Carmelo’s smile turned sour when he realized the Singi standing before him wasn’t the observer he had been waiting for.
“Explain to me why you’re here, or I will use Clarence to rend your flesh from your body and feed you to the wildlife!!!” He wasn’t joking around. In a movement far faster than he had shown Servi, he kicked the table with his feet, strummed Clarence’s bowstrings, and watched as sixteen green bolts of energy circled the terrified messenger.
“Sir! It’s about the RASP building with the colorful sign! It’s been demolished! Reports say a bomb blew up a support beam, and the rest of the building fell to the ground, sir! I was told to come directly here and report it to you, sir!” The messenger closed her eyes, folded her ears, and forced her tail to wrap around her waist. The buzzing green energy bolts hummed dimly, filling her ears with a sound that could have been her very last. But even as she said her final prayers to the Gods Above, the deadly bolts disappeared. She then felt a hand on the top of her head as something grabbed the tightly clutched report.
When she realized the humming bolts disappeared, she opened her eyes and saw Carmelo. He had sat back down, but this time, Clarence laid flat on the table.
“You can leave, now. Good work on bringing this to me,” Carmelo said without looking up. After he didn’t hear a set of footsteps scurrying off, he looked up from reading and shooed the messenger away.
She responded with an energetic, “Yes, sir,” and briskly walked towards the door.
From behind, she heard him exclaim with pure pleasure.
“She took down the whole building?! Just to—Hahaha!!! Incredible!!! She’s just incredible!!!!"
I wonder why he’s so happy? The 6th is scary, but he didn’t hurt me. I can do this! I know I can do this! Mama, I had to join something that you wouldn’t be proud of, but I’m going to send some money home. You know I was the fastest amongst my siblings, so it was easy to find a job as a messenger! And I get paid a lot! Please, just wai— Wait, wasn’t there a guard here before?
She opened the door, walked through it, and gently shut it behind her. She swore a guard was standing nearby not even three minutes ago. He stopped and detained her, so she knew he was there.
“That’s a little bit odd. I wonder where that Koena wen—” The Singi turned her head to the right and proceeded to walk down it the corridor.
And that was when it happened.
Even though she saw nothing in the hallway in front of her, her short life of 17 years, 7 months, and 12 days came to an abrupt end when she walked into an incredibly sharp blade. Invisible it may have been, it was the product of a legendary skill called The Shadow's Embrace. And since it pierced her left eye, the shadows didn’t have very long to travel until it relentlessly raged and attacked the Singi’s brain. The very last thing she saw before dying was a girl who held no discernible expression on her face. However, the final thing she envisioned was the face of her beloved mother.
“And that’s another one down,” Servi muttered when she deactivated The Shadow's Embrace and absorbed the umpteenth corpse. The strength it gave her would suit the Koena guard she killed minutes before the Singi, and at the end of the day, Servi needed every little bit of power. Whether or not it came in the form of Potential, another soul to add to her Skill Stacking, or more strength and speed didn’t matter at all.
“Tell me again why I need to go out there?” Old Man whined like a bratty child while putting on the cheap, thin set of chainmail. It was only him, Servi, and Carrie in their room.
“Because that’s what the 6th wants. Didn’t you hear Williana?” Carrie said lazily. She laid down on the top-most bunk bed and stared at the ceiling. Her red tail squirmed out from under her and half-heartedly swooshed about. She touched a hand to her red shirt. “Williana, is this the last contract the 6th is making you do?”
Servi answered as she slid on a brand-new set of armor she received from Carrie for accomplishing everything Carmelo asked of her. It was chainmail, like the one she gave Old Man, but Servi’s gift was pristine. The metal chains were constructed of reinforced mythril. Firm and rigid, it would protect her from any glancing blows and stray arrows, but it wouldn’t do much when protecting against something like the thrust of a spear. Servi slid it on over her new black undershirt and under her brown leather tunic, which, thanks to Carrie, had reinforced metal plates in the chest and stomach area. Her black pants were also another gift from Carrie. The only things Servi wore that wasn't new were the two black boots, white socks, and two daggers that stayed at home on her back hip.
“Yeah. Frankie Ost is his name. I think Carmelo said he’s the mayor or something? We gotta go back into New Arcton, but it shouldn’t be that much trouble.” Servi thought back to the previous night when she went on a brisk massacre. She wondered how the folks in New Arcton took it. Did it even matter? It wasn't like their sadness or sorrow at losing a loved one would change Servi's ultimate plan.
Before she had a chance to get lost in the past, Old Man grumbled. “Fine, I’ll do it. But this is the first, last, and only time.”
“It’s your last time only if the 6th says it’s your last time. If our boss tells you to go back out there and join Williana on another contract, then you better get your ass out there and join her.”
“9th, I know that. I’m built for threatening and manipulating people, not slaughtering them in the dead of night. Still, the pay better be worth it. I’m not a fan of doing shit like this for free.” Old Man complained even as he finally put on the last of his gear. He wore a leather vest over his chainmail, not a tunic, and simple pants and boots. His only weapon was the small axe on his hip that Carried graciously allowed him to borrow. He wanted to wear more, but since it was an assassination mission, he figured it’d be better if he prioritized stealth and freedom of movement.
“Don’t worry about that. Assassination contracts and wetwork are the highest paying missions the Mafia offers. The pay will be even more since it’s coming from a 6th,” Carrie muttered. She sat up on the bunk bed and rotated around until her back leaned against the wall and her legs dangled over the bed's edge. Her red tail sprung to life and happily curled around her slim waist.
“It better be enough to buy two weeks' worth of medicine,” Old Man grumbled.
Carrie’s two red cat ears twitched at the word ‘medicine,’ and she asked about it. Servi looked at Old Man’s face and quickly said something. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’s not that important.”
“Oh well. If you say so, Williana. I’ll be right back.” She hopped off the bed and strolled out the door.
“You have got to tell me how you got her eating out the palm of your hand. While you were gone earlier, I happened to overhear a Numbered berate and beat the person he recruited because he spent too long on pronouncing the word ‘10th',” Old Man sat down in one of the two free chairs at the table where Servi sat and sighed.
“It’s because I’ve shown her a world that she can’t get to alone. If she wishes to keep going, then she has to put up with my bullshit. It’s the same with Carmelo. He hasn't met anyone else who can do the things I can do. I suppose it kills him to humor me, but I don’t give a flying fuck. If you have something people really want and desire, can they really control how you talk to them?” Servi spoke to a man who would probably— no, he would definitely be dead in a few hours.
“I see. Remind me not to piss you off.”
Servi grinned and touched a finger to her daggers’ pommels. “I don’t think that’ll be an issue. We just gotta keep what we’re going, and we won’t have any problems.”
“Fair enough. What time did you say we had to leave?”
“We leave at 9:30, and we have an hour and a half to get to the mansion. Our only objective is to kill the mayor. Hey, if you’re the one who kills him, I’ll tell Carmelo and use my sway with him to give you more money,”
“I do appreciate it, but I’ll let you handle the killing. You know I need the money, but I’m not greedy enough to put myself in mortal danger for a bonus that isn't worth it. I just want to get paid and deliver my granddaughter her medicine. That’s all.”
You fool. We don’t always get what we want in this life. I know that all too well. Servi thought.
Servi heard the door turned and looked at the red Singi who walked in. She held two cups against her chest with her right arm.
“Hey, have you two heard about any disappearances happening around Deset?” Carrie wandered over to the last chair at the table and sat down, but she wasn’t empty-handed. “Here, I got you two coffee for the long night ahead.”
They both took a cup and placed it on the table, but Old Man was the only one who offered his thanks.
“You know the blue Singi who ate that Kobold’s eyes?”
Servi answered Carrie, “I know he didn’t do it willingly thanks to a certain someone, but did something happen to him?” The girl who asked such an innocent question already knew the answer.
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“Yeah, he suddenly disappeared. The Kobold who recruited him is in deep shit because he was responsible for him. He’s going crazy trying to find him. And that’s not all. Some of the other Numbered are reporting more disappearances. I don’t know if it’s another traitor or whatever, but the 6th doesn’t seem too surprised by it. I guess that means we don’t have that much to worry about,” Carrie explained. She sat back in her chair and summoned her spear via Instant Retrieval.
“It doesn’t sound like something I have to care about,” said the girl responsible for the base inhabitants’ disappearances. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eye.
It was an incredibly tedious couple of hours, but soon, the fateful time approached. It started when Carrie entered their room and woke up Old Man. After he stirred awake, she entered the room at the back with the intention to wake up Servi, but she was already up.
“Yeah, I know it’s time,” said the assassin as she attached her daggers. She did a quick check on her pouches.
“It is. Be careful, yeah?” Carrie looked a bit sad, but such a pathetic act didn’t pull at Servi’s frozen heartstrings.
“I will. Be back when it’s over.” Carrie held out her arms, but they would go un-embraced. Servi walked right past her, closing the door behind her with a simple slam. She said something sharp to Old Man, who responded with something witty.
The red Singi froze up like a virus-infected computer and only stirred alive when she heard the door to the hallway shut.
Collapsing to her knees, she pressed her hands to the floor and soaked them with the water falling from her face.
“Williana… Why won’t you…”
Carrie couldn’t finish her sentence without crumbling into a crying mess, and she hugged her knees and curled into a ball. She would remain there until the sun had risen from its slumber. Even when a familiar lavender-haired, one-eyed girl walked in, she would only look at the floor-bounded Singi like a pile of burnable garbage.
With the moon high above her and hidden behind a cloud, it was nearly impossible for anyone to spot Servi as she scaled a derelict building. Old Man looked up at her from below and waited, as per her orders.
“Stay here,” she told him with a hand gripped on the brick that threatened to shatter under her incredible strength. “I’ll get the jump on those two guards.”
Old Man nodded and crouched as she ascended the building. His bones, creaking and crunching, provided a small amount of discomfort, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. And rather than focus on the pain, he stared at the red-bricked tunnel-way ahead of him. In terms of structure and likeness, it was a dead ringer compared to the other entrance to New Arcton. It was only a few days ago, but to him, it felt even shorter.
The days are all colliding together, and I can’t make head nor tail of it all. He thought. A small pebble rained down from above and lightly danced with the metal gate the two guards were guarding. As disciplined as they were, their bodies and mind followed the training instilled in them and looked up.
And that was when they died. Servi had jumped down with her daggers outstretched, and they danced across their throats like the blades of a skater soaring across an icy-blue, frozen lake. The bevor attached to their necks did well to guard against the blade itself, but the hand and arm that powered the attack proved too much for it. Crimson ran down their bodies, covering their chests and legs as the strength abandoned them. Only a single gurgle, an ugly noise produced when the blood poured into their lungs, announced their passage into the afterlife.
Servi bent down and picked up the weapon the left-most guard carried. The small jingling of her chainmail noised out, and with the still silence, it penetrated for tens of meters. However, only Servi and Old Man heard it. And even though the noise struck the silence like a lance piercing through armor, it couldn’t penetrate through the tunnel and alert those on the other side.
“Something seems different about you,” Old Man said. He stood up from his hiding spot, groaning in the process, and wandered over to his partner. She was in the midst of wiping the blood staining her new bow’s wooden limbs.
“I finally got a license to kill,” Servi simply replied. She bent down, taking the quiver of arrows and attaching it to her belt. Servi drew one and nocked it, pulling back the string until it nearly reached its breaking point. She pointed her head to the gate, and Old Man walked over to it. He did his best to avoid the growing puddles of blood, but he still stepped in them.
After raising the handle, Servi walked in with her bow at the ready. “Just stay close behind and don’t make a noise unless I talk or tell you to talk.”
“Got it. I’ll let the expert lead the way. Keep in mind, I’m only here because the 6th ordered it. If I knew you weren’t going to rat me out, I’d leave and wait in a bar somewhere. But even if you kept it a secret, I can’t escape from those damned observers,” he replied.
“I don’t give two rats asses about you being here or not. Your old bones are only going to slow me down.” Servi felt nice and cozy in the red-bricked tunnel. The tightness and lack of open space restricted her movements like she was a rat in a maze. She didn’t have to think. The only thing required of her at that moment was to press on ahead and kill enemies.
“I can’t deny that, but I still won’t take any chances. The last thing I need is for the 6th to take my head because I disobeyed his order,” Old Man whispered. Servi rounded the second turn and cocked her head back. He took it to mean that he needed to keep low. Holding his hand against the red-bricked wall, he waited while holding his breath.
Servi rushed around the corner, letting loose her nocked arrow. It parted the invisible air, only coming to an end when it pierced the right-most guard’s yawning mouth and collided with the back of his helmet. Servi had more than enough power to launch an arrow straight through solid steel armor, but her bow couldn’t handle her full strength. Her target had died instantly, but the gate he stood in front of prevented him from hitting the ground.
But that’s fine...even this is overkill... Servi thought. In the blink of an eye, she nocked a second arrow and fired at the second of three men in the room. He had no helmet covering his smooth face and black hair, and his brains painted the blue desk behind him with a lovely red. The third guard was no stranger to battle, and his reaction speed proved he had experience. He didn’t cry or scream for backup because he couldn’t spare the strength to do so.
His buckler deflected Servi’s arrow. While she spent the single second reloading her bow, he rushed forward with his axe held high. Servi acted as if she was going to nock another arrow but smiled when she dropped her bow and chose to slip a second arrow into her free hand. She rushed forward with her center of gravity down low. Her opponent, confused, quickly regained his composure. He also lowered his body and held his shield out. Two blue eyes peeking from the eyeholes of his helmet stared only at the approaching assailant.
He had the technique and training to win against opponents far surpassing what he could pull off, but his opponent wasn’t just a regular foe to conquer or kill. She had the strength of a Goddess inside her, and she used that strength to her advantage. Silently casting Telekinesis via her thoughts, Servi jumped at the last second and extended both of her arms, sliding across the concrete flooring for a few meters.
The arrows gripped in her hands were pointing up.
Her foe couldn’t fight against the invisible force pushing him down. He tried and tried, but his only reward was a pair of shattered legs as his body raced towards the ground.
The eye slits of his helmet were directly lined up with the gleaming metal tips of her arrows.
The two arrows pierced his eyes, destroying his brain. “Come on,” Servi said. She noticed blood running down the wooden arrow shafts and onto her hands. Standing up, she turned back and took the bow from Old Man’s outstretched hand.
“I’m not even going to ask or pry on how you knew he would fall. It doesn’t concern me. Not at all,” he said. Looking around, he started to dig through the dead guards’ pockets for money.
“Good. Stop searching. Whatever these guards have isn’t going to compare to whatever reward you’re going to get from Carmelo,” Servi lied. She knew the fate awaiting Old Man.
“I still can't believe you can just say his name so casually. I do suppose you’ve earned that right since you’re taking on personal assassination contracts from him. And fine, I’ll stop searching. I doubt these poor fools have anything worth taking, anyway.” He turned to the corpse leaning against the gate. Servi stood right beside it. Picking it up, she tossed it against the wall and slid the gate handle open.
Old Man said nothing at all and silently followed behind. Like before, when they first entered New Arcton, they came to a beautiful sight. Small ponds had been dug out from the stone walkways. Colorful fishes swam within them, but Servi didn’t know what kind they were. And with the moon still blocked behind a pesky cloud, it was like it tried to hide the aquatic creatures from Servi’s brutality. The shops covering them on their left and right were all locked, and they couldn't see anyone in front of them. For Servi and Old Man knew, they were the last ones in the world.
But Servi knew that wasn’t true. Well, it wasn’t true at the moment. It was very possible for her and Old Man to be the last two Mafia members alive, but if things went right, he wouldn’t be breathing for much longer.
“Remember,” Servi reminded Old Man as they stuck to the left side of the street. “It’s a mansion with a yellow roof, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.”
“Got it. If I had to guess, then this must be the commercial district. Perhaps the residential districts are further in?”