Time passed and Zakel's light barely rising along with the first moon, Mus. It can be said that the night is young and the fire is still cool, as the nocturnal wildlife awaken to enact their lifestyle.
Inside one of the rooms in The Shadow Rock Inn, a figure covered in a dark cloak, only revealing their cold gaze at the two boys sound asleep after a long day.
The figure slowly pulls out a dagger from their waist and, under the moonlight entering through the window of the room, the dagger reflects the light of the two moons as a small magic circle appears on the blade of the dagger.
As the figure draws closer to the sleeping individual, dark mist slowly flows out of the magic circle on the blade of the dagger as if the mist were covering the room attaching itself to the materials inside it.
Fwoop! Before the figure made another step closer to the sleeping individual, he senses danger from his right side and immediately jumps out of the way, and the moment he moved out of the way an arrow strikes the area where he stood from a moment ago.
Surprised for a moment, the figure scans around the room, checking the area where the arrow was shot from. However, not even a moment later, he senses danger once more from the same area the arrow was shot.
Thud! He then attempts to step away from the danger but in a split second a short black dagger barely struck the figure's shoulder and stabs into the wooden wall behind him.
'Who in the Ansi are these children?' The figure was deeply surprised by the situation he was in; he had thought that the individuals he was going to assassinate were inexperienced but the truth could not be near to their initial findings.
Fully understanding the situation, the moment he senses another danger coming his way, he would throw a hidden weapon of his own in return.
"Give up assassin!" Yelled out Jon as he charged towards the figure, his sword pointing directly at the figure ready to thrust into his heart.
Instead of deflecting his sword, the figure dodged sideward and makes an attempt to stab Jon on the side of his waist. However, before the tip of the dagger even scratches Jon's clothing, an arrow stabs into the figure's arm, which made him loosen his grip on his dagger.
"Gah! This is too unexpected!" The figure tries to reach out with his left hand and grab his dagger, which was still exuding the unknown mist.
'How are these brats able to see through the Blind Eye spell!' He inwardly complains, confused as to how people assumed to be inexperienced to use the spell at their advantage.
"Hold on now, Crow." When the figure was about to touch his dagger, Jon stabs his sword into his leg as blood gushed out of his wound, using the sword to hold him down.
The figure paled when Jon mentioned his name as if he had known him beforehand. Getting the wrong information about the two was one thing, but his name being exposed is a bigger issue.
Only those in the higher echelon of their organization knows his name, although there are bits of information intentionally spread around about him but never was his name mentioned in any of it.
'I have to get out of here!' Crow attempts to silently chant a spell, as his eyes tremble in fear, knowing that failing this simple of a job would tarnish his reputation within the organization.
"What do you think you are doing Crow!" Without hesitation, Jon pulls out his sword from Crow's leg and slices his left hand off as blood spills along the wooden floor of the room.
Ah! Crow groans in pain as he struggles to gather some strength on his right arm to cover his left arm from bleeding out.
Tap tap tap. Within the dark mist, Crow hears another person walking towards him, but the shock of losing a hand still overwhelmed him.
"Kindly remove this mist, dear assassin." Vernack crouched beside him and whispered to his ears, his every word rang into Crow's mind.
"Just fucking kill me! You will not get anything from me!" Crow cried out as he laughed maniacally, he was confident enough that these brats would not know how interrogate someone even if they are willing to speak.
Jon and Vernack looked at each other and grinned after hearing his response. As if the Blind Eye spell was nothing to them, Jon around the room and dragged a chair into the middle of it while Vernack lifted Crow on to the seat.
"Time to practice what Mey taught me." Vernack closed in on Crow and placed his hand on Crow's chopped of wrist, he closes his eyes and feels the movement of mana within him.
Crow looked anxiously at Vernack, fearing what they might do to him as his complexion paled the more time his blood is spilling out of his wounds.
Jon turns away from the two and walks toward the dagger dropped by the assassin. The moment Jon touched the dagger his eyes glowed in green and all he sees is the world filled with visions of different aspects of life.
Mana from within the magic circle was constantly absorbed by the abyss inside Jon, which Jon finally understood how the phenomenon works after the amount of experiments he and Meyvil had done before they left her domain.
The flashes of different stories in the near future pass through Jon's mind, he has seen what tomorrow would be like for another person, he has also seen what a pig sees before it gets slaughtered by the butcher.
For a boy of his age, they would normally break with the amount of deaths and agony that he sees in that moment, but the past few seasons for Jon had been more than enough for him to not be fazed by these scenes. Although he feels for each one of them, the loss of life or even seeing them take someone's life, he nailed into his mind that these things are bound to happen and the least he could do is lengthen their agony.
After what seemed to be an eternity, the dark magic circle on Crow's dagger started to flicker, showing signs of mana being completely depleted. Crow grimaced at the sight of the magic circle on the blade flickering.
He feared that once the spell is gone, not even escaping the room could save him, as the mist allows him to move within the darkness freely while the others lose all of their senses and stops any sound to leave within it.
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Crow's sense of danger only grew by the moment, he does his best to hold back his urge to charge at Jon and stab him with the dagger Jon was holding. However, just when he thought that he was able to calm himself, Vernack made an error with the use of his mana causing Crow to feel an intense amount of pain on his arm.
Gah! Reacting to the pain, Crow used all of his strength and pushed Vernack away as he charged at Jon whose back was turned exposed from all threats.
"No you will not!" Caught off guard at first, Vernack immediately pulled out a dagger from his side and aimed it at his wounded leg.
Thud! The dagger stabbed into Crow's wounded leg, but he seemed unfazed by the dagger slowing him down and continued to charge at Jon. His eyes bloodshot on killing the boy that turned his back on him.
"Die brat!" Crow then lunges himself towards Jon and tries to flail his weak right arm to stab Jon with the arrowhead piercing through his forearm.
The moment Crow pushed Jon down using his body, Jon immediately tries to push off of him by using the dagger and stab it on his sides, since Jon was not facing towards him.
But the primitive nature of mankind dwelled inside Crow, he releases his rage on Jon like a beast, slamming and scratching his right hand against Jon not minding the fact that he is constantly being stabbed by Jon.
"Stand down beast!" Within the dark mist, Vernack once more aimed his bow at Crow and instead of making his mana move into his bow like he learned when he used mana to attack Halungr, he allows the mana within him to circulate and imagining that there was an invisible string connected to Crow and the arrow he was pulling.
"Strings of fate, guide this arrow towards the target, let no obstacle hinder its flight. String Shot!" Vernack loudly chants and a gray magic circle suddenly appears at the tip of the arrowhead and within the mist a gray string of light stretches out of the magic circle and attaches itself to the back of Crow's head.
He releases the bowstring and along with it goes the arrow launched towards the maniacal assassin, and as the arrow moves through the air it followed the gray string of light while cutting through the wind.
"Di--" Before Crow could finish another yell, Vernack's arrow enters the back of his head and exits out of his forehead, blood gushing out along with the arrow as it stops when it stabs into the wooden wall.
Blood splattered all over Jon and the area around him as Crow's lifeless body topples on Jon. The gruesome sight of the bloodied assassin caused Vernack to choke a little as the dark mist starts to slowly fade.
"We were lucky that you had another vision sometime before the attempt, I would have never been able to see through that spell if it were not your vision." Vernack pushes Crow's corpse out of the way and helps Jon stand back up.
As Vernack was helping him stand, he notices Jon's iris was greener than before but he minded nothing more of it and focused on the corpse inside their room.
"Check his corpse, none of the visions I saw earlier showed anyone related to them, but I do remember that they were given a coin of some sort." Jon's demeanor seemed different for Vernack, he felt as if he was standing next to someone who has seen everything in life.
Vernack and Jon immediately stripped the corpse of everything, not even a strand of hair escaped their search. Moments later, Jon finds the coin with three daggers engraved on it while Vernack finds a symbol branded on the lower back of the corpse.
"Is the coin related to this brand?" Vernack points at the symbol on the corpse, they see that the symbol had two daggers stabbing into the eye sockets of each eye hole.
Jon investigated the symbol and the coin further, showing genuine concern in finding out what these symbols mean. He observed that the two daggers on the symbol and the coin have the same shape and feature, the only symbol that differed in each is the symbol in between the daggers.
Knock Knock! As Jon was investigating the symbols and Vernack cleaning the blood-splattered wall and floor, a sudden knock on their door was heard, the knocking had a certain pattern on it that made them ready their weapons.
"M-mister, are y-you f-finished with y-your business?" A wobbly male voice stammered as he waits outside the door for any response.
"I-if your f-finished, y-you may leave t-their bodies to me." continued the wobbly male voice.
Clomp clomp. The anxious man outside hears heavy footsteps nearing the door, every step that was made he feels his body chill. As the owner of The Shadow Rock Inn, and a person who worked conscientiously, he had never thought that in any moment in his life would he work with this infamous organization.
A few moments later, there was only silence, but the silence only worsened his complexion the longer it takes for the door to be opened. In his mind he has spoken numerous apologies to the victims that were sponsored by the Master of Capital Trials.
Creak! Just when the owner was about to call out to Crow again, the door slowly opened and as moonlight enters into the hallway from the window of the room, the owner feels his heart tightening as fear starts to overwhelm him.
"What--" To his stupefaction, when the door was fully open, instead of the assassin covered in clothing all over him leaving only his eyes, he sees the two victims alive and well and the corpse of the assassin he met earlier behind Vernack.
"Old man Innkeeper, what is the meaning of this?" Vernack's chilling gaze frightened the innkeeper, almost choking on the pressure exuded by Vernack on him.
"Honorable guests, please forgive me!" The innkeeper dropped onto his knees and kowtowed towards the two victims whom he believed to be dead the moment he met Crow earlier that night.
"I-I would have n-never done t-this if he did not use his influence on that organization as an excuse to disrupt my business!" He rambled onward as he lists all the things he has done in his life to prove that he was a good man.
"Come inside and we will talk about it." Unperturbed by his rambling, Vernack's chilling voice caused the innkeeper to immediately shut up and looked anxiously at Vernack.
Sensing that Vernack did not want to repeat what he had to say, the innkeeper immediately entered their room and was sat on the chair where Crow was supposed to be healed by Vernack.
"P-please, I will tell you everything about them, do not hurt me, I promise you will gain no benefits by killing me!" The innkeeper's composure only worsened as he sees the lifeless body of Crow in front of him, thinking he will be next.
"Enough, you will explain to us everything and you will not suffer the fate that your friend here has partaken." Vernack breaks off an arrowhead from his quiver and prepares to use it if the innkeeper does not speak everything he knows.
Jon immediately showed the innkeeper the coin, which had three daggers engraved on it.
"This... this is supposed to mean that the master of the Niaulmori, an organization that is infamous for sabotaging merchants and travelling commoners, most of the time they are just thugs but from what I heard from one of the guards under Marquis Braham Cristos that their second cousin, Count Mendel Cristos, frequents with this organization and have a very close relationship with the head of Niaulmori." The innkeeper composes himself first and calmly explains about the organization that were trying to assassinate them.
"Although on the surface they are just an ordinary criminal organization, going out there stealing and killing people of all types and race, but with the help of a barrel filled with mead and a hearty meal made by my wife, one of the members of Niaulmori slipped his tongue and spoke loudly about how nobles from different countries in the land of Wesout have hired their services to make it look like that certain important figures were ambushed by bandits, hiding the fact that these 'bandits' were hired by a jealous noble." He continued as he boasts about the effectivity of the alcohol made by a local brewery.
"However, days after that, the intoxicated man who boasted about their organization disappeared within the city, so I believed that he was reported by someone and got killed by his own organization." The innkeeper shook his head, feeling a bit of pity for the man he met only one time.
"That coin is special; as the dagger in the middle, according to the intoxicated man, signifies that the action is protected by Count Mendel Cristos, meaning if you are ever to be held in trial as a member of the Niaulmori, the Count will do his best to send a minister to get you out of the trial without it being illegal and be pardoned by the Master of Court Trials." He added.
Jon and Vernack had pensive looks as they pondered about the information that was dumped on them by the innkeeper. Jon then looked at the symbol on the back of the corpse on the side of the room.
"If the coin symbolized protection under a noble, then what does that symbol refer to?" Jon points at the symbol that was branded on the back of the corpse.
"That... that was never mentioned by the intoxicated man I met a long time ago, but I can guess that it may be related to the mercenary group called Krampus' Mus Den, that mercenary group had the same brand if I could vaguely remember." The innkeeper scratches his head as he tries to recollect all the symbols he has seen after all the amount of northern seasons has passed.
Jon and Vernack's eyes when they clearly heard a familiar name, a name that was part of the alliance made by their late master whom were preparing to be hired for the war between the Cristos and Supriars.
"By the looks on your faces, you are familiar with the mercenary group formed by Demonaics of different species and the greatest alchemist known to Wesout, Krampus." The innkeeper said, after observing the change in their expression.
"Aye, we are more familiar about them than knowing them personally." Vernack sighs as he imagines how this whole operation they interfered by killing Crow would be troublesome for them.
"Tell me innkeeper, five northern seasons ago I heard that the mercenary alliance between Pyrlord, and the other mercenary groups found outside the border of this Dukedom was broken the day before Pyrlord was killed by the Supriars, were the other alliances included in that slaughter as well?" Vernack exuded an intimidating presence, causing the innkeeper to feel his heart stop for a moment as if Vernack was grabbing his heart.
"From what I heard, the Elfins were the only one that fought to their last stand against the Supriars, I have no information about the other mercenary groups!" He exclaimed as he tries to breathe in air, feeling choked by Vernack's presence.