They Called Me Trash? Now I'll Hack Their World

Chapter 254: Tick tock, Marcus[2]

The days passed in a blur of forced, meticulous normalcy.

Every evening, I maintained my cover, helping Kyle and Sira with the ridiculous Flame-Boar stall, perfectly blending into the background of the Academy’s festival preparations.

But late at night, the real work was happening.

Mira had contacted me through the communication crystal. The operation was an absolute success.

Her squad had completely demolished the stone bridge at the canyon pass, severing the Capital Syndicate’s southern trade route. But Mira hadn’t stopped there. She had also intercepted a series of panicked, encrypted letters Marcus had been desperately exchanging with his family’s underground handlers in the capital.

I stood in my quiet dorm room, staring out the window at the setting sun casting long, bloody shadows across the academy grounds.

"Just one thing left," I murmured softly.

Then grabbed my forged exit pass, slipped out of the dormitory, and walked briskly toward the main academy gates.

The perimeter guards barely glanced at my paperwork, assuming I was just another stressed student heading into the capital to secure last-minute supplies for the festival booths.

The moment I was out of sight of the academy walls, I swiped my spatial ring and pulled a heavy, unadorned black cloak over my shoulders and wrapped a dark scarf tightly around the lower half of my face, completely obscuring my features.

Then I began to navigate the sprawling, streets of the capital as dusk settled over the city. According to Mira’s intercepted intel, Marcus’s family had completely cut his funding, forcing him to make a desperate, back-alley deal with a black-market associate to secure the money he needed to maintain his noble facade.

I ducked under the awning of a closed bakery, scanning the street.

A few moments later, a familiar, arrogant silhouette hurried past the glow of a streetlamp, wearing a dark coat that couldn’t quite hide his aristocratic posture. He quickly slipped through the heavy wooden doors of a rundown, dimly lit inn near the merchant district.

"Bingo," I whispered.

Then crossed the street and followed him inside. The inn was thick with the smell of stale ale and pipe smoke, filled with rowdy mercenaries and shady merchants. I kept my head down, sliding into a shadowed booth a few tables away from where Marcus had rigidly seated himself in the corner.

And I didn’t have to wait long. Just moments later, a second heavily hooded figure entered the tavern. The stranger slid into the booth directly across from Marcus. They leaned in close, their voices dropping into hushed, urgent whispers.

I narrowed my eyes beneath my hood.

And just as I tried to execute the command to fully lock onto their conversation, the meeting abruptly ended. The hooded stranger reached into his cloak, sliding a small, wrapped artifact across the sticky wooden table. Marcus quickly snatched it up, concealing it inside his jacket. The stranger immediately stood and left through the back door.

Marcus let out a tense breath, stood up, and headed for the main exit.

I tossed a copper coin onto my table and followed him out into the freezing night air and began trailing him for three blocks, keeping to the rooftops and shadows.

When he finally veered away from the crowded merchant district and entered the narrow, deserted alleyways leading back toward the noble estates, I made my move.

Then deliberately stepped heavily on a loose cobblestone.

Clack!

Marcus instantly froze. He looked over his shoulder, his hand flying to the hilt of the sword he wore at his hip. He quickened his pace, taking a sharp left turn, then a right, desperately trying to shake the tail.

I let him run until he sprinted down a narrow alley, only to be met with a towering brick wall.

A dead end.

Marcus whirled around, drawing his blade as he faced the mouth of the alley. His chest was heaving, but he forced a mask of aristocratic bravado over his panic.

"I know you’re trailing behind me," Marcus called out into the darkness, channeling a faint flicker of heat aura into his blade.

"Show yourself. Who’s there?!"

I stepped out from the shadows of the alley mouth, the streetlamp behind me casting my face in absolute darkness.

Marcus squinted, trying to recognize me through the heavy cloak and scarf.

"Who are you?"

"None of your business," I replied, my voice completely disguised by a low, gravelly rasp.

I didn’t give him another second to think.

[Target: Self -> Modify Property: Agility = Override Output: Max (Cap)]

The cobblestones cracked beneath my boots as I launched myself forward and crossed the twenty feet between us in a fraction of a second.

Marcus’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror at the impossible speed. He instinctively threw his arms up, trying to bring his sword up to block.

My boot slammed directly into his crossed forearms.

CRACK!

Marcus skidded violently backward across the filthy alley floor, hissing in agony as the sheer kinetic force nearly fractured his wrist, knocking his sword completely out of his grip.

He was a mage. His entire combat style relied on taking a step back and conjuring his fire mana to keep his opponents at a distance.

He needed time to cast.

I refused to give him a single millisecond.

Before he could even fully regain his balance, I was already inside his guard.

I drove a brutal, perfectly calculated knee straight into his abdomen. All the air violently left his lungs in a sickening whoosh. As he doubled over, I brought my elbow down hard against the back of his neck, driving him face-first into the brick wall.

"Agh—!"

Marcus violently rebounded off the brick, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the cobblestones. He staggered, his face bruised and bleeding.

"Who... who sent you?!" Marcus choked out, desperately trying to summon a spark of fire in his palm.

I remained completely silent and stepped in, swatting his casting hand away with insulting ease, and delivered a devastating right hook directly to his jaw.

Marcus’s eyes rolled back in his head. His knees buckled, and he collapsed into a heap among the alley trash, completely unconscious.

I stood over him for a second, my breathing perfectly even. Then crouched down, unceremoniously digging through the pockets of his expensive coat.

My fingers brushed against the heavy cloth wrapping. I pulled out the artifact the hooded man had given him a mana crystal.

Then I swiped my own spatial ring, took out the black oozing material and pressed the forged seal firmly onto the crystal’s wrapping, binding it there.

I shoved the newly modified artifact right back into Marcus’s inner coat pocket, stood up, adjusting my scarf as I looked down at the bleeding, unconscious noble who had dared to threaten my people.

"That’ll do," I murmured.

I turned my back on him and melted seamlessly back into the shadows of the capital, leaving Marcus Valen to his inevitable destruction.