Vanguard of the Eternal Night

Chapter Ch151 - Still Playing

translator: xiin

editor: kara

Victor was still a little dazed as he held onto the invitation and went through the entrance towards the banquet hall.

He had turned back several times with every step, yet as a result, by the second time he had looked back, he couldn’t find his old antique anymore at all!

Victor: “......” Assassins were amazing!

Victor went to attend the party alone. It was a semi-open banquet with a fireworks show, and the venue consisted mainly of a half-open garden square with part of a small castle that had an open front hall. Visitors were allowed to walk, talk, dance, eat, and drink in a wide area.

Little ‘rural’ Victor grew dizzy as soon as he had entered. He felt like a dragonfly who’d just flown into a nightclub. Although there wasn’t any serious light pollution like there would be in ‘modern times’, it was still a scene of decadence and revelry.

There was a row of candlelight along the rails, roast chicken on the buffet table, a band playing against the wall, and faint whispers after every round of fireworks. There were ladies gathered in evening gowns, sparkling jewelry, and men talking with the scent of cologne around them.

Victor watched for a while but soon lost interest.

It was very strange. When he was around Tyron, he always would want to explore and play in these medieval types of projects. After Tyron had been gone for a while though, Victor would lose any interest he had, and his mind would instead be full of thoughts: Where was his old antique? He wasn’t getting bullied, was he?

With this in mind, Victor started to want to go out and look for Tyron again.

Then, he found that he didn’t have to look for him. Unbeknownst to him, the bard, Mr. Tyron had crept in at some point. He drew everyone’s attention, and the ladies were all over him.

Victor: “......”

Tyron was leaning against a corner of a wall. There was a mask on his face, the common half-face mask that bards wore. He held up the lute in his arms and casually plucked out a tune.

There didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about such a passive, idle bard, but he had somehow attracted the eyes of countless noblewomen––mainly due to his temperament.

Temperament was something that made some people look like emperors when they wore crowns, hermits when they wore hemp suits, or a wandering Adonis when they wore a wide-brimmed hat. When they smiled arrogantly, they could look more like Zeus hunting for beauties in the mortal world.

Tyron bowed his head and plucked at the lute. Suddenly, he saw an unmarried woman beside him suddenly had dropped a handkerchief onto the ground.

It was very embarrassing, and she didn’t dare to pick it up and admit that it was hers.

Tyron bent down to pick it up. He held the handkerchief in his palm, looked around lazily, and smiled, using it to slowly wipe down his lute.

The ladies were restless due to his laughter and fanned their faces to cover their blushes. They whispered behind their open fans that the handkerchief seemed to belong to the bard.

At this time, Tyron held up the handkerchief again, and his hand shook––

It magically transformed into a rose!

He looked through the crowd towards two people, who weren’t very far away.

One was Victor. The words: ‘Are you having a good time playing, darling?’ were practically written on his face.

The other was Mr. Gino, who had lost all his business and was so embarrassed that he’d switched identities. His eyes seemed to say, ‘You chose such a flamboyant role. I’ll just wait and see how you manage to assassinate him later!’

The fireworks show had officially begun, and the crowd began to move in the same direction, clueless to the undercurrents surging beneath.

Victor suddenly passed by someone he didn’t know and felt like he’d been patted on the chest. He was stunned for a moment, then looked down, and saw that a rose had now been inserted into his chest pocket.

The very unambitious Little Vic was instantly no longer angry. He was very happy as he turned around to look for Tyron...

Which was why he had happened to see this scene:

A guard wearing armor had suddenly faltered for a moment. He looked down at his armor in a daze but couldn’t see anything, so he tried to move on. He looked a little weak, then sat down against the wall with a blank expression.

As a result, one person was now missing from the patrol, and a small gap suddenly appeared in the defensive layout that blocked the entrance to the castle.

Gino, who was pretending to be a waiter, walked past with his platter. Only Victor had paid him any attention, because he knew who he was in advance.

At the moment when Gino walked past the remaining two members of the patrol, a cold light flashed in his palm...

The two remaining patrol guards died quietly. They had secretly had their throats sliced in public and hadn’t even had a chance to make a sound. Gino dragged them into the dark alley nearby. Nobody could have thought that assassins would act so boldly and only thought that the guards were drunk or ill.

After that, Gino went over to the guard who’d just sat down.

And then, he was given a great shock!

There was a very thin wound on the guard’s back. It was so fine that no actual injury could be seen as long as the muscles didn’t exert any force––but, the wound was still a wound, and his internal organs had bled out to the point where the guard was now seriously injured and dying.

––It must have been Odin! Except for him, nobody else present could have done such a thing!

What made it even more frightening was that the guard only started to feel the pain at this time. As Gino watched on, the guard began to scream, “Anyone! Help me!!”

“......”

Gino turned and pushed the man away, then made a narrow escape and dodged dangerously behind a well before the rest of the patrol guards could arrive and catch him.

The most exasperating thing was that he’d attracted all the guards’ attention, and both sides ended up scurrying around. At this time, a certain flamboyant bard took the opportunity to stride into the castle on his long legs effortlessly.

Gino: “......” He was so angry!

The bard, Mr. Tyron, bypassed the security cordon with ease. After having observed the structure of the castle, he continued to make his way inward. He knew that the target of their assassination was in the inner garden, chatting with his wife, courtiers, and guards.

Just now, he’d tricked Gino again and bought himself more time.

Now, he spent some time observing the guard distribution in the inner garden and realized that the target was obviously afraid of death, very much so––there were people strictly stationed at every corner, and each guard was visible to at least two other guards.

There was no way to sneak in directly. How should he complete the task?

Tyron pulled out a coin and muttered to himself, “Heads means I’ll sneak in, and tails means I’ll open up slaughter mode. If it’s standing up, it means I’ll go back to kill Gino and play with my lover instead.” ––It could be seen from these words that the old antique had been seriously corrupted by the interstellar people, and there was no remedy for it!

After that, he tossed up the coin:

Heads.

Tyron sighed regretfully.

At this time, one of the target’s daughters came out to look at the flowers. Tyron plucked at his lute.

This young lady’s face turned pale with fright, and she had wanted to call over the guard directly. Yet as a result, she looked up to see the bard’s melancholy eyes and his temperament that was like a handsome uncle who had seen much of the world, and her face immediately turned red. Her original shout also became a little strange, “Who are you? Don’t you know that you can’t just come into the garden?”

In her heart, she was thinking about playing the tyrant and bending the bard to her will––it was a wild era, and many aristocratic women were very promiscuous. The male aristocrats raped common women while female nobles took in common lovers everywhere.

The bard spoke casually in a slightly emotional tone, “I saw the flowers here. My lover likes them very much.”

The young lady fanned herself, saying in a half-reserved, half-suggestive tone, “Is your beloved as noble as I am? Is their figure as good as mine? Are they younger than me? Or more understanding?”

The bard looked at her for a moment, then replied carelessly, “He’s not as plump as you are, not as young as you are, and he even gets jealous.”

The young lady puffed up her chest in excitement.

The bard continued languidly, “But, I don’t like young, voluptuous, and understanding.” As he had spoken, he had picked out a white rose and poured out the money from his pouch before carefully inserting the flower inside.

The young lady really wanted to be angry, but she also felt that she’d just been praised. She stretched out her hand and said, “I... My legs are very soft, can you help me sit over there?” She would take advantage first!

Tyron looked at her hand, then turned around, and said, “Guards, guards! Yes, you, come here. Your lady needs help.”

The young lady: “............”

A few dozen seconds later, this young noble lady was brought back to her father, the duke, while the bard stood at the foot of the stairs.

The duke said, “So, you broke into my inner garden to pick a flower?”

The bard replied, “No, I’m here to present a gift. I have a dagger here. It’s different from any other dagger. This is a blade that can sing.”

He took the short sword out of his belt and tossed it down onto the wool carpet in front of him.

The bodyguard came up to pick it up and showed it to the duke.

The duke pulled out the dagger and made a sound of heartfelt praise, “It’s truly beautiful. How do I know if you’re telling the truth or not though?”

The bard: “I can try it.”

His smile held a trace of unspeakable mystery like a sage who’d foreseen everything in a fairy tale and was waiting for the story to start from the beginning.

The duke suddenly grew alert. He waved his hand for the guards to come closer, then said, “No need. You can leave. If this sword is good, then I will call for you again.”

The bard didn’t refuse him. He placed his hand on the brim of his hat, bowed his head slightly, then turned to walk away without any humility in his actions.

At this time, a waiter delivering fruit came over and walked past him.

The bard reached out and grabbed the waiter’s wrist!

The bodyguard to the side was surprised and placed his hand on his sword.

The waiter, Gino, lowered his head. The corners of his eyes were twitching; he realized that he was too far away from the target, so he didn’t make any rash moves.

Then, Tyron the bard merely took an orange from his fruit platter. When he found that the skin hadn’t been peeled cleanly, he spoke in disgust, “These hands aren’t very agile. They can’t even keep a knife steady.”

A phrase with a double meaning.

Gino was so angry that he was about to explode, but he had to keep a calm smile on his face: Are you done yet!? Are you done!? Laozi has never met an assassin as disgusting as you!

xiin: i’m... not sure where the story ran off to o.o