Hmm.. this should do it for now.
Three hours of Teaching her how to read and write.
Two hours of compulsory training with Body forging exercise.
Three hours of Meditation on the runes.
The rest of the day she can use for whatever she wants. Well, at least for a few months until she becomes accustomed with it. After that I will have to increase the intensity of the body forging exercise and the meditation.
It's been almost an entire week after taking in Flor as my disciple and resuming my journey towards the capital. Since the situation is more serious than I thought, except for the occasional stop at the villages for the food, we never made any major stops.
One thing that I have noticed so far in my travel is the rate of bandits we have been encountering. They started to drastically increase in number as we got closer to the capital. Most of them are ordinary citizens of Opheus, doing whatever they wanted after hearing about the kingdom's imminent destruction. And the reason being that they are confident that the kingdom has no extra manpower or leisure to find or catch them.
No wonder the little head is worried about the kingdom. With the current state of the kingdom, without any Lord realm practitioner at it's helm, it is guaranteed to fall to ruin. No, even with a Lord realm master, the situation is barely salvageable.
It would be good enough for me if I can solve all this within a few months. But looking at the current state of the kingdom, where even with the release of the news about a Lord realm master supporting it didn't make much change, I don't think this can solved with a few months.
As I was pondering about how to salvage the kingdom's current mess, the carriage came to an sudden halt bringing me out of my thinking.
"Is there any problem, Ast?" I raised my voice from inside the carriage so that the carriage driver may hear it.
During our journey, I came to learn the name of the carriage driver: Ast. A 45 year old carriage driver who has been under the service of the Alister family for the last 25 years.
"Young sir, this.."
"What is it?"
"You might want to see this."
"Is it unavoidable?" With the current state of the kingdom, I don't want to waste much of time if possible, I have already wasted much time by taking my sweet time until a while ago.
"Sorry, young sir. It will take time for the carriage to move as the road is completely blocked."
Hmm.. a roadblock, is it?
"Stay here, and don't come out." I said to Flor with a sharp voice, as I can guess what is waiting for me outside the carriage.
Flor nodded her head in confusion as she heard my stern voice.
I opened the door of the carriage without waiting for Ast to open it and walked to the front with Noir behind me.
"..."
Well, this is a sight. What lay before me are broken carriages and death bodies scattered across the road blocking it. The entire region is covered with a strong smell of blood confirming that it hasn't been long after their death. The carriages have been destroyed beyond repair and the bodies has been scattered across the road showing little to no signs of struggle. To be exact they have the face of surprise plastered to their face.
Judging by the armor worn by the dead bodies, most of the bodies are of mercenaries with some bodies of merchants mixed in it. This... haa.. bandits. Making a mess out of the roads. They are becoming more and more brazen, enough to not even hide their attempted crime. At least bury the bodies of those whom you killed.
"Ast, bring out the shovel and deal with the bodies, I will move the wreckage of the carriages."
"Yes, young sir. But it will still take a while to dig graves for all of them." Ast said in a concerned voice as he went to the back to take the shovel.
"Graves? No. Just dig a pit and dump all the bodies in it." I said without even a care.
"Pardon, young sir? Isn't it a little rude to the dead?"
"Or are you saying that we should bury them individually in their own graves?"
Bury them individually? No, I don't have time for things like that. There are at least ten bodies scattered in front of our visible sight, and that's just the ones in front of us. I'm pretty sure that there are more scattered outside our sight.
I may come off like a cold-hearted demon but dead bodies aren't an unusual sight for people who are accustomed to travelling in this world. You will come across dead bodies of people killed by bandits, assassins, soldiers, by rival sects and many others as a daily occurrence. And most of the time bystanders just ignore them, letting it rot there. And the kinder ones at most bury all of them in a single grave. 'One for many' policy. Even the army just throws the bodies in one single giant pit. After all most of the people here don't believe in the existence of afterlife.
But what surprises me more is that someone like little Ast who has 25 years of experience as a carriage driver is soft like this. Does he even have 25 years of experience? Or is he one of the few believer of afterlife? Anyway, Let's just either bury them in a single pit or just stack the dead bodies and burn them.
"But young si-"
"Woof, woof." Noir's interrupted what Ast was going to say with his bark.
"Hmm? What is it, Noir"
"Woof, woof." He barked as he pointed his right front foot in the direction of a carriage.
"A survivor, you say?"
"Woof, woof" Noir nodded his head before running near the dead body and barking at it.h The supposedly still body jerked for a moment at Noir's barking.
With Ast behind me, I moved towards the corpse for a clear view of the surviving member. A woman, huh... This is a surprise. She was entirely covered in blood.
"You can stop with the act, miss. The bandits are long gone."
As soon as I spoke, the still corpse started to shuffle before trying to getting up.
"Ar-Are they g-gon-gone?" She said with a shivering voice.
"Yes"
I -I hel- help me, plea-se."
"...."
"Ast, help her out" I said I looked at the woman.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
I watched as Ast helped the woman to get out of the carriage. Unlike me, Flor and Ast, she has dark brown hair with matching eyes. But with the blood covering her body, I can't make much out of her appearance. But like all members of the spirit race, she too had a beautiful face although covered in blood.
After that I ordered Ast to bring out the water stored behind the carriage for the woman to clean up. As I watched the woman leave with jar with water, Ast came behind me with a worried face.
"What is it?"
"This.. isn't she- no nothing, young sir." Ast hesitated and cut off what he wanted to say.
"Then start digging."
--------------------
"Thank you for saving me, Umm?"
"Saul, you can call me that."
After clearing of the block and burying the bodies, we started our journey immediately without much delay.
"Yes, thank you, young master Saul." She said with a gentle smile on her face.
Well, well! look at that, she didn't mess up my gender like others.
"~So beautiful~" Flor whispered in her usual tiny voice.
So she really does look beautiful, huh? For someone like me, who surprisingly inherited a mild prosopagnosia from my previous world, most of the people in this world apart from those who were close to me looked the same. Adding my aesthetic sense from earth into it, everyone in this world are good looking, including me when I'm only slightly above the average as per the natives of this world. Thus me saying beautiful and someone saying beautiful is completely different.
After washing of the blood on her body, she exhibited the demeanor of a proper lady, bar the bloody white robe she was wearing. The blood on her hair too was washed off showing the silky light brown hair. Along with the matching brown eyes, she looked like a young miss of a noble family.
"If you don't mind me asking miss, what is your name?"
"Chloe Dabell."
I don't remember any noble household named Dabell, might be a newly emerged noble household or a merchant household.
"Now, Miss Dabell. why don't you tell about the bandit that attacked your caravan?"
For asking something like that out of the blue at this time, I may come off like an insensitive jerk in front of her but I don't care. After I drop her off in the next village, I probably won't be seeing her ever again.
"I-I-" she started to shutter her voice as she spoke as I brought out the subject. Looking at her face I can see that even her pupils were shaking.
Even my little disciple is looking at me with an accusing eyes.
"I don't know much about what happened at that time, but there were at least twenty of them."
"Is that so? Anything else?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"You have done well surviving them, Miss Dabell."
"Can I ask you off a favor young master Saul?" She asked with a pity inducing eyes.
"What is it?"
"If it's not too much can you drop me at the capital city?"
"Unfortunately I can't help you with that miss Dabell. You see, we are on our way to Turin, and since we are in a hurry, we don't have time to waste on anything else."
"I see, I'm sorry for asking something like that." Chloe said with a glimmer in her eyes for a second, which didn't leave my attention.
"But you don't need to worry, we will drop you off at the next town with a transportation service." I said as I watched her.
"I'm deeply in your gratitude, young master Saul."
--------------------------------
"~Bye, Big sis~"
"Flor get in the carriage." I said as I watched her waving her tiny arms at the departing carriage containing Chloe. For some reason Flor was overly attached to that woman.
"Is this okay, young sir? " Ast asked as we looked at the carriage starting to move from us.
"What is?"
"She was very suspicious."
"I know, That's why I told you to take the road to Turin."
"But young sir, Something is telling me she is most likely the one who murdered the entire merchant cavern."
"You don't need to take it as a suspicion."
"Hmm?"
"She is definitely the one who slaughtered the entire cavern, there is no suspicion on that."
It's not a suspicion. I'm pretty sure she is the one who slaughtered off the entire cavern.
There are a long list of evidences proving it. Usually bandits don't kill their targets if their targets don't resist much. And even when they murder all of the target, they are not that arrogant to think that they will not be caught even if they don't clean up their crime scene. Even if the kingdom don't have the luxury to investigate them, the head of the merchant group can sent out their elite mercenary group to retrieve their stolen goods.
Second, a woman without any aura evading the bandits? That's not something that will ever happen.
Third, the wreckage on the road was oddly placed to not allow any carriage to pass through, meaning that the passerby can't ignore and leave the mess.
But in the end, all the three evidences can be mere coincidences. After all, by chance the bandits might be idiots, who don't know the ABCD of being bandits, resulting in these mistakes. But the fourth piece of evidence changes everything.
The fourth and the crucial evidence: 'she is lying'. As per what Noir sniffed out there are no other scent of people other than the woman's and the dead bodies' at the crime scene. Then how did the mercenaries and the merchants get slaughtered? Simple, she did it. As for the reason why she laid there acting like a lucky survivor of a bandit attack after slaughtering them? I have no idea.
All things considered, It's pretty sure that she was the one who did it. Then why did I let her be? Judging from the mass murder she committed, she isn't a bandit. The wounds on the dead bodies are precise one-hit mortal wounds, although she added extra wounds on the bodies after the murder to hoodwink us, it's not enough to fool me. And a bandit group consisting of only a single member? That's too funny.
Further she was able to identify my gender instantly. That's something that even I can't do. For that you must need extensive knowledge about human bodies and human psychology. That leaves only one option: an assassin.
"Then why did you let her go, young sir?" Ast asked with a incomprehensive look.
"She is an assassin."
"Even then.."
"Normally an assassin only target their target and tries to minimize other causalities but this one killed off the entire cavern. Tell me, what is the name of the organization that comes to your mind when thinking of a mass murdering assassin?" I said as I squinted my eyes to the distance to make sure that the carriage is long gone.
"Don't tell me.. The shadow gate!" Ast said as his eyes started to widen.
"Shadow gate". That one word is the reason why I didn't cut her down then and there. It is one of the two organizations that is made by assassins for assassins. They don't have a fixed headquarter making them hard to track down.
The assassins of shadow gate are more stubborn and persistent than a honey badger. For killing their target they will use any method and will go to any extreme measures including kidnapping and mass murder. They don't care whether their target is the king, prince or a heaven realm master. They will take all and any kind of missions for the right amount of money. It's said that the members of the shadow gate are all women. But I don't believe that for one second. I'm pretty sure that there are men too in their ranks. Well maybe not for assassination, but for information gathering.
They work in groups, and doesn't change their group for their period of service that is until they are all dead. So they don't take it kindly when one of their members is killed off. But It has nothing to do with kindness or feeling, it's all for the grudge formed for tainting their assassination record. And for that silly grudge, the remaining members of the group marks you as their target.
When you think of it, they may seem petty and childish for holding grudge for something like that. After all, in this kind of business getting killed is the least of your worries. Back when I heard about them, I found it funny and laughed at the pettiness of the shadow gate. But one incident, just one, made me realize how terrifying they are. Where they relentlessly hunted a member of royalty of Opheus for hindering them from assassinating their target and by chance killing one of the members of their group. The constant targeting from them on that individual for continuous three months resulted in him committing suicide.
I don't want a group of psychopathic assassins behind me while I'm dealing with the kingdom's mess. So it's best to mislead them for now, until the situation with the kingdom is over.
"But still young sir, did we had to alter our course to just to confuse her?"
The moment I deduced her identity to be an assassin of shadow gate, I instructed Ast to change our destination to another city furthest away from the capital city, and dropped her in a village along the path to Turin. And as an extra precaution, even fed her false information about our destination.
"..."
"What?" I asked as I saw Ast staring at me.
"Young sir, Isn't it an overkill? Can't this matter be solved with just pretending that we don't know about her identity as an assassin? Why did we even need to change the route?"
"It's called being cautious. I don't loose much being a little cautious. No in fact, I have gained much more from being overcautious in my life. Anyway, stop dillydallying and start moving. We need to get to the capital by two days." I grumbled as I entered the carriage.
"But sir th-"
"I don't want to hear any more 'but's from you Ast and you are being overly talkative for a carriage driver today." I said as I entered the carriage.
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At a distant place, much far away from where the slaughter happened, two women in red and black clothing respectively are waiting for something. As they were waiting, a white dove started flying towards their direction.
The pigeon slowly flew into the hands of the woman clothed in black. She took the piece of the paper attached to the leg of the pigeon and started to read it.
"Did White get their identity?" Red asked.
"Hmm.. Saul is it? And their destination hmm... is the city Turin." Black murmured as she read what is written on the piece of paper without directly answering Red.
"Red, sent a letter to the guild master along with this one." Black said as she passed the piece of paper to Red.