Chapter 82: Irredeemable?

Chapter 82: Chapter 82: Irredeemable?

Felix sat alone in his living room. The evening sun shone through the windows, painting the floor with a warm orange glow. On the low table sat a cup of tea that had gone cold, completely untouched.

In front of him lay a single electronic folder on his tablet.

*VESPER CRUZ*

He stared at the bold letters for a long time before finally tapping it open.

Name: Vesper Cruz. Alias: Silver Needle.

Talent Level: Tier 1. Rank: A-rank. Element: Metal. Combat Style: Assassin. Current Status: Acheron Deep — Special Rehabilitation Unit.

He slowly swiped through the pages, his expression growing more serious with every line.

There was no sad backstory buried in the text.

No single bad day that explained why she turned out like this. It was just a cold record of years, years of paid hits, years of spilled blood, and mission reports stacked one after another.

Names, locations, and confirmed kills, repeated over and over.

Some of her targets were violent criminals. Some were rival syndicate bosses. Others were corrupt politicians, witnesses, or informants.

And some were just regular people who had become inconvenient to someone rich enough to buy a death sentence.

Felix stopped scrolling. He read one specific incident report twice, then a third time. His fingers tightened hard against the glass screen.

She had killed them without hesitation. Not because she hated them, not for revenge, and not because she thought they deserved to die. She did it simply because someone gave her an order.

That was the part that truly unsettled him. Criminal, civilian, guard, shopkeeper, or witness: the label meant nothing to her once a contract was stamped.

Felix leaned his head back against the sofa cushions. "So that’s what you became."

The more he read, the darker it got. She wasn’t just a regular outlaw. She was a weapon. Her Metal element let her turn almost anything into a deadly tool: thin needles, razor blades, and metal wires. Her aim was terrifyingly precise, and her stealth skills were almost supernatural.

The Association had ranked her as one of the most dangerous A-rank killers currently locked beneath the mountain.

He scrolled down to the doctor’s psychological notes and slowed down.

*Subject shows almost no emotional reaction toward assigned targets.*

He paused on that line, then read the next one.

*Subject shows zero hesitation before taking a human life.*

And the line after that:

*Subject cannot tell the difference between lawful and unlawful actions.*

Felix lowered the tablet onto his lap, his eyes narrowing. "You’re totally different from the other two."

Seraphina had been broken by the cruel family that was supposed to raise her. Liora had been swallowed up by a dark curse she never asked for. Both of them carried pain and dangerous power, but neither had spent years turning herself into a paid weapon.

Vesper had done exactly that.

He looked over at the window. Earlier that day, Elena had reminded him that since Liora was now stable enough to clear normal gates, his patient schedule had to rotate.

He couldn’t spend all his hours on the same two girls forever. It was time to take on his next case. And that next case was the very woman he had fought and caught with his own hands.

He scrolled through more pages. Years of taking hits, years of following orders, years of living in the darkest alleys of the underworld.

After reading all that, asking whether she had done terrible things was pointless: the blood was right there on the screen.

The real question was: was there anything human left inside her to save?

Felix let out a tired sigh. "This one is going to be a nightmare."

He wasn’t a real doctor, and he never acted like one. His treatment style had always been simple and direct: patch up what was broken, give them a safe place to stand, talk, listen, trade punches in training when needed, and simply stay by their side.

Vesper’s entire mind had been trained around orders and murder. He couldn’t just tell her to become a nice girl. He couldn’t wipe her memories, he couldn’t rewrite her brain, and he couldn’t force a sense of right and wrong into someone who had never cared about it.

There was an easy way out, too. He could just walk away. The rehabilitation program was voluntary, and his contract gave him total control over which prisoners he agreed to handle. If he told Elena that Vesper was beyond help, the Association would cancel her funding immediately.

And for a Tier 1 assassin, the next step was crystal clear.

She would be executed by firing squad, probably by tomorrow morning.

Felix sat in the quiet room, his jaw clenching. He hated that thought. He hated it a lot.

He tapped his fingers against the table. "Would that really be fair, though?"

Silence answered him. He looked down at her file picture. She had calm eyes, pale skin, and dark hair with violet tips. There was an ordinary, relaxed look on her face, with nothing obvious hinting at the cold killer underneath.

He remembered their brawl. He remembered the speed, the focus, and the way those silver needles flew out of thin air. Before his breakthrough, a single misstep on his part would have put one of those needles through his throat.

She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t sloppy. And she wasn’t out-of-control crazy like some monsters were.

She was just lethal, in a very quiet, controlled way.

Felix closed his eyes. "Maybe that’s why I need to meet her myself."

He opened his eyes, his mind made up. A sheet of paper could show what a person had done in the past. It couldn’t show who was actually sitting across from him today.

He had learned that lesson with Seraphina and Liora, people rarely matched the rumors written in their files.

"I’ll go see you tomorrow," he told the empty room, standing up. "And if you truly are nothing more than a mindless weapon... I’ll pull the plug on your case myself."

No hate. Just a fair choice.

He set the tablet face down on the table. He would meet Vesper in the morning and decide her fate after talking to her.

---

His phone buzzed on the counter.

Seraphina: Are you back at your apartment?

Felix: Yeah.

Seraphina: Did you eat anything?

Felix glanced toward his dark kitchen, then at the mug of cold tea on the table. "...Does cold tea count as dinner?"

Felix: Not yet.

Three dots popped up on the chat, vanished, then appeared again.

Seraphina: You need to eat food.

Felix: Yes, Mom. [Salute emoji]

Seraphina: I am not your mother.[Kitchen knife emoji]

Felix: I know. [Skull emoji]

A short pause.

Seraphina: Good. [Smile emoji]

Felix could clearly picture her deadpan glare and laughed softly, shaking his head. They texted back and forth for a while, just simple, ordinary chatter.

She told him about a boring book she was reading. He teased her that she had terrible taste in novels. She told him he was being rude.

He told her she was getting way too sassy. She answered that she had always been sassy.

He laughed out loud at that, and the heavy feeling from Vesper’s file slowly melted away.

Then another alert popped up on his screen.

Liora: Felix.

Liora: Are you doing anything?

Felix: Not really.

Liora: Great!

Liora: Log in and play with me.

Felix raised an eyebrow.

Felix: Play what?

A game invite link popped into the chat before he could finish typing.

He stared at it. "...Seriously?"

Liora: I can’t beat this dungeon boss. [Pouting face emoji]

Liora: The game is cheating! [Anger vein emoji]

Felix: The game isn’t cheating, Liora. [Facepalm emoji]

Liora: It is! Its attacks have no cool-down![Crying loudly emoji]

Felix: You just have bad timing. [Smirking face emoji]

A long pause followed.

Liora: ...

Liora: I’m going to kick your butt in the match. [Fist emoji]

Felix: You just begged me for help five seconds ago. [Deadpan face emoji]

Liora: Just join already! [Pleading eyes emoji]

Felix: Fine, fine. [Rolling eyes emoji]

He booted up his console and picked up the controller.

Liora was a terrible loser. Every time they get wiped, she blamed him for distracting her. But whenever they finally cleared a difficult phase, she cheered as if they had just taken down a real dragon.

Her voice came through the headset,

breathless and happy: "We actually beat it!"

"You beat it," Felix corrected, smiling.

"We beat it!" she insisted loudly.

"Alright, alright. We beat it."

She went quiet for a moment, then added softly,

"Yeah. We did."

Felix smiled at the screen.

Late that night, Felix stood out on his balcony.

The cool night air hit his face. Valemont spread out below him like a glowing carpet of lights, flying transports zooming between glass towers, city patrols cruising the sky, crowded diners full of laughter, and people walking hand-in-hand along the sidewalks. Normal, peaceful city life.

He leaned his forearms against the metal railing.

Tomorrow morning, he would walk into Acheron and meet Vesper Cruz face to face. He would see if there was a real person hiding behind the name Silver Needle.

If she was just an empty killer who loved murder, he would accept it and let the law take its course. But he wasn’t going to condemn her without looking her in the eye first.

He looked up at the stars above the city. "Let’s see who you really are, Vesper."

The soft breeze blew past the balcony.

Miles away, buried deep beneath the earth inside a cold concrete cell, Vesper Cruz lay sleeping. She had no idea any of this had happened. She didn’t know that the very man who put her in cuffs had just chosen to look past her bloody record.

Tomorrow, her evaluation would begin. And for the first time in her life, someone was going to look at her and try to see a human being instead of a weapon.

---