[A blood-soaked antihero who lives by the blade × a den of irredeemable villains]
[No System / criminals preying on criminals / ruthless and decisive]
When I slit my employer’s throat, the magical tracker in his eyes was still flashing.
“Seventh test,” I said, driving my bloodstained dagger into the tavern’s oak table. “Tell the Holy Church to send someone to follow me again, and, ”
A flash of steel. Three crossbow bolts whizzed past my ear and buried themselves in the bar. The tavern keeper’s hand trembled around a scroll of holy light.
“You’ll have to pay extra.”
My name is Colin Black, the most expensive hyena in Grayport City.
Three ironclad rules when taking a job: don’t save children, don’t touch holy relics, and don’t make promises.
Then one day, a drunken dwarf slapped a dragon-scale compass down on my bloodied bandages.
My blood made the compass split open, revealing a golden, slit-pupil eye.
“Damn it!” I kicked over the alchemy table as fine golden patterns burned in my pupils.
I transmigrated ten years ago and never got a System. And now you’re telling me I’m awakening as a dragonborn?
And it gets worse:
The Emerald Council wants to strangle the “mercenary who stole a holy relic” with thorns;
The Silvermoon Knights hold a sword to the reverse scales of my orc brother, demanding to know where the compass is;
Even the half-elf mistress I spent last night entwined with carved an elven-court tracking spell into the back of my neck.
The throwing axe at my waist trembles, and the poison-dart pouch leaks an eerie glow.
I licked the traces of magic crystal from my dagger and looked around at the roomful of “allies”:
The paladin’s scabbard hides the blood of his own people, the dwarf’s hammer is wrapped in cursed chains, and even the shadows in the corner are writhing.
“Everyone,” I said, crushing the last grain of quartz from Blue Star inside my pocket watch,
“are you ready to die with me?”
