Fine red threads curved through the air, while thick crimson blood falling to the ground bent the blades of grass, splashing out into a red flower.
Fujino withdrew his sword and looked calmly at the lifeless corpse on the ground, his expression unusually composed.
There was no thrill from taking another person's life, nor any weak sense of guilt. Even the instinctive fear and excitement triggered by the warning encoded in his DNA when one of his own kind died had been suppressed by past experience.
At some point, killing had become as ordinary as eating and drinking, to the point where he could not even be bothered to spare it an extra thought.
As if he had crushed an insect.
Fujino did not particularly like this feeling of no longer being human.
But there were always some vermin in this world that needed someone to take up a blade against them.
Fujino took out the Lotus Medal from his Pocket Dimension and stored another soul within it.
The lotus-shaped medal emitted a dim pale-green glow, as though the vitality contained within it had grown a little stronger.
"That should make two."
Fujino put away the Lotus Medal, turned to look at the factory, and murmured, "Including these, it should be enough to advance..."
"Ding! A new System Task has been issued. Please check it!"
Just then, a system notification suddenly rang out beside his ear.
At the sound, a System Task display had already appeared before him, showing the information for this mission:
``` System Task: Assassin · The Kidney Slasher's Redemption
Mission Overview: The body is the dwelling place of the human soul. No one has the right to deprive another person of any part of it. Trafficking, filthy transactions—what they defile is not only the human soul,