The Cost of Conviction
After planning what I needed to do in the future regarding the Astral Index artifact, I spent the next two days thinking about something far more troublesome.
How to convince the special person I was about to meet.
Rin Vale.
That was her name.
An assassin.
And the second in command of one of the most ruthless assassination groups, Alpha, under Zero.
Convincing her was not just difficult.
It was nearly impossible.
Not because she was part of Zero.
But because Rin Vale was someone who did not trust anyone.
More precisely, she did not know how to trust.
The person she was most connected to right now was her best friend, Valoria.
She could give her life for her without hesitation.
And yet, even then, she did not truly trust her.
That was why, even after years of staying by Valoria's side, Rin never told her anything about her past.
About Zero Or about the mission she had been given to assassinate her.
She was afraid.
Afraid that Valoria would despise her once she learned the truth.
That fear left Rin trapped in constant indecision, unable to move forward, unable to turn back.
Which meant I could not simply meet her and say something like—
"Hey, I know the future. This world is heading toward a bad ending. Everyone we care about will die. So let's save the world."
I could not do that.
Even if I somehow convinced her by proving future events, she still would not trust me.
And I could not foolishly stake everything on her trust.
But at the same time, I could not afford to lose such a valuable ally.
Which meant there was only one way to convince her.
By taking advantage of her weakness.
And the only true weakness she had was fear.
Fear of Zero discovering her change of heart.
And fear of Valoria discovering her true self.
'I will make use of both of those fears.'
I knew it sounded cruel.
But I had no other choice.
I would make up for it in the future.
"I will save her too."
That was the only repayment I could offer.
Of course, I could not simply meet her directly and threaten her.
If I did that, she would kill me without hesitation.
First, I needed to restrain her long enough for us to talk.
'That alone is dangerous.'
Trying to restrain Rin Vale directly would be suicide.
She was not the second in command of Alpha for nothing.
She was at her most terrifying when it came to assassination.
But she was also extremely capable in direct confrontation and hand-to-hand combat.
Which meant that restraining her required a solid plan.
And—
"I already know the plan."
Because of my knowledge of the novel, I knew her weaknesses at this point in time very well.
She had two.
The first weakness was illusion magic.
Illusion magic was not simply about creating false images.
True illusion magic interfered directly with perception itself.
Sight, sound, touch, even spatial awareness could be manipulated.
A skilled illusionist did not need to overpower their enemy.
They only needed to confuse them long enough to create a fatal opening.
Against someone who relied heavily on instinct, intuition, and precise movement, illusion magic was deadly.
And Rin relied on all three.
That was her first weakness.
The second one was fear.
As I said before, Rin did not handle fear well.
When placed in an overwhelming or dreadful situation, her ability to think rationally dropped sharply.
She believed herself to be emotionless, someone who had long lost the ability to feel after her childhood.
But she was wrong.
She had been developing emotions ever since she met Valoria.
And because she never acknowledged them, she never learned how to deal with them.
Which made that fear even more dangerous.
And that was something I needed to use.
For that, I needed artifacts.
And items.
So I spent two days preparing planning and buying what I needed.
…
Two days later, I was inside a tavern.
I ordered some food and ate quietly while waiting.
After some time passed, I saw the person I had been waiting for.
Rin Vale.
She entered the tavern and sat down in a corner.
I paid my bill and stood up.
But I did not approach her.
Instead, I left the tavern and began walking faster.
She was not my target yet.
I only came to confirm that today was the day she arrived in Valoria.
After a short while, I stopped in front of an inn.
After confirming the name, I entered and rented every room on the second floor.
Every room except one.
Then I went upstairs and stopped in front of that remaining room.
The one I had not rented.
I took out a lesser-grade artifact from my spatial bag.
It was a lockpicking artifact.
It had conditions, of course, but because the door used an ordinary lock, it opened in less than a minute.
Inside was an ordinary room, no different from any other in the inn.
Rin had not rented it yet.
I knew the inn name, but not which room she would choose.
That was why I rented all the other rooms on the second floor.
And I did not worry about her choosing a room on another floor.
Because I knew her habits.
She preferred the second floor.
After confirming everything, I began placing four haggard-grade artifacts in the four corners of the room.
They were simple artifacts used for hunting.
Each one could fire a net vertically only once.
They were designed to trap prey.
The more the prey struggled, the tighter the net became.
After a single use, the artifact would break.
That was why they were cheap.
However, I did not use nets.
I replaced them with threads.
Threads made from a B-rank spider monster.
It was stronger, sharp and thinner than hair. Far more difficult to break.
And once they activated—
Escape would not be easy.
Getting it alone cost me almost three hundred gold coins.
'My money...'
It hurt to use something so expensive for a single plan, but it was worth it.
After setting everything up, I closed the room and used the lesser-grade artifact again to lock the door.
One of its functions was locking a door that had been unlocked using the artifact itself.
Once that was done, I left the inn and began running toward the tavern I had just left.
'Now the main part of the plan.'
While moving, I took out a common-grade artifact from my spatial bag.
I had obtained it by exchanging two lesser-grade artifacts and paying a hefty amount of gold on top of that.
It was a glove.
An artifact that could only be used three times.
After wearing it, the glove would vanish, and the moment I touched another person, that person would fall into an illusion.
The wearer could decide what kind of illusion the target would see.
The illusion itself was limited to intermediate illusion magic, but that was more than enough for me.
However, the condition to use this artifact was strange.
I needed to—
"Make physical contact with the target."
There was also a flaw.
If the person trapped in the illusion made physical contact with someone else, the illusion would transfer to that person.
But—
'I can turn that flaw into my advantage.'
After a short while, I arrived in front of the tavern.
When I entered, the atmosphere was the same as before. Loud voices, laughter, and the sound of mugs clashing together.
'Good... It hasn't started yet.'
In the novel, Rin was first introduced through the incident that was about to happen here.
A fight that would break out very soon.
Scanning the room, I searched for a specific group.
I found them quickly.
Five men sitting together near the center, looking like ordinary thugs at first glance.
One of them had a large build and an especially intimidating presence.
I walked toward them.
When I reached their table, I pretended to trip and grabbed the large man's hand for balance.
He immediately started shouting angrily.
But before he could say anything else, I hurriedly left the tavern, moving toward the back window.
"Hoo..."
I took a long breath and waited.
Then—
The thugs stood up.
They began walking toward Rin.
And the large man suddenly grabbed her wrist.
'Bingo.'
That was exactly what I was waiting for.
In the novel, I clearly remembered that detail.
The reason I remembered it so well was because I had been furious while reading that scene.
After confirming it, I started running again.
After some time, I reached the inn and stopped at a short distance from the entrance.
I waited.
Not long after, Rin arrived.
The moment she entered the inn, I began controlling my mana and infused it into the glove.
During the past two days, I had bought a basic magic book and practiced using mana with lesser-grade artifacts.
Maybe it was because of my Acceleration talent—
But surprisingly, it only took me about a day and a half to learn how to feel and slightly control mana in the air.
When Rin entered the inn and received her room key, I triggered an intermediate illusion magic through the glove.
She jolted slightly.
Then continued walking toward the second floor.
And that was when the real plan began.
