My Reincarnation as a Chicken

After delivering a lengthy speech at the beginning point of the city, the princess made us go to several different locations across the city, just to do the same thing. It really must have been a pain in the ass being unable to simply project herself through some sort of crystal or screen.

Couldn’t she do that though? This was the city of magic and so a simple projection spell should have been easy enough for them. Well, I understood the reasons she gave me, but to be frank, it was completely redundant. The same results would be ensured through a projection spell and ending out people to do surveys.

In the end, I still couldn’t understand her true thought process. This princess couldn’t just be the genuinely kind-type all of a sudden, right?

Fortunately, there was an incident during one of her speeches that gave me time to stop thinking about it.

<<Warning! Incoming projectile identified>>

Quickly, I identified a needle shooting through the water like a bullet. Even with my [Super Thought Process], the bullet was still moving fast. It took no time to notice where it was being aimed – the princess’ head. After scanning the needle, I made my move.

Albeit narrowly, I managed to place myself between the princess and the needle with [Vector Control] and summoned my sword from my inventory. When I tried to deflect, it felt like I was attempting to shove a bus out of the way. That was simply how powerful the attack was. I used [Gravity] to push it away after struggling with it for a few seconds.

My eyes quickly settled on the origin of the attack. At first, I hadn’t sensed him because of a skill he possessed. Most likely [Undetectable Stealth], but that skill would be useless the moment I laid eyes on him.

Finally, I knew why the princess was asking for help from an external force. She really couldn’t trust anyone here with her life.

This worked out well for me. All the more reason for her to grant me more rewards.

***

Needle Master.

A well-known assassin in all of the mass-blue. Rumours of how masterful an assassin he was could be heard anywhere. His success rate was 100% without a single blemish on this record of his. A few people had seen him and lived to tell the tale. However, the accounts of these people only lead to more confusion, since their descriptions of the Needle Master varied greatly.

A master of disguises they called him. The only real proof of his existence was the corpses of his victims. Each and every single one of them had a hole in their heads on the exact same spot. Never a different location no matter the target.

So, when the Needle Master received a job with quite the hefty price, he had assumed it was only due to his reputation and didn’t take it seriously. On the day of the assassination, he finally realised who his target was. The princess, Elriek Sox Den Anon Yorul, the highest candidate for the throne. At that moment, it finally clicked in his head. His real client was the prince, Nanek Tox Den Anon Yorul, trying to eliminate her right in the city without anyone ever assuming that it was his fault.

The Needle master could only think about the sort of leverage he now wielded against the prince. With this, he could end up living a life of luxury as he had always dreamed.

Strangely enough, the princess only had 3 guards on her. One he recognised as Sunalla the Storm Spirit. She had always been with the princess since as long as anyone could remember. Daughter of the captain of the Royal guard and a very tough opponent herself. However, Needle Master was certain he could easily assassinate her as well, but she wasn’t his target.

The other two on the other hand were unknown factors. After observing them for a moment, he noticed that the blonde girl had basically no guard set up, whereas the black-haired woman was constantly searching. The only ones he needed to watch out for were Sunalla and the black-haired undine. The blonde was most likely only good at fighting, so he didn’t have time to waste on her.

After his preparations were done, he shot one of his needles with his skill [Snipe]. An advanced form of the common skill [Shoot] that he had been learning for a long time. With the [Snipe] skill, anything he threw would move as fast as a bullet with enough power to pierce through steel plating. No one had ever resisted this attack before, so even if Sunalla managed to get in the way, she would end up dead, whereas he would have already prepped another needle.

Shockingly, the member of the trio that he hadn’t expected to even notice the needle was the only one to sense it. Even worse she deflected the needle completely and easily.

This was the first time in his career, that Needle Master had missed a shot.

The terrifying beauty with vermillion red eyes and golden hair glared at him, which shouldn’t have been possible given his skill [Undetectable Stealth]. Only those with the highest of inspection skills could sense him.

She wielded a sword. It looked quite powerful and he could sense magic from the sword. It was a magic tool, meaning that girl was not normal in the slightest. Her appearance alone was one he hadn’t seen before. She had no tail and her skin was a different hue from the nymphs and guppies.

Her cold gaze sent a shiver down his spine, almost petrifying him. He quickly came back to his senses once he realised his cover had been blown. Immediately, he jumped off into the shadows of the alleyway, hopefully not to be seen.

An essential skill for an assassin was their ability to blend into the crowd and remain unidentified. Once he jumped into the alleyways, he would be unseen. Through this method, he had escaped capture from the guards several times. Unfortunately, after the introduction of identity cards, that method had become redundant.

Needle Master didn’t care about such useless details though. He had always made it out no matter the kind of situation it was.

So right now, as he swam through the alleyways, he was completely confident that this would end up like it had several times.

‘Where do you think you’re running to?’

A voice entered his mind, causing him to pause.

While thinking up what he was going to do, he hadn’t noticed the person in front of him. It was the blonde from before. Her red eyes glowered at him from the darkness, making him flinch. Reflexively, he took out a needle.

‘When did she get in front of me?’

‘Why are you trying to kill the princess?’

The voice asked him, but he had been raised to never expose his job or clients. So, for now, all he needed to do was simply create a distraction to run away. Fighting definitely wasn’t an option when it came to someone who managed to stop his needles and catch up to him while running.

‘Telepathy? So, you can read my thoughts?’

He tried to confirm this, but he got no response from the creature. Rather, she looked at him expectantly, still waiting for the answer to her former question.

‘Maybe she can’t read my thoughts? Rather she can just transfer her thoughts? [Thought Communication]? She simply used that to mislead me. Clever.’

He slowly backed up after seeing through his opponent’s trick. He had them figured out. From his pocket, he took out a vial of ink dust. This ink dust, once shattered would block the senses of all those without resistance to its potent poison. He had been ingesting the poison since a long while ago in order to build up a decent resistance to it. Just as he was about to shatter the vial, a flash of light shot from the girl’s finger-tip, causing the vial to disappear.

‘I am in no mood for any sort of jokes. Answer me, now.’

She threatened while a weird gas erupted from her body. Her form distorted, enlarged, became grotesque and horrifying. The assassin couldn’t see anything around him anymore. He was in pitch black darkness and the hulking figure with demonic looking eyes glared at him hungrily.

This presence was something he had only seen in his mind. It was a figure so terrifying he was shocked his imagination was spot on. This was exactly how he had presumed the guild leader looked. It had been beat into him since childhood that the guild master was the most terrifying being imaginable.

Stalking the shadows, always monitoring the actions of the assassins, waiting to deliver punishment to those who fail him. A demonic existence that would go on to cause many sleepless nights for a young Needle Master. Eventually, he grew out of it and simply assumed those stories were told as a method to keep the assassins in check. Some claimed to have seen the master and that he was more terrifying than they had assumed, but since he, the Great Needle Master had still not even gotten an audience with the leader somewhere in his mind, he stopped identifying the leader as terrifying.

However, now that he was here, seeing the leader, his limbs were glued to his body. He couldn’t think straight, his heart just wouldn’t stop beating loudly. The leader’s arms grabbed him and brought him closer. The Needle Master started screaming wildly, as he was being dragged into the massive maw of the monster in front of him.

“N-No! No! No! Stop! Don’t you dare! Noooooooo!”

He yelled while trying to break free. Strangely, he couldn’t move his body. No matter how hard he tried to resist, his body wasn’t obeying his orders. So just like that, the needle master was consumed while screaming and crying.

***

[You have consumed 1 merman soul]

[You have received a 10% permanent boost in stats]

I received a notification after eating the soul of the Assassin. It was surprisingly easy to do so. At least now I knew that I could just obtain the soul of any opponent I had that was within a certain range. There were limitations like the will of the one I was consuming, which was why sometimes I would need to beat them to near death or kill them in order to obtain the soul, but in front of opponents with such weak wills, I could easily get their souls. Even if they had a strong will, I just needed to use [Terror] to terrify them enough to acquire their souls.

This probably wouldn’t work on someone like Daxia who appears to have no fear, but to those with a great fear, I could break their wills that way.

Anyway, this assassin wasn’t even that strong. B- rank from what I could tell, meaning he was just just one level beneath me, but from what I’ve seen, the ranking system isn’t 100% accurate. It could simply be the estimated projection of one’s stats or number or types of skills. It didn’t take into account one’s experience over years, so I had assumed this assassin would be stronger than the system claimed it was.

I was greatly mistaken. He was surprisingly weak. And his attempt to escape was borderline underwhelming. Hopefully, that was how it was going to be for any opponent I came across over here.

I was about to take it easy, but I remembered how some opponents could end up being terrifying at a moment’s notice. One mistake and they would completely switch up on you and become an entirely different beast from what you were facing earlier.

‘Oh, his soul wasn’t that tasty.’

‘That’s probably because of how weak he was.’

'Still funny how he didn't even notice that his soul had left his body.'

'Right? When he started screaming in fear. Priceless.'

‘Uh... huh. Any how now I have his memories.’

‘And I know where the guild is.’

‘A-And they are all criminals.’

‘No one would mind if some criminals were erased, would they?’

‘No one at all.’