Chapter 49
What’s Next?
It had been a couple pf days since Erin and her group had succeeded in their mission of assassinating General Lune. For the time being, they had been mostly staying hidden, keeping a low profile in order to avoid getting found out by the authorities. Lune might have been a scummy person, but he was still a high profile person within the military. His death, along with The Four War Maidens, wasn’t going to be taken lightly by either the military or the police.
However, much to the surprise of the group, while the news of the general’s death had been made public knowledge and there was a search for the ones responsible, no information in regards to them being the ones behind the assassination had come up. There was even a very large bounty offered to the ones who managed to capture the assassins or could come up with information on them, yet nothing about the four of them had been released at all.
Erin had been sure that at least some of their faces would have been known, but that wasn’t the case. It was almost like someone had wiped any and all traces leading to them.
During their time hiding, the group had been doing their best to recover from their injuries. Erin had a number of cuts on her body, with a rather deep one on her side. Lexton also had a similar cut on his body and had to recover from almost freezing to death. Arkay had some bad bruising across his body, along with some cracked bones here and there. Ryle had gotten the worst out of all of them, as bruises all over her body, along with some pretty bad cuts as well. With such injuries, everyone was put on rest for the time being.
Thankfully for all of them, Lexton had some herbs and potions that were very useful in taking care of their injuries. While it wasn’t anything special compared to healing magic, all of them were able to recover very quickly thanks to it. Some scars would still remain, but overall the end result wasn’t bad at all.
At the moment, Erin, Ryle and Arkay were sitting around a campfire they had set up outside of Lexton’s workshop, where they were grilling some animals they had managed to catch, such as small rodents and other similar creatures. Lexton had gone to the city to see what the situation was in regards to their recent activities, especially if any information in regards to any of them was out yet.
“Man, I know it has been a few days already, but I’m still having a hard time believing that we managed to pull it off. It seems almost surreal,” Ryle said as she took a bite out of a rabbit she had managed to catch. “Still, I’m relieved we managed to pull it off. I know you’re not supposed to celebrate someone’s death, but that bastard had it coming. Considering all the things he did, no way did he deserve to live.”
“I doubt there are a lot of people who would disagree with that statement,” Arkay said. “From what I’ve heard, Lune wasn’t exactly popular even among his own troops. He liked to abuse his power quite a bit, so it’s no surprise that people would dislike him.”
“So, in other words, we did a service to the public, huh? Guess the people should be thanking us for our deeds!” the blonde said in a joking tone, hoping to lighten up the mood a bit. “All jokes aside, it’s weird that none of our faces seem to be know. Considering how much we were running around the base and all the surveillance equipment they had, you’d think at least one of our faces would end up on a poster with a bounty on it. You think luck was on our side or is there something else at play?”
“Hard to say, but whatever the case is, I’m relieved because of it,” Erin said. “Life is hard enough as it is, so I don’t need a bunch of bounty hunters chasing after me. With the way things are, we’ll at least get to go about our business in peace for now.”
“Can’t disagree with that!” Ryle said happily.
The three continued eating their food and making small talk, while waiting for Lexton to return. Eventually, the kobold returned, getting the attention from all of his companions.
“Lex, you’re back!” Erin said happily. “So, how was it? Has any news in regards to us been released?”
“Surprisingly, nothing at all,” Lexton answered as he took a seat close to the fire and took some of the grilled meat. “From what I can tell, no one knows about us being behind Lune’s assassination. I even went so far as to walk past the police station and bounty hunter office, yet no one reacted to me at all. They have no idea about who was behind the whole thing.”
“...You really shouldn’t have risked yourself like that, you know?” the redheaded assassin said disapprovingly. “Had there been any suspicion towards any of us, your little stunt could have gone south immediately.”
“Meh… It was a calculated risk at best,” the kobold said with a shrug as he took a bite out of his food. “I tried looking into the reason as to why there was no information in regards to the ones responsible and I found something interesting.”
“What would that be?” Ryle asked.
“From what I heard, despite the large amount of surveillance equipment that base had, no recordings were left behind from the night of the attack,” Lexton answered. “It’s almost like all of the recordings from that night were suddenly deleted.”
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“Are you serious?” Arkay asked with wide eyes. “That seems hard to believe. None of us went to the room that held the recordings to delete them and I doubt any of the damage we caused could be behind it either.”
“You’re right about that. Especially when you consider that places like that have backups for data,” the kobold said. “However, not only were all of the recordings erased, but there wasn’t a single person that could give even the faintest of descriptions of us.”
“Well, shouldn’t that be obvious? We sneaked inside and most of us were only discovered by the War Maidens,” Ryle said in a somewhat smug tone. “I mean, that’s the point of sneaking in, right? To not get seen by anybody. Sounds to me that we just did our job better than we expected ourselves!”
“I think the point Lexton was making was that things went a bit too good for us,” Erin said. “Think about it. We went into a military base crawling with soldiers that had numerous security cameras set around, yet no one got even a glimpse of us? When you take into account that we were locked into fights to the death with their top guards and couldn’t watch out for cameras, not to mention that Lex’s golems were seen, doesn’t it seem odd that not a single detail that could link us as the assassins wasn’t leaked?”
“...Okay, when you put it like that, it does seem rather weird,” the blonde said after thinking about it for a second. “But should we really be concerned about that? You said yourself that you were relieved that we weren’t revealed as the ones responsible! The way I see it, this is all just a big win for us!”
“For now it might be,” Lexton said. “I’m sure that everyone here with a functioning brain has already figured out that there was most likely someone out there, who manipulated things behind the scenes to prevent us being outed as the ones responsible. If so, then who are they and why did they decide to help us? And most importantly, do they have any other plans for us?”
“I get what you’re getting at, but aren’t you being a bit too paranoid? I mean, Lune had a lot of people that didn’t like him. So what if one of them decided to help us? I can’t see what the problem with that is,” Ryle said, before realizing something. “Hey! You just insulted me, didn’t you!?”
“Look, everyone. She’s learning,” the kobold said with a chuckle. “As for why we should be worried, is because we don’t know what the person assisting us wants. What if they expect us to do more work for them? Or what if they just want to be the ones who finally capture us, after we’ve done enough dirty work like this for them? Did you ever think about that?”
Silence fell over the group as each of them were deep in thought. On one hand, things had gone far better for them than they had thought, but their lack of information on things surrounding them couldn’t be ignored. While they were safe for now, who knew when that would change?
“...I’m going to go take a walk,” Erin said as she stood up from her spot. “I need some time to think on my own.”
“Hate to say this, but remember what happened last time?” Ryle asked.
“Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson since then. I won’t wander off too far,” the redhead said. “I don’t want another spider encounter.”
With that, Erin walked away from the group, looking for a more secluded area for herself to be alone with her thoughts. It didn’t take long, until she found herself on a cliff overlooking the area.
The redhead took a deep breath as she allowed the gentle breeze of the wind to wash over her. Her hair flowed along with the air, as she stood there, enjoying a moment of peace and calm.
But just as she was starting to relax, a familiar voice called out to her.
“You know, coming out here on your own isn’t really smart,” the voice said, causing Erin to turn around and see the shadowy figure that she had met a few days ago. “I suppose this is at least a bit better. After all, now you aren’t inside a cave, with your back against a wall. That was pretty dumb. Maybe we could call this progress of some kind?”
image [https://i.ibb.co/Z87z8qy/Ch-49-Pic-1.jpg]
“...I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about you suddenly appearing behind me,” Erin said with a sigh. “By the way, I didn’t get a chance to thank you.”
“Thank me?” the shadow asked. “For what exactly?”
“For… helping me out,” the redhead answered. “Not only did you save me from… whatever it was that attacked me and dragged me into this world, but you’ve helped me out after that as well, by giving me the ability to use magic and by warning me about that spider.”
“Meh. No need to thank me really. After all, I have my own interests in mind,” the shadow said with a shrug. “You do remember what I told you last time, right? About what I want from you?”
“You mean how you wanted me to essentially become the hero of this world? Yeah, I remember,” Erin replied. “But are you serious about that? I might have succeeded in taking down Lune, but the people in charge of this world are far more dangerous. Do you really think I can win against them?”
“There’s always a chance for an unlikely win. Whether it’s because of a good plan or just sheer luck, one can win against overwhelming opposition,” the shadow said. “Still, even if you don’t succeed, I can always find someone else. I just feel like you should be the one to do this job. What do you say?”
Erin thought about it for a moment. While she didn’t see herself as a hero of any kind, but she knew the people responsible for this world turning into the mess it was. The redhead knew she wanted to meet them once again, if for nothing else but to at least speak with them just one more time. Not only that, she wanted to stop them from causing anymore misery and pain for others, even if that was just for her own sake.
“...I doubt I’ll ever be a hero, but I’ll do what I can to set things right here,” Erin answered after thinking about it for a moment. “I can’t let people like Lune to keep on doing such horrid things any longer. They need to be stopped.”
“Glad to hear that. Had you decided not to do this, I’d have been doing nothing but waste my time,” the shadow said with a hint of relief in his voice, before turning around to leave. “See you around.”
“Wait! Before you leave, can you tell me something?” the redhead asked. “The fact that there isn’t any information tying us to the assassination of Lune… Was that done by you?”
“Oh that? Yeah, that was me. Considering how much I’m expecting of you, I’d say it’s only expected that I’d do that much,” the shadow answered. “Although, next time, would you mind and try not to leave so many traces? It’s not exactly a small feat to not only wipe out recordings, but to also manipulate memories.”
“Just who are you?” Erin asked.
“That will be a secret, for now,” the shadow answered. “I will tell you the truth, when the time is right.”
The shadowy figure suddenly disappeared right before the redhead’s eyes, almost as if he was scattered into the wind. For a moment, all Erin could do was stare at where the mysterious figure had been mere seconds ago.
However, the things that the shadow had said had left the redhead in deep thought. Whoever this person was, he had high expectations for her. She was expected to take on people like Lune, except even more powerful. This would include the Five Overlords, her old friends.
Was that something she could accomplish? Was it even something she herself wanted to do?
In the end, Erin decided that it didn’t matter so much. The thing she truly wanted was to meet and talk to her old friends at least one more time. Maybe she could be able to help the world itself along the way? Who truly knew, though?
It was a goal she felt was worth fighting for.