Frostspine Wasteland, midnight, thick fog everywhere.
A rust-mottled steam-powered troop transport crept forward under cover of the fog and darkness, its steel treads churning up deep furrows in the frozen ground.
In the last car, more than twenty men dressed as bandits were crowded together. The air was thick with the mingled stink of sweat and tobacco.
"An... an S-rank mission?!"
"No way... how did we end up on a mission this high-level?"
"Captain Tiger, are you sure there's no mistake? This time we're infiltrating 'Steelburn Fort' to assassinate an Imperial baron?"
"I heard the lord of Steelburn Fort, Marquis Barrett, has awakened the fourth stage of his Gene Lock — he's a Great Demon Hunter! Nobody dares cause trouble in his territory..."
"Right, Captain. And that target, Dr. Morin, might only be a baron, but he's still officially titled nobility by the Empire. Kill him, and the Imperial Tribunal will get involved directly... won't that bring trouble down on the Weasel Bandit Gang?"
"..."
In the car, the trainee assassins of the Weasel Bandit Gang never imagined that their very first mission would be the most dangerous S-rank task in the whole gang!
Word was that the mortality rate for transcendents on this kind of mission was extremely high — let alone for rookies who hadn't even awakened yet.
Hearing this, a fair-featured, brown-haired youth in the corner twitched an eyelid slightly.
Sure enough. Ever since he'd crossed over, his luck had been consistently terrible.
...
Among the legions of souls who cross between worlds, there are always "Chosen Ones of Fate" — and there are always the unlucky ones. Ryan figured he belonged to the latter.
A year ago, after half a month straight of working overtime until dawn, he'd woken up in this unfamiliar world, his soul transplanted into the body of a fifteen-year-old refugee boy named Ryan Hermes.
He'd thought this meant his luck had finally turned, that he'd escaped his fate as a corporate slave for good. But he never imagined that on his very first day in this misty world, he'd nearly been killed by a "giant rabbit" with a mouth full of dog-like fangs!
He later learned this was one of the wasteland's bottom-of-the-food-chain creatures — a "hound-hare," an omnivorous rabbit that ate both plants and flesh.
Only then did he understand: he'd landed in a savage, magical world.
Then, just before the rabbit could finish him off, he witnessed a sight he would never forget for the rest of his life.
Amid a deafening roar, a steel fortress with exaggerated metal treads and wheels, driven by steam engines, burst crudely into view out of the fog like some kind of monster.
Atop the fortress, a hooded assassin leapt down from a watchtower more than ten stories high, and in a single stroke slit the throat of that calf-sized monstrous rabbit.
Ryan was saved.
He'd thought his fortunes were finally turning around. He never expected it was only the beginning of a nightmare.
This "Weasel Bandit Gang," utterly vile and merciless, was nothing but a den of thieves who stopped at nothing.
They gathered orphans from all over, controlled them with poison, and molded them into cold-blooded professional thieves and assassins...
And so, Ryan spent nearly a full year undergoing brutal training at the Weasel Bandit Gang's base, becoming a Trainee Assassin.
Today was his first time leaving the training base to carry out a mission.
Well... an extermination mission.
...
Tiger, captain of the 19th squad and training instructor for the new recruits, bellowed: "Hey, hey, hey — you brats, quiet down!"
This mission's rank had reached the highest S-level, which had genuinely exceeded everyone's expectations.
The trainee assassins in the car were gradually falling into a state of terror.
Tiger scrunched up his mouth and added, "Don't worry, this mission's got some risk, sure, but Boss Quinn is joining us personally — nothing's gonna go wrong. You little brats just tag along and rack up some merit points."
Hearing the instructor's words, the rookies were overjoyed and finally let out a breath of relief.
"Oh, really... Boss Quinn is joining this mission too?"
"Then there's definitely nothing to worry about. With someone as powerful as the boss around, no mission could possibly go wrong."
"That's what I'm saying — there's no way they'd let us newbies in on something this important..."
"..."
Listening to this, Ryan's furrowed brow relaxed slightly.
At last, the cloud of "bad luck" hanging over his heart dispersed, and he no longer felt like he was riding a train toward death.
The Ormar Empire's royal family had put a bounty of sixteen million liras on the head of the wanted criminal known as "One-Eyed Wolf" Quinn — a man whose strength was genuinely absurd, and whose presence gave people a real sense of security. Ryan had seen with his own eyes that man leap off a cliff hundreds of meters high and walk away unscathed, and effortlessly pierce steel plate with nothing but a dagger...
At that point, one of the rookies asked curiously, "Captain Tiger, what's so special about this Baron Morin anyway, that the client would pay such a huge sum to have us infiltrate Steelburn Fort and wipe out his whole household?"
It wasn't just the others — this was the very question weighing on Ryan's mind too.
This mission was genuinely unusual.
By all rights, a bandit gang like theirs, which hunted out on the wasteland, would never dare risk infiltrating a major territory to assassinate a noble.
Not to mention the difficulty of the mission itself — even if they succeeded, they'd face endless pursuit from the Ormar Imperial royal family.
Even a client willing to pay an exorbitant price for such a contract — any bandit gang with sense wouldn't dare take it.
And yet this time, Boss Quinn had not only accepted the job, but was personally taking part — which made it all the more abnormal.
Ryan guessed that this "Baron Morin" must be hiding some enormous secret, one significant enough to make even Quinn take such a risk...
"Who knows? I heard he's some rich surgeon..."
Tiger answered offhandedly, as though it made no difference to him who they killed.
He shrugged and added, "Besides, what difference does it make to us whether it's a vendetta or a money grab? Either way, we're just getting paid to do a job, right?"
"Oh, true enough..."
"Shh — quiet down. Put on your gas masks, get ready to disembark!"
"Yes, Captain."
"..."
As soon as the words were spoken, not another sound was heard in the car.
The group of lightly-armored assassins straightened the daggers and pistols tucked into their leather holsters, then swiftly donned an assortment of gas masks to cover their faces.
In the corner, Ryan expressionlessly put on his own gas mask — a sharp-beaked, crow-shaped mask made of black leather.
In an instant, these young men in their deep, dark-themed gas masks transformed into so many cold killing machines, and the car filled with an air of grim, murderous intent.
...
Before long, the centipede-like steam troop transport arrived at the designated location.
"Everyone out, sneak up to the walls. Remember — no one in the Morin estate survives, not a single one!"
"Yes, Boss Quinn!"
"..."
Tonight there was a "fog tide" — thick mist blanketing everything, visibility extremely low.
The group slipped silently through the darkness.
Ryan had long since grown used to this faintly toxic mist.
This was, after all, a mysterious world perpetually shrouded in dense fog, where danger and the unknown lurked at every turn.
After walking a fair distance through the fog, the massive city, previously hidden by the mist, suddenly came into clear view.
And once again, he found himself stunned by this world's architecture.
"This... this is what a human city looks like in this world?!"
Though he'd heard of it before, Ryan was still shaken to his core, gazing at the steel fortress before him.
"What an absurd steel miracle — a city this massive, running entirely on steam power..."
Even someone from his past life, who'd seen countless skyscrapers, was thoroughly stunned by the sight before him.
Nearly a year since crossing into this strange world, and this was the first time he'd seen a large-scale human settlement.
Steelburn Fort blazed with lights; enormous searchlights cut through the thick fog, revealing the full, monstrous outline of this steel behemoth baring its teeth and claws.
The city was massive — roughly the size of a county town from Ryan's past life, but far more densely built. Gothic spires rose in jagged, crowded rows, and city walls a full thirty stories high enclosed the entire settlement. Towering buildings rose within, connected by spiderwebs of bridges and pipes...
Giant hammer-arms, siege rams, metal cutting machines dozens of meters across... and cannons of massive caliber, ranging from a few meters to dozens of meters long, stood out sharply.
Dense rivets bound together heavy steel plates, and enormous, exaggerated treads and wheels bore the weight of the entire colossal city.
Strangest of all — atop the buildings within that black city rose chimney after chimney, towering into the clouds, billowing thick smoke.
This was the mark of massive steam boilers!
The entire colossal city radiated an intense industrial ruggedness, like some giant steel hedgehog, striking a powerful visual impact.
This was a steam-powered steel fortress — a true mobile war bastion.
This steel bulwark was also humanity's greatest bulwark for surviving and multiplying on this wasteland teeming with savage beasts and monsters.