You can listen to the whole novel on my channel: https://shorturl.at/KPrKZ
"Danger Intuition does have its uses. At least I avoided being soaked from head to foot." Below the knees in the water, Ryan had to admit his opinion of the ability had shifted.
The gap between the warning and the actual danger was short — but for an Assassin's reaction time, there was still room to act.
He'd managed to twist around and, the moment Featherfall cut out, drive the thick branch into the riverbank — and that was owed entirely to the premonition.
"Full-Force Strike is also a bit unreasonable, honestly."
Both hands still gripping the branch as it held him above the waterline, he found himself staring at the portion buried halfway into the bank and shaking his head.
No time to think in the moment — he'd instinctively activated Full-Force Strike as he drove the branch down. That was why it had sunk so deep. He'd known Full-Force Strike didn't simply add force to his hands directly, but feeling a weapon pull his hands forward was still a thoroughly strange sensation.
"Enough to make me afraid of throwing a Full-Force Strike punch." Just imagining what that would feel like to his own hands made them ache preemptively.
The slope was gentle, and his physical conditioning was well past ordinary — so hauling himself out of the river left him only slightly winded.
More dramatic than dangerous. Even without the premonition, the worst outcome would have been getting wet from the chest down, which would've meant abandoning the plan, going back to change into dry clothes, and starting over. Not meaningfully different from the current situation.
And the Assassin potion focused primarily on agility, but that didn't mean everything else was untouched. Case in point: the branch that held his full weight had been snapped off by hand. Full-Force Strike helped, yes, and his back and shoulders were still complaining — but it was still bare-handed. Technically.
He wrung out his trouser cuffs and shoes as best he could and didn't linger on it — he'd have to change anyway.
After stowing everything safely, he set off jogging to warm his feet, keeping an eye out for animals along the way. He wanted to test whether Shadow Concealment suppressed scent.
The docks and slums had nothing — not even stray dogs. And he wasn't about to use his abilities in the other two districts. That left outside the city.
Moen wasn't isolated in most ways, sitting near the Tasok River, but it had no close neighboring cities. The climate and terrain around it weren't particularly developed. Past the outskirts, the wild wasn't far.
With an Assassin's senses, finding wildlife even in this weather wasn't difficult.
"Something to do while waiting for the boat." He thought about it pleasantly.
There were no ticketed departures to wait for — why buy a ticket when you could simply board without one? It saved money and left no record.
Meanwhile, in a quiet, understated detached villa in Moen's northwest district, a strikingly beautiful woman stood before a mirror.
She'd only just dressed and hadn't yet done her hair or applied any cosmetics — and yet the face reflected back was enough to make anyone stop.
She reached for her brush, then set it down again. Her pale, flawless hand passed slowly across the surface of the mirror instead.
The reflection blurred. The glass took on a dim luminescence, as if it had become a window into somewhere else entirely.
In a moment or two, she saw the blur beginning to clear — and turned the mirror to face another direction.
"Beautiful lady — there has been a development in what you asked me to watch." A male voice emerged from the glass, slightly urgent.
"Speak." Her voice was soft, but utterly without readable emotion.
"One of the men who handled the goods was arrested by Nighthawks last night. And a gang involved in the exchange had the payment we made stolen — no trace left by whoever took it." A pause, and then the man's voice returned with a note of practiced flattery.
The woman said nothing more. She passed her hand across the glass again and turned it back to face her.
The mirror was ordinary once more.
She continued her preparations at an unhurried pace, murmuring two words almost inaudibly:
"The night before last… last night…"
She looked at herself in the mirror and broke into a sudden, radiant smile.
By the Tasok River, Ryan — having just confirmed he could not catch a rabbit with his bare hands — watched a wooden steam-powered cargo vessel moving downstream and broke into a smile of his own. A genuine one.
The riverbank here was dense with trees growing close to the water. Even in daylight, an Assassin's abilities were perfectly usable.
The deck of the cargo vessel was occupied by a fair number of people, but he had no intention of boarding the deck. He only needed to hold on to the side of the hull — a passenger on the outside.
The vessel continued downstream. No one noticed it had acquired an extra traveler. If the ship itself could have noticed, it probably would have assumed it had grazed a leaf drifting by.
"Let's hope I don't get seasick." He held the thought with mild concern.
Using this method — hanging on to vessels, releasing ahead of each city, then picking up the next one — Ryan arrived on the last ship of the evening at Avignon City, located in the southern part of Ahowa County.
Unlike Moen, which could only communicate with other cities by river, Avignon had been incorporated into Ruen Kingdom's rail network, with convenient transport links in all directions. If you needed to, an hour was enough to reach the famous university city of Tingen. Another four hours beyond that, and you could see the capital Beklund itself — "the city of cities," "the land of hope," as people called it.
If you were traveling through Ruen from the far north of Coldwinter County along the Tasok River, Avignon City would be where the kingdom's prosperity first made a genuine impression on you.
The reason he'd spent an entire day traveling here, beyond the convenient transport links and more developed economy that made any purchase easier than in Moen, was a gathering the big idiot had known about — a meeting of Extraordinaries.
Unlike the Kevin bar's underground market — which was more accurately described as an occult hobbyist's flea market — gatherings like this were attended mostly by unaffiliated, self-taught Extraordinaries. The Assassin potion's first primary ingredient — the black feathers of the Cockatrice — was something the big idiot had obtained at exactly this kind of event.
"But first — food. And it's time to do something about how I look." He pressed a hand to his flat stomach.
Worried he might not make it to Avignon in a single day, he'd pushed through on the most economical option available — four rye loaves for the whole journey, even with a hundred pounds in his pocket. Just thinking about that texture, he wanted something decent to eat. But in his current state, no restaurant would let him through the door. Tonight, he'd have to make do.
"Tomorrow — once I've sorted myself out — something good to eat. Definitely." He made the promise quietly to himself.