Chapter 2 :- The Assassin
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Someone knocked at the door.
*"Are you awake, Laz?"*
I froze at the sudden voice, my heart lurching hard in my chest. It took me a second to place why it startled me so badly — the voice was clearly a woman’s, soft but edged with something sharp underneath, the kind of voice that sounded like it rarely asked permission for anything.
*Maybe it’s her.*
*"Y-yes,"* I managed to say, my voice cracking halfway through the word. My throat still felt raw, like I hadn’t used it in days.
The door opened, and I was right. A woman stepped inside, and I recognized her instantly — dark hair, partially visible beneath the hood of a dark robe, exactly how I’d described her in the novel, down to the way the fabric seemed to swallow her outline rather than fit it. Sabine Vayle. Lazarus’s friend.
Her steps made almost no sound as she crossed the room, not even a whisper against the stone floor. Her presence was so faint it was hard to notice at all, which fit the title I’d given her without a second thought back when I was typing at two in the morning: the Assassin.
As she got closer, a notification flickered in front of my eyes, pale blue letters hanging in the air like they belonged there.
*"Show character summary?"*
I blinked at it, confusion cutting through the tension already sitting in my chest. *I only gave this system to the protagonist. To Dran. No one else was supposed to have it — least of all me.* I’d written the rules myself, or thought I had. Apparently my own memory of my own story was already cracking at the seams.
With that thought circling in my head, I selected it anyway.
*Character Summary*
*Name — Sabine Vayle*
*Age — 23*
*Exclusive Skills — Presence Concealment*
*Rank — E+*
*Stats — Strength: E | Speed: C+ | Tenacity: D | Mana: D | Will Power: C*
I stared at the numbers, and something in my chest tightened.
*With these stats, how was she supposed to win against Dran?* At this rank, she wouldn’t have stood a chance, not even close. If I was being honest with myself, whatever decision she’d made to face him in the first place had been borderline reckless. Whatever she’d actually done, it had almost certainly been the reason this body was still breathing at all. What had she been thinking, throwing her life away like that over someone like Lazarus?
*"Why are you looking at me like that?"* Sabine asked, then, before I could even answer, pressed further, her voice tightening. *"Why did you do that? After everything I did to try to save your life from that bastard?"*
*"That’s my decision to make,"* I said. *"And what made you think you could win against him by doing what you did? Your life would’ve been wasted for nothing."*
*"I never intended to win,"* she said quietly, her eyes dropping for just a moment. *"I just wanted to buy you enough time to escape."*
*"I know that already. But did you really think I’d run and leave you—"*
The rest of the sentence never made it out.
Her lips found mine before I even registered her moving, and my heartbeat spiked so hard I was sure she could hear it from where she stood. A moment later, I felt something warm land on my cheek — her tears, falling silently as she pulled back just enough to look at me, her eyes still glassy.
She sat down beside me on the edge of the bed, close enough that I could still feel the last traces of urgency in her breathing, her shoulder brushing mine.
*"At least let me save you, just once,"* she said, voice unsteady. *"But you had to go and reverse it, and save me instead. I still don’t know what to feel, knowing that even in a moment like that, I ended up relying on you again."*
*"You don’t have to do something like that for me,"* I said, choosing the words carefully, the way I imagined the real Lazarus would. *"You’ve already given more than enough. And you know that — you’re the only one who can act this casual around me. Everyone else looks at me and sees a psychopath. That’s exactly what I’ve always wanted them to see."*
*Inner thoughts: Well, this isn’t half bad. Playing along with a character I wrote myself is easier than I expected. Almost feels natural, which is a little concerning on its own. But I should stop stalling and get to what actually matters.*
*"By the way, Sabine, I have a favor to ask you."*
*"What is it? Tell me, and I’ll handle it."* No hesitation in her voice at all, like the question had been unnecessary to begin with.
*"So, it’s like this..."*
I laid it out for her — where to go, what to retrieve, and why it needed to be her specifically, none of the servants or guards could be trusted with something like this. By the time I finished explaining, she was already moving toward the door, absorbing every detail without a single wasted question.
She slipped out as quickly as she’d come, without leaving a trace behind. Truly an assassin down to the bone, in every sense of the word.
The task itself was simple on paper. I needed her to retrieve something from a specific location, and given her skill set, there was no one better suited for the job in this entire household, maybe not in the entire city.
What I hadn’t told her outright was that the item she was fetching was, in the most literal sense, a plot hole.
Back when I was writing the fight between Dran and Lazarus, I’d needed Dran to survive despite being gravely injured, but I hadn’t bothered giving him access to a proper healer at the time. Instead of fixing the pacing or planning ahead like a competent writer might have, I’d taken the laziest route available to me at two in the morning, half-asleep with a deadline breathing down my neck — I sent him off to a nearby ancient temple, where a conveniently placed monk handed him a healing potion strong enough to patch him back together in record time, no explanation needed, no cost attached.
At the time, I hadn’t thought twice about it. It was just words on a page, filling space until the next fight scene. Now, lying in a bed I didn’t own in a body that wasn’t mine, I could admit it out loud, at least to myself.
*That has to be one of the dumbest things a writer has ever put to paper.*
But dumb or not, it was mine, and if the plot hole was still sitting there unclaimed, it was mine to exploit before anyone else even thought to look.
As I lay back against the pillow, my thoughts started to drift, tangled and half-formed, the way they always did when my body was exhausted but my mind refused to slow down for anyone.
I thought about my old life. No real goals, no real direction, just Chapters uploaded into the void and a job history full of quiet, humiliating rejection. And now here I was, in a second life, without a clear goal here either, except, maybe, to actually live it properly this time. To enjoy whatever time I had left, instead of just enduring it the way I had before, watching the days blur into each other with nothing to show for them.
*Yeah. Real corny, overthinking nonsense. The kind of internal monologue I would’ve deleted from my own draft for being too on the nose.*
Still, one thing was clear enough, cutting through all the noise. Whatever else happened, I needed to grow stronger, faster, and smarter than that bastard Dran, or none of the rest of it would matter, no matter how much self-reflection I did lying flat on my back.
Outside, the light had faded completely. Night had fully settled over Meran City by the time my eyelids finally grew too heavy to fight, the rain from earlier long since stopped.
I drifted off still turning it all over in my head, one thought looping quietly beneath the rest, quiet and insistent.
*No. This isn’t how I want to die. No...*
I woke up gasping, my chest heaving, sweat soaking through the sheets beneath me, the sheets twisted around my legs like I’d been fighting something in my sleep.
Someone was already standing beside the bed.
*"What, did you have a nightmare or something? You look like absolute shit."*
*"Probably,"* I muttered, still trying to catch my breath, my heart hammering against my ribs.
*What was that? I don’t remember writing a scene like that. Maybe it wasn’t even my memory to begin with.* My head throbbed with a sudden, sharp ache, like something was pressing against the inside of my skull from behind my eyes. *Great. Just what I needed on top of everything else.*
I pushed the thought aside and looked up properly.
*"By the way, you’re back later than I expected. I thought you’d be here sooner. More importantly — did you get what I asked for?"*
*"Yes,"* she said.