Chapter 052: Professional Assassin

Matsuno Shin hailed from Hakata City, a place renowned for the legendary statistic that three percent of its population were killers.
He was a freelance assassin, unaffiliated with any contract killing organization, accustomed to operating alone. Like a lone wolf in the black forest, he would relentlessly pursue his prey the moment an opportunity presented itself, never stopping until the hunt was done.

At this moment, Matsuno Shin had locked onto his first target since entering the Biochemical Metropolis scenario.

“A melee-type player, equipped with powerful engineering bombs, likely at Bronze Tier Four. Lacks the traits of a professional; seems he isn’t one,” Matsuno Shin silently analyzed Su Cheng’s abilities, all the while retrieving a 98K sniper rifle from his inventory. He took a deep breath and aligned the black crosshairs in his scope with the back of Su Cheng’s head.

This 98K was a rare weapon he had acquired in a previous story scenario, offering a guaranteed kill with a headshot against players. Even if the target was a tank-type with an ironclad skull, a headshot from the 98K meant certain death.

However, the 98K’s headshot effect was useless against monsters in the biochemical scenario. For instance, the primitive infected tank he’d just seen would not die even if shot in the head; firing recklessly would only reveal his location.

This scenario followed a ranked point battle mode—only the top fifty would clear it. Thus, every player was a competitor, and eliminating a powerful rival would be a significant advantage for Matsuno Shin. Moreover, after killing another player, he could inherit whatever they left behind, such as Su Cheng’s “Shadow of the Gale.”

Though Matsuno Shin was not a melee specialist, he could still sell the blade for a tidy sum of game points once the event ended.

The moment Su Cheng finished off the tank zombie with a single slash and let his guard down, Matsuno Shin’s finger tightened on the sniper rifle’s trigger.

He’d been hiding in a building across from the department store ever since the outbreak began, waiting for precisely this chance.

“Your life is mine now,” Matsuno Shin muttered, a cruel smile curling his lips. Yet just as he squeezed the trigger, Su Cheng, who had his back to him, suddenly turned and glanced directly toward his hiding place.

“Damn it, he sensed me? How is that possible!”

From within the scope, Matsuno Shin saw the cold, piercing look in Su Cheng’s eyes. His finger trembled slightly on the trigger.

He hadn’t anticipated Su Cheng’s sensitivity to danger—how could anyone possibly detect his killing intent amidst these zombie-infested streets and begin to pin down his position?

A professional assassin, once discovered during an operation, would usually retreat and wait for a better opportunity. But Matsuno Shin was unwilling to give up so easily. If he let this chance slip, he might never get another shot at killing Su Cheng.

Moreover, this man had likely obtained crucial storyline clues from the primitive infected, making his death all the more valuable to Matsuno Shin.

Hesitating for only half a second, Matsuno Shin shifted the crosshairs to Su Cheng’s brow and fired without hesitation.

Bang!

The muzzle of the 98K erupted in flame—a bullet sliced through the air, speeding toward Su Cheng.

“A sniper?”

Su Cheng lunged forward, raising his blade in a flash to strike the bullet.

Steel met lead in a burst of sparks; the force of the slash diverted the bullet’s trajectory, sending it careening away.

A cold arc of steel cut the air, and the bullet struck a nearby rock, leaving a deep hole.

In the same instant, Su Cheng kicked off the ground, as swift as a hunting leopard, charging toward Matsuno Shin’s ambush.

“Damn it, what kind of monster is this guy?” Matsuno Shin’s eyes widened in shock—he had never seen such a feat, one that could only be performed by someone with at least a D-rank combat mastery skill.

He wondered just what kind of monster he had provoked.

The effective lethal range of the 98K was eight hundred meters, but at Su Cheng’s full sprint, he closed the distance in a heartbeat.

Sensing the danger, Matsuno Shin had already left the building in advance, slipping away into the chaos of the crowds to evade Su Cheng’s pursuit.

“Did he get away?”

As a professional assassin, Matsuno Shin’s greatest strengths were stealth and escape. Yet fleeing through these zombie-infested, tumultuous streets was no easy feat, and Su Cheng’s instincts told him the sniper was still nearby.

“Xiao Bai, find that sniper.”

A translucent, white figure vanished from Su Cheng’s side, setting off to hunt for the sniper’s trail.

With their souls bound, Su Cheng could share Xiao Bai’s vision. The moment Xiao Bai spotted Matsuno Shin, Su Cheng sensed his exact location.

“Found you. Let’s see where you run this time.”

A cold smile flickered across Su Cheng’s face. Since the sniper had ambushed him without provocation, he would make sure there was a price to pay.

“Damn it, how did he find me?” Matsuno Shin panicked as he saw Su Cheng approaching. He couldn’t fathom how his concealment could have been seen through so quickly.

Something was definitely wrong.

A wild glint flashed in Matsuno Shin’s eyes.

His concealment had failed; escape was impossible. If Su Cheng reached him, it would mean certain death.

If he wanted to survive, he had to fight with everything he had.

Matsuno Shin felt no regret for targeting Su Cheng—this was a world governed by survival of the fittest, where morality was irrelevant and only interests mattered. He was simply unlucky this time, his judgment clouded by greed, leading him to act rashly even after being detected, courting disaster.

“Die!”

As Su Cheng drew close, Matsuno Shin stowed his rifle and hurled a fragmentation grenade in Su Cheng’s direction.

The grenade’s effective lethal radius was thirty meters, its power formidable. For a glass-cannon melee fighter like Su Cheng, failing to dodge meant death or at least crippling injury.

Matsuno Shin’s timing was impeccable; he tossed the grenade at just the right moment, ensuring it landed at Su Cheng’s feet, primed to explode.

No matter how fast Su Cheng was, escaping the blast radius in a fraction of a second would be almost impossible.

Boom!

A violent explosion erupted; pungent, acrid smoke curled into the air, carrying the scent of scorched flesh.

A large crater was blasted into the ground where the grenade landed, but Matsuno Shin saw no sign of Su Cheng’s corpse. Had he been blown to pieces?

In that instant, a blade gleaming with cold light pierced Matsuno Shin from behind, the tip emerging from his abdomen.

Matsuno Shin spat blood, eyes wide with disbelief.

He had not even seen how Su Cheng had evaded the grenade’s blast and closed in behind him.

Staring at his wound, a bitter, unwilling expression came over Matsuno Shin’s face. The injury was grave, but not necessarily fatal. He still had healing items—under normal circumstances, even a mortal wound wouldn't mean instant death.

But he knew Su Cheng would never give him a chance to use a recovery item.

At this distance, a sniper specializing in long-range combat stood no chance against a melee professional, especially one with advanced mastery of the blade.

“Even if I die, I’ll drag you to hell with me!” Matsuno Shin roared in fury, fighting through the pain to seize Su Cheng and pull out another grenade, determined to take Su Cheng down with him.

But he was mistaken.

A fragmentation grenade took 3.5 to 4 seconds to detonate—plenty of time for Su Cheng to kill him several times over.

With a single stroke, Su Cheng lopped off Matsuno Shin’s arm. Just before the grenade exploded, Su Cheng unleashed a surge of spiritual energy from his feet.

A powerful force launched him dozens of meters away, clear of the blast radius.

With a deafening roar, the desperate Matsuno Shin was blown apart, reduced to fragments by the explosion.

Even as Matsuno Shin self-destructed, Su Cheng never learned why he had been targeted. But since the man had made the attempt, Su Cheng felt no need to show mercy.

Unexpectedly, Matsuno Shin’s 98K sniper rifle dropped to the ground upon his death.

“You can loot equipment from other players after killing them?”

Su Cheng picked up the 98K in curiosity. The attack had served as a reminder: in the ranked points battle, players would do whatever it took to clear the scenario—including killing their competitors.

By the final stages, the struggle for the top fifty would surely become a brutal melee. The players at the top of the leaderboard, himself included, would likely become targets for others.

Assassinations like the one he had just survived would undoubtedly become commonplace.

Su Cheng opened his palm, revealing a chip no larger than a fingernail. He had found it by chance in the corpse of the primitive infected; it was labeled “MS-008.”

“MS… that seems like an abbreviation for something.”

The internet still worked despite the outbreak, so Su Cheng pulled out his phone to look it up. He discovered MS referred to Mitsui Medical Technology, a pharmaceutical company in Tokyo.

“Mitsui Medical Company has a research institute near Ginza?”

A quick search revealed the institute was nearby.

At last, he had found a clue.

Not long after Su Cheng left, a small, delicate figure appeared—a girl who looked like an elementary student with a pink backpack. Yet atop her head, two furry dog ears stood erect, and behind her, a yellow tail wagged back and forth.

This little girl was, in fact, a professional.

“Good thing I was smart enough not to make a move like that idiot. Still, that guy is terrifying—he’s not even a professional, yet his strength is monstrous. Time to get out of here.”