Templar Knight Becomes an Assassin

"Splash—"

Icy water slapped Angel's face, then ran down the smooth curves of her cheeks, washing away the last traces of fear and tension within her.

In the mirror stood a bewildered young woman, around eighteen years old, perhaps even younger. She had long, straight pale golden hair that fell softly around her face. Her delicate features were perfectly proportioned, as if sculpted, and her Deep Purple eyes resembled a pair of whirlpools that drew Angel's gaze in. Even the oversized, bloodstained shirt on her body could not conceal her tall, slender figure.

"This is me... No, this isn't me..."

Staring at that flawless Female face, she fell into confusion.

Before waking up in the basement of this building, she had still been a member of the church's Templar Knights. More importantly, she had been male then...

Every knight had weathered countless battles and could fight ten enemies alone. Since the order's founding, they had fought on the front lines against heretics and evil forces. After the world situation changed and the armies and religious organizations of various nations united against the suddenly emerging sinister powers, they became the backbone of every force, erecting the final barrier against evil's invasion of the mortal world.

Unfortunately, all of that was in the past. During the operation to eliminate a High-Level Devil, Angel had protected a close friend and been pierced through the heart by the Flame Spear thrown by the dying devil. Her last memory was of her teammates surrounding her with grief-stricken faces before she lost consciousness.

She slowly raised a hand and touched the exquisite face of the young woman in the mirror. The girl in the mirror raised her hand as well, their fingers meeting palm to palm. The girl seemed to possess a strange allure. Those violet eyes looked as if they were about to draw Angel's soul inside.

"Assassin Pathway..."

After her initial panic subsided, the "memories" of this body gradually surfaced in her mind, giving her a basic understanding of her current circumstances.

First of all, it was obvious that she was no longer in her original world.

Steam engines, potions, deities, curses... This was a world with a technological level somewhere between the two Industrial Revolutions, yet it also possessed extraordinary powers. Ordinary people could gain all sorts of special abilities through "potions," but they also had to endure the corrosion of madness and risk going Out of Control at any moment.

This was Tingen City, a medium-sized city in the Ruen Kingdom on the North Continent. And "she," Cole Granger, was an unofficial Beyonder in Tingen City.

Not long after their mother gave birth to Cole's younger sister, Lily Granger, she died of an epidemic. Their father, a Sailor in an ocean-going merchant fleet, raised the two siblings alone. He himself had died three years ago during a voyage to the Baylam Empire on the Southern Continent, killed in a Pirate attack...

Wait, siblings?

Angel continued digging through the memories and immediately revealed a bitter smile.

If only she had "transmigrated" even one day earlier. At least she would still have been male...

Just a few hours ago, Cole Granger had consumed a potion he had personally concocted, attempting to advance from Sequence 8 Instigator of the Assassin Pathway to Sequence 7 "Witch." He had gone Out of Control at the very last moment, causing the ritual to fail and resulting in his immediate death.

In this world, failure to advance often meant going Out of Control or dying. Comparatively speaking, death might even be the luckier outcome.

The characteristics of the "Witch" potion would forcibly turn its drinker's body Female. Although Cole Granger had failed to advance, his body had completed the transformation before his death. That was why Angel, who had "replaced him," had become this frail-looking woman.

She raised her hand and looked at her flawless skin and slender fingers. It was hard to imagine that this perfect Female body had once belonged to a man.

"You really did deserve to die, but it's a shame you left me such a mess..."

Angel felt no regret over Cole's death, because in every sense of the word, he had not been a good person.

Cole Granger had initially pursued extraordinary powers solely to give himself and his sister a better life. But after drinking the "Assassin" potion a year ago, he began constantly acting out the role of an Assassin in order to meet his "mentor's" demands and quickly master the potion. His hands gradually became stained with blood.

Then came the Assassin's next Sequence: Instigator.

Unlike Assassins, who needed to personally kill their targets, Instigators hid behind the scenes, using words to stir up the evil thoughts in others' hearts, provoke conflicts, and create bloody tragedies. By the time Cole reached the point of advancing to "Witch," the number of murder cases tied to him was no less than during his Assassin stage. In her vague memories, Cole had been involved in at least several group incidents among students at Tingen University, causing multiple deaths, injuries, and disappearances.

By that stage, Cole Granger had completely lost himself and forgotten why he had pursued extraordinary powers in the first place.

Advancing from Sequence 9 to Sequence 7 within a year showed that he had been exceptionally talented. If someone like him had followed the proper path and received proper guidance from an Orthodox Church, he could certainly have increased his strength safely and gone further, rather than rushing into advancement without sufficient preparation and dying in his own basement.

After sorting out her emotions, Angel Gray left the washroom.

The crimson moon unique to this world still hung high in the sky. That bizarre sight kept her from rashly going outside, and she instead carefully inspected the building.

It was a building with two floors above ground and one basement level. Judging from the buildings across the street, it was likely a row house facing the street. There were two entrances, one in front and one in back. The front door opened into the living room, with no porch, and outside lay the currently deserted street. The study and dining room stood at either end of the street-facing living room. Near the back door were the kitchen, washroom, and storage room. The back door opened from the kitchen and led into a narrow, filthy alley. The second floor contained another washroom and four bedrooms. Two smaller rooms appeared to have been used as storage rooms, piled with unused tools and damaged furniture. The two street-facing rooms were in normal use. The master bedroom even had a small balcony. The basement entrance where she had awakened was located in the study on the first floor. The Gas Lamp on the wall had not been lit, but she found that she could clearly see the scene in the darkness.

"This body has night vision... This should be the Dark Vision Cole Granger gained after drinking the Assassin potion. It seems I—or rather, this body—still retains the extraordinary abilities granted by the potion."

Using Dark Vision, she returned to the basement.

The radiating pool of blood on the floor had long dried. It was irrefutable evidence of Cole's failed advancement. The sheer area it covered and the amount of blood lost made Angel suspect that Cole had exploded into a cloud of blood mist at the time, and that she was actually an entirely different person who had merely appeared in the same place.

"This is going to be troublesome to clean. Even if I rinse it with a huge amount of water, the smell of blood won't fade within a week."

Just as she was worrying about how to clean the basement, she noticed a black gelatinous object amid the bloodstains.

She had not noticed it at all when leaving the basement earlier, mistaking it for a chunk of organ or coagulated blood. Now, under Dark Vision, she could clearly see the difference between it and the surrounding blood.

The gelatinous object was roughly the size of an egg. Flattened halfway against the ground by gravity, it was close to purplish-red in color. Light seemed to flow across its surface, yet the surrounding darkness appeared to absorb nearby light, making the object's color stand out sharply.

As Angel approached it, whispers sounded in her ears. Her mood grew irritable, and a desire to destroy and slaughter seemed to rise within her heart. The smell of blood in the basement also became much stronger.

This was an Extraordinary Characteristic!

According to Cole Granger's memories, when Beyonders died, the powers within their bodies condensed into Extraordinary Characteristics matching their abilities and separated from their corpses.

This gelatinous object had clearly been left behind by Cole's death. Considering that he had only consumed the "Assassin," "Instigator," and "Witch" potions, Angel guessed that it was the Extraordinary Characteristic of a "Witch."

However, according to Cole's memories, the Characteristics expelled by dead Beyonders contained all the extraordinary powers they had possessed in life. In other words, this body should no longer have any Beyonder powers. Yet the unique Dark Vision was certainly not something an ordinary person could possess.

Perhaps it was because she... No, because Cole Granger had not completely died?

Judging from the abilities she possessed, this body should currently be an "Assassin"?

Former Templar Knight Angel Gray could only smile bitterly.

She did not immediately put away the precious and dangerous Extraordinary Characteristic. Instead, she left the basement first and went to the study above.

Beneath a section of the study floor was a small hidden compartment. Inside was a small metal box Cole had prepared when purchasing potion ingredients, which had cost him twenty pounds. According to the seller, it could isolate extraordinary power and prevent the spirituality of materials stored within from dissipating.

Unfortunately, Cole had no spare extraordinary materials, so the box had become a container for his weapons. At present, it held only a damaged Revolver.

Whether it truly had such an effect or whether it was merely a merchant's boast, this small box was the most suitable container Angel could find to store the Extraordinary Characteristic. Treating a dead horse as if it were alive, she carefully picked up the Extraordinary Characteristic through her clothing and placed it in the box beside the Revolver with the broken hammer.

Fortunately, the instant the box closed, the whispers in her ears and the smell of blood in her nostrils immediately faded by more than half.

Though it had not been completely isolated, the side effects were at least within an acceptable range.

Angel put the box back into the hidden compartment, covered it with several books, and closed the Trapdoor. Only then did the whispers finally disappear completely.

After dealing with the Extraordinary Characteristic Cole had left behind, she went upstairs. The secondary bedroom near the Stairs belonged to Cole's younger sister, Lily Granger. Its bright decor suited a young girl's style. It had everything from a dressing table to a full-length mirror, and even the bedding had lace trim. However, everything was covered in dust sheets with a thin layer of dust on top. It appeared no one had lived there for quite some time. Several novels sat on the bedside table, along with a face-down photo frame. Angel lifted the frame and, by the crimson moonlight outside the window, barely made out a black-and-white photograph of two people.

Several height marks with ages written beside them were carved near the bedroom door. Next to the tallest one was written, "18 years old, 156 cm."

Obviously, clothes that fit a girl who was 156 centimeters tall would not fit this body...

Angel stood by the door and compared her height. She was more than a head taller than the 156-centimeter mark, putting her at around 175 centimeters. It seemed she could only take a set of Cole's clothes for now. The fit would not be ideal, but at least she could get into them. That was better than wearing a Little Girl's clothes.

The master bedroom belonged to Cole Granger. Its decor was simple and clean, with cool colors and no unnecessary decorations. The wardrobe was filled with men's clothes: two suits of the same color and several casual outfits. Angel casually took a shirt and held it against herself. It was the same size as the one she was currently wearing.

Taking out the shirt and a pair of casual trousers, she removed her bloodstained clothes, now stiff with dried blood, and changed into clean clothes beside the bed. Carrying the photograph downstairs, she returned to the relatively familiar study, twisted on the Gas Lamp on the wall, and let its dim, soft light dispel the chilling feeling brought by the red moonlight.

Under the lamp's light, Angel carefully examined the photo frame in her hand. As expected, it showed a completely unfamiliar man and woman together. The man was in his early twenties, with short blond hair. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and casual trousers, with a lean, tall figure and delicate, gentle features. His eyes and nose looked very similar to Angel's current appearance. He wore black-framed glasses and kept a somewhat deliberate beard, trying to make his Neutralized face look more masculine. The young woman was around sixteen, dressed in a skirt. She had a round face and long blond hair tied into a single braid. Holding a novel in both hands, she leaned against the man's side.

Based on the girl's height and the novel in her hands, which Angel had seen in the upstairs bedroom, Angel concluded that she was the owner of the secondary bedroom in the photograph: the "younger sister," Lily Granger, who had left Tingen a year ago to study in Backlund.

The "older brother" beside her, whose appearance bore some resemblance to Angel's current face, was naturally Cole Granger when he had been male.

The photograph had likely been taken not long after their father's death. Both siblings looked melancholy, in stark contrast to their bright clothing.

Just as Angel was carefully studying the details in the photograph, a knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

"Knock, knock, knock—"

Who was it?