The chubby and skinny youths acted as if they’d just received a pardon, nodding and bowing in a fluster before turning to make a quick escape.
Izell’s earlier words—“I knocked him out. He doesn’t have the strength to resist.”—couldn’t have been clearer in subtext: This has nothing to do with you. Hurry up and get lost, don’t get in the way of ‘me,’ the important one, handling business.
Silencing witnesses? That thought had never even crossed Izell’s mind.
Handling corpses, erasing traces—every step might leave behind new clues, like weaving more of his own threads into fate’s spiderweb, and sooner or later, someone would follow those threads straight to him.
He’d already triggered an S-rank nightmare just for being “too hands-on.” He absolutely couldn’t make things any more complicated or add even the slightest risk.
Letting these two troublemakers disappear on their own was the best outcome he could hope for.
The chubby one still seemed a bit dazed, rubbing the back of his head where it ached faintly. “Then… then we’ll head back and report to Lord, shall we?”
Izell let out an impatient “Mm” in a girlish voice and waved his hand, his manner completely composed.
But the skinny one was sharper. Before leaving, he couldn’t help but turn back and ask respectfully, “Sir, we’ve served the Westis Family for years but have never been fortunate enough to meet you two. We’re truly grateful for your assistance today! Might I ask… which knight order under the Lord do you belong to? Should fate allow us to meet again, we’d like to repay your kindness.”
Izell’s heart skipped a beat—he knew this was the final probe.
Maintaining an air of inscrutability, his tone was calm yet carried an undeniable authority. “We report directly to the Lord—not to any knight order.”
That answer instantly filled the chubby and skinny youths with awe.
Forces directly under the Lord’s command were usually even more powerful, entrusted with special missions, far beyond what mere hired hands like them could comprehend.
The chubby one tried to get chummy, licking his lips as he asked, “Then… may we ask, sirs, what are your codenames? It’d be good to report back properly—to let them know which lord showed us such favor.”
Codename? Izell’s lips twitched under the mask, but in a flash of inspiration, he blurted out, “I am Codename: Creation from Nothing.” Then he pointed at Luke, who had been pretending to be mute due to his voice, “He is Codename: Existence from Creation.”
“Creation from Nothing… Existence from Creation…” The chubby and skinny pair repeated the names quietly. Though they thought these codenames sounded a bit… unconventional, they dared not ask further. With faces full of piety and reverence, they saluted together, “So it’s Lord ‘Creation from Nothing’ and Lord ‘Existence from Creation’! Please forgive any offense we caused earlier!”
“No harm done.” Izell waved magnanimously. “This place isn’t safe. Leave quickly. I’ll handle what comes next.”
“Yes, thank you, sir!”
Watching the two scramble away down the alley, Izell finally let out a quiet breath. The first hurdle—bluffed through.
Elsewhere, the chubby and skinny pair didn’t relax until they were well away from Starlight Academy, their heartbeats finally slowing down.
The skinny one frowned, growing more uneasy the more he thought. “Hey, fatty, did you… get a weird feeling about any of that?”
Rubbing his still-numb hand, the chubby one answered blankly, “Weird? Those two are powerful, solved our trouble for us. Isn’t that good?”
“I can’t put my finger on it…” The skinny one scratched his head. “It’s just—the way those two acted, and their codenames… Something felt off.”
“You’re overthinking it!” the chubby one dismissed. “For little fish like us, getting to meet someone directly under the Lord is lucky enough. So what if they have quirks or weird codenames? Totally normal! Hurry up and report to Knight Captain York using the Magic Communication Stone!”
They activated their Magic Communication Stone.
Soon, a deep and authoritative man’s voice came from the other side—it was their direct superior, Knight Captain York.
“Is the mission done? Swann dealt with?” York’s voice carried a faint, hard-to-notice urgency.
“Reporting, Captain—we… found Swann.” The skinny one chose his words carefully.
“Oh?” York’s voice paused, sounding surprised. “Then you… weren’t hurt, were you?” He’d wanted to say “How are you even alive?” but forced himself to rephrase at the last second.
The chubby one didn’t catch the underlying meaning and quickly tried to take credit. “Captain, it’s all thanks to the two mysterious experts sent by Lord! If they hadn’t shown up in time, we would’ve been in deep trouble!”
“People sent by Lord?” York’s voice suddenly rose, a surge of foreboding filling his heart. “What do you mean? Tell me exactly what happened, from start to finish! Don’t leave out a single detail!”
The chubby and skinny pair, clueless, took turns recounting how they cornered Swann, the beating, Izell and Luke’s bizarre appearance, Izell catching sword aura barehanded, the sudden self-harm, then knocking Swann out, and finally, calling themselves “Creation from Nothing” and “Existence from Creation” before telling them to leave. They left nothing out.
“Codenames… Existence from Creation, Creation from Nothing…” York muttered to himself on the other end of the Magic Communication Stone. He felt a strange familiarity… and a sense of mockery.
“Yes, Captain!” the skinny one was still in awe. “We’ve served so many years and never knew Lord had such hidden experts! The way they concealed themselves, that powerful physique—”
“Enough! You two idiots! Are your brains made of mud?!” York’s roar exploded through the Magic Communication Stone, cutting off the skinny one’s flattery. “Creation from Nothing, Existence from Creation! You can’t even pick up on such an obvious hint?! They’re messing with you! Those two aren’t our people at all!”
“Creation from Nothing… Existence from Creation…” The skinny one repeated the words, lightning striking his mind. His face went pale—he finally realized where that sense of wrongness came from! They’d been played for fools!
The chubby one caught on a beat later, his mouth falling open, cold sweat pouring down.
York struggled to suppress the urge to strangle the two wastes. Taking a deep breath, he said icily, “Get back here—now! Don’t make this any more complicated! From your description, those two’s strength is unfathomable—not something you can handle.”
“Y-yes, Captain!” The two replied, voices trembling, quickly ending the call and fleeing.
On the other end, York’s face was dark as he stroked his chin, sinking into thought.
“To block a full-power strike from a Tier-3 martial artist barehanded, with no magic—either the body is trained to Tier-4 or higher, or they’re using extremely rare top-tier defensive artifacts.”
“To move near Starlight Academy and meddle in this… Their faction’s motives are unclear, but they must not be underestimated.”
“But why didn’t they kill witnesses? Are they afraid of leaving traces and sparking a bigger conflict? Or… is there another plot?”
York felt as if he were shrouded in fog, unable to discern which side this sudden “Creation from Nothing and Existence from Creation” duo truly belonged to.
“It seems the Raymond Family’s waters are even muddier than I imagined… I’ll need to reconsider everything.”
In the alley, Luke glanced at the still-unconscious Swann, then at Izell, who was staring at his own right hand as if weighing whether to carry out a “sever-your-arm-to-save-yourself” plan. Unable to hold back, he finally spoke up in that terrifying clamp-like voice: “Senior, what do we do now?”
Izell snapped out of his intense “staring fondly at his right hand” trance, glanced at the troublesome figure on the ground, and sighed with exhaustion in a sweet girlish voice: “We’ve just saved a guy with a Principal Template, enemies everywhere, mysterious background… Luke, do you think we’ll even live to see the sun tomorrow?”
Hearing this, Luke instinctively looked up at the night sky, now slowly covered by dark clouds, and said in surprise, “Senior, how did you know it’s going to rain tomorrow?”
Izell: “……” He felt as if a knife had been plunged into his chest.
Sometimes his teammate’s way of thinking was even more despair-inducing than an S-rank mission.
He honestly had no idea what to do with Swann now.
Bring him back? How would he explain things to Clea? Leave him here?
If someone killed him to silence witnesses, wouldn’t his rescue have been for nothing (not that he wouldn’t have preferred it)? Every step felt like walking a tightrope over knives, where a single wrong move would mean total disaster.
As Izell’s mind warred with itself, nearly clawing off his mask in anxiety, the system’s deathly monotone prompt sounded again:
[God-level Choice System at your service. Please make an appropriate selection as soon as possible.]
[Option 1: Bring Swann back to Starlight Academy, report to Principal Clea, and confess everything (including your impersonation). Difficulty: S. Completion reward: Principal Points +10]
[Option 2: Go all the way—take advantage of his unconsciousness and finish him off right here to eliminate any future trouble. Difficulty: S. Completion reward: Villain Points +10]
[Option 3: Before he wakes, use the teleportation array to quietly return him to his own dorm bed at Starlight Academy. Difficulty: C. Completion reward: NPC Points +10]
Looking at these three options, Izell’s face drained of blood beneath his mask.
Retribution! This was retribution!
Even the only seemingly safe “background character” option had been bumped from the usual E-rank all the way up to C-rank!
C-rank difficulty—the system had made it clear—meant “likely to require significant physical and mental effort, might even result in minor injuries, but not life-threatening.”
Truly, there was no way out!
Izell let out a desperate wail in his heart.
…..