A woman in white robes bites her nails anxiously in a small concrete room. Contrasting her worrying expression, her short wavey silver hair and veil on her face lend an air of enigmatic nobility. She paces around the room glancing left and right. She is Joana, the High Priestess of The Church of Axis and the Apostle of their god. She works directly under The Order of The Demonic Cult.
A week ago, a member of The Order personally visited Joana with a young boy that looked like the deceased hero. The member informed Joana of Samuel's impending appearance in Clamore and provided a way to assassinate him. The member guaranteed Joana the success and promises to help Joana handle the drawbacks.
However, no news of the member arrives.
Joana begins to doubt her master's words.
"Guaranteed success? Hahaha...what fucking bullshit...Not only did that bastard survive, the truth of everything is exposed and everyone is pinning the blame on me. Fuck fuck." she snaps off the nails on her index finger.
"Are all of you throwing me away after all I've done? Why? What did I do wrong?" Joana mumbles.
*Knock knock*
"Holy Apostle, your subject is here to inform you of visitors." a woman outside the room says.
Joana immediately puts on her facade and opens the door. "Thank you, fellow theist. I will accompany our visitors."
The woman, wearing a white robe, bows to Joana and leaves.
Joana approaches the guest room, in the middle, two couches surround a small wooden table. A man in black robes shrouded in black mist sits on the couch, the darkness covers his face.
"Greetings sir, is there anything the master..." Joan says.
...
"Ahem. Pardon my behaviour. I was...lamenting."
The robed man reaches into his coat and puts a bag of gold on the table. "The Lord has given you two options. Run or die."
!!!
Joana's expression grows pale. Her smile gradually fades. "P-Pardon?"
...
"Why?" she says. "I did exactly as instructed. Why is the failure on me?"
...
"I am simply following orders. Soon, the truth of everything will come to light. If you utter a single word, the magic cast on you will activate." the robed man says.
"Magic? What magic?!" Joana walks up to the robed man.
"The Lord sends his regards." The man gets up.
"No! Please! I did everything right! You've seen it, I am very useful. Please, I will do anything." Joana gets on her knees.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
...
"Blame your greed." The man says.
Despite Joana's persistent begging as she grabs onto the man, the man ruthlessly kicks her aside and leaves the room.
Joana is left crying in the corner, eyes devoid of any hope.
"No...everything that I've built up..."
=================================
The news of my survival propagated in a blink of an eye, galloping through cities and villages from the lowest peasant to the noblest aristocrat. My name, almost forgotten by everyone, once again strikes the headline and soars my fame fuelled by the publication of Leo's descriptive interview of what happened in the dungeon.
Many associated both events to be a testament to my strength and capabilities, citing that I could be the youngest person in the entire history of the BOV to be promoted to General.
Unfortunately for them, I will be leaving the BOV soon.
After my fast recovery, I rented a carriage and a coachman to drive me to Hira.
There are the two rewards I obtained from the dungeon:
--------------
The Stigma of Giants[Blessing]
This stigma represents the giants' acknowledgement of your strength. The giant will lend you their strength when the time arises.
Effects:
+50% Atk
+50% Def
+100% damage against Dragon-Type
This blessing consumes 50000 mana every 1 minute.
--------------
--------------
Fresh Big Encephalon
The brain of a mutated giant. Maybe this can be used for something.
--------------
My mood slightly improves when I see these. One is an end-game blessing and the other is a "Legendary" tier ingredient.
In the middle of a forest, the carriage slows down and I detect close to fifty malicious presence around.
The carriage reaches a certain point before five assassins, standing on a branch, dive in and destroy the carriage, only to find me missing.
"What?! He's gone!" one of them exclaims.
"How did none of us detect him?! Damn it! Search around!"
Turns out the coachman I hired was an assassin in disguise. As the assassins scramble across the forest finding a trace of my escape. I simply stare at them from up here on a branch, engulfed by mana and shadow. They are bold trying to attack me during daylight.
One assassin runs past me and I jump on him, slitting his throat and jumping back into the trees.
The assassins smell blood and instantly gather at the corpse. Despite their speed, I am nowhere to be seen.
"Tch! He is trying to kill us off bit by bit. Stick together!" one of the assassins say.
They start to search around in pairs or more, jumping from branch to branch.
"Fuck! Since when did we become the hunted?" one man says to his teammate.
No response came.
?
He stops and looks back to find a headless body in the mud.
Something shoots from behind. The man instinctively turns and cuts it into two, it's his teammate's head.
"W-Wha-"
His vision hurls into the trees and sees his own body, spewing a fountain of blood. My figure stands behind his headless corpse for a split second before disappearing.
Another group of assassins approaches the area not long after and blows a whistle. Every remaining assassin immediately dashes towards the sound. They are trying to corner me.
However, only eight assassins arrive.
??!
The smell of blood flows from many directions.
"H-How can this be? So many of us wiped in mere five seconds?"
...
The remaining survivors stick together in a circle. They glance at each other and nod before each jumping away in different directions, attempting to shake me off using each other as bait.
============================
"Huff huff huff..." One assassin takes off his mask when he is far enough, sitting behind a tree, revealing himself to be a fairly middle-aged man. His receding hairline and fine lines surroundings his eyes and lips show evidence of age.
"Hooof..." He takes a deep breath and gets up. "So I'm the unlucky one today."
He draws his sword and prepares to fight to the death.
I jump from the tree with my sword in hand.
"Fret not, if it was four days ago, I might not have a chance. All of you are too late." I say.
"Might huh..."
...
He waits for me to take the first move.
------------
Godez
Strength:??
Weakness: ??
Status: Calm
Tribe: Human
Lvl: 188
Hp: 400000/400000
Mana: 100000/100000
Atk: 419
Def: 198
Dex: 201
Mag: 120
Luck: 12
------------
------------
Name: Samuel Turner(Alias: Arsto)
Title: Pioneer of Manafication
Class: Aura Slayer
Lvl: 249
Hp: 80000
Mana: 10000
Atk: 500(798)[+]
Def: 300[+]
Dex: 300(401)[+]
Mag: 400(617)[+]
Luck: 100(120)[+]
(Recap: the numbers in the bracket are the actual statistics after accounting for equipment)
------------
A person without a last name...
"Godez..."
"You know me?"
"You dead squad members told me." I lie.
Godez's expression stays firm. No matter how long, he is trying to stall for time.
...
"You are the only one alive." I throw seven dolls on the ground. For some reason, I found ragged dolls made from old clothes on all assassins.
The man stares melancholy at the dolls. He drops his sword and gazes at me. "You have a bounty of one million gold and the Patriarch of the Mumba Poison Clan ordered a hit on you. I am simply an outer disciple, a disposable pawn, thus I do not know much. Please kill me."
I nod and swiftly decapitate him.
The Mumba Poison Clan...
Private Clans or Guilds exist to pass down their respective unique techniques and they are a force to reckon with. The Mumba Poison Clan is a black organisation akin to the Demonic Cult. They kidnap children and force them to undergo harsh training. Since poison heavily involves needles, they could have sewed the dolls.
Seeing how none of the assassins used poison, they are most likely disposable pawns used to gauge my strength by the patriarch...
"Haaa... That fucker..."
One more thing. My arm feels weird. Whenever I swing my sword, I have an irritating tingling sensation.
...