Kirito sprinted quickly past deserted paths, heading straight for the dense forest outside the capital to create a fake crime scene to conceal his tracks. When he reached a safe, secluded corner, he stopped, taking a deep breath to regulate his breathing and regain his calmness.
Without a moment of hesitation or doubt, Kirito drew a sharp kunai from behind his back, decisively stabbing straight into his own abdominal area. A piercing, bone-chilling pain shot straight up to his brain, forcing him to bite his teeth down so hard they bled to suppress his cries of agony.
He yanked the kunai out, and warm, fresh blood from the wound immediately welled up at the corners of his mouth. The pitch-black attire was soaked through with the stench of blood, creating a tattered and wretched appearance as though he had just survived a brutal, life-or-death battle. Kirito quickly tore a strip of fabric from his garment hem, wrapping it tightly around his abdomen to stem the bleeding temporarily.
Afterward, enduring the pain, he moved back to his discreet living quarters located deep inside the mansion under the administration of Hian’s castle lord.
As soon as he returned to his room, Kirito immediately grabbed a bottle of antiseptic and specialized healing powder, pouring them straight onto the open wound. The excruciating, searing pain erupted instantly, causing the muscles on his face to knot tightly and his forehead to break out in a cold sweat. Yet, with the hardened grit of an assassin, he gritted his teeth and endured to the very end, absolutely refusing to let out even a tiny groan.
Completing the first-aid, Kirito used another clean white cloth to wrap multiple rounds around the wound to secure it.
"This should be fine..." Kirito let out a heavy breath, muttering in exhaustion.
He raised his gaze to look out the window; by now, the night sky was gradually fading, and the brilliant red glow of dawn was beginning to peek over the distant horizon. Kirito dragged his heavy body onto the bed to rest, but because the nagging pain from the self-inflicted wound kept torturing him, it took him a long time before he could drift sluggishly into a deep sleep.
When he woke up again, the surrounding space was cloaked in total darkness—he had slept straight through from morning until deep into the night.
Moving his body still felt slightly sore and somewhat difficult. Kirito sat at the desk, enduring the pain to write a short letter to his old master, in which he fabricated details of being cornered and sustaining heavy injuries during his mission to deceive the other party. Finishing everything, Kirito did not forget to mutter curses at himself:
"Damn it, I went a bit too overboard earlier, stabbing myself too deep so now it hurts like hell..."
Right at that moment, Kirito heard the sound of flapping wings outside the roof. He stepped out to check and saw a pigeon waiting perched, carrying a letter tied to its leg sent from Hian’s castle lord. Kirito unfastened the letter to read, the content carrying a tone of teasing surprise: "Surely you didn’t end up losing your life in the capital last night, did you?"
Kirito let out a faint sigh, slipped his black garments back on, and quietly walked over to the castle lord’s mansion.
As usual, he didn’t use the main path, instead gracefully leaping up onto the high wooden beam atop the roof, relaxing his body as he sat down and called out in a cold voice:
"Did you call me here for something important?"
Hian’s castle lord, who was sitting pensively reading a book under the desk lamp, started violently and snapped his head up. Catching sight of Kirito’s familiar figure, he exclaimed in surprise:
"Oh! You actually made it back alive?"
Kirito agilely dropped down to the floor, pulled up a chair to sit opposite, and pulled back one side of his garment, exposing the white fabric stained with dried blood and carefully bandaged wounds:
"It was practically a trip coming back from the gates of death."
The castle lord set his book down on the table, his gaze full of curiosity:
"How on earth did everything in the capital turn out? Hurry up and give me a detailed account."
Kirito nodded, recounting most of what he saw and heard to the castle lord, though he was smart enough to proactively conceal and keep the ambiguous secrets regarding his encounter with Empress Mika entirely to himself.
Hearing this, Hian’s castle lord sighed pensively, shaking his head in weariness:
"It seems that young empress is not as simple and weak as people think. Things are getting increasingly troublesome and complicated now."
Kirito casually inquired about the external war situation: "So what is the current state of the war between the factions?"
The castle lord continued shaking his head: "Still deadlocked as before. The Northern Steppe holds far too crucial a strategic position for us, but General Akaza’s Kini Castle is defended far too securely, making it extremely difficult to capture."
"Even our great clan leader Orochi hasn’t found an optimal solution yet. Though he has dispatched quite a few elite assassins to infiltrate and assassinate previously, all met with disastrous failure."
The castle lord glanced at Kirito, letting out a helpless laugh: "Why bother stressing yourself out over this? Our Hian Castle sits in a highly perilous location, making direct attacks very difficult; we can just leisurely stand outside the conflict and watch."
After finishing his exchange with Hian’s castle lord, Kirito quietly took his leave and returned to his room. He sat in deep contemplation regarding his next moves in this perilous political chessboard. He understood clearly that he needed to grasp all current intelligence to support Empress Mika in turning the tables and reclaiming supreme power for the country. Yet, if he kept probing too deeply, the shrewd castle lord of Hian would surely grow suspicious.
Furthermore, that goal implied a massive and bloody mission: uprooting and completely destroying all five warlord factions currently carving out empires out there.
Kirito sprawled out on the wooden bed, crossing his arms over his forehead, his pensive gaze fixed on the pitch-black ceiling.
"If I calculate carefully, perhaps the first move I should make is to find a way to destroy General Orochi’s faction first—the very faction and organization I am currently legitimately serving," Kirito analyzed silently in his head, "however, the biggest obstacle right now is that eccentric old master who remains within that system."
Though harboring modern blood and absolute confidence in his personal abilities without trembling before any master, including the old master, Kirito still admitted that single-handedly fighting an entire massive system to hoist a fallen empress onto the throne was an immensely arduous challenge.
"Everything is such a pain..." Kirito sighed in exasperation, closing his eyes to let dark calculations continue spinning in his mind.