~Third person PoV~

In a big town on the coast of Heiron, there was tension in the slums.

“Did you see it?” One man asks his companions in a shady bar filled with suspicious individuals.

“Yeah…” One of the other men pauses to drink a mouthful of cheap wine. “Another one’s gone, who will be next?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Asks another, clearly not knowing what the others were going on about.

“Oh, right, you were out in the sea for the past couple weeks, so you wouldn’t know… There’s someone hunting the leaders of all crews… Someone found One-eye Billy’s body earlier today.”

“What the hell? Who’s the suicidal bastard? Doesn’t he know those guys made deals with the nobles?”

“No one knows, he never gave anyone his name, but everyone calls him ‘the blind kid’, since him being young and blind is all anyone knows about him… aside from being terrifyingly strong.”

“No one knows where he will show up and anyone that tries to catch or kill him dies. So he’s still out there.”

“So he just kills the crew heads and then disappears?”

“Well…” The men exchange glances. “… He also marks the rest of the crew with scars and tells them to either obey him or get out of-”

Just then the door to the bar opens with a *bang!* And a group of thuggish men enter. “Spread out and find him!”

While the intruders begin to look around from table to table, a hooded figure suddenly stands up and runs for the closed window nearby. “There he is! Get him!”

The man breaks through the flimsy wooden window but a few moments later he’s thrown back in. After him, a muscular man climbs through and joins the others inside. “Hold him.” Is all he says, and the men obey.

The captured man’s hood is lowered and everyone can see the black burn mark in the shape of a hand on his face. Murmurs begin to come out from the people watching.

“Tell me.” The muscular man puts a knife on the scarred man’s throat. “Tell me everything you know.”

“I can’t, man!” The scarred man responds with some panic in his voice. “That guy’s a fucking monster! He will know if I say anything! He knows everything!”

The muscular man signals to his subordinates with a nod and they give the scarred man a few punches and kicks. “Don’t give me that bullshit, just give me what I want. I want to know his name, where he sleeps, where he eats, who he fucks, everything!” Near the end he started to sound angrier.

“I don’t know any of that shit, man!”

The muscular man seems to calm down a little. And then he moves his knife and cuts off the scarred man’s left ear. Screams sound through the bar and some of the clients start to complain. “What the fuck?! Do that somewhere else, buddy!” “Some of us are eating over here!” “You’re gonna get blood on my new hat!”

The muscular man raises his hand and from that hand fire starts coming out. “I don’t have time for your shit, shut up, all of you.” Seeing the fire magic, some men quiet down and some others just up and leave the place.

“Now, where was I?” The muscular man turns back to the scarred one, but is again interrupted by a lot of noise from the people outside. “What is it this time?” But before he can do anything the noise suddenly stops.

Tap, tap, tap.

In place of the noise he hears a light tapping sound from the entrance.

The tapping stops and the door slowly opens.

The tapping resumes as a man enters the bar.

“You!” The muscular man shouts as the other thugs pull out their blades, mainly daggers and short swords. The man that just entered has brown hair, plain clothes and bare feet, a blindfold and a stick he uses to lightly tap the ground in front of him.

The blindfolded man stops when he hears the shout. “Me?” He asks while pointing at himself.

“Don’t play dumb, you little shit! You killed my brother!”

“Brother?” The blindfolded man asks as he lifts his blindfold, showing the men in the bar his scarred eyes, eyes that look like someone showered them with fire. “Nah, sorry, never seen him.”

The muscular man doesn’t even speak answer, he just throws his fire towards the blind man. “Oh shit!” The men still in the bar prepare to run away.

The blind man waves his hand and the fire dissipates as if it never existed.

“Surround him!” Shouts the muscular man and the thugs obey.

One of the thugs gets a little too close to the blind man. The hand that is holding the stick seems to blur for a moment and that thug falls to the ground with a hole in his throat.

Seeing that, the other thugs take a step back. “Fuck…” The muscular man murmurs. “All at once! Now!” To their merit, the thugs actually moved at once, showing they weren’t new at fighting mana-wielding opponents.

The blind man used his empty hand this time, he grabbed one of the thugs by the wrist, lifted him and used him as a club to hit the others around him, except the muscular man.

While the thugs were busy standing back up, the blind man lunges towards the muscular one and swings the stick. The muscular man uses his big knife to block the attack, but the knife breaks. “WHAT?!”

The blind man crouches and swings the stick again, hitting the larger man in the ankle and lifting him off his feet. While he’s in the air, the stick moves again and slaps the man back to the ground.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Gah!” The man hits the ground with a dull sound. The blind man kneels besides him and puts his hand over his eyes. “Wait! No!” Are the muscular man’s last words.

The blind man’s hand spews fire onto the pleading man’s eyes. He doesn’t scream much since he died soon after, but the spectators witness the gruesome sight of fire coming out of his ears, nose and mouth.

With that done he turns to the surviving thugs. “You know very well I’m faster than you, do you not?” The men who were about to move for the exit flinch. The corpse of their leader is still smoking besides the blind man’s feet. “Drop the knives and kneel.”

One man tries to run away regardless, only to end with a hole in his throat like the first one. “Tsk tsk, he would still have the choice to leave town, but now there’s no choice at all.” He turns his head towards the others. “What about you? What do you choose?”

All of those left alive drop their blades one after the other and kneel. One by one, the blind man touches their faces and leaves a dark burn scar in the shape of his hand, the men grunt in pain when he does that, but their pain seems to go away just as quickly as it came.

When the blind man is nearly done, one of the already marked men pulls out a hidden knife and lunges at his throat, strangely enough, the blind man just stands there. The blade connects but doesn’t draw blood.

“Did you forget to sharpen it?” Asks the blind man before also giving him a hole in the throat.

With the marking done, the blind man turns to the start of this whole mess, the marked man that tried jumping out the window.

When he noticed the blind man’s attention, the marked man started panicking. “I swear, I didn’t say a thing!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” The blind man gestures towards the ground and the part of the ear that was cut off floats to his hand. He approaches the marked man, puts his ear back in place and heals it.

“There you go, buddy, good as new. Keep up the good work.” With that the blind man walks towards the exit.

“Oh right!” He stops and turns to the thugs he just marked. “You guys can either leave town in a day or obey my orders… Well, you can also choose the third option.” He says while pointing at the corpses on the ground with the wooden stick he clearly doesn’t need. “But I don’t recommend it, very poor future career options.”

One of the few men still in the bar snickers. “That guy gets it.” Says the blind man before he leaves while tapping his wooden stick on the ground again.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

~Back to MC PoV~

Phew, the beginning is always the hardest with these kinds of things.

After checking on a couple brothels and gambling dens to make sure nothing came up, I go back to my (literally) underground base.

There I find Eleanor waiting for me. “Lance, are you sure you aren’t wasting your time?” This again?

“Of course not! I’m decreasing the pirate activity, scouting the underworld scene ahead of time, acquiring funds so we don’t need to rely on supply drops AND contributing towards the mission all at once.”

This all started when I arrived here in Heiron, the other spies all had positions of power that, while giving them access to a lot of things, also limited their freedom of action. So I took to the underworld to help them cover their bases.

As it turns out, the reason the civil war hasn’t started yet is the same as the reason we want it to start: the country will be severely weakened and open to foreign attacks. They are especially afraid of the ‘Sylvian magic ships’ (that’s how they call the dreadnoughts).

So the country is essentially a pressure cooker at the moment, tensions are steadily rising, but no actual conflict starts aside from a few assassination attempts here and there.

To decrease their worries I suggested decreasing our patrols on the west side of the sea and spread some rumors of trouble in the east or something like that to make us seem less threatening, but that would allow for more freedom on the pirate’s side, and that would be bad for the country’s economy.

One thing lead to another and this is the third port town that I’m taking over the underworld of. The name of the ‘gang’ is Black Hand (for obvious reasons).

I come to a town, kill the pirate leaders, force their crews to work for me inland, convince them to stay working for me using money, take over the rest of the underworld, move on to the next town. By the way, everyone that leaves town is killed by the men that actually work for me, best not to leave loose ends.

The black burn mark is also a tracking sigil, so no one can hide. I have various devices here in my base to watch over them and the whole town, so I know when they get into fights and that kind of thing.

Two things most criminals have in common are that they don’t have access to proper magic training and they make bad financial decisions, so competing with them isn’t that hard.

I make a lot of money by simply managing the businesses well and not spending senselessly. And if anyone tries to make trouble, I can either have my men deal with it or do it myself. I also use mind magic to make sure my men don’t make any trouble themselves, so there’s little opportunities for backstabbing.

Eleanor speaks after a while. “… And what’s with the whole ‘blind’ thing?”

“Oh, I’m just doing this to train my mana sense.” Since my puberty started, my bloodline’s characteristics have become sharper, body strengthening and mana control have become extremely easy and I can feel the blood inside nearby people and animals, as if I had a ‘blood sense’. But I felt my mana sense was lagging behind.

If I need to see something in the distance or colors I can just use a detection spell.

“… You’re sure you aren’t doing it just because you feel it’s cool?”

“Uhh… Oh! You’ve come at a good time, why don’t you come visit the local lord with me? Here, wear this…”

~Third person PoV again~

Viscount Allison is in a bad mood. The plague that is those ‘black hand’ bastards arrived in his town and the men who used to bribe him are all dead, so he essentially lost a considerable source of income.

“Don’t bother me until tomorrow,” He orders his butler. “I’ll go to bed after reading some letters in my study.” He continues to think while walking to his study.

His men haven’t been able to catch anyone, the black hand bastards are like rats hiding amongst the other lowlifes in the slums, his attempts at hiring those lowlifes to find them have resulted in the men he hired to wind up dead, so no one is taking his money anymore and the bounty is left untaken.

Already in his study he pours himself a drink and moves towards his desk.

“That wine smells great.” He feels a chill come up his spine when a voice comes from behind him, where there should be no one.

He turns around and sees the famed leader of the black hands sitting in one of his fine chairs. “Guar-!” He attempts to call for help, but is interrupted by a large blade being rested on his shoulder by a second intruder, clearly implying he will lose his head if he tries anything.

“There is no need to worry, if I was here to kill you, you’d be dead already. Sit down.” The viscount is extremely bothered by this lowlife telling him what to do, but this isn’t the time to complain, he obeys.

Sitting down he takes another look at the two intruders.

One is the young, blindfolded, bare-footed leader of the black hands. Wearing clothes cheap enough to be wore by slaves, the only difference being in how spotless his is. Looking closely, even his feet don’t seem dirty.

The second one is a huge cloaked figure, the only details he can see are their size, the emotionless eyes and the huge sword they are resting their hands on.

If it was any other assassin, Viscount Allison would just fight back, but this blind kid is known to be as skilled in magic as a noble, and the huge bastard doesn’t give the impression of weakness either.

“I’m here to humbly ask you to stop going after my men and to have that bounty removed.” ‘Humbly my ass’ is the first thought to go through the Viscount’s head.

“And if I refuse?” The Viscount has an idea of where this is going, but he asks just to make sure.

“Well, aside from you never being able to sleep without fearing for your life again, I’ll also tell a certain Baron about who was responsible for the assassination attempt on his heir.”

The Viscount grimaces. He knew this would come back to bite him in the ass when he heard the assassin disappeared after failing the job.

“But it’s not all bad, I’ll make sure those naughty kids in the slums don’t go overboard and I can even tell you about a certain noble who may be hiring mercenaries in secret if you make a kind enough donation for this blind beggar…” The young blind man makes a big, gentle smile.

The Viscount is sure now, this blind kid is what the stories talk about when they mention demons.