Chapter 5- Errand Boy

Enteico stood up as Keith and Felix opened the door and entered the shop.

"It got away," Felix grumbled, as he took a seat and grabbed a glass of water, pulling up his Pokia scans of Enteico's weapon they had taken to find out more about the sword.

"Should we be worried?" Enteico asked, turning to Keith.

Keith shook his head. "I don't think we need to be worried about anything." Keith said, before quickly adding, "Just a hunch."

"A hunch? You're basing this man's death on a hunch?" Felix asked, in disbelief.

Enteico didn't press Keith for answers any further and re-iterated his encounter with Psoli and the assassin in the forest.

"So, what do they want with Spiti that's got Psoli so rattled up?" Keith asked.

Enteico paused before answering. "The Assassin mentioned they were looking for an item located in Spiti."

"That's it? All they're looking for is an item?" asked Keith.

"Yes."

Keith and Enteico didn't say anything afterwards. Felix was too busy looking at his Pokia scans of the sword, trying to find some sort of discrepancy in the results to give him a hint as to the true nature of the weapon.

"Enteico, do you mind if we do some tests and run some mods on the sword?" Felix asked. Enteico nodded, a little hesitant since mods were peculiar enchantments that could bend the rules of their world to give the user an advantage.

The mod most frequently used by most blacksmiths was the Level Balancer mod, which enabled people to use weapons that were at a higher level than them. It was usually how warriors used mythical weapons since most were higher than level 100. It could only be applied to one weapon per blacksmith and had a risk of destroying the weapon if performed incorrectly.

"It could take a while though. Do you have anything else to take care of?" Felix asked.

Enteico remembered that he promised to donate Bitma to the Monarch foundation for their fundraiser tournament tomorrow. Kleise, which was the town that hosted the tournament, took a few hours to reach by carriage, but Enteico had another idea…

"Keith, there's a stash of a few thousand Bitma in our vault behind the old vase. I need you to take it to Kleise. Hand it over to Silvia from the Monarch Foundation and she'll take care of the rest." Enteico said.

"A few thousand?! B…but we could use that to pay off the debt!" Felix protested.

"Keith?" Enteico asked, ignoring Felix.

"I'm with Felix, for once," Keith said, folding his arms. "But, since you asked nicely, I'll go drop it off and head back here, so we can figure out how we can get out of this mess."

"Thank you." Said Enteico.

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Enteico knew.

Keith had seen it on his face the moment he entered the room. The unease, the shift in his trust, the way he fidgeted with his fingers; Enteico knew something and was keeping a secret from him.

He really was such a terrible liar.

While Enteico had learned that Keith's terrible jokes were only matched by his terrible breath after a few rounds of his Moon Juice, Keith had discovered there was a whole lot more to the merchant than he initially thought.

As he walked towards the barn where Yurgen stood, licking some remnants of Moon Juice near Keith's makeshift straw bed that Enteico insisted on making, Keith patted Yurgen on the head as he knew exactly why Enteico sent him on this errand. Keith grabbed the briefcase under his bed before leaving the barn.

If they're looking for this, they might as well come and get it.

Keith paused and noticed the figure atop the barn roof, looking down on him.

I need to show him he can still trust me.

"Keep an eye on him," Keith said, taking Yurgen out of the barn and fixing the bag of Bitma he had onto the saddle, along with his briefcase.

The figure said nothing and jumped off the barn, disappearing into the night.

Keith hopped onto Yurgen and rode off, leaving the town of Spiti behind them, heading towards Kleise, his hand resting on the briefcase as he felt somewhat relieved that Enteico and Felix were no longer on the list of possible causalities.

Maybe this was his last job. Maybe he would never come back.

The two things the Assassins desired were now on the way to Kleise.

Or so Keith thought.

________________________________________________________________

"Please, stop."

The woman was badly bruised and hurt, clutching her stomach in pain. She stopped trying to wipe away the tears from her eyes a few minutes ago. The bodyguards surrounded her, making escape impossible.

"Hey, hey. Don't go unconscious on us yet. You should have let him take the younger one. It's not our fault you weren't as appealing as she was to him." One of the men said.

The woman grabbed a large branch nearby and whacked it against the man. "That was my daughter, you fucking jackass!"

The men laughed as they saw their leader groaning from his broken nose and chipped tooth.

Their leader got up and grabbed the woman with one hand, throwing her into the cart nearby. "Well, the younger ones are tighter."

The woman felt her vision blur from the impact. Today just had to be the day that a Pure Nobelist decided to pass through her farm, on the way to negotiations for the war against the Demon clan to the North.

The attacks were not terrible this far south and adventurers often killed the wandering squads of demons that did manage to make it this far. So, the only real threat the farmers had to worry about was the Pure Nobelists, spoiled brats with enough inheritance to do whatever they pleased.

She heard a horse approaching nearby and felt a slight wave of relief and the smell of alcohol run through her.

Yurgen whinnied as the men stopped Keith.

"Reason for travel?" they asked Keith.

"Business." Said Keith, getting scanned by the bodyguards.

"Nature of goods?" they asked, looking at the briefcase and the bag of Bitma.

"Valuables to be donated," Keith said, clutching the briefcase tighter, hoping they wouldn't inspect anything he was carrying.

They took a brief look at their Pokia, looking through their records. "What's going on here?" Keith asked.

The bodyguard looked at the woman behind them and shrugged. "Nothing."

"Hmm. Call me crazy, but I think that the woman behind you needs some assistance." Keith said, tapping his chin.

"Alright, crazy. Nothing is going on here. It's standard patrol routine. Unless you want to come along with us and you could file a complaint at our HQ." The man said, the threat visible as day.

The crickets chirping around them suddenly stopped. The rustling of the trees and tallgrass vanished as if a dark shadow reached into the world and sucked the life out of the night. The melody of the night simply vanished in an instant.

"So, there's no reason for me to offer my help?" Keith asked, looking at the woman.

"Please, please help me. I didn't do anything wrong. I just…" the woman pleaded before a man kicked her, making her wince in agony.

"Sorry, but this is just the way things are. And that's not an opinion, it's just facts." The man said as the bodyguards surrounded Keith.

The wind blew through the fields and the crickets began chirping once again. But this time, it didn't sound like a melody of nature.

It sounded like a warning.

Keith laughed harshly and shook his head. "I see. Well, I'll be on my way then."

As Keith walked past the woman, she crawled in front of the horse, begging for Keith to stop, begging for his help. Keith made Yurgen trot past her.

"ALL OF YOU ARE THE SAME! YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING FOR OTHER PEOPLE! ALL YOU GIVE A SHIT ABOUT IS YOURSELVES!" The woman shrieked as Keith briefly halted for a second before he rode into the distance.

"Now, where were we?" The man asked, turning back to the woman.

"NO! NO! GET OFF ME!" The woman yelled as the man grabbed her wrist and pulled her up.

Deathly silence enveloped the field as the men heard footsteps nearby.

The next thing the men heard was a distant voice screeching "GAYYY."

"The lunatic probably thinks he can be the knight in shining armor. Go take care of him." The leader grunted, keeping a firm hold on the woman squirming in his grasp.

Keith appeared from the tall grass in front of them, not bothering to hide his presence as he stood in front of the squad of bodyguards, his left hand in his pocket, the ends of his jet-black jacket flapping as another gust of wind blew through the fields. He still carried his briefcase in one hand.

"Sorry about that. A friend of mine would've killed me if something happened to the donation money. I'm already on his bad side and I don't feel like listening to him whine and bitch for another whole day." Keith said.

"I'd advise you to leave now, while you still have the chance. But that wouldn't be fun." The leader said, signaling for his men to move in to attack.

"You're right. It wouldn't." Keith said, smiling.

Before the leader could even register what had happened, Keith was engulfed in his own shadow and merged into the ground. The leader gave out a grunt of pain as he was struck on the back of his head with the solid briefcase when Keith emerged from the leader's shadow behind him.

Keith offered his hand to help the woman back onto her feet. She was terrified to do anything and began running away from Keith and the squad of bodyguards to her home on the fields.

"You're WELCOME! Jeez, you just can't find good-mannered people anymore." Keith yelled.

The leader protected himself by hiding behind his men and told them to attack once again, which no one did.

"Come on, stop wasting my time and just give up already. We all know how this works; you're the typical bad douche thugs, then the hero comes in and stops you and you lose." Keith said, swatting a mosquito on his arm.

"So, you think you're a hero?" The leader asked, forcing a chuckle despite his shaking hands.

"Who? ME?" Keith asked, laughing incredulously.

"I'm no hero. I'm worse. Much, much worse." Keith said, as he took his hand out of his pocket and set down his briefcase.

The woman was still running through the fields, not willing to look behind even for a second. The cries and screams of the bodyguards eventually faded away into the sounds of the night with the rustle of the tallgrass as the woman reached her house, hugging her daughter and crying herself to sleep.

________________________________________________________________

Keith yawned and stretched his arms, his joints popping after a few uninterrupted hours of sleep. The back of his neck felt stiff as he looked around, trying to gauge how far Yurgen had managed to travel after their encounter with the bodyguards in the fields.

The sun began to rise as Keith heard a rooster's cry in the distance, the sound breathing life into a new day. Yurgen appeared to be transfixed by the serenity of its surroundings; the horse stood unnaturally still as it shook its head to adjust the reins around it.

"Not bad for an alcoholic horse," Keith said, patting the top of Yurgen's head, causing the horse to start moving again. Keith squinted from the rays of the rising sun as he tried to make out a sign in the distance. He realized it was the welcome sign that marked the entrance of the town of Kleise.

The atmosphere of the town was starkly different compared to Spiti. Life felt more three-dimensional here, it wasn't just people working and surviving.

People here looked like they were living; like they had goals and dreams that weren't shattered yet. People smiled in the streets, greeting each other, kids running around freely and, for once, the air didn't reek of alcohol or blood.

This seemed like the kind of town Enteico would like. Nice neighbors, not too fancy and it looked like a great place to raise a family.

All things that Keith didn't want at all, so he couldn't wait to get the hell out of Kleise.

Yurgen trotted for a while until they reached a clean white building that could have very well been a hospital if it wasn't for the abundance of crayon drawings and paintings decorating the exterior of the bottom floor.

Keith walked in, tying Yurgen to the fence nearby, slightly nervous as a small group of children gathered to pet the horse and play with it. Keith crossed his fingers in the hopes that Yurgen would be a tad bit gentler around them and avoid kicking them to not cause any brain damage to growing kids.

Keith exhaled as the fan in the entryway hit him with a cold, comforting breeze, sending goosebumps down his skin. A small girl stood under the entryway, mirroring his actions, smiling at him. She stuck her tongue out at him and ran away, making fart noises with her mouth the entire way.

"Stupid kids," Keith murmured as he walked up to the reception area and the woman behind it led him down a hallway into an office. Everything was so clean in the building.

He met Silvia, a woman in her 30's who appeared to be the head of the Monarch Foundation and the tournament organizer. Just then, a woman came into the room in a wheelchair and signed the entry form to the tournament before leaving the room with a smile on her face.

"I feel like I'm missing something…" Keith said, looking to Silvia for an explanation.

Silvia smiled. "So, Enteico didn't talk about our foundation and our true objective?"

"This isn't the part where you tell me you're some super-secret organization experimenting on people who are helpless and I have to take you down, right?" Keith asked, immediately on alert.

Silvia laughed briefly. "I wish we were that interesting. No, we study Gifted individuals and aid them in fitting in with the rest of the world."

Keith raised an eyebrow and made air quotes with his fingers. "Gifted?"

Silvia nodded. "That's what we call the people here. Born with spectacular abilities implemented into their biological structure. Abilities that aren't techniques that they've learned or dependent upon any gear."

Silvia sighed. "Unfortunately, these abilities are mostly a give-and-take situation. They gain extraordinary abilities..."

"But at the cost of normal biological functions." Keith finished.

"Paralysis, limb mutation, abnormal growth and degradation of mental capabilities, just to name a few effects. Sadly, we've had no general treatment for those who wish to be cured. Instead, we decide to teach them how to embrace their extraordinary abilities and make up for their loss." Silvia said, walking to look outside from the window nearby.

"That's the true intention of the tournament. To get a better grasp on this phenomenon and, most importantly, to show these Gifted individuals that even though they may be different, they can push through their struggles to find their spot in this life, amongst the rest of us. Hell, maybe even better than the rest of us." Silvia said, placing her hand against the window.

Keith was trying extremely hard not to yawn when suddenly a chill ran through his body.

"Seems noble. Well, now that my business is done, I'll be on my way." Keith said, standing up from his seat.

"I see. Thank you so much for the donation. Give Enteico my thanks as well. Do stay for the tournament if you have the chance," Silvia said, shaking his hand.

Keith smiled and gave his apologies as he explained he was on a tight schedule. He waved goodbye to Silvia as he descended to the floor below.

The chill turned into a pricking sensation, like the one he felt in the mythical dungeon.

Did she follow me all the way over here? No, I asked her to watch Enteico.

He bumped into a man who had an entry form for the tournament. He apologized and walked upstairs. Keith walked past him and exited the building.

This time there was no mistake. The sensation was Keith's jacket letting him know if any people who were able to manipulate shadows were nearby.

Which meant only one thing…

The Assassins had followed him here.