Book 4-6.2
The desert moon rose up into the night sky. The assassins of the Black Knife started to wake up one by one. They were shivering from the cold air that swarmed their bodies and started to come out of their holes to settle their hunger and sit by a fire.
‘Holy crap.’
The leader of the Claw Brigade cautiously looked out of the hole before coming out. He then became completely pale after looking at the scene in front of him.
The barbarians of the desert who had been trying to find them with extremely red eyes had rounded up all of the hundreds of assassins who were camping there.
‘How did they manage to find this place?’
The moment that question went through the leader of the Claw’s mind, he was hit on the back of his head and quickly turned his head.
“Found another one here.”
He could hear a voice full of murderous intent right next to him. The moment the leader of the Claw tried to bite down on the poison inside of his mouth, he felt another strong hit on this face before passing out.
“What kind of training did these bastards receive to all immediately try to kill themselves? They should use that determination to live a just life.”
The warrior who broke the Claw Brigade leader’s right molar mumbled to himself as he pulled the leader out of the hole.
The situation was resolved quickly. The assassins that were slowly crawling out and the assassins who were either still asleep or hiding were located through the veteran warriors’ thorough searching.
The total number of assassins was 150. There was not an ounce of friendliness in the warriors’ hands for these assassins who had been annoying them intensely for the last month. All of them had either one or both molars completely destroyed.
“I never expected to catch them this easily.”
Pere smiled bitterly as he started to speak to Runa. Runa also could not hide his joy.
“I had been overthinking it for too long. I was too focused on the fact that they were assassins from the continent. They are still human and need to eat and sleep. In order to do that, wouldn’t they need to hide underground?”
“Of course. And when it comes to hiding out in the desert, it is our warriors that specialize in it, not them.”
Pere answered in disbelief.
The strategy Runa had developed while not eating or sleeping for a couple days was just too simple.
The plan was to have the warriors hiding around the assassin’s resting area. Pareia’s warriors were strong and normally trained in hiding in the desert, so it was even more perfect than the assassins’ attempt to hide themselves.
Their intuition to pay attention to what was going on outside of their hiding spot was at least at the same level as the assassins, if not better. It might be a job for the assassins, but it was their livelihood for the warriors.
The assassins may be able to run quickly without making any noise, but there was no way the warriors who were known for their stamina and lived in the desert their whole lives would not be able to do the same.
That was how they were able to stalk the assassins who were returning to their base thinking they had made it out safely.
But they could not follow the speed of the assassins once they got on the pirmas. That was why they had to focus on the direction and distance the assassins seemed to travel and slowly increased the range of their hiding spots. After working hard for three days, they were able to accurately locate the assassins.
Today was the day they completely surrounded and infiltrated the assassins’ base.
“We have no need to treat them as prisoners. They are not warriors or even men. They could not attack the warriors and chose to secretly attack and kill the weak. They are no more than trash.”
Pere told the warriors to treat the assassins worse. There was no need for him to say that. The warriors were already manhandling the assassins.
“I presume they all received their command from the Silence Empire, but we need to use this opportunity to accurately figure out our enemies. If it is an Assassin’s Guild, that would mean that there are other assassins as well. We need to locate their actual base and completely wipe them out. That will save us trouble in the future.”
Pere nodded at Runa’s words. The warriors did not enjoy torturing people, but they could definitely be cruel based on the situation.
The assassins were all dragged away at Pere’s order.
There was a man who was watching all of this from a distance. This man was the one who had become the new master of the Black Knife. He was the one that Thrint had made into a useless man.
He had chosen to create his cave further away from the rest of the group. That was the only reason he was able to avoid the warriors’ search.
The man took another look at the scene in front of him and decided that this was the end of the Black Knife.
The Guild Master and S-grade assassins were all killed after failing to assassinate a single merchant, and the assassins he brought with him this time were the guild’s A-grade assassins.
It was almost impossible to redevelop the Black Knife with average assassins. It may have been possible if he was still at full strength, however, he was pretty much completely handicapped and could not do much of anything.
‘There is no point to even make a report. This is the end.’
The man shook his head as he slowly turned around. He was thinking about returning and throwing everything away before hiding out in a rural village for the rest of his life.
This fog that was rare in the desert was actually pretty common in the Shire. There was almost no days without the fog.
Once the entire Shire was covered in fog, the white buildings of the Shire shined even brighter from the light of the sun. It made it look like a magical city that can only be seen in black and white.
Yulian had been thinking about the same problem for the past few days.
The test of the Savior’s Will that was started at Violet’s suggestion and the resulting vow of silence for everyone other than Violet and himself.
‘Looks easy but is hard to keep… what is the reason for taking away their freedom to speak?’
He continued to think about it.
‘Not speaking is not the entirety of this vow of silence.’
The reason he had been thinking about this for the past few days was because of something he happened to hear from Violet.
‘What did she mean by that? A city filled with silence, it not being normal. Is there a special reason we have to do this?’
Yulian continued to come up with more questions as he continued to think.
As he was pacing around while thinking, Yulian did not really know where he was going. Once he snapped out of his thoughts and looked around, he was standing on the Hero’s Land that the Shire is supposed to protect.
While looking at the drawings on the ground, Yulian started to recall the stories he had heard as a kid and just how much respect he had for these warriors of the past.
He then started to smell a light fragrance.
Yulian closed his eyes as he was becoming drunk on this fragrance he was smelling for the first time in his life. His complete attention was on now on the fragrance as it started to slowly change.
The smell of blood.
The fragrance was definitely starting to change to the smell of blood. This smell that he was used to but could not really get used to and did not want to get used to was starting to fill his nose.
Yulian quickly opened his eyes at that smell of blood. He even hallucinated that the purple lies on top of the drawings of the warriors was starting to shine.
- Those purple lines represent the souls of the warriors who are still working hard to fight.
It made Yulian recall Violet’s words.
‘Does that mean that the great souls of the warriors are fighting right now?’
This intense heat that was radiating from his chest and the feeling that he could not survive without shouting out loud.
Yulian stood up tall and opened up his chest. He then took a deep breath before channeling all of his energy and letting out a loud yell.
“Oowooooooooooooooo!”
Yulian’s clear and ringing shout echoed throughout the Shire. It made everyone stop what they were doing and woke up anyone who was sleeping.
The lines over the drawings started to fade away at Yulian’s shout. Yulian’s heart started to beat faster at the thought that they had gained strength from his shout.