‘I have been undercover in the Tengu clan territory for over a month…Then why…why is Ren Karatengu still alive, dammit!’

Maiga Altyn could only wonder whether Ren Karatengu was aware of her trying to kill him and was avoiding her deliberately or was she losing her touch?

In Altyn clan, as a non-pure Phoenix demon, she was a subordinate to the pure Phoenix demons.

By trade, she was an assassin, killing anyone she targets by the order of her superiors.

After his defeat at the hands of Ren Karatengu, Kin Altyn enlisted Maiga’s services and tasked her to infiltrate Tengu clan territory and eliminate Ren Karatengu.

Unlike the other Phoenix demons, Maiga possessed a unique ability to disguise not only her appearance but also her mana signature.

It was not shape shifting; more of a way to make sure that none could tell that she was of Phoenix demon blood and it also allowed her to suppress her mana signature.

By concealing her mana signature, she was able to sneak past the barrier surrounding the Tengu clan territory and disguise herself as one of the many recruits to the Tengu clan.

She probably was the only demon in the Altyn clan who could accomplish such a feat.

Maiga prided herself for being able to sneak into any location and be able to carry out her assassination flawlessly.

So far, not a single one of her targets had escaped her.

She had a perfect track record for her marked kills.

And now, Ren Karatengu was her latest target.

However, the task of killing him proved to be far more difficult than she expected.

First, she tried poison darts.

Unfortunately, none of them hit their marks.

Ren Karatengu’s movements were extremely unpredictable.

He would somehow dodge the darts just on time before they could land.

Only one dart came even remotely close to hitting him, and he managed to catch it with his hat while fishing, and then left it on his hat, thinking it was a nice decoration.

Next, she tried to send her personal poisonous snake, a familiar she had trained for years to assassinate her targets with a swift and lethal bite.

The snake would sneak into his bedroom at night and kill him while he sleept.

It was a perfect plan.

But unfortunately, Ren Karatengu decided to wear boots with razor sharp spikes on the bottom of the boots, for some strange reason.

They were made by a demon called Kizilkoz, who was the blacksmith for the Tengu clan. Apparently he was planning on using them for gardening, to make the rough soil softer.

He ended up stepping on the snake, slicing the head off her familiar.

And when he emerged the next day, Maiga found the body of her familiar strapped to the back of his belt.

Ren ended up finding the decapitated body of the snake next morning and thought it was a bright idea to use it as a belt decoration.

After that, Maiga tried to kill him nearly every day she was inside the Tengu clan, but somehow, he would survive her attempts at killing him while completely unaware of her attempts at terminating him, heck, he wasn’t even aware she existed!

When she followed him during the time he was spending with his pet, she ended up encountering a monstrous serpentine beast with six heads.

She barely managed to survive her encounter with the hydra that ended up chasing her while she was running for her life.

Then, she tried to kill him when Ren was collecting fruits from the plants that none other Tengu clan members dared to approach.

Maiga soon found out why.

The carnivorous plants were terrifying. Using all her skills, she managed to escape being eaten and digested alive by the skin of her teeth.

And then, one day, she saw Ren in the field, but as soon as she got behind him, she noticed that he wasn’t the only ‘Ren’ who was there.

There were at least thirty ‘Rens’ working on the field.

Turns out Ren asked all of the Oni, the shape shifting humanoid-like demons, to look like him.

He did so in order to confuse his mentor Aijasyl, so that she wouldn’t drag him back to studying.

Due to his lack of knowledge on world of Sulum, Aijasyl was trying her best to teach him about the history of the demon world and trying in vain to have him learn basic skills like geography.

In a sense, Aijasyl was trying to make sure her leader knew everything he needed to know to lead the clan, an effort completely wasted on Ren.

So, Ren proceeded so sneak out while asking all the Oni to look like him to give him some time to goof off.

Every day, Maiga would try to kill him with one way or another, only to fail miserably.

The list of the different ways she has tried to kill him kept increasing with each day.

By now, she was inside Tengu clan territory for over a month, with every one of her attempts at taking Ren’s life ending in complete failure.

The antics of her target were pushing Maiga to the edge of her sanity.

She once ended up talking to the blacksmith, Kizilkoz about her frustrating situation, without revealing she was out to get Ren.

“Tengu clan….It’s insane. Just like its leader!”

“If you stay here long enough, you get used to seeing strange things happening every day…”

By this point, Kizilkoz gave up trying to make rational sense of Ren or how his mind functions.

One perfect day, Ren ended up asking Maiga to come with him out of the blue.

‘My prey actually came to me? Is it finally my chance to end him for good?’

‘So far I had a horrible time inside this territory. Is this a perfect chance for me to strike him down?’

But then, Ren asked Maiga to sit inside of a hole he dug up.

After she was neck deep inside the hole, he started to put some kind of soil inside the hole, filling it up completely.

“Thank you so much for volunteering! None else wanted to help out, so I was getting really worried. No need to worry, it is all for the sake of growing my plants and flowers!”

“It smells weird, what kind of soil is this?”

“Oh, it’s not soil, it’s Yak manure. Here, I will put some more….”

Ren covered the manure with a layer of special mixed soil.

Maiga couldn’t believe her ears, for a moment, she was left speechless at what the hell she was buried in.

He then proceeded to cover the manure she was in with water.

“So how does it feel to be a plant? Is manure soft enough for comfort?”

Ren apparently did this experiment due to his obsession with gardening. He wanted to find out what being a plant feels like from someone else’s perspective.

“You…you covered me in manure!!! What is wrong with you!?”

“Oh, right, I need to pick some vegetables…Wait here; I will be back in a minute!”

With her rage boiling over, Maiga attempted to use her fire magic to escape.

For some reason, she soil around her started so solidify the more she heated up her body and after a few minutes, instead of becoming softer, it became rock solid.

Her entire body below the neck was now trapped, unable to move a single muscle.

She was trapped, with no way out. And no matter how much she screamed, none came to help.

After a few hours, Ren returned, apparently he forgot about her, and only remembered she was there because she was screaming for help.

“This is strange….the fertilizer should have become softer after contact with water, so what is wrong….oh”

Ren finally realized his mistake.

The compound he used was partially manure, partially clay, and for the most part cement, so it ended up being solidified after Maiga heated it up with her magic.

“Uhm, it appears I made a tiny mistake. Please wait here, I will get help.”

He came back with some green flames floating on top of his palm. Aijasyl lend him some of her mana to create green flames that burned far hotter than normal.

“Do not worry; this will be over very quickly. Fire in the Hole!”

He proceeded to use Aijasyl’s magic to douse Maiga in streams of green flames.

As Maiga was screaming in agony as her head was set aflame, Ren panicked, and rushed to ask for the aid of the first demon he found nearby.

It was Korkau Jou.

Borrowing some of Korkau’s mana, Ren proceeded to freeze Maiga on the spot in a cube of ice.

“At least that put out the flames.”

Now it was time to get her out of the ice. For that, Ren had a perfect plan.

Asking his grandfather for some mana, Ren proceeded to use lightning magic to conjure an electric blast that shattered the ice Maiga was trapped in, but also electrocuting her in the process.

But the cement refused to budge, even with all the soil around the cement destroyed, she was still trapped in it.

“I guess it all comes down to an old fashioned way then….”

Ren proceeded to pull out a big hammer and declared.

“This might hurt”

A lot of screams followed.

* * *

As soon as she was freed, Maiga Altyn proceeded to flee the Tengu clan territory as fast as her mangled, fried, frozen, and electrocuted body could carry her.

She ran for her life, no longer caring about the mission. After what she went through, she wanted to be as far away from that crow demon as possible.

Limping, she returned to her clan’s territory, where she was greeted by Kin Altyn. Even though he saw how badly she was hurt, Kin Altyn was more concerned with the fate of his nemesis.

“Is he dead?”

Maiga shook her head.

“Then why are you here?! Go back and finish your damn job!”

“Please, young master, I am begging you, please don’t send me back! That man is the devil…he is not an ordinary demon….he is the devil I tell you!”

Ren’s innocent actions have unintentionally traumatized Altyn clan’s best assassin.

Now, Maiga Altyn’s perfect track record was officially broken by the crow demon that didn’t even realize he was targeted….