The assassin picked up the record book from the desk and tossed it at Jon. Flipping through the pages, it appeared that this base was being used as a sort of transit station for "newly collected merchandise" to be ultimately brought to somewhere else.

Each entry indicated a shipment time, prices, assignees, the names of contact persons, and meetup locations.

The problem was, they were all written in some kind of letter code. With some effort, the codes for times, dates, and prices could be cracked — they were just repeating numbers, after all — but the codes for any names and locations would only be known by the owner of the book.

Jon closed the book and looked at its front, sides, and spine. He was hoping for a name to be written somewhere, but there was none.

"Looking for a name?" the assassin asked. He was the taller of the two in the room, and taller than even the assassin whom Jon was familiar with. "Don't worry about that," the assassin continued. "Our comrade is adept at tracking. We let the master of this base get a headstart. He should be making his way to the real main base by now."

***

The assassin in question was feeling too much thrill in tracking down their human trace. With Alleywalk, he melded into the walls, only to reappear through another. With this, he was always one corner away from the target — too far to be noticed, but never too far away to lose the enemy's trail.

Even if the enemy looked back, he was too discreet to be seen. His Skill, Shadowblind, rendered him practically invisible as long as he stuck to the shadows, and in the narrow confines of the alleys, the ground was always cast in shadow for as long as it wasn't noon.

Hence, even if the path was riddled with lookouts and discreet patrols, he was never seen.

Alas, the path ended. The enemy he was tailing exited the alleys. On the other hand, he could already smell the sea.

He melded into the nearest wall, only to reappear on a higher elevation, walking out of the tallest part of the same wall. He grabbed the roof's edge and hoisted himself up, making sure not to stand and stick out.

As he suspected, this was the edge of the city before the harbor. Two-masted galleys were lined up all along the various piers, and people were carting materials back and forth. The men at the pier were busy with ropework, shouting orders over the noise of the sea washing up against the harbor.

The assassin laid prone behind the edge of the roof, scanning the crowds with a monocular scope. He easily found his panicked mark, brisk-walking farther along the harbor.

The man stopped before the tall, wooden perimeter fence of a large brick building. A guard went up to meet him, talking to him from behind the gaps of the fence's gate. They exchanged gestures, and the assassin made out the name "Guillermo" from the guard's mouth.

What surprised him was the new person who came up from behind the guard: a knight of the Order.

He was certain of this. The knight's white surcoat had the heraldries of the Order, and an insignia further indicated that he was of this city's temple.

The assassin identified the brick building as the port authority's headquarters. It wasn't surprising for a member of the Order to be stationed there, in such a case.

He watched the fence gate open, and the knight welcomed the panic-stricken man through the doors of the building.

The knight was the last to enter. It seemed that corruption here had deep roots.

***

Jon had left the base earlier, mapping out the lesser-known parts of the city, especially the ones in the direction of the port authority. He didn't forget his promise to Damian; they were supposed to hit it soon and recover some intel. Casing the locale for good escape routes was just a first step.

A paper bird fluttered around Jon's head. He held his arm up, and the bird rested on the bracelet that the priestess had lent him.

He unfolded the letter, and he didn't like what he saw.

***

Dear Mr. Fuze,

My agents have identified a possible place of strategic importance for the corrupt knights, at the city's port authority by the main harbor. As time is of the essence, we will gather Inquisitorial forces and make the assault in three hours, before the last light of dusk. I ask for your participation in this endeavor.

***

This wasn't good. Damian and the Order were to meet, it would surely be a one-sided affair, and Damian's career would come to a close. Jon still needed him and his connections, not to mention the man hadn't done anything particularly displeasing.

Aside from being a veritable drug lord, that is, though caffeine being the drug in question, it didn't seem too bad.

He hurried back through the alleys, intending to meet with Damian at the back-alley cafe.

Halfway there, however, he found Damian pilfering the pockets of some dead guy between a trash barrel and a crate of empty bottles.

Damian looked up at him. "Oh."

"We need to talk," Jon said.

Damian raised his hands. "I can explain."

"The Order's hitting the port authority in a few hours."

"Oh." It appeared Damian was just misunderstanding things on his own. However... "Well, that's a problem, isn't it?"

"Now or never," Jon said. He looked at the dead guy, then back at Damian.

The man shrugged. "I didn't do it, myself, but the lad owed me, so I might as well, you know?" He went back to going through his pockets, finally scoring a bag of coins. It wasn't enough, but the guy was dead; better leave him be.

***

A daylight infiltration wasn't going to be easy. The port authority was actually a compound, consisting of a brick building, which was the administrative center itself, a bit inlands from a boathouse, two piers capable of taking war galleys, and a small warehouse.

The place was ringed by a tall wooden perimeter fence. It was flimsy, but it was precisely because it was flimsy that it would shake a lot if someone were to climb it. There were little bells all along the fence, alerting nearby patrols to gutsy trespassers.

If only they had the time, they would've waited for nightfall and cut a hole in the fence, but they didn't have that luxury.

Instead, they took a dip from a nearby pier. Had the weather been a little harsher, this infiltration route wouldn't have been possible. People fell over and died around here quite frequently, it being too noisy most of the time for anyone to make out a splash, and what with the sea's waves tending to slam anyone into breakwaters and piers.

With the sea being calmer than most days, they just had to make sure no one was looking, and they jumped straight into the water.

They breathed through snorkels, using the underwater safety nets to guide themselves the right way. They ensured that anyone who fell over wouldn't be swept away by rip tides; they were pulled away when ships needed to enter or depart.

The fact that they were strung between piers meant that they just had to follow them all the way to the port authority zone.

One such net was being pulled away. Jon mistakenly followed along, and if it weren't for Damian grabbing his ankle, he would've been dragged along the bed of the harbor.

They watched the ship leave port, and the net was put back in place.

They finally surfaced under the closest pier of the port authority zone, hidden behind the pier's legs. They took a good look at the boathouse and the one guy who was sitting by the edge, happily fishing away with a rod in hand and a line in the water. A sword was leaned up against the wall beside him.

They went underwater again and swam up to the boathouse. The fishing guard noticed Damian's snorkel, but before he could suspect the strangely vertical reed to be anything else, Jon grabbed the fisherman's ankle and yanked him into the water, getting him with a dagger under the surface.

***

Name: Jon Fuze

Level: 6

Kills: 88 → 89

Kills to Next Level: 13 / 30 → 14 / 30

Skill Proofs: 3

| Skill Claims |

> Hastened Sight (Unlocks Lvl. 10)

> Aerial Lockbox (Unlocks Lvl. 15)

> Force (Unlocks Lvl. 10)

| Skills |

> Summon Scribetool (Tier 1)

> Perfect Motion (Tier 1)

***

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Damian emerged with a mana crossbow and shot a second guard in the neck. He fell into the water.

That was a hassle, because the plan called for guards' uniforms.

The two pulled the guards back onto dry land. The guards' uniforms were undamaged, and it only took a nifty amount of magic to get them dry again.

Jon's pistols, of course, had been drenched in water. Oh, they would still fire — fuze-powder deflagration was based on a mana chain reaction, independent of oxygen and temperature — but the water soaked into them would definitely absorb some of the exothermic energy, leading to lower projectile velocity.

That didn't matter in close quarters, though.

They were anxious about another guard patrol happening upon them through the boathouse doors, but that never happened. After a few tense minutes, they walked out of the boathouse drabbed in the grays of the city guard.

They aimed for the administrative building, staying clear of other guards and, especially, any knights. Corrupt circles knew their own by face and name, after all, and if anyone got too close of a look at them, they'd be instantly discovered.

They were ten meters from the door, but they heard angry rambling coming from the other side. They took a hard left, marching away from the door in a hurry.

The door burst open, and out came a knight — not the same one that the Order assassin had spotted. "I can't believe you!" he exclaimed.

Following him out was a man in a gray officer's uniform. "They came out of nowhere! I don't know how they could've found us!"

"Look" — the knight rubbed his forehead and groaned in frustration — "the Inquisition is going to turn this base into a smoldering ruin in a few hours. We must leave" —

"How? I'm sure no one's followed me" —

The knight threw his hands into the air. "Idiot! Of course someone followed you! It's the Inquisition we're talking about here, not some sleazy gang paying coppers for brats to be on lookout!" He started laughing. "They could even be listening to us right now!"

Jon's and Damian's hearts quickened their beating. They made sure their gait didn't change, however — that would give them away.

They rounded the corner. Lo and behold, there was another back door, but there was a guard seated on a chair, thankfully turned away from them. Jon imagined they'd need to take him out and dispose of his body as fast as they could. It was risky, but they need to do it —

"Slow down and stay behind me," Damian whispered. He stepped ahead of Jon, obstructing the guard's view of his face.

Damian, meanwhile, changed his own face.

"Ey!" Damian greeted. The guard turned his head to look at him.

"Oh, Haylock, is it about time?" the guard asked.

"Yah! Oh, they got some grub for ya inside," Damian continued.

"What, does sir knight care about us suddenly?" The guard laughed. He stood up. "Alright, I'll go see for myself."

The guard and Damian gestured at each other. The guard opened the door and went inside, then as soon as Damian was in front of the opened door, he took a peek inside. Confirming no witnesses, he faced Jon, who saw that Damian's face was that of one of the men they'd killed in the boathouse.

Get him, he mouthed.

Jon rushed ahead of Damian, going into the room, getting right up against the guard's back. With a dagger in his right hand, he wrapped his right arm around the guard's neck and pulled him in, while his left hand covered the man's mouth.

All it took was a little slice. Damian closed the door behind them.

They were in a staff room of sorts, and it was easy enough for Jon to find a closet to stuff the dead guard into. He looked at Damian, who was still wearing the fake face. "You happen to have one for me?"

Damian chuckled. "This isn't paper, good sir."

Jon nodded. Must be a Skill, then.

They navigated the place, passing by some administrative staff, who were flashing them some uncertain looks. They didn't ask any questions, though, keeping their heads low. These people must've been working under coercion to just bow their heads like that.

There weren't any other guards or knights inside. If Jon would guess, most of them would be busy near the warehouse where the "merchandise" would be.

Nevertheless, Jon and Damian kept their footsteps light and their stride steady, all to give the impression that they were carrying out unusual, but non-urgent, orders, which would help explain what they were doing in an area they weren't supposed to be in as guards.

They didn't explore the first floor, however. One look and it was just a place filled with long tables where secretaries looked over documents and stamped them.

Instead, they went for the stairs on the edge of the floor area. If there was a records section, it would be in a place out of direct sunlight and where people wouldn't just randomly wander in, so "upstairs" was a safe bet.

They went up the stairs and found themselves on one end of a hallway. All along the right were windows, and along the left were doors.

They continued walking. A door opened ahead of them, and a secretary came out. The man was surprised, to say the least, but Jon and Damian wore unbothered faces, and so the man didn't think too much of it.

On top of that, despite his relatively poor working conditions, the man still had a polite spirit. "Are you looking for something?" he asked.

"Ah" — Damian was surprised — "we were told to grab 'a certain logbook,' you see."

"A c-certain logbook, is it?" The man swallowed his spit. "Is it Sir Veritas asking?"

"Who else?" Damian bluffed.

"Right. Of course. Right this way."

The secretary sheepishly led them to the door next over. He took out a ring of keys and, finding the right one, unlocked the door for the two "guards."

Jon and Damian followed the secretary into a dark room filled with bookshelves. The only light was a soft one, like a candle, on top of a small table in the middle of the room. If one didn't memorize what was in here, it would be impossible to find anything in this dimness.

The records here spanned many years, but what the secretary pulled from the top of the top shelf — not even in the shelf itself, but upon the topmost board where dust settled and where light didn't reach — was a copy of the Order's holy book, the Toleh Legeh.

He laid it upon the desk in the middle of the room. Opening it, it was clearly not a holy scripture at all, as contained within were transaction entries spanning the last five years.

They'd hit a gold mine. They didn't need the whole thing, however, because they only needed the most recent intel.

Damian found the tail of the records. "Here," he pointed for Jon to see. "Two chartered line ships. Arrived yesterday from the east, cargo amounting to 30 westtons in gold value equivalent, carrying..."

He didn't finish dictating it. 361 healthy slaves, and 218 Kittari mercenaries.

"Well, I didn't expect that," Damian muttered. He turned to Jon. "That's a lot." That's what he said, but his eyes were asking: will you still do it?

"Line ships?" Jon asked. He'd seen the war galleys in the harbor. They were far too small to transport the numbers he was seeing.

"Never seen one? They're real warships, eighty cannons apiece." Damian explained. "They're no emperor ships, but they've got a bite in them."

Forty cannons meant twenty cannons lined up along a deck on a two-deck ship. The numbers he saw wouldn't even be able to reload the cannons on one side, let alone run the ship's regular operations, which meant that the ships' crews weren't counted.

With that, he could expect to confront the ship's fighting crew on top of the mercenaries themselves. Those weren't good odds at all.

On the other hand, there were 361 slaves — people suffering the very same conditions as did Amani.

Remembering her, he had to temper his anger for a second. He was already in the process of delivering his payback. Any more emotion wouldn't help his mission.

As with anything, he needed more intel to decide on whether or not he'd ultimately proceed, and the only way to do that now was to case the mission area and decide on the day itself.

"Where were they?" Jon asked.

Damian squinted at the record. "Carrywood Harbor."

That was a little further south of Stave's main harbor, but it was still within city limits.

Damian closed the book and turned to the secretary. "Thanks, we'll tell Sir Veritas."

To the secretary, the two men had just held a rather tame conversation guided by their curiosities — "taking the job slowly," as it were.

They left the room, and the secretary locked the door behind them.

Jon and Damian hurried to leave. They'd already gotten what they’d come here for.

All they had to do now was leave the area quietly — but that was not to be.

Before they reached the stairs, the window beside them exploded in a shower of glass. Jon raised his arms just in time to ward off the slash that came at him from the blur of white. Still, the assailant crashed into him, pinning him against the wall.

The assassin's hood and mask made it clear that this was one of the Order's assassins. He was about to stab again with the blade jutting out from under his wrist, but he locked eyes with Jon. For a moment, they recognized each other, and it was this moment of hesitation that allowed Jon to bat away the blade and deliver a heavy kick to the assassin's side.

The assassin stumbled, but quickly regained his footing. Now, he stood between Jon and the stairs.

The secretary behind Jon and Damian had long scampered back into the records room, leaving Jon, Damian, and the assassin to talk things out between themselves.

The assassin — Jon recognized him. He was the taller fellow back in the base, and most likely their leader.

The assassin narrowed his eyes on Jon. "I had thought you to be just another guard. What's the meaning of this?" he asked. It didn't escape him that the guard who was with Jon wasn't pulling out his sword. Most likely, he was Jon's acquaintance, and was in on whatever the reason was for Jon to have gone ahead of the supposed joint attack.

Already, Jon could hear the sounds of fighting outside. The day was still out, barely sunset. They'd gone here in a hurry.

The fight sounded more evenly matched than expected. In the first place, assassins like the one in front of him weren't well-suited for frontal attacks. They must have brought knights among the assault forces.

Still, the assassin had asked a delicate question. Jon couldn't say "Oh, I owe this drug lord a favor"; Damian would be hunted down from here until the world's ice caps if he said that.

Instead, "I needed something," he replied. This way, it would appear that he'd only dragged Damian along.

"Something you didn't want us to see?" the assassin asked.

"No."

"Really? You're not hiding anything under that coat, are you?"

"No."

"Then what did you come here for?"

"It's personal."

Frustration was building up in the assassin. "Why hide it? No, why even risk going off alone? It's not as if the Order has a vested interest in getting in the way of the Theater."

Jon — the very same Jon who was seriously considering assaulting two ships full of mercenaries and marines — only had one thing to say. "It's personal."

The assassin shook his head. There were a couple of stereotypes about the Theater, but he'd always dismissed them as mere rumors. Stories of men and women alike, fueled by everything from stubbornness, spite, sadism, hatred, and vindictiveness, given power by Lady Ravena and let loose upon the world to deal Her own brand of good justice, surely made good stories to tell for the common folk — but weren't they just far too unrealistic?

Yet, standing before him was one such agent of the Theater, a man who'd spoken his word with such a story-worthy character. Beneath those words were an air of determination and contempt. To say that it was 'personal' meant he was on a mission given to him not by any higher power, but by his own will and purpose.

The assassin gritted his teeth. He realized why Jon was being so evasive on this matter. Jon wasn't here as an agent of Ravena, but as himself. In a way, that was a form of unsanctioned vigilantism, something which the Order frowned upon.

By simply saying "it's personal," Jon was indirectly telling him the real issue, and through the vagueness of it, he was also asking him to overlook it. Truly, this man had a terrifying amount of intelligence to be able to communicate such a complex situation so concisely.

In reality, Jon was just being to-the-point. It wasn't that he was unintelligent — rather, he recognized that the assassin in front of him was highly intelligent, and therefore more likely to perform the mental gymnastics necessary to hallucinate legitimate reasons to simply let Jon go.

"Very well," the assassin finally said. "I trust you didn't destroy or take any evidence from here, at least."

"We didn't," Jon replied, walking right past him without so much as looking him in the eyes. Damian followed close behind.

The assassin watched the shadow of the reaper disappear as he retreated down the stairs. What a terrifying man, he thought. He had never met anyone quite like him, and if they were to truly fight to-the-death, he wasn't sure he could win, not even with the support of his comrades.

Jon got the intel he needed. Now he just needed to stalk the two ships and decide what to do from there — but really, he'd already decided he'd find some way to liberate those slaves and scuttle those ships. He just didn't know how yet.