The World seems Realistic but Why do I have a Leveling System?

When two unconscious men in weird getup appeared on top of their table, most of the people were surprised and began to wonder where and how did she was able to hide two grown-up men. No matter how many times they rub their eyes, thinking that they were dreaming or seeing hallucinations, the two unconscious men are still there on the table. To those that have seen the display she had shown on the monitor a while back, they knew that she had some sort of unique magecraft that involved shadow. Although some didn't believe what they were watching and thought of it as nothing, Sheila had once again proven them wrong by materializing a tentacle out of her shadow and used it to wake up the two unconscious men.

"Guh!"

"Ah!"

The two unlucky men got a rude wake-up call from Sheila with a smack to their stomach. Once the pain breaks through their hazy mind, they unintentionally groaned out in pain. Looking at the two people hired by him, Frederic grinned in glee as he didn't expect this 'Shiro' guy to follow up to his change of plan. But well, since it makes things convenient for him, he shouldn't complain much or heaven might strike him down. Never in his mind did he thought that the two would leak their deal since they are the kind of people that cares more about their reputation. 

"Then, let me—"

"I'll do it."

But what he didn't expect was for the 'Ice Empress' to step forward as he was about to start carrying his plan, it caught him off guard. 'This is bad! If I let her, the two might ended up exposing our deal without a second doubt! And to make matters even worse, she especially hates this kind of dirty dealing! But if I intervene now, it will raise a suspicious flag on me. Now, what should I do?' Thought Frederic desperately wanted to stop her, he couldn't really do anything other than to sit down back on his seat. If it came down to it, he might as well kill them before they could spout out the deal secretly. 'That's right. There's no need for me to be so concerned about it.'

Before the stoic woman was about to open her mouth to speak, the assassin decided to take the chance and escape even though he knows it isn't possible. But before he could even stand on his feet, the same tentacle emerged from his shadow and immediately wrap itself around him, binding him on the spot. The tentacle looks almost fragile that it gives the impression that one thinks that they can tear it apart with their brute strength alone but, too bad. All Sheila needs to do is just to put a specific amount of mana into her shadow tentacles. By doing so, she strengthens it to become stronger and tougher. 

From the very beginning, Sheila didn't have any intention of letting the assassin go. From the look of how it turned out, Sheila guessed that the assassin must have been hired by someone to assassinate Mia for a reason she didn't know about just yet. Just when she was wondering what to do about the captured assassin and his friend, a certain someone suddenly suggests to interrogate them. What good timing for her, it couldn't get any better than this. And so, Sheila decided to follow along with it.

She didn't actually care if they were suspicious of her. After all, she did, in fact, trespassing into their secret territory before causing trouble for them. Anyone with a sane mind would get angry at her, don't even mention getting suspicious. But unexpectedly, they decided to talk with her instead. If it also isn't for her trying to gather information about the expressionless woman, she might have gone home by now. Why would she waste more of her time when she can use it for a more productive action instead? She had already done a part of her plan anyway.

"Well, I don't want this man to attempt to do anything funny while he can, so you will have to let this slide since it's also helpful to you, right?"

The expressionless woman didn't say anything in response to her. She simply stares at Sheila for a moment in pure silence for some reason the latter didn't know about, before turning her head toward the assassin and begins the interrogation. Sheila didn't know why but she feels like the woman understood her thoughts at that moment when she stares right into her eyes. Though Sheila looks calm outside, internally, she's sweating bucket. No one seems to sense anything different about her, but not that woman, Sheila is sure that the latter somehow knows that she's wearing a disguise. 'This woman keeps on alerting my danger sense over and over. She's the real deal, no doubt about it. If things went south, I'm going to escape immediately with Mia.'

"Now that you can't escape, why don't you tell us who hired you? And what is your mission? Where did you come from?"

When the woman asked with her monotone voice, the assassin didn't seem to have any reaction to it and snorted.

"You think I'll open my mouth with just this? Dream on."

"..."

When he finished speaking, the assassin suddenly senses that the atmosphere had somehow become strange. It strangely felt chilly even though there isn't any ghost in the room. Before he can think further, suddenly, his nerve was overwhelmed by a single feeling, and that is pain.

"Aaah! My finger-"

"If you chose to keep silent, I will break apart your body one by one, finger after finger. Make sure you keep that in mind, okay?"

That's it. That's the reason why she's called Ice Empress. With that monotone voice coupled with an expressionless face, she brought fear with her 'cruel' method of interrogation. Like a cold-blooded killer, she didn't give any reaction regarding her bloody method. Of course, some people didn't like her way of doing things and openly spoke to her about it. But the result of that is no one was spared unless they back off and listened to her warning. Some had even witnessed with their own eyes of her killing people without batting an eye; this caused the rumor about her to escalated even further. She's not a person to be mess with, for real.

And despite many have begun to fear her, the Rainford Family who was known as one of the righteous families, they didn't give any punishment to her and left her to her own device. They keep their door shut and didn't respond to anything even while allies and enemies aside, appear on their doorstep to question them. Of course, it wasn't long before the people who were banding together to boycott them had finally come to know what she did is, after the Rainford Family released the news by opening up their door to the people. 

As an influential family, obviously they are the hot target for the media and reporter alike. Even though they didn't know the detail of what sort of thing she did, they do notice that something strange is going. But no matter how much they investigate, they didn't manage to find anything worthy to make up for an article. The reason for that is the Rainford Family had been keeping everything under wraps from the public. With the help from the Mage Association, it isn't that hard of a deal. After all, they were the one who makes the rule of not letting the public known about the magecraft, and anything involving it.

Even after one of his fingers broken by the Ice Empress, the assassin still kept his mouth shut while glaring deadly at her. As someone who was sold off by his parent to his current assassin organization, the man had been growing up through training after training until he finally becomes the person they needed the most, which is an assassin. His own body had become a lot tougher than a bear after being tempered thoroughly by many training, and so, this kind of thing hardly faze him. The reason he cried out a while ago is that the sudden pain surprised him a bit. If not for the fact that he wants to live, he might have bit his tongue to kill himself. After all, that's one of the codes of being an assassin.

Even if one is prepared for getting tortured, they might have also cried out like him if they were caught off guard. He let his guard down as he didn't expect a beautiful woman like her to be the one to torture him among the people in the room. He let his personal judgment overwrite his five years' worth of sense, however, that might have been Sheila's fault. As an assassin who also came across mage a few times on his mission, he does know magecraft to a certain degree. At the very least, it's enough for him to find their weakness before assassinate them.

But the power showed by Sheila a while back completely destroyed the common sense he learned through all those years. Even now, though he knows the woman in front of him is strong, he still can't believe that his trained eyes couldn't follow her movement at all. All that he saw was just a blur for a short moment when she disappeared from her spot, that's it. Although it might come out like narcissistic, he was known God of Death due to his one-shot assassination that never fails. For someone like him to be overpowered by a man in a suspicious mask and a woman, it just sounds unbelievable. In fact, if his colleagues came to know about this information, they would definitely have a good laugh before relaying the news to others.

"You leave me no choice."

The Ice Empress said with the same expressionless face and monotone voice. And once again, her figure turned into a blur and since he had prepared himself of the incoming pain, he wasn't that scared. But what happened next left him utterly puzzled for a brief moment as he watches one of his arms slowly falling to the ground. Soon after, the said man howled out in pain.

"MY ARM! AAAAH!"

"I warned you but you didn't listen. However, I'm a merciful person. I will let you go if you answer my question properly, without any lies."

'Freaking hell...I didn't see that coming, did I? She literally ripped his arm apart with her brute strength, isn't that crazy? My instinct is right, this woman is absolutely bad and something I just learned, utterly monster. She's ruthless too.' thought Sheila as she heaved out a sigh. If not for the fact that she's wearing a mask, she might have also wiped the sweat off her forehead with her hand due to nervousness.