The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat - Volume 6 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12 | The Assassin Infiltrates

I left the academy as soon as class ended. There was no unusual behavior from Naoise. He actually treated me as a normal friend, as though things were no different from how they were before the orc demon attack.

I left the school grounds, then disguised myself and took off into the skies using my aircraft. My current goal was to secure the Alam Karla. If I was caught, not even rank as a Holy Knight would prevent my entire family from being sentenced to death. It wouldn’t stop with my family, either; the entire Alvanian Kingdom would fall under threat from the church. That’s why I disguised myself.

I had to accept this mission, regardless of the danger, because I was toast if I didn’t. Our chances of overcoming this situation would improve dramatically if I could secure the Alam Karla before the enemy acted.

Jobs like this would be much easier if I had a body double. I’d become too famous. Circumstances had arisen that made that fame necessary, but I’d still become too accomplished and garnered more attention than I would’ve liked. That made it challenging to perform my job. Given this, I felt a strong need for another self.

If I’d had a body double today, I could have sent him to class in my place, enabling me to depart last night.

Unfortunately, finding a suitable person has been difficult.

I could use makeup to change his appearance, but his natural facial features and his body build had to be close enough to mine.

The biggest obstacle was that the person needed to be a mage. Unless they were intentionally hiding it, mages always leaked mana. I couldn’t expect anyone to have my mana capacity, but if my body double didn’t possess a certain amount of magical power, people would realize something was off. To make matters worse, almost all mages were nobles, and not many would be willing to serve as my double.

Ideally, I would’ve liked a person talented enough to participate convincingly in Class S, but I gave up on that immediately.

“I’ll have to make something work.”

Depending on how things developed from here, things might be hopeless without a replacement for myself.

I traveled a great distance with my aircraft and arrived in the Holy Land, where the Alam Karla lived. The name of the land was Fomoire. It was simultaneously a small city and a country, making it the tiniest nation in the world. The royal capital had a Sanctuary located underneath it, but this entire city was considered sacred.

Nearly all towns had walls to keep out monsters, but not this one. Instead, it had a barrier of an absurd scale that covered the entire settlement. Its scale and strength were beyond what any human could manage and had been created by the power of the gods. The barrier was said to eliminate all impurity and was supposedly harmless to humans but lethal to monsters.

“…There’s more to it than that.” I observed the divine barrier from a distance and quickly deduced the formula using my Tuatha Dé eyes.

Dia and I had spent over a decade analyzing the rules of magic, and I understood most of the code used to write formulas. Despite that, I could only read about 60 percent of the barrier’s formula. The magic we understood was a power the gods had simplified for human use. This was a spell used by the gods themselves. The peculiar code was on a whole other level of complexity.

I didn’t shy away from the challenge, though. A divine barrier… This is good study. I’d like to show this to Dia. Taking the parts of the magical equation I could comprehend, I formed a number of hypotheses, chose the one with the highest level of consistency, and began making some guesses.

“I get the gist of it… That’s no simple barrier. It’s an information management system. It looks like there’s a hole, though.”

The barrier managed information. I was surprised to see that it scanned mana wavelengths and identified individuals. Its manager could track every person who entered or exited the city.

I would be able to pass through because it was specialized to keep out monsters, but the barrier’s manager would know that someone entered without permission. They wouldn’t know it was me, but it would still put them on guard. I’d never been to this city, so there was no way they could know my mana wavelength. I wouldn’t be identified.

That said, I feared that the hierarch would assume that any unidentified intruder was me. If the hierarch were indeed a demon, it’d be on the lookout for me because I’d killed three of its kind. Most people wouldn’t do something as reckless as sneak into the Holy Land, which would lead the demon to assume I was the intruder.

I considered the option of destroying the barrier. Modifying it would be impossible, because I only understood 60 percent of the formula, but I thought I could meddle with the code and break it. Doing so would require me to use the third arm divine treasure I’d brought along. It was very effective as a weapon, but its true value was its nature as the hand of a god—it allowed me to touch things human hands couldn’t.

I can destroy it. But that would be a bad move. If I was worried about putting the hierarch on guard just by passing through the barrier without permission, it made no sense to do something as brash as eliminating the barrier. I rejected the idea.

I only had one real option. “I’ll throw myself over the barrier.” The field surrounded the city and extended about ten kilometers above and below the ground. It wasn’t a dome but a high wall. The top was undefended.

The assumption was likely that would-be intruders with wings would never ascend to the ridiculous height of ten kilometers above the earth. An elite mage using wind magic couldn’t reach that high.

Even for me, it was impossible to fly over the barrier with wind and physical strengthening. Fortunately, I had a third option.

I started by surrounding myself with wind. It wasn’t for flying but for protection. As for my method of going up…

“God Spear, Gungnir!”

The deadly spell I’d created fired objects to a high altitude by reversing gravity around them. I’d originally designed this magic as a physics-based weapon of mass destruction. I could also use it to send enemies themselves flying into the air.

If I used the spell on myself, however, I could fly with great efficiency. I couldn’t afford a moment of carelessness, though. I was flinging myself into the sky to fall back down, and my speed was going to increase by 9.8 meters per second. That tremendously fast rate would place a massive burden on my body, and maintaining control of my magic while moving that swiftly would be challenging. If I lost consciousness during the spell, I would fall to the ground and die on impact.

I couldn’t believe merely entering the city undetected demanded this much effort. I had to laugh as I completed the spell.

My face stiffened as I began to accelerate. My speed grew exponentially as I rose into the sky to eventually fall.

I ended the spell according to my calculations, but I continued to rise. I used kinetic energy to decelerate as I climbed higher and higher into the sky. When I crossed over the Holy Land’s barrier completely, I used the rest of my kinetic energy to bring myself to a full stop, then allowed gravity to drag me down.

The air was thin and cold. Air pressure and temperature dropped at high altitudes, and oxygen became scarce. Furthermore, the more sudden the shift in pressure and temperature, the greater the burden on the body.

Even Mount Everest was only eight kilometers tall. When you considered how many people had collapsed from declining air pressure while climbing that peak, hurtling your body ten kilometers into the sky at high speed could only be judged suicidal. Had I not covered myself with wind magic for protection, I would’ve perished.

I gathered wind via a spell and used it to thrust myself directly above the Holy Land. Then I used that same magic to reverse thrust and prevent myself from descending too quickly. Once I reached a low enough elevation, I discarded the spell to protect myself and replaced it with one that created a thin layer of air that refracted light. This was a special ability of mine to make myself invisible.

I strengthened my reverse thrusting as I approached the ground and brought myself to a near halt. By using my entire body to absorb the impact, I landed safely and as quietly as possible. I immediately rushed into a back alley, and after confirming there was no one around, I dispelled my invisibility.

I had infiltrated the city undetected.

“The first phase is clear. On to the main mission.” I stared at the cathedral located in the center of the Holy Land. That was where the Alam Karla waited.

I’d looked into her schedule beforehand. What I heard from my intelligence network was consistent with what Nevan told me, so my information was very reliable.

One hour from now, the Alam Karla would perform her weekly purification ritual in the cathedral’s bathhouse. The holy water of the bath enhanced her power as the oracle. No one accompanied her into the bathhouse—not one guard or attendant. She was practically begging someone to kidnap her.

If I missed this opportunity, there was no guarantee I’d find her alone again. That was why I couldn’t afford to alert the demon to my presence. If it upped security, any hope of finding the Alam Karla alone would vanish.

I blended into the city and slipped into a crowd headed for the cathedral. I was an assassin, not a kidnapper, but I wasn’t going to get upset that this mission demanded I operate a little differently. Being an assassin demanded versatility.