for people like him, what they couldn’t see, they couldn’t fight.

  After building up a bit of distance, she sat down to regain her mana. He wouldn’t be able to do something like that, he needed to be on guard all the time. He couldn’t afford to get caught off-guard, should she attack him.

  Almost half an hour later, she stood up. Her steps so quiet, even the air itself sounded like a metal band at full volume, in comparison. She slowly moved towards his location, stopping about a hundred metres away from his last location. Luckily for her, he’d only moved slowly. Making sure he wouldn’t get caught unaware like the last time he was on the move.

  Had he actually made a run for it as soon as the fight ended, he would have probably gotten away. But luckily she’d managed to hide her momentary weakness well enough.

  He’d won the first round. Now it was time to run it back.

  But this time she would be prepared. This wouldn’t be left to chance anymore.

  A dark aura emanated from her, as she put her hand over her heart and started chanting.

  “Blōd bletsung, ic onfōn!” (The blessing of blood, I receive!)

  Her nails dug into her skin, reaching her heart.

  “Sēo w?l?wriee, ic wieerweorte!” (The storm of battle, I turn to my favour!)

  Storm clouds began to gather above the entire forest.

  “M?re fyr, ?t mīn handa, ?t mīn hyge!” (Great fire, in my hand, in my mind!)

  The temperature in the forest rose to unprecedented levels, but somehow the fog stayed, and kept a fire from happening.

  “Sēo dēaees weald, ic onfōn!” (The power of death, I receive)

  The aura of darkness that had previously been concentrated on Azarynth’s immediate surroundings, suddenly blanketed the entire country, causing the temperature to plummet enough, that all the water in it froze within seconds.

  “?fterreaperes Bletsung” (Reaper's blessing)

  The cold and the darkness, disappeared, just as suddenly as they had appeared, having been absorbed by Azarynth in its entirety. Her eyes began glowing in a demonic red, as the influx of energy healed her wounds, and elevated her to the highest levels of power in the entire world of Zenith.

  This state wasn’t something she could keep up for long, so she had to move fast. Hell, if she took too long, she might even die from the backlash.

  Alex was pretty sure he was going to die today.

  This day had started off quite well. He’d gotten everything he needed from the city at a good price and had some coins left over to indulge himself with. So he’d bought himself a good wine and went on the way home.

  Then some nutjob attacked him! A player at that!

  She'd attacked him while he was on the move, even getting a deep cut his arm in the first exchange. Had it not been for his quick use of healing magic, he’d have bled out right then and there. Even when she lost her patience and made a misstep, she still got out unharmed!

  In all honesty, he’d accepted his loss, as soon as she fell back into the mist. Her skills in assassination were obvious, and he’d barely managed to survive the first ambush, even when he was still full of energy. If the same attack happened again, he wouldn’t be able to heal that wound.

  So he’d moved carefully, making sure to not get caught off guard.

  A fatal mistake, as he realised twenty minutes later. This slow approach had made it possible for her to regenerate, while he grew more and more exhausted. If that was actually what was happening his loss would be guaranteed! So he’d broken into a run, and lo and behold, he wasn’t attacked.

  Just as elation was about to overcome him, the temperature spiked suddenly, before dropping to freezing cold. In the middle of the summer!

  Then he felt the presence within the cold. It was his would-be assassin. He started running like his life depended on it (because it did), somehow managing to double his speed. But a few seconds later the air blurred in front of him, and there she was.

  Along with her power, her looks had changed. Where before she had looked like a regular woman, she now looked like the reaper himself. Her eyes were glowing in a demonic red, a black halo had appeared above her head, and her clothing had changed colours to a shade of black so dark, that it seemed like the void itself had appeared in the real world.

  It was with growing dread, that he realised his body was shivering from fear, and had been even before he had even realised she was there.

  In a last ditch effort, he jumped at her and put the entirety of his leftover mana into one last attack.

  “Draca Fyst!”

  Power surged through him as he swung his fist at her face. A draconic mirage wrapped around her body, holding her in place, as his attack closed in on her. There was no way she was dodging now! Even she wouldn't be able to take a punch powered with the entirety of his mana. It seemed he would win this despite the bad star–

  *Crack!*

  “Argh!”

  Pain shot through his arm, as his punch perfectly connected with her jaw. His punch had been perfect! Why was he the one in pain then, while she was completely unharmed?! His full-powered punch hadn’t even moved her head! What kind of power was this!

  “H-How?”

  The spell took its due, as weakness spread through his entire body, turning his legs to jelly. He fell backwards, almost hitting his head on a random stone. This was over. He had lost. At least he went out against a player and not against some NPC. Wait!

  “Why?” He croaked out. “Why do all this?”

  “That’s what I should ask you. Why did you do this? Why did you rape a defenceless girl, who wasn’t even 15 years old? Tell me.”

  He laughed, his throat dry. “What do you mean? I never raped any human.”

  She squatted down next to him, closing the distance between them.

  “Please stop lying. Her father told me himself, and he was under a truth oath, so he couldn’t have lied.”

  But that couldn’t be! He had never done anything like that! Wait father?

  “Don’t tell me this is all about some NPC.” His voice grew slightly hysterical. “You would kill another player over a goddamn NPC. What kind of psychopath are you?”

  “They are sentient now. That means forcing yourself upon them is rape. I cannot forgive something like that.”

  “They are just a program. You are actually willing to kill me for using a program as it was intended.”

  Her gaze grew cold. “You are just hiding behind excuses. I can see in your eyes, that you don’t mean it. The only reason you haven’t, as you so nicely put it, ‘used’ a player, is that the protection you have, wouldn’t apply then. I will not let someone like you grow to a level of power, where consequences don’t apply anymore. This is your end. You will die unknown, and the world will be all the better for it.”

  “C-Come on. You can also see that this is wrong! You are about to kill a human over something like this.” He took her hesitation as a sign his talk was working. “I-If you do this then you can’t go back. You will have killed an actual human, not just some NPCs. D-Don’t damn yourself like thi–”

  She stood up again, raising her sword. “N-No! P-Please! I promise I’ll change! I’ll never do anything like this again! Please!”

  Her sword was raised fully.

  “NO! I’ll do anything! Please! I will sign a blood contract! I will–”

  The world suddenly began spinning. Why did that body over there look familiar? Oh. it was his own…