Chapter 1: It Begins

Chapter 10:

*Chop* *Chop* *Chop*

I rapidly cut the mushrooms, the knife hitting into the board in a rhythmic beat. This was the sort of ambience I’ve been seeking my entire life. The fire crackling, the crickets playing along to the beat of my knife and the soft drizzle from the rain. It really sounds peaceful right about now. It really makes me want to sleep. Speaking of sleep.

“Hey Lily.”

“Sup?”

She turned to look at me as she continued making the sauce.

“Can you check up on Miselle?”

She gave me a questioning look.

“Who?”

“Miselle.”

“Who’s that?”

“Stop joking around and check up on her already.”

She pouted.

“You’re no fun today… give me a sec.”

She then quickly finished mixing the sauce and quickly placed it on the stove. She then disappeared into the nearest room as I quickly placed the mushroom atop the steak we were going to cook.

“Well, she seems fine. A week of sleep must have finally paid off. Plus, it looks like she’s having a good dream. Smiling too. I wonder what she’s dreaming about.”

“Beats me, but at least she’s better now. Hey, can you help me cut the onions?”

She quickly went to work as I placed the sauce she made over the steak. I even added a bit of honey. Ah, the smell. It hasn’t even started to be cooked and you can already smell the sweet fragrance. What’s even better was that the ingredients were bought with my own hard earned cash. I know I could have just used the money Artura gave me, but what’s the fun in that. Plus, I got to see much of the kingdom seeing as some of them included escort mission to the other islands. Who knew monsters were also in here, but they were pretty weak.

“Ne, Bryan?”

“What’s up?”

I barely looked up as I placed the steak on the oven.

“I’m just wondering… why are you helping that girl?”

“That’s a weird question to ask. Why ask that now?”

She shrugged her shoulders as she passed me the onions. I quickly placed them over the steak. I then activated the circuit and sure enough, I could feel the heat coming from the oven.

“Hmm… well, I was actually thinking about something. I know that I’ve declined being a hero and all, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.”

“Well, aren’t you already helping by teaching their militia how to fight?”

“I know, it’s just… the things you found. It’s really concerning.”

I remember the reports she gave to me a while back. As we were being guided in the castle, Lily wasted no time setting up small video camera bugs. They’ve scoured the entire castle and in a matter of days, managed to uncover many things. I was surprised at the level of corruption. Tax evasion, illegal slavery, assassinations, threats. There were all sorts of files hidden deeply inside the castle. Of course, none of them were from Artura. Instead, they were from the small noble factions that were fighting for control in the background.

“Since we’ll be living here starting from now on, don’t you think we should at least improve the city?”

“Hmm… I guess you have a point, but how are we supposed to do that?”

*Ting*

Oh, the steaks ready. I instantly turned the oven off and took out the steak inside. Ah, the smell. It was so endearing that I immediately forgot about our conversation.

“She should be good by now so go ahead and wake Miselle up. She’s going to enjoy this.”

I placed the tray on the table and began preparing the table. Meanwhile, Lily had gone into one of the rooms. As I set the last plates, Miselle walked into the dining room.

“Evening princess. Sorry to bother you in your rest, but you should probably eat”

I gave her a smile.

“What did you do to me?”

Huh. I looked towards her. She looks pissed. Then again, she probably still remembers what happened. Plus, I did keep her here for a whole week.

“Well, I’ll go ahead and explain everything… right after we eat, so might as well sit down.”

I sat on my chair as well as Lily. We then began eating the steak. Oh… the flavor. How amazing it is. The honey really complemented the sauce, and the juicy steak. Ah… its tenderness is out of this world. I then noticed Miselle walking to an empty sit and immediately took a huge bite of the steak.

“Oishi!”

I could see her stare wide eyed at the food. In no time, she too began clawing through it like a hungry animal. Well, what can I say? I’m a pretty good cook.

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“Now then. Mind explaining to me what you did?”

She stared at me in anger.

“You know, I really don’t like tension so if you don’t mind, can you stop looking at me with an angry expression.”

“You want me to stay calm. If I last remember, you sliced off my head, remember. Just what the hell was that for?”

She smashed her hand on the table. Luckily, Lily had already picked up the majority of the dishes so nothing broke. Well, except for my patience. Like Lily once said, I really get irritated easily and loud noises doesn’t help. I instantly released a bit of my bloodlust.

“Look, either you calm down or I’ll get rough with you. I’m usually a very peaceful man, but even I can get my hands dirty.”

I looked straight into her eyes. She immediately looked away as she shook lightly.

“I thought you were a good person.”

“Hah… you’ve only met me for a while, girlie. You honestly believe I’m a good guy.”

“But you’re a…”

I instantly raised my hand.

“Didn’t I tell you not to lump me with those people. I’m no hero you understand. I’ve done things… many things just so I could survive. That’s why I have power. Power that I earned through years of suffering. Powers that I never wanted. So you tell me this...”

I left my seat and pinned her down to her chair. I could see sweat pouring from her forehead as her face was paling.

“… You think you’re strong enough to handle my training. If you can’t even keep calm after what I did to you, then you have nothing for me to teach. So let me ask you again, do you actually think your body can keep up with my teaching?”

I could see her visibly gulp. Her eyes were darting everywhere.

“N...n…”

I raised an eyebrow.

“No?”

She instantly bit her lip. She bit herself so hard that she was actually bleeding. She then looked me in the eyes. What I saw was not a girls eyes, but eyes of that of a tiger.

“Yes, I can do it. That’s why please, do anything to help me learn.”

She instantly bowed. I’m… actually impressed. Right now she had courage. Enough courage to actually talk and last through my bloodlust. I even increased the level, but she’s hardly shaking anymore. Well, I guess she passed the first test. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“There we go, now that’s the spirit. Alright, I’ll teach you… but first a bit of info.”

She now looked at me with a serious face. Perfect, a face of a true warrior.

“Before I can truly teach you my magic, there is one thing you must learn first.”

“What is that?”

I smiled.

“The fear of death. You must learn not to fear it.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

I crossed my arms in front of me.

“It’s simple. Learn how to not fear death.”

“Isn’t that… kind of impossible?”

I laughed even more.

“Nonsense, by the time I’m done, you should no longer fear death, so don’t worry about it. Oh, but try not flinch. It makes it harder for me to cut you.”

“Eh…”

Before she could react, I instantly summoned my katana. In a wide arc, it immediately sliced through her neck. In seconds she was down on the floor.

“Well… that went rather well”

Lily quickly made her way to the girl and studied her pulse.

“Well, she’s only asleep. At least she didn’t go into shock like last time”

“Meh, she’ll be fine. It’s not like this sword can actually cut her”

I looked at the sword in my hand. It was an elegant sword made of pure jet black adamantine. It was a cursed blade whose effects allows it to cut not the body, but the spirit of the body. Of course the soul is safe since for some strange reason, it can only cut the spirit of the targeted object. In that sense, I targeted Miselle’s body so it only cut the soul’s body. Of course the soul regenerates soner and later, and strangely enough, even though your bodies not cut, your mind hallucinates and shows you the parts that was cut. All in all, a very crude weapon.

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Lily quickly carried the poor girl into one of the rooms. As for me, I went outside and stared at rain. It was really peaceful.

“So, you mind telling me why exactly are you helping her?”

I felt a small tang of anger in her voice. I sighed.

“It’s because I want to…”

“Don’t just say you want to help. You’re already helping the kingdoms forces, so why go the extra length for this girl”

I bit my lips as she immediately cut me off. Do I really need to tell her… ugh, I really don’t want to tell her. She’ll probably get mad. But then again, there is no stopping this world. Ever since we’ve arrived I’ve realized, no matter how much we try to get away, we’ve become pieces in the chessboard, the end-move very far away. Suddenly, I detected movements. Hmm… guess I’m not the first to move.

“Bryan, what’s going on?”

Lily quickly noticed what was happening and had summoned her gun.

“Guess there’s no use hiding it. I did a bit more research on Miselle, even read her memories. She’s… a very important person to say the least.”

“What, is she an experiment or an assassin that has valuable information?”

“Nope, she’s higher.”

She thought for a moment as she aimed her gun around her. Then as if dawning on her, her mouth became wide open.

“Don’t tell me…”

“Yep… she’s the queen of a recently fallen kingdom. Miselle Reille, the Gaulic queen of the north.”

“AND YOU KEPT THIS FROM ME WHY?!”

“I’ll tell you later, focus on finding their leader first.”

“Ugh, I’m so going to kill you after this.”

She instantly disappeared.

“[Command Central Activated. Mode ‘1’. Initiate combat sequence. Level 1]”

An interface appeared in front of me. I saw my health bar as well as Lily’s. A small map on the bottom right corner showed me where everything is. A green dot was moving quickly through the map approaching every red dot it came across. As soon as it touches one, the red dot immediately disappears. I could also hear small burst of gunfire from here accompanied by a myriad of screams.

“Well, I probably shouldn’t lag behind”

I quickly summoned by two knives and dashed towards the stream. There were a lot of enemies to say the least. I couldn’t see them clearly out in the open, but thanks to the map, I knew where they were hiding. I quickly flash stepped to an unsuspecting person.

“Found you.”

He barely turned around before two knives appeared on the back of his head. I quickly pulled out as an arrows hissed pass me. I looked into the shadows and noticed four… no five assassins. Two had some type of crossbow while the other two carried swords.

“Enemy sighted, engage in full combat.”

I hear all three of them screaming as they dashed towards me. The other two began running for the house.

“Oh no you don’t, ‘Fireball’”

Two orbs instantly flew from my hand. One of them immediately turns around.

“Goddess be my light and…”

“[Amplify].”

My fireballs accelerated. The man’s eyes were wide in shock as the fireball cleanly tore threw him. Blood spilled from his mouth and his insides began burning. The other man also dropped to forest floor. Dead. His lifeless body lay as fire could be seen where the head used to be. The three people became wary as they eyed me very closely. One of them instantly went for jab. Using the hilt of my knife, I let his sword slide past me. At the last possible second, I then slashed upwards as I felt flesh being torn apart. I then kicked the man flying and used that force to somersault behind another person. The poor guy tried to turn around, but instead he fell to the floor as two knives could be seen poking out of his chest.

“Monster.”

Oh, is that a girl’s voice? I studied the last assassin. Yep it’s a girl. She had brown eyes and short hair. She looked pretty poor, but then again, it might just be a uniform to not draw attention. But… actually she seems familiar.

“So, what’s a girl like you doing in a job like this?”

“Leave me alone!”

She prepared her sword and swung it sideways aiming for my chest. I prepared to defend myself by pulling out my own sword. I quickly sent it to the side hoping to block it. Before the blade reached me, she instantly changed the direction of the blade.

“Whoa!”

I immediately dodged. That was a perfectly executed strike. If it wasn’t for the fact that that was my technique, then I would have been hit by now.

“You… you’re one of my students.”

“…”

She remained silent.

“Why are doing this? Who sent you?”

“None of your business.”

Ugh… she’s a pain in the ass. Wait, now that I think about it. There was this one noblewoman in my class who’s pretty quiet. The problem is that she looks nothing like the assassin in front of me. Long silver hair and silver eyes, there’s no comparison… wait a minute. I instantly dodged to the side as I continued to study her face. Then I noticed that she was wearing some kind of collar. Is that what I think it is?

“You’re wearing a concealment charm aren’t you?”

“…”

She continued giving me a blank look but you could see small sweat forming from the base of her brow. Well, at least I got that right. Time to see who it is.

“[Command Type 2: Dispel]”

The collar instantly vaporized. The girl, surprised, dropped her guard and I wasted no time. I instantly ran behind her and, before she could fight back, hit her at the back of her neck. She instantly lost consciousness as I caught her in my arms. Her face also began to vaporize and the familiar silver haired girl could be seen. So it was her. The question is though, what is she doing here?

“Hey Bryan.”

“Ahh… perfect timing. Here, take her to the house”

I quickly passed her over to Lily. With a ‘why am I always carrying them’ complaint, she quickly headed back to the house. As for me, I continued looking through the corpses. I couldn’t tell who they were, but I was really glad that none of them were students. I couldn’t even imagine what would happen when I try to explain this to Artura. Then I noticed something. These people, their cloaks. They had the same insignia. There was a lion in the middle with two swords going through it. Wings could be seen to envelop the insignia with words that I couldn’t really read.

“Well, at least this can work as evidence…”

I quickly gathered the corpses into one big pile.

“Fireball.”

The bodies quickly caught fire. I stayed there to watch as their bodies became ashes. I’ve been so used to this, yet watching this… I still can’t get over the sadness that I feel. Every fight, every day. I continued to do this. Is this respect, honor, and mourning. Even I don’t know anymore. I then looked at one of the men. A picture fell out from his burning coat. It was an image of a family. The man was hugging what appeared to be his daughter as his wife hugged him from behind. This man also had a family. As I thought this, the picture slowly caught fire. Just like the bodies, it quickly turned into ash and was carried by the rainy breeze.

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Author Notes:

Hey guys, sorry it took a while. I was studying a lot for my midterms lol

But now that I'm pretty free, I decided to finally finish this one, have it edited, and then posted. Thank you for your patience and enjoy.

P.S. This is a time skip, but in the right context. Unlike my previous ones lol

P.S.S. For those who wanted action, well it begins here. Also, I've been excited about starting the first arc >.<

P.S.S.S. Is the POV good, or should I try writing in 3rd Person (This question is for you to editor XD)