Chapter 300 - A Midsummer Night’s Dream III

Claire’s hair fluttered in the wind as she watched the sun sink beneath the horizon. A half-eaten meal sat in front of her. It was not because of the taste that she had yet to finish, but rather the sheer quantity of food presented. The royal chef tasked with making their meal was well aware of Sylvia’s tendencies, and he had sized the portions accordingly.

They hadn’t dined in the great hall, nor any other room whose table typically served the purpose, but rather on one of the many balconies scattered throughout the castle. It was Sylvia’s fault. She sang a beautiful, multi-hour saga that detailed the trip’s ins and outs. It was not just her words that were present to entertain the listeners, but an accompanying slew of stylized illustrations, projected directly from within her mind.

Surely enough, the eye-catching presentation drew a crowd of servants. It was just the maids at first, but others began to join as they noticed the commotion. With every newcomer and their mother asking for an encore, the fox was kept busy well into the afternoon. The sky had already started to redden by the time she finally wrapped up, at which point Arciel declared that they might as well stay for dinner.

Claire was the only one that had yet to finish her meal. It was her bite size that drove the lack of speed. She only took small nibbles, thoroughly savouring the complex flavours as she considered the evening’s work. They would have to scout their remaining targets by the end of the week if they wanted to make it in time for the solstice, and even that was cutting it close.

It wasn’t strictly a hard deadline. As far as she could tell, there weren’t any requests that were particularly time-sensitive, but there was sure to be an influx of work following the Day of Atonement, and she wanted to get her existing tasks out of the way before it happened. Alas, the more functional scout was still in the middle of chatting with the queen.

“And then we tried these super sour fruits! I can’t remember what they were supposed to be called, but they got shinier and sweeter the more you squeezed them without actually letting them pop. We bought a whole bunch, but Claire still isn’t really used to her body yet, so she ruined most of them.”

“I must admit that it seems quite difficult to consume. Whyever would you go through the trouble?”

“I dunno, but apparently you can get a job squeezing them full time if you’re good at it. I think everyone else just paid those guys instead, but Claire was really stubborn and wanted to do it all herself.”

“Did you consume the ones that you failed to sweeten?”

Sylvia shook her head. “I tried one, but they get too sour to eat if they burst.”

“Enough about the stupid cactuses.” Standing up from her seat, Claire lifted the fox off the table and pulled her to her chest. She didn’t retract her shard, largely in part because it was no longer as dangerous. Thanks to her ascension, her bosom had finally grown to a size where most of the icy blade was hidden. “We need to get to work.”

“Huh? Is it time already?” Sylvia peeked at the horizon. “Ohh… I guess it kinda is.” She glanced at the sun before leaning back into her mutual pet’s embrace. “Okay, bye Ciel! Have fun with boring queen stuff!”

“It is not quite as tedious as you may imagine,” said the kraken, with a faint smile. “Do remember to write your reports once you have finished. Chloe has volunteered to join you for longer this time. We shan’t be retrieving her until the solstice has passed.”

Claire breathed a sigh. “You want me to deal with her for a full week?”

“I am aware that she… has her quirks, but she is every bit deserving of her position in spite of them.”

“I know. I don’t hate her. But she’s still annoying.” Prodding the queen between the eyes again, Claire flashed a smile, stepped over the railing and headed off into the night. The guards glanced at her as she floated through the airspace. Technically, it was a no-fly zone, but no one could be bothered to stop her. The royal guard’s captain could throw as many fits as he wanted; it was hardly a problem of hers if he had no way of enforcing the rule.

Sprouting wings from her ankles, Claire began to accelerate as soon as she left the castle grounds. Her destination was far to the west; the first target was a heinous tax collector in the city of Vel’rulm. Because it was one of the cases she had fielded before leaving for the desert, she had already squeezed the requestor for his side of the story. There were just a few facts that she still needed to confirm.

___

The fourth son of a poor aristocrat rubbed the bags under his eyes as he desperately fought the urge to crawl into bed. It was largely his brightly lit home that encouraged the behaviour. Being of a nocturnal species, the illivarian would have very much preferred to work in darkness, but alas, his eyes were worthless without the light.

In the dark, the fuzzy, amphibious dolphin relied primarily on his ears for navigation. A quick sonic pulse was all he needed to visualize the world around him, to model in his mind a reproduction of the environment that contained all the information he required to go about his everyday life. It was precisely through its honing that his race was able to hunt and fight. But it was not without its weaknesses—it could only outline the documents that lay on the desk in front of him.

He needed more than just sound to see what was written on the paper. A few months ago, it would have been by a dim firelight that the ursine cetacean inspected his documents, but not knowing of his plight, his boss, the somewhat newly anointed minister of finance, had provided a series of potent magical lamps that left his whole house alight. To avoid their use entirely would have been an insult to his supervisor. His place of work was far from the castle, located closer to the nation’s western front, but that did not necessarily rule out the possibility that a report would find its way to the minister’s ears.

And so he continued working throughout the night, yawning as he scribbled away at a pile of papers. He had to finish them while he was still able—before the assassin invaded his manor.

He had known for the past three days that a killer was coming to claim his head. The outlaw’s calling card—a small piece of paper with a date, a time, and a drawing—was situated on the corner of his desk opposite his unfinished work, as if to remind him of his impending doom. For a moment, the strange drawing caught his attention. It was difficult to interpret, and not necessarily because it was poorly constructed. In fact, the penmanship employed was among the neatest he had seen, but he could make no sense of it regardless.

Depicted by the artwork was a strange creature with a thin snout and a long, stretched body. He had never seen anything quite like it before, but he had confirmed that it was certainly the assassin’s mark. One such card was provided to every target slain without exception.

It was an arrogant, ridiculous practice, but the murderer’s record spoke for itself. Every individual gifted a genuine notice was slain without fail, and Lucas Gautier had already come to terms with the fact that he would likely be no different. There was no point in throwing bodies between them. Another target, the head of the Dumas trading company, had hired hundreds of bodyguards. The assortment of skilled adventurers and mercenaries had cost the merchant over ten times House Gautier’s annual revenue, but he was dead regardless.

His example demonstrated that resistance was to be conducted through alternative means. It was a message that House Gautier’s servants had missed. Many had asked to stay behind, to remain with their lord and share his fate. He had certainly appreciated the notion, nearly crying in public when he was presented with the petition, but Lucas had shot it down. To task his guards with his protection was to ask them for needless sacrifice—a punishment unbefitting their fierce loyalty. Only Henri, his sworn brother, had been allowed to remain in service—a choice that Lucas had reluctantly made following an extended debate.

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He didn’t like it, but the man had a point. There was no telling if the assassin’s calling card was genuine, and there was reason to suspect the whole thing a ruse. It would not be the first time. There had already been three cases where a supposed target’s home was pillaged while they ran for the hills, and Lucas’ was a prime target. He didn’t have much worth reselling, but falsifying his records could easily earn an already well-off house a literal pile of gold.

That, however, was not to say that an assassination was unlikely. There were any number of reasons for a bad actor to request an auditor’s removal. Money was a sensitive subject, and tax collectors like himself were universally despised. There was a real possibility that his life was at risk.

Knowing that, Lucas quickly lost the ability to continue his work as the hour drew near. Every few seconds, he would inspect his surroundings with a click of the jaw, just in case the killer was already upon him. And eventually, he managed to find him, or rather, her, from what his clicks said about her body. She approached the manor without any weapons, only a cloak that obscured her features and a pair of glasses upon her face.

The gate almost seemed to welcome her as she approached. Its lock undid itself for no rhyme or reason, with the attached door following suit and swinging wide open.

Standing up from his desk, he began pacing back and forth, his hands behind his back and his brow dripping with sweat. The calling card was legitimate. He was going to have to enact his plan and pray for its success.

He observed her again with a louder sound, more carefully examining the details so he could loosely estimate her abilities. But she raised her head when he did, snapping to attention with her eyes locked on his room. The giant organs were twitching. He had failed to go undetected.

Lucas immediately made for the secret passage near the back of his room, but she burst through the wall before he could pry it open. While her speed caught him off guard, the study’s invasion was not at all beyond his expectations. The artifacts he had purchased from the Cadrians—a half dozen mines, hidden beneath his rug—went off without a moment's delay. The room was flooded by a burst of electricity, but the land dolphin was unaffected. The custom-made rings that dressed his left hand ensured his protection against the devices.

He spun around and wrenched the secret passageway open, just for a clawed hand to seize his throat. Another artifact fired as soon as it grabbed him, but it dug right through the protective layer and shattered it with a squeeze. His body was dragged out from the tunnel and thrown against his desk. Countless papers fluttered into the air, with some documents settling on the ground and others escaping through the broken wall.

Lucas opened his mouth to scan his assailant again, but a scaled foot buried his face into the scorched wooden floor before he could click his tongue. He half expected the perpetrator to end him then and there, but she started rummaging through his scattered documents instead.

“I have him pinned,” she said. “Which file did you say I had to check?” The words were soft, too quiet for a normal person to hear, but the dolphin’s sensitive ears picked them up with ease.

“Uhhmmmm… I think it was supposed to be one of the ones from last month?” Another voice responded from afar, also spoken too quietly for anyone to pick up. “I’m pretty sure I wrote down the serial number somewhere but I kinda forgot my notes at home.”

“Stupid useless fox.”

“Hey! I’m not stupid! I’m just careless!”

“Same difference.”

“No, it isn’t!”

The banter lasted until the assassin stepped away and met his gaze. Her eyes were so icy and terrifying that he nearly forgot to breathe.

“Lucas Gauthier.” Her tone was completely devoid of warmth. A completely different tone than the one used with her direct report. “Explain your biases against the less fortunate.” Her voice alone sufficed to reveal her thoughts. He was a sea urchin, and she was only dealing with him because she didn’t have a choice.

The contents of her words, however, were not quite as clear. He struggled to understand them, fumbling over their meaning in the back of his mind and ultimately failing to arrive at a conclusion. “C-can you be more specific?” he asked, with a stutter. He didn’t want to voice the question—it ran the risk of setting her off—but it wasn’t like he had any other choice.

The assassin only seemed to find this frustrating. She narrowed her eyes, as if to express her annoyance, before lowering her head and breathing a sigh.

“You’re stealing funds from the Cerise County.”

Lucas furrowed his brow for a moment as he considered his words. The listed location had certainly jogged his memory, but he was unsure of how to respond. In all likelihood, she would kill him no matter what he said—she was only asking the question to sate her employer’s curiosity. There was no harm in lying. In fact, one could argue that it was his final duty to confuse his proxy murderer with fabricated half-truths, but he only shook his head.

Lies were like clothes. They had to be carefully crafted, else they would only be full of holes.

“I saw an opportunity to make some cash and I took it,” he said. “The count’s books are filled with errors. Everyone knows he’s been lining his pockets for decades.”

“But your predecessor never intervened.”

“He must’ve been a fool. These coverups are so obvious that a child could easily make them out.”

“Have you ever stopped to consider why?”

The man raised both fin-paws into the air. “No, but I understand now. I wasn’t aware that he would be willing to put a price on my head for skimming just a few silvers off the top. I won’t cross him again.”

“The damage has already been done,” said Claire. “The orphanage funded by the embezzled funds has effectively gone under. Over half the children have wasted away.”

Lucas scoffed. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with me,” he said. “If the fat bastard really cared, he could have easily redirected some of the gold he wastes on pleasure.”

Lord Cerise was one of Vel’khan’s most renowned gourmets. His team of chefs cost hundreds of silver each month, and the ingredients he imported were no less expensive. The auditor was right. He could have easily funded a thousand orphanages had he been so inclined.

“You misunderstand,” said the assassin. “The count has no part in the embezzlement.”

The half-bear’s body floated up into the air on its own accord. He flailed his limbs, in an attempt to get back onto the ground, but he couldn’t resist the invisible hand. Only when he was suspended high enough to face her did his ascent finally come to an end.

“The orphanage’s headmaster sends his regards.”

Her hand flew towards his neck, drawing blood as it pierced his fuzzy hide. He had half expected to open his eyes to see the divine realm, but the attack had, for some reason or other, failed to take his life.

Confused, he looked at her, to find her face a frown. She removed her fingers from his neck and, after wiping the blood on his shirt, allowed him to fall to the ground.

Henri burst through the door right then, screaming with his great sword raised overhead. Lucas closed his eyes as his old friend’s weapon tore through the air, but he forced them open again. It was his duty to witness his lifelong protector’s final hour. To look away as he was slain would be a disrespect to the sacrifice he paid.

There was a loud clang as the assassin caught his sword, and another ringing sound as she destroyed it with a squeeze. But she didn’t follow up. She looked at him instead, freezing him in his tracks with the spell in her eyes.

The hired blade returned her attention to the documents instead, picking up various reports and silently inspecting them. The pages, which she further haphazardly scattered, rearranged themselves when she snapped her fingers. All at once, they fluttered to life, spinning around like leaves in a storm before placing themselves atop his desk.

The only one she still held was the card that doomed him, which she tore in half and pocketed beneath her cloak.

“I was never here,” she said. The illivarian felt the need to object, but the assassin’s gaze halted his lips. “And anyone that thinks otherwise is free to speak up and die.”

She exited through the broken wall, leaving the ursine dolphin to bring a hand to his chest and breathe a sigh of relief. He opened his mouth, only to freeze as she stuck her head back through the gaping hole. Cold sweat poured from his brow, and his heart nearly leapt from his throat.

“One final piece of advice,” she said. “The minister knows what you’ve been up to. It’d be best to come clean.”

The wall was fixed as she left again, just like his damaged carpet and the mines that were placed beneath them. The bewildered dolphin-bear saw it all happen. He could still feel the pain in his throat as his blood leaked from his wound. But even then, the sight was so surreal that he found himself questioning the entire experience.

Perhaps, if he was lucky, it would be more than just a dream.