Venus Mission: I Was an Assassin-for-Hire Who Died, Now I'm Hunting Heroes in Another World (Light Novel) Vol. 1

by miyabi, Eito Nishiwaka (Illustrator)

A former mercenary is reincarnated into a magical world where his skills will make him a threat to the so-called heroes of this new world.

Takashi Suzuki, a middle-aged mercenary and former hit man, just lost his battle with cancer. But death isn't the end for a killer of his caliber. A mysterious goddess has other reincarnate him in a fantasy world--and give him a divine kill eliminate thirty-two heroes.

These so-called heroes? Japanese high schoolers summoned en masse, granted cheat-level powers, and now plunging the world into chaos.

Reborn as Rei and partnered with the beautiful and deadly elf warrior Lydina, Suzuki must bring every skill he has to the battlefield--from modern combat tactics and classical martial arts to his newly awakened magic. But this mission is more than a bloodbath. The goddess's true motives remain shrouded, and a larger conspiracy is unfolding behind the scenes. Can Rei survive long enough to cross every name off his list--including a Sword Saint, an Arch Sage, and a deadly Necromancer?

Genres: Fantasy, Light Novel

388 pages, Paperback

Published May 19, 2026

Reviews

[Aaron]

Dragons. Necromancers. Mages. Cowardly kings. Elves out for revenge. Kidnapped princesses. The new world in which Takashi Suzuki finds himself if pretty wild. Good thing he's skilled at fine-tuning his information-gathering skills, adapting to and surviving myriad dangers, and, of course, cold-blooded murder.

VENUS MISSION v1 is a refreshingly practical, cool-headed view of the keenly darker facets of isekai storytelling. This isn't a dark story, per se, but this is definitely a story whose characters and whose character motives revel in the plainspoken and the bloodthirsty.

It's not enough to take over a kingdom, one must manipulate its royalty. It's not enough to conquer a territory, one must kill its guardian deity and steal its people's culture. This fantasy world is in a bad way. Suzuki, reincarnated as Rei, is given leeway by an obviously sketchy goddess to hunt and assassinate several teenagers who were summoned to help a corrupt official take charge of his world. Rei is a professional, and his targets are ego-driven, power-mad children, so why hold back? Alas, it's not enough to execute a power-hungry teenager, one must gut him alive to learn his secrets before moving on to assassinate his whole crew.

Part of the draw of VENUS MISSION v1 rests in its lack of perfunctory sympathy: Readers encounter zero manufactured rationality behind a necromancer who raises the dead to attack a mercantile city beyond his following orders and wanting to feel in charge. Readers encounter little pushback to the aberrant morality of a boy who abuses his divine sword abilities to slaughter a locally sacred creature and go after its people. VENUS MISSION v1 doesn't believe, think, or care about crafting that convenient in-between space most isekai narratives press into form when it comes to articulating why bad characters are bad, or why good characters are good.

Rei is an anti-hero. He's not a good person, but the narrative positions him to overcome the crooked circumstances necessitated by the corrupt and the deranged. He's a trained killer, brought to another world to eliminate the reckless and the foolhardy. Except, this time, he's equipped with a grimoire of magical skills. Can he outsmart and outmaneuver well over two dozen bratty children? If anyone can, it's a former special forces soldier whose familiarity with torture, clandestine warfare, and hand-to-hand combat rivals all others'.

The book excels when it relies on Rei's old school knowledge of skills building and parleys his survivalism into this new context. Often, he has the knowledge (swordsmanship), but he doesn't have the tools (weapons); or, he has the ability (magical use), but he doesn't have the experience (training). In short, Rei isn't an overpowered protagonist, but all of his opponents are. It's going to take more than a casual alliance with a brilliant elf swordfighter (Lydina) and a burgeoning understanding of the laws of fantasy-world physics for him to complete his mission. Rei wasn't given a timeline, but when the gap between the power he possesses and the abilities of his enemies is so vast, time is of the essence.

[Ron]

Takashi Suzuki, a Japanese assassin/mercenary, was dying in our world. But a goddess in another world had a use for him so she placed him in an "angel" body and dropped him naked in the world with information, some knowledge, and a kill order - kill off the 32 so-called heroes who had been summoned via a ritual, not by the goddess. These "heroes" had cheat-level powers and had taken over one kingdom and many were planning on taking over more. So Rei (the name he decided to use) had to learn about the world, learn to do magic, and take out the heroes. Lucky for him he encountered some of the heroes who were distracted beating up an elf woman. He took them by surprise, killed them after gaining some information, and then used magic to heal the elf named Lydina. They formed a party together at the local Adventurer's Guild to make their way to Melgrid. Their first stop was in the Republic of Ziltro, but they then encountered a problem - three "heroes" came calling with an army of zombies. Rei and Lydina managed to dispel the zombies, kill the necromancer and injure the other "heroes" but at a great cost. It will be interesting to see what comes next for this duo!