Black hair and I went into a nearby shop to look at the letter. We both ordered drinks, of course I'm paying again. I'm not complaining, It's just that my wallet's crying out to me right now, It can't be helped since black hair forgot his pouch.

We're sitting at a table by the window, children look inside as they pass by.

I pull out a piece of paper and put it on the table.

"So, you know that you didn't have to buy me a bunch of food to get me to help you right?" he lowers both eyebrows.

Well, I knew that but I was really doing it to help you. Although I won't say that out loud.

"It's just coincidence, I saw you, you needed money, so I helped."

"Hehe, thanks. Well..." He scratches his head. "what exactly do you want me to help you with? I mean, couldn't you have ask- you've probably already tried that. So do you want me to give you ideas?"

"Yeah, Elis wasn't interested and Iris just said to write whatever." I sigh. My fingers are tapping the table lightly.

Our drinks arrive. Mine is blue tea, I picked it for it's color. I take a sip. Not bad, the taste is somehow calming, and it smells a bit like flowers. Black hair ordered coffee with honey.

"I kinda agree with Iris..." He also takes a sip. "but here, start with the basics, write about how you're doing and about the friends that you made."

He raises his arms above his head, stretching them. A ray of light shines directly into my eye, I squint and use my hand as a shield. A chain around his neck had reflected the light like a mirror would.

"What's that around your neck?" I ask. I've never seen- no, noticed it before today.

"Oh this?" He reaches into the neck of his robe and pulls out a small gold object.

"A pendant?"

Now that I think about it, he sometimes had his hand on his chest when he was walking here.

"Yeah, my dad got it for me. It must have costed him quite a bit of money." His eyes look down at the coffee while he says that. "Now about the letter...

We talked for slightly less than an hour. He suggested ideas and I considered them, soon enough, my hand was moving, gliding across the paper. The ink that came out of the pen seemed thinner, the letters were more beautiful, my hand began to naturally write things I wasn't even thinking of.

"Thanks for helping me out" I say, smiling happily while looking at my work.

"Thanks for the treats." he stands up. "I've gotta go and meet some other people."

"Ah, is that so?"

I'm glad that he seems fine now.

For the most of the day today the scene just kept playing in my head. I wonder if I'll have to kill more people, I wonder if they'll have someone who'll miss them. Everyone is loved by somebody right? I haven't killed too many people, but I used to not think anything of killing them, I mean, I guess that this time it had to do with the fact that I was the attacker. Back then I used to be defending myself, the people that I killed before were also bandits so they weren't good. But what about this serial killer, he should be worse but one little scene had me question myself. Maybe it's because of what I HAD to do last year that made me so weak to killing.

I would've been out of it all day and maybe even for the next few days if it weren't for blue hair. I could tell that she was following me the moment I saw her at the shop. The look on her face as I spotted her, it's just like the look a thief would give if he was caught. I planned on brushing her off but she offered to buy me some ice cream, I took it. The price for that cold treat isn't something to laugh at.

Watching other people try the snack for the first time always makes me smile, I especially like her expression. She looked quite happy eating it, she didn't even notice the chocolate chip on her cheek. I've tried the other flavors but I like vanilla best, I don't know why but the chocolate chip looked pretty good, I also wanted to tease her a bit. So I quickly brushed it off with my finger and ate it. The chocolate wasn't bad but I liked the reaction she had more.

I'm glad that I got a partner who's looking out for me. I'll make sure to help her out someday.

I walk down the street to the warehouse, after going back and changing. The streets are much more lively when there's still sunlight. The summer and fall months really are the longest, my master once told me that they were about an entire month longer than the other two. Of course living this long I've experienced it firsthand.

I wonder where he is, does he know that I've killed someone?

Opening the door to the warehouse, I walk in.

A sudden voice sounds out as soon as I enter.

"Yo! We're going on a mission together."

He sits on a barrel with one hand up, it's Henry.

"What kind of mission is it?" I ask.

Carlyle appears from behind the stacked barrels where a large table is.

"It's an easy one. You two will be going to meet our information broker at one of the taverns in the city. Specifically one in the slums."

Such a simple mission, why are they sending two people? I understand that the twel-thirteen work in groups but It's just gathering information.

"Why the two of us?" are they worried about the way I acted after coming back yesterday? I unconsciously rub my hand on my bracer.

"We-" Carlyle is interrupted.

"Because I wanted you to come along." Henry stands up and strides towards me.

He places his hand on my shoulder. It's pretty heavy, there's no grip, he's just letting it sit there.

"Let’s go."

It suddenly gains strength and I'm pulled along.

We walk in silence through the city.

Finally Henry speaks up.

"So how did your first mission go?

"It was..." for some reason I hesitated. "fine." I manage.

"Have you killed anyone before?"

I can detect tenderness in his voice.

"Yeah." I say bluntly.

"Is that so."

His hand starts rubbing his arm.

"Why were you acting like that yesterday."

So it was because of yesterday.

"..." I gather my thoughts, leaving us in silence for a moment. "I wasn't expecting him to be like that. I was expecting... you know, a cold blooded killer."

"What made him not seem that way to you?"

I take a deep breath.

"H-he, in his last moments- I mean." I'm trying to say what I feel but it's a jumble. "Haaaaah." I let out the breath. "When I plunged a knife in his chest and he fell to the ground, I was expecting him to fight back and try to live. But instead, what I see is a- a man crawling to his dead companion."

I finally say it.

“I understand now.” he nods, his eyes are looking down but they don’t see the ground. They’re looking at something from long ago.”I, have a sister. She’s older than me by four years”

Where is this going?

“When our family ran into trouble with some loan sharks, they planned on selling me off.” his voice is filled with pain. “So my sister one day took me away, she took me as far as we could go. People were after us, apparently my parents had already signed a contract, so the loan sharks came after me.”

He rubs his forehead.

“They were always chasing us, they didn’t hurt us but we were scared. One day I killed one of them after they grabbed my sister. I wasn’t thinking of anything nor did I feel like I did something bad.” This time he rubbed his nose. “So after finally killing that man we ran even further away, even harder than before. My sister took care of me, she looked after me, and she somehow was able to muster enough money to send me to a school.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He kicks a few sticks on the ground.

“A few years later, a boy came into the place where we were living and took my sister hostage.” he paused a bit. “The boy held a knife to her neck, I was scared that he was going to kill her. Why was he doing this I thought, what did he want. So I asked him why. He looked at me and his teeth started chattering, tears welled up in his eyes. He told me that the person I killed was his father.”

He stopped walking, I followed suit.

“Now here’s the next part,” there was a tinge of guilt in his voice. “the boy said that he wouldn’t be someone as horrible as me. So he took the knife and slit his own throat. The blood got all over my sister and she could barely move. All I did was stand there and feel guilty, I killed a father and almost got my sister killed. After that I did almost nothing for a week. Why? Because I killed a person who was just doing their job, someone who wasn’t even trying to hurt us.”

He sighed this time.

“The person that you killed, Nack. You don’t need to feel conflicted over something like that, he was a killer, even if he did care for something in the end it doesn’t change the fact that he was dangerous.”

I nod and he starts walking again.

“I’m sorry about the first time we met when I was kinda rude to you.” he says.

“No, I understand. You guys work in groups, if there’s no trust then it’ll be harder for you guys to do your jobs.”

“Heh. Well nice to meet ya. Now let’s go meet the broker.”

Inside the stuffy, worn down, tavern, there were tens of people, from the homeless in rags, to the gruff and muscular adventurers.

“What kind of person are we looking for?” I ask Henry.

“He should be in a green mottled cloak and be drinking some rum while eating it with the large and bitter Yashwas mushroom.” he answers.

“Does he actually eat that stuff?”

“Never seen him finish it. There he is.”

Henry nudges me with his elbow and I follow his eyes.

We in his direction and henry sits in the seat behind him, I take the opposite seat of henry.

Their whispering is almost inaudible. The only useful thing I could pick up from their exchange was that there was going to be a large auction a few days from now. They’re probably selling slaves.

The server girl comes and hands us our meals, I pull down my mask while making sure my face isn’t seen and take a bite. The bread is really hard and I have a hard time swallowing it, so I grab the water, turn away from Henry and chug it. The piece of bread is quickly washed down my throat. Henry also took a bite from his bread but he seems to not mind it, I guess he’s had to do this many times before.

We finish the bread, pay, and leave.

“Are you guys planning on stopping the auction?” I ask. I look around for potential thugs that might follow us.

“It’s possible. We don’t do to many operations without the approval from the empire, so first we’ll report this to them.”

We head down an alleyway, the sun has already gone down.

“We’re surrounded.” I say.

“Yeah.”

“Should we escape or fight?”

“Let's relieve some stress. No killing.”

I nod at Henry’s words.

“Thirteenth, you take the back and I’ll take the front.”

“Gotcha.”

Four thugs stand in front of me, the four of them are in pairs. The alleyway prevents them from all attacking at once but it also restricts my movement. I assume that Henry is dealing with the same amount or more of them. The fight here shouldn’t take to long, it actually doesn’t deserve to be called a fight, it’ll be a beat down.

They don’t even bother to say anything and one starts lunging at me.

Like I did last time with that bandit girl, I grab his arm and fling him to the ground, I stun him and  for good measure I stomp on his hand to make him release the knife.

Instead of following their dumb friend’s example, two come up at the same time, but I notice that the fourth person is nowhere to be seen.

“[Fire Ball]!”

I see a small ball of flame lighting up the dark brick walls of the alley. The two move out of the way and I finally spot the fireball, so they were just stalling. I activate my barrier and the fire is easily deflected, harmlessly dying on impact with the ground.

The three of them look in surprise, I guess they thought we were easy pickins.

I rush in and quickly leg sweep one while casting [Stun] on him. The other is too slow to react and I’m able to kick him to the wall, knocking him out.

“[Fire Ball]!”

For such a simple spell no words were needed unless he wanted to increase the power output. These guys were too low level. With a mana charged fist I punch through the fire ball canceling it out and throw a knife at the man, It catches his right shoulder.

He crumples to his knees grasping at the knife.

“AAAAAHHH!”

He’s pulling it out, but I move to him unhindered by and spells and stun him.

I pull my knife out easily, and heal him. Not that a wound like that would have killed him. I turn around to see that Henry is still fighting, the number of people that he’s facing are the same as the ones lying about here.

Observing the fight I don’t see anyone clearly stronger than the ones over here. Two are on the ground knocked out but two are still standing. Is Henry bad at close combat or am I just good in that department?

Only a few more seconds passed until he defeated them. We headed back to the warehouse.

“Thirteenth.” Carlyle beckons me over.

“What is it?”

“Here.”

He hands me a little bracelet.

I ask again, “What is it?”

“It’s given to official members. After finishing your first mission you are awarded this.”

“Got it.”

I put it on my left hand, gotta remember to take it off when I go to school or wander the city.

“Can I head home now?”

“Yeah, but come here tomorrow. We’re going to discuss a plan of attack on the auction.”

“I thought that we had to wait for the empire to agree though.” I remind him.

“That’s true, but we can also act independently. On saturday next weekend we’ll attack.”

I nod and walk out the door.

Next week huh. I wonder if my letter’s almost there yet. I hope that blue hair doesn’t have family that lives too far away, waiting for a reply is a pain.

I walk back to the alleyway and change into my uniform.

The day was, in a way, very fruitful. I managed to improve my relationship with two people. The night is calm and peaceful while I return to my dorm to read up on seals and get some rest.

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For those of you reading this, It would help if you commented on what you think could be improved and what you liked about the chapter. Obviously only if you wanted to.