With this Black Hand gang, I’m going for something in between friendly neighborhood mafia and force in the shadows.

We have various ranks inside the gang, and since I can easily make them stronger with gear and magic training (no sense chambers, just normal curses and strengthening), I don’t need to care about how strong they are, only how loyal and behaved they are.

Saying ‘loyal and behaved’ to describe criminals might seem like nonsense, but what I mean is people who are smart enough to see that they can’t fool me and that it’s better for them to follow my instructions.

The only trouble is that since I refuse to teach curse and mind magic to them, I have to keep moving between places using a plane I made for stealth and speed, I need to move to promote men to higher ranks and check others for insubordination, but after a while these naughty boys start to stabilize and the naughtier ones are all sent to the farm upstate.

Many of the ‘less smart’ criminals try to take a little bit more money here, and a little rape there, but I can easily find out whether they did something wrong by just asking them while using mind magic to check their emotions and the same devices I use to detect combat also detect if they try to force themselves on someone.

Don’t ask how I taught the mana core how to judge between rape and consensual sex.

The number of people that behave is pretty good, but let’s just say the underworld got much thinner after I was done with it. I let the more reliable of my minions walk around without the obvious marks on their faces, but I still have tracking sigils on them.

Since I pay them with money, alcohol and discounts on brothels, they don’t want to risk getting punished since that’s pretty much all they could ever want aside from authority, meaning in life and that kind of fancier stuff.

Since Heiron has such a developed underworld scene I can easily make a lot of profit from targeting mainly other criminals and getting a few ‘protection fees’ from various businesses and traders, except I actually protect them from stuff, including corrupt officials and other criminals.

When I begin taking over the towns, the Black Hand mark is seen with derision since they are all people who surrendered. But right now, all along the coast of Heiron, the Black Hand is being taken seriously.

Other criminals don’t do a thing in our territories and while the nobles still pretend to be taking us down by executing some fake marked men (for the naked eye, the mark is very easy to fake), they also know not to mess with us.

Well, most of them, anyways.

“Sir!” One of the lower minions rush into the room I was using to meet with my higher ranking men. “Something different came up! My team leader wishes for your orders!”

“Report.” I don’t beat around the bush.

“A noble from further inland is visiting the coast and kidnapped the daughter of a merchant under our protection, should we leave it be or move regardless?”

I can’t help it, a big smile appears on my face. This is my turn to grab the spotlight from the country and make public opinion to favor me.

Although I can’t grab too much attention from the royals, this will be more beneficial to reaching my black hands towards the rest of the country. “Tell your team leader that I’ll take care of it personally.”

Besides, fighting corrupt nobility is a man’s romance.

~PoV Switch~

Marianne can’t calm herself.

When she was a teenager, she was sold by her family to marry a rich merchant just like cattle. She wasn’t the kind of woman to just stay submissive like her husband expected her to, so he mistreated her and she in turn did what she had to do to make sure her daughter wouldn’t suffer the same fate.

When she was knowledgeable enough about his business, she poisoned him and took over, all she had to do was bribe a couple people to make sure they didn’t check the body for poison.

But now some noble bastard took her daughter away and all that work was made pointless. She tried getting help from the Black Hand thugs, but as expected, they wouldn’t put their hands on a noble-

*Tap, tap, tap, tap.* … *Knock, knock.*

Hearing the knocking on her door, Marianne thinks of a thousand possibilities of who it could be. ‘Maybe someone found out I asked help from those thugs?’ is the one that doesn’t leave her mind.

*Knock, Knock.* “Is miss Marianne in?” A young male voice asks from behind the door. She hasn’t been called miss in a long time.

She knows she can’t run if the nobles wanted to find her, so she resolves herself and opens the door.

“Oh good, I was starting to think I had the wrong house.” Marianne freezes.

Young.

Blind.

Barefoot.

It’s him.

He moves inside without being asked, Marianne is too stunned and tense to stop him as he closes the door gently. “I came to get your help so that I can help you in turn.” The young man famed for being brutal speaks. “I just need a single drop from your blood.”

Hearing the word ‘blood’ she awakens from her stupor. “B-blood?”

“Yes, miss Marianne. I need your blood to make sure I can track your daughter.”

Hearing that, Marianne’s mind is once again running faster than a war-horse. From ‘he will track her’ to ‘he’s moving against a noble’ and back to ‘he needs my blood to do it’, all in a single heartbeat.

She pulls out the knife she always keeps on herself and is about to make a cut on her hand when the blind young man stops her. “Calm down, miss Marianne. I only need a single drop. Here, give me your hand.”

The young man grabs her hand, raises it to his face, and bites the tip of her finger. Marianne jolts from the sudden pain, but controls herself.

A drop of blood floats in the air, and then the wound on her finger is gone as quickly as it came, all healed.

The young man raises a compass-like object and the blood floats in it. She sees a feel light symbols characteristic of enchantments shine on it and then it’s stored away again right after.

“Thank you, miss. Before I go, I need to ask: What is your recommended punishment? I personally suggest death.” The young man gives her a bright smile.

“…” Marianne is stunned once again. “… Death is fine.” She speaks before she can think about it.

“Nice choice.” He says before leaving.

*Tap, tap, tap, tap…*

Now Marianne has even more things to worry about.

~Back to MC~

I had to go to the client’s house to make sure I avoid a ‘the princess is in another castle’ situation.

Right now I have my best men surrounding the inn the noble rented completely for him and his servants.

I have my favorite cloak from back home, a helmet, chainmail shirt and a short sword, all three bought here but enchanted by me. I also modified the helmet to have no opening for the eyes.

“Here I go, cut down anyone that tries to run away, except for the Inn workers, make sure everyone remember their faces from the drawings.” I say before I get out of their line of sight and start using the camouflage from the cloak.

While camouflaged and suppressing my mana presence, I silently walk to the Inn’s wall and use my nails (claws) to climb to the second floor’s window.

Inside I find four men playing cards and drinking while sitting around a table.

They’re all semi-proficient in mana, in other words, they can use self-strengthening and probably fire, maybe a couple other things.

I use an illusion to make one of the men look like he’s fallen asleep, and cut that one’s throat. He has a little bit of passive body-strengthening, but not enough to give me trouble.

I do the same with another one before the other two find it strange that both of them are suddenly sleeping and feel the smell of blood.

“Hey Julius! Wake up!” “What the fuck is this smell of blood?”

I’m not really bothered, this isn’t a infiltration mission anyway. I cut the third throat of the night without illusions this time.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” The fourth one shouts as he falls backwards together with his chair.

He only has less than a second to scream as I jump on top of him and cut the fourth throat of the night.

This is a retaliation mission.

I hear a single set of footsteps coming to the room’s door with my enhanced senses. I wait just in front of the door, not even camouflaged.

The door opens and a man with slightly more mana starts speaking right away. “Watch the noise you b- What the fuck?!” He notices the bodies, blood and me.

My blade also notices his throat, but I see him dodging so I change trajectory to his heart and my blade punches through his chainmail while I cover his mouth with my other hand to muffle his screams.

I walk to the innermost room of the second floor, a room with no windows.

There was only one guard in front of the door. Five throats.

Inside the room there are two maids trying to make the merchant’s daughter look even prettier than she already was, but the fact that the girl seems to be holding back tears doesn’t help.

They stop when they notice me. “Be quiet if you don’t want to die.” The three women stiffen up. “Oh, not you, young miss. I won’t kill you.” I tell the rescue target.

I tear up a few blankets and use the cloth to tie up the two maids and make a rope. “Follow me, quietly.” She nods. “Cover your mouth to make sure you don’t scream when you see the blood.” She stiffens up again but still nods.

I hold her hand and move back to the room I entered through.

Before I enter the room. “Hey, Brutus! What’s taking you so long?” I hear a shout coming from the stairs going down a little distance away from us.

I give the girl the rope point her to the window and say. “Get out that window, I have men outside. You know how to tie the rope right?” She nods hurriedly, sometimes glancing at the corpses in the room.

I turn my back to her and cut the head of one of the men before heading towards the stairs with the head in hand.

A knight walks up from downstairs. I say knight, but I’m not sure if he has the title, only that he has the equipment and the mana… Although he’s not as good as our Sylvian knights…

“Catch!” I say while throwing the head towards him.

He reflexively grabs the head and before he can realize that he’s holding a decapitated head, I cut off his right arm.

The head falls to the ground as he steps back while holding the arm stump and screaming. I expected him to fall backwards but he didn’t, he only lost his balance for a moment.

But that moment is enough for me. I jump at him and force him to the ground.

I try to go for the sixth throat of the night, but he holds my wrist with his leftover arm. So I tear his throat using my left hand claws.

No time to think, no time to fight properly. Poor bastard.

I pull the mana from his blood and I’m recharged.

That just feels right.

Time to make a proper mess.

I start running downstairs. Right now, the rest of the people here are already alerted due to the knight’s screams.

Right as I enter the big room I send fire bombs towards the weaker men and make a beeline for the second and last knight who was sharing a table with the target noble.

I send a stun bomb towards them right before we clash. The noble tries to dispel it but fails, much to his surprise.

My enemies are blinded and deafened for a moment.

I go straight for a grapple with the knight, he tries burning me with fire blindly, but I block it with a simple barrier. Fire without runes to assist it can be very weak sometimes.

I stab him through the ribs multiple times but he manages to stop me from tearing at his throat.

I don’t have much time left to deal with the noble, so I shove blood into the knight’s wounds and use the blood to tear at his insides. The knight vomits some blood and stops moving.

I use the mana in his blood to recharge as I use both my arms and legs to launch myself towards the noble.

Just as he recovers from the stun bomb he sees me leaping at him from the ground. He tries to push me away with a force wall, but I sense it coming and counter it with one of my own.

I throw a punch at his face with tons of body-strengthening. ‘Falcon…’

*Blam!*

He’s knocked out faster than I expected, maybe I used too much strength? Well, he’s alive, so doesn’t matter.

I grab him and prepare to fight the others, but they all either ran away already or died in the fire, I expected more. The fire is getting out of hand so I snuff it out myself and get out of there with my captive.

This fella should know a noble secret or two.

~ Third PoV ~

Eleven elite guards and two knights: dead. The noble they served: disappeared.

The news shook the town.

The local lord feels frustrated. ‘That ignorant bastard had to cross the blind freak! Now I have to do a manhunt even if just to put up a show.’

Rumors run through the populace. They say it was retaliation for the noble trying to kidnap a young woman and force her to be his concubine.

Next morning the noble is found.

His feet are tied to the roof of a building in the town square, his body dangling upside down.

His eyes are burnt black and the inside of his head, like his mouth and ears, also show signs of being burned.

Everyone knows what that means.

One young man thinks:

‘I’m gonna need help from auntie and Eleanor if I want to expand any further.’