Ha-Rin prepares for the assassin’s attack, but she then feels a wave of killing intent by her side. The strongest she felt in this life. She looks quickly. It’s Jane.
Jane disappears.
The sound of tearing flesh is heard, then the hard taps of heels. She looks ahead. She sees that the assassin’s head and appendages have been severed from their body, and she sees Jane a standing atop the corpse like a wild beast, a surgical butcher holding two massive knives that look more like short swords.
She spits on the assassin’s body and says, “Filthy animal.”
She is covered in blood and licks some of the blood on her knife.
“Hmm? Probably someone from the Western Provinces,” she mutters to herself.
Ha-Rin is shocked. She looks at Jane with mouth a gape.
“What?” Zana says to herself quietly.
“Wait, wasn’t Jane the first one to detect that I had mana and had recovered from my illness. I should have been more suspicious then. She was proficient in sensing mana, but that doesn’t mean she should be an OP killing machine!” Ha-Rin screams in her mind.
Jane looks back at Princess Zana and noticing her blank stare panics, her face blushes red.
Then, swinging the blood away from her blades, she puts them back in their sheathes under her skirt and skips toward the Princess, the battle still raging behind her.
“Are you okay, Princess?” Jane asks.
“P-please don’t be afraid,” she continues stuttering a little.
“Afraid? Why would I be afraid, Jane?” Princess Zana replies.
“I think you were pretty cool, Jane,” she continues.
“Oh, Princess!” Jane says motioning to hug her.
The clash of the battle still echoing behind her.
“Wait! Not now, Jane. Look at your clothes,” Zana says.
She looks at her clothes. Soaked red with blood. Torn here and there due to her extreme movements.
Jane says, “I am so sorry, Princess! This one has been acting inappropriately. Please…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know you are sorry Jane. I forgive you so please stop thinking that your life is worth so little,” Zana says interrupting Jane.
Blood and viscera are slathered across the dining room walls behind them.
“Princess!” Jane says with some tears in her eyes.
“Actually, I have a question, Jane,” Princess Zana asks.
“What is the question, Princess?” Jane says.
Zana says, “How…”
BBOOOMMMM!!!
A loud sound wave interrupts Zana’s question.
Both Jane and Zana look at the source of the sound.
The Captain of the Guard is currently clashing with the leader of the assassins. Miraculously, only assassins have been slain so far. They had the initiative with their surprise attack, but they were overwhelmed by the power of the Captain of the Guard and Master Gormenghast and the numbers and training of the Princess’ guard.
“It looks like Captain Sarah is going to end this charade, Princess,” Jane says confidently.
Although she has been sitting on the side lines, Ha-Rin has been paying attention to the tides of the battle but even an untrained spectator can see that the assassins are radically outclassed by her guards.
“Are they brain-dead? Why did whoever wants me dead send such weak-ass assassins? Why did they even agree to it!? These guys must be crazy!” Ha-Rin thinks.
Captain Sarah grips her two-handed sword with both hands now and brings it above her shoulders. She says, “Gorm, strengthen me!”
Sarah then launches toward the leader of the assassins. Before she reaches them, Gormenghast quickly dual-casts an earth and wind elemental support spell on Sarah causing her power and speed to dramatically increase.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
The person underneath the cloak laughs crazily and attacks Sarah without abandon along with all their minions.
The assassins shout, “For Revolution!”
The leader and everyone behind them are bisected while the rest of the assassins are thrown back by the shockwave.
The arms of the assassin’s leader is exposed revealing colorful tattoos and slender arms. They twitch, but then the hands clap together making a gesture of prayer.
Magical energy pours into the room allowing the leader to unbisect herself.
She says, “Gotcha.”
“What?” Zana says.
A swirling sensation overcomes her and she finds herself no longer in the opulent palace but in a dark alley.
“It’s quite hard to teleport far,” someone says to Zana.
She looks at the voice. It’s the leader of the assassins.
“Especially, if you have to drag a filthy heathen,” the leader says.
She takes off her cloak covering her face and body. It reveals a tall, strong dark-skinned woman probably in her mid-thirties. Colorful tattoos of various kinds cover her face and arms from ancient languages to weird scenes of a person breaking chains that bind them.
She looks at Zana crazily. Several knives and swords can be seen strapped onto her body. She takes one sword and throws it at Zana’s feet.
Her eyes then roll back into her head and then she shouts toward the sky, “May the Lady in Red, bless this sacrifice!”
A booming sound is heard.
Zana quickly picks up the sword looks at her opponent.
The assassin is now looking at her like a little lamb.
There are several openings, but Zana decides to block the next attack to test her strength.
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The assassin in glee swings one of her swords toward Zana while she grips the other sword with her free hand.
Zana sees everything.
The assassin leader is much slower than before.
She deftly deflects the sword coming at her and then blocks the assassin’s next sword.
“Weak,” Zana thinks.
The assassin is weaker than before.
She then slashes at the assassin scratching her on her right side.
Outraged, the assassin furiously rushes forward with her two swords flames bursting forth from their blades.
Zana casts a spell on her sword.
It is engulfed in water.
SCHHHHH!
The fire and water create a fog that covers the whole area.
The assassin jumps back and then runs behind Zana.
Zana is still. She can sense an attack is coming.
Slash!
Sching!
Swords collide. Zana is pushed back.
She is kicked in the gut. The assassin like wind disappears back into the mists.
“Dammit!” she thinks.
“HAHAHA! You are still too weak, Zana Ezna!” the assassin says.
A silence looms over the battlefield.
The assassin’s voice echoing throughout the battlefield asks, “Do you want to make a deal, Princess?”
“A deal? Aren’t you trying to kill me?” Zana retorts to the fog.
“No, we just want you to be a sacrifice for our Lady in Red,” the assassin says.
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Zana retorts again.
“Not quite,” the assassin says, “Just become a believer in our Lady.”
“Is that all?” Zana asks.
“You must receive our mark as well,” the assassin responds.
“Fine,” Zana says.
“Let me try using that,” she thinks while focusing mana on her eyes.
The assassin then appears out of the mists and approaches Princess Zana.
“Come to me and I will bestow upon you the mark of the Lady in Red,” she says.
Zana slowly approaches the assassin’s leader.
“What’s you name?” she asks.
“You can call me, ‘Red’” Red says.
“A pseudonym?” Zana thinks.
“We are all united by our Lady’s dream,” Red says, “Now become a part of it.”
The assassin throws some of her knives at Zana and leaps upon her with her two swords over her head.
Zana dodges those knives, but she is then dismembered by the assassin’s two swords.
“HAHAHAHA! Die Imperial dog!”
But then she notices Zana’s body disintegrates into water.
A sword aims for her neck.
“YOU BITTTCCHH!”
Red attempts to block with her two swords.
The sword did not aim for her neck.
Slash!
It aimed for her right arm.
“AAAHHHHH!”
The assassin falls down and screams.
Zana steps on the assassins’ free hand making her let go of the other sword.
True Sight coupled with a mirage of water. Zana is out of breadth from doing those two things simultaneously along with the focused swing of her sword.
She looks down at the assassin.
“Who are you?” Zana asks.
“The Liberator, the Breaker of Chains, the Queen of Revolution, will kill you filthy heretics and…”
A booming sound is heard again.
The assassin’s face pales.
“No, No, NO!!! OUR REVENGE!!!” she yells in terror.
The assassin leader returns once again to her bisected state. Guts and viscera pour out from her body.
Although she has seen such horrors in her previous life, Zana’s body reacts uncontrollably.
She falls to her knees and vomits.
“My Lady!” a woman says.
She then looks to her right and sees right outside the alley Jane.
Jane runs up to her and hugs her.
“Everything will be fine now, Princess,” she says.
Jane removes the cloak she is now wearing and places it around Princess Zana.
“Thanks, Jane,” she says.
Jane helps Zana up from the ground.
She looks at pile of flesh on the ground.
“What happened here, Princess?” she asks.
“It’s a long story, Jane,” Zana says, “I won.”
Jane holds her tightly, “I am just glad you are safe, my Lady.”
Soon Captain Sarah and Master Gormenghast arrive along with the Princess’ guards.
Captain Sarah kneels down before the Princess and says, “I am sorry this vassal did not stop danger from befalling, Her Highness.”
Zana looks down at Sarah. Her face is pale, and she is sweating profusely. She is trembling slightly.
Zana sighs and says, “You have done your best, Captain. What’s past is past.”
Master Gormenghast then approaches Princess Zana and says while bowing to her, “Please let us escort you back to the palace, Your Highness.”
“Okay,” she says.
“You don’t mind if I call you Gorm?” Zana asks.
“I do not mind, Princess. Now, please come here so we can form a proper perimeter around you, Princess,” Master Gormenghast says.
Princess Zana along with Jane walks toward Gormenghast and Sarah and soon a perimeter of guards encircles the Princess.
More guards rush into the scene, but they are heading to the alley. They are probably investigating the assassin that tried to kill her. Soon some people in robes can be seen walking toward the alley.
Captain Sarah then proceeds to lead the group safely back to the palace.
Zana speaks to Gorm in front of her and asks, “Do you know who or what group sent those assassins after me?”
Onlookers of various nationalities look and wave at the flight of guards passing through the city.
“It is one of the newer cults that sprang up within the Empire,” Master Gormenghast says.
“They call themselves the Liberation Army. The official name the Empire has given them is Cult of Strife. They are a new cult that the Empire noticed one hundred years ago when they attempted to assassinate Empress Temara III,” he continues.
“What do they want?” Zana asks.
Some people in the city catch sight of the Empress and start waving their hands and shouting.
“Mass revolution across all of Arda,” Master Gormenghast says.
He continues, “For what reason, we are not entirely sure, but we have found out their fondness of revolution stems from some sort of vengeance they wish to enact on the Holy Pantheon.”
“Why did they attack me?” Zana asks.
“They probably thought you are the weak link,” Master Gormenghast replies.
Zana looks at him quizzically.
“That’s all? You really don’t think there is more behind this attack,” she asks.
He sighs.
“I really am not sure, my Lady,” he replies.
“At best, I really just think that they are crazy,” he says.
Frustrated she says, “That sounds like a bullshit reason.”
“Pardon your language, my Lady,” he replies.
“Fine,” she says.
“I know that it does not sound convincing, my Lady, but trust me. The more Revolutionaries you meet, the more you will realize, my Lady, that they have lost all sense of rationality and stability,” he says.
“I don’t think they are crazy, Gorm,” Zana says reminiscing of the revolutions that occurred on Earth.
“You will realize in due time, my Lady,” Gormenghast says.
They are now at the front gate of the palace.
“Thank you for the information, Gorm,” Princess Zana says.
“It is my pleasure, my Lady,” he says.
They all walk in.
----------------------------------------
It is now early morning in Merchant’s Rest. The morning mists from the Radain River have crawled up from the river’s banks and have engulfed the entire city of Merchant’s Rest in their laziness. Various shops and stores are just now opening, and one can see some of their owners still yawning. They are still tired. A man is walking down these misty streets through the city. He is wearing a coat and a monocle. It is Adam.
It has been almost a week since the last meeting in the World of Grey Fog and Adam is currently walking towards his new workplace.
When he realized that in the World of Grey Fog, he can understand what that small boy and the young girl were saying he had a brilliant idea.
“If I summon an object with writing I don’t understand, will I be able to understand it”
Testing it out, his conjecture was proven correct.
He walks through some winding alleys of the foggy city and overhears some of the conversations of the guards.
“Don’t ya think that it’s high time that this city will be under Lady Elizabeth’s rule?” one guards says.
“Nah, I think it’s going to fall under Lord Milton’s jurisdiction,” another guard says.
“Don’t you think us being independent under a mayor is good enough?” a guard interjects.
“Nah,” they both say.
“Ah, local politics,” Adam thinks.
Moving pass the guards, he exits the alleyways and enters a main road that leads all the way to the library. He directs his mind toward other things.
He reminisces on the many different experiments he tried the pass few days.
First, he tried to summon those stone tablets he saw before, but that failed. Those tablets did not appear. For another experiment, he summoned something from the World of Grey Fog and put it on his person so that he could take it with him to Arda. That also failed, but he was able to take small items from Arda, modify them in the World of Grey Fog, and then take them out; however, he really can’t modify them to much or else he won’t be able to take them out. The second to last experiment he did was see what would happen to his body on Arda when he entered the World of Grey Fog. He talked the inn keeper and paid him five half-coopers (that penny-pincher!) to check on his room during his afternoon nap. If he was there, he would wake him up and if he was not there, he asked him to leave the room. When the time of the experiment came, the innkeeper entered his room and realized that he was not there. After his afternoon nap, the afternoon asked where he went and Adam replied,
“You see I specialize in illusion magic.”
And then he showed him a basic illusion spell. He was quite mesmerized by it, but since I performed a spell on him without his consent, he asked for two whole copper! (A real penny-pincher!)
Now, since Adam figured out that he can read any book, he decided to work at the city’s library as a translator.
He is now approaching Merchant’s Rest’s magnificent library. The Library of Merchant’s Rest is the second largest library in the Kingdom of Baudren after the Crystal Library in the Kingdom’s Capital. It is an ancient library, but it also belongs to the state. Hence, the City Mayor has been allowing people to borrow books from the library; however, there are many places in the library where access is restricted.
But today is the going to be the first day when Adam will have access to a restricted section of the library.
“I hope I did not apply for this position for nothing,” he thinks.
He enters the library.