Welcome to the Assassin Brotherhood / The Sadness of Leaving

Unexpectedly, the system was quite accommodating. He hadn't had a chance to play the game in his original world, but now he could experience the life of this Viking assassin in a more direct way.

Moreover, as he increases his mission completion rate, he might actually be able to collect the entire set of Assassin's Creed memories.

With these things in hand, Jiang Hang felt even more confident.

I can even retrieve the memories of those legendary assassins now. Who would dare question whether these two organizations actually exist?

So much so that when he finished talking to Miyano Shiho and then went to confront Yusuke Sakata, he seemed much more imposing.

Of course, his confident demeanor does make it easier for people to believe what he says.

Yusuke Sakata was initially confused by the two organizations, but when he heard that Jiang Hang had a special device that could read the memories of his ancestors and that he could use that device to train him as an assassin, he became hesitant.

After all, he could find out the truth by trying it himself. Anyway, he was just a worthless man with nowhere to go. At that point, he could just have a fight to the death with Jiang Hang.

"Assassins... Japan Brotherhood ... Templar Knight ..." Yusuke Sakata listened to Jiang Hang's explanation as if in a dream. "So your organization has been trying to recruit people like me all along?"

As a former police officer, Yusuke Sakata is still struggling to adapt to his identity as a murderer who has transformed into an assassin fighting to protect human freedom.

"Our organization has high requirements for its members. Abilities, talents, personality and even social skills are all things we need to consider."

Hearing Jiang Hang's words, Yusuke Sakata couldn't help but smile bitterly, "I am a murderer who has killed four people in a row, and we have only known each other for less than a day. Aren't you afraid that you have misjudged me?"

Jiang Hang spread his hands. "What you did could indeed be a capital offense under the law, but personally, I admire you for being able to give up everything and even risk your life to avenge your father, even though you have a better future."

"Although this is the first day I've met you, Hattori Heiji has known you for so many years. Tonight, he accepted the fact that you committed a series of murders for revenge, but he still doesn't want to accept that you fled after killing Goji Sotaro."

"If I hadn't appeared and disrupted your plans, you would either have turned yourself in or shot yourself by now."

Upon hearing Heiji Hattori's name, Yusuke Sakata's expression turned somewhat bitter, revealing that he himself also valued his friendship with Heiji Hattori.

Besides Heiji Hattori, the days he spent working at the Higashishiri Precinct also kept flashing before his eyes.

But from the moment he discovered Numabuchi Ki'ichirō and chose to take revenge instead of reporting the matter, he could never go back to the way things were before.

After a long silence, Yusuke Sakata looked at Jiang Hang and said, "If what you said about your organization's past and ideals is true, then I am willing to join your organization, but there is one thing I need to make clear to you first."

"When I decided to start my revenge, I didn't think about turning myself in. My initial idea was to make Numabuchi Ki'ichirō take all the blame and to end the case by shooting him dead."

"If that really happened, would you still consider bringing me into your organization?"

Chapter 394: Chapter 390: Welcome to the Assassin Brotherhood

In fact, if Jiang Hang's appearance hadn't completely disrupted his original plans and forced him to make this choice, he really wouldn't know what kind of ending he would have faced.

Did they successfully carry out the plan and then escape punishment?

Or was it discovered and stopped by Heiji Hattori during the crime?

Or perhaps he simply couldn't bear the inner torment after committing the crime and shot himself?

Since nothing has happened yet, Yusuke Sakata doesn't know what choice he will ultimately make.

But he wanted to know how Jiang Hang and that so-called Brotherhood view his decision to make other choices.

Listening to Yusuke Sakata's question, who was currently in a period of confusion after his revenge, Jiang Hang pondered for a moment but did not give a direct answer.

To be honest, he could actually tell Yusuke Sakata a lot of things.

We can use all sorts of plausible platitudes, like "a gentleman judges by his actions, not his intentions," or "all things are illusory, all things are permissible," and even a bit of seemingly reasonable platitudes, to help Yusuke Sakata out of his period of confusion, and then let him figure things out on his own later.

But this approach sounds too mild. Jiang Hang doesn't want to become Yusuke Sakata's spiritual mentor, and he certainly doesn't want to make it a tradition to give a pep talk to new Brotherhood.

Besides, what could be more effective in helping Yusuke Sakata out of his confusion than letting him choose again?

Of course, Jiang Hang can't turn back time now, but he can use a special potion to make the person who takes it confront their past and the fears in their heart in a hallucination.

This drug is a test French Brotherhood aspiring assassins who wish to join the Brotherhood.

Arno, the protagonist of Assassin's Creed Unity, joined the French Brotherhood in this way.

Although this drug does not pose a life-threatening danger, it is still a hallucinogenic drug. People who take the drug will not realize that they are in a hallucination. If they are unable to make a choice in the hallucination, they will only sink deeper and deeper into the hallucination until the drug's effects completely wear off.

Such a situation can put immense pressure on the user's mental health, and this hallucination may even become the biggest nightmare of their life.

But this is exactly what Yusuke Sakata needs right now.

When a person is fully conscious, it is difficult for them to figure out what they really want to do, and sometimes they may even deceive themselves in order to achieve certain goals.

But the subconscious doesn't lie.

Only choices made in a dreamlike state based on one's subconscious can truly reflect a person's deepest, most authentic thoughts.

Fortunately, after mastering the preparation of the poison, Jiang Hang would take the time to make things that might be useful in his spare time.

He made quite a few of these sleeping pills back then, since they sounded pretty mysterious. They could make people see their past and their deepest fears, and as long as they made a decision in the illusion, they could wake up early; otherwise, they could only wait for the effects of the drug to wear off before leaving the illusion.

It's made to sound as fantastical as Uchiha genjutsu.

For this reason, back in the system's learning space, in order to test the potion's medicinal properties and to study the role of each ingredient in the formula, he used the potion on himself more than once.

However, Jiang Hang was a homebody before he transmigrated and had never experienced anything special from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, the biggest effect of this potion on him was that it made him uncontrollably replay all his dark history in front of his eyes.

His research quickly stalled, and in the end, apart from concluding that "don't pay too much attention to the details in Assassin's Creed stuff," his progress in analyzing the drug's formula was probably not even as good as APTX4869's current progress.

Although the efficacy of the drug has not been fully understood, it is fine as long as it does not hinder its use.

Therefore, he brought several of the medicines he had made with him on this trip, just in case. He originally thought he could test them on Sōji Munetaro, but unexpectedly, he ended up using them directly on Yusuke Sakata.

Upon hearing that Jiang Hang possessed such a drug, Yusuke Sakata couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

It's no wonder this is an ancient organization with a history spanning thousands of years; even the things they casually use to test newcomers sound mysterious.

Although Yusuke Sakata didn't completely believe Jiang Hang's words at this point, he didn't think that Jiang Hang would go to such great lengths to help him escape and then poison him in this way.

As for whether he could pass the test of this medicine, Yusuke Sakata didn't really care that much.

Since he has nowhere else to go, if he can't pass the Brotherhood's test, he'll probably only have one option left: to end his own life.

With that in mind, he directly drank the tasteless potion in front of Jiang Hang.

The drug took effect very quickly. Not long after Yusuke Sakata swallowed it, Jiang Hang saw his eyes gradually become glazed over, and within half a minute he collapsed to the side, powerless.

Jiang Hang patiently sat to the side, waiting for Yusuke Sakata to wake up.

Because he had taken the drug himself more than once, he was quite familiar with the whole process.

Under the influence of this drug, he usually needs about five to ten minutes to regain his self-awareness. At the same time, under his deliberate control, he can stay in the illusion for a maximum of thirty to forty minutes. Any longer and it will affect his mental state.

Yusuke Sakata's situation is rather complicated. His greatest fear is probably the death of his father when he was young, and the revenge he recently carried out is a major event that has completely changed his life, which will likely also appear in the illusion.

While taking the drug, he was still struggling with his true feelings. Even Jiang Hang couldn't say whether Yusuke Sakata could pass the drug's trial.

Even if he passes the test, it will probably take him twenty or thirty minutes.

That's what Jiang Hang thought.

To his surprise, only ten minutes later, Yusuke Sakata's eyelids began to twitch slightly, as if he was starting to regain consciousness.

Immediately afterwards, as Yusuke Sakata's body shuddered, he instantly opened his eyes and then flipped himself up from the ground.

At this moment, Yusuke Sakata had just woken up from the illusion. No one knew what choice he had made in the illusion, which was why his eyes now looked relieved, completely unlike the confused look he had just had.

As he gradually realized that everything that had just happened was just a dream, he slowly rubbed his head and returned to his normal appearance.

Jiang Hang pulled him up from the ground and handed him a bottle of water to let him catch his breath.

"So, if you were to experience the illusion again, what choice would you make?"

"In the illusion, I saw Sōji Munetaro and Numabuchi Ki'ichirō kill my father in front of me, and then I shot and killed them in the illusion," Yusuke Sakata answered decisively this time.

He had already mentioned this to Jiang Hang once in the study of Sōji Munetaro.

He would not regret killing Sōji Munetaro and the others. Even if he had to do it all over again, he would not hesitate to do it again.

It seems he did indeed do this within the illusion.

"Then in the dream, after the revenge was over, I talked to my father about many things until I heard the sound of police sirens and knew that Heiji were coming to arrest me. Before they could arrest me, I took my own life with a pistol."

Yusuke Sakata recalled the scene he saw in the hallucination, "The feeling was very strange. Even though I ended my life with a pistol, it was as if my soul left my body. I could still see my own corpse lying on the ground with my own eyes. At that time, I really felt that I was about to leave this world."

After that, he completely said goodbye to the past and came to a full awakening.

After listening to Yusuke Sakata's description, Jiang Hang nodded slightly and then extended his hand to welcome Yusuke Sakata.

"The Yusuke Sakata of the past is dead, and your past has turned to dust at this moment."

"From this moment forward, you are an assassin fighting to protect the free will of humanity. Welcome to the Japan Brotherhood."

Chapter 395: Chapter 391: The Disappointment Before Departure

That night, countless people searched for Yusuke Sakata's whereabouts, and countless others couldn't sleep well at all.

When Jiang Hang met Heiji Hattori the next morning, his dark skin couldn't hide the dark circles under his eyes.

Clearly, Heiji Hattori Yusuke Sakata whenever he closed his eyes.

However, because Jiang Hang's actions were so thorough, the police were unable to find any trace of Yusuke Sakata no matter how hard they searched.

Of course, to be honest, Jiang Hang does have some loopholes.

He drove his police car all the way from Meiji no Mori to the vicinity of Sōji Munetaro's house, then parked the police car in an alley where no one was at the time and stayed there for about ten minutes.

If someone had passed by during those ten minutes and remembered both when the car was parked and where the police car was parked, and reported this to the police, then Jiang Hang's arrival at Sōji Munetaro's residence ahead of schedule and his disappearance for ten minutes would have been exposed.

But who would deliberately remember the exact minute when a police car was parked on the side of the road? At most, they would only remember the approximate time, which wouldn't have a significant impact on Jiang Hang.

More importantly, even if someone does remember these things, they wouldn't tell the police about a police car unless they had a reason, making it even less likely for the police to notice them.

Unless Heiji Hattori becomes incredibly powerful again, and irrationally develops suspicion about Jiang Hang based on his so-called "detective instincts," and then starts to trace the murderer's methods and evidence based on his identity.

However, Heiji Hattori was not a charlatan. Even though he felt there was something wrong, he didn't really suspect Yusuke Sakata until Numabuchi Ki'ichirō confronted the police.

He trusted Yusuke Sakata he had known for only a few years, so much that Jiang Hang would have done the same.

After all, although he always suffered setbacks at Jiang Hang's hands, he had known Jiang Hang for so long, and given Jiang Hang's remarkable achievements in the past few months, he simply couldn't doubt that a new generation of famous detective who had known Yusuke Sakata since his birth would actually take the initiative to protect a serial killer.

Under Jiang Hang's suggestive prompting, Heiji Hattori is now indeed placing the greatest suspicion on the mysterious organization that had contact with Sōji Munetaro.

But matters related to the Black Organization are things that ordinary police officers can only access; even within the Japan Public Security Bureau, only specialized personnel have access to such information.

Even though Heiji Hattori's father is the head of the Osaka police, investigating the Black Organization would be very troublesome. After all, given the Black Organization's style, if they really found out that someone was secretly investigating the organization, even if Saguru Hakuba of the Japan police, they probably wouldn't hesitate to take action.

Therefore, to prevent Heiji Hattori too reckless, Jiang Hang cautiously mentioned to him that Shinichi Kudo was currently unable to appear in the public eye because he was being targeted by this organization.

Heiji Hattori's eyes flickered after hearing this information from Jiang Hang, then he nodded slightly to Jiang Hang, indicating that he would be more careful during his investigation.

"Also, isn't there a mysterious organization behind that Numabuchi Ki'ichirō? I suspect that the two of them might be in contact with the same organization. You can continue to work on Numabuchi Ki'ichirō; perhaps you can get other useful clues."

Jiang Hang was somewhat trying to divert attention from this, since although Numabuchi Ki'ichirō was a low-level member of the Black Organization, he had never come into contact with any of the big shots in the organization, and at most he only knew about the training location.

If you want to investigate the Black Organization, these things are certainly useful clues.

However, since Numabuchi Ki'ichirō was spared by the Black Organization, he estimated that those clues that might have exposed the Black Organization's information had most likely been dealt with by the Black Organization, at most leaving some insignificant things for the police.

For the next two days, Jiang Hang accompanied Heiji Hattori and the Osaka police to search for Yusuke Sakata's whereabouts during the day, and at night he prepared a brand new identity for Yusuke Sakata.

Having just transmigrated, Jiang Hang naturally had to rely on the system's help to acquire a new identity, but Jiang Hang current identity outside was no longer what it used to be.

Beika Art Museum, Eito Studios, Daibao Studios, and the recently acquired cinema—these assets combined could allow the Black Organization Gin blackmail others countless times.

Once you've properly crafted Yusuke Sakata's image and then made him stop using his Osaka accent, creating a new identity for him won't be too difficult.

However, Yusuke Sakata still needs to keep a low profile these days. Disguise is a useful tool, but if something goes wrong in public, it could cause serious trouble.

Until Yusuke Sakata learns to disguise himself, he will naturally have to live the kind of life that Miyano Shiho had when she was first rescued from the organization.

Two days later, the Osaka police still had no new leads. In addition, since the perpetrator of this serial murder case was a police officer, the Osaka Police Department was unwilling to fully disclose the matter. With no results in sight, the search for Yusuke Sakata naturally had to be put on hold.

This certainly doesn't mean that the Osaka police have given up on the pursuit of Yusuke Sakata. Rather, half of the police force in Osaka has been focused on Yusuke Sakata these past few days, and if this continues, it will affect the normal operation of the police station. Since Yusuke Sakata hasn't come out, the Osaka police naturally have no choice but to withdraw those officers, leaving only a special task force to continue investigating Yusuke Sakata's whereabouts.

Jiang Hang didn't know what others thought about this decision, but it was clear that Heiji Hattori was somewhat dissatisfied with it.

"No matter what, even if no one continues to investigate Yusuke Sakata's case, I will continue to investigate until I catch him myself," Heiji Hattori made a firm promise to Jiang Hang at the airport before he left.

"The recent cases have made me realize my shortcomings. I'm going to go into seclusion and rethink my approach. I'll come to Tokyo to see you once I've found my way," Heiji Hattori said, while also apologizing to Jiang Hang, who had barely had a chance to explore Osaka Castle these past few days.

"I won't be able to show you around properly this time, but I'll take you around properly next time you come to Osaka."

Jiang Hang waved to Heiji Hattori, saying that he might come to Osaka again in the future, but he wouldn't do any sightseeing.

On this trip, he first encountered Genji Fireflies, a theft gang that had been operating for years, in Kyoto, and then immediately followed up with a series of murders in Osaka.

Although both issues have been resolved and Jiang Hang has received generous rewards for his mission, Jiang Hang has become somewhat sensitive to the word "travel" because he encountered two cases in a row while traveling.