Chp.37: The hitman

Wherever there was civilization, no matter what race it was, there were people who possessed power and money. And these people who possessed power and money surely would do anything to keep it… and to have more.

In the past, Jurao Kingdom was the playground of nobles. Aristocrats could do as they pleased, and the only thing they had to fear was other aristocrats. But as far as ordinary people were concerned, they were powerless in front of them. Whatever the nobles wanted they got, and there was nothing the people under them could do to stop them.

But then, everything had changed. One after another, successive kings in recent decades had changed the status quo. The nobles had lost their absolute power and were no longer the rulers of their territory; on the contrary, now they too had to obey the law, and although they had many privileges they could be punished and even deprived of their titles if deemed unworthy. The crown had stripped them of much of their power and their opportunities to make money. Some aristocrats had surrendered… but others had found new ways to maintain their control.

If they couldn't extort money or terrorize people in broad daylight, then they would in the dark of night. The nobles had created real criminal organizations that silently controlled the cities. These organizations clearly could not stand up to the royal military, but it was easy to make people too scared to denounce them. Even if the profit was not as high as in the past, thanks to these organizations the nobles had continued to carry on their activities. Obviously very few people in the organization knew who was leading it: since they were challenging the crown anyway, the aristocrats didn't want their names to come out if any criminals were caught. By keeping their subordinates in ignorance, even if someone were arrested, the organization would suffer very few casualties. Also, staying in the shadows made it easier to maintain control. And so, even though the current king was continually fighting against criminal organizations, they were far from disappearing.

Very often in the great cities of the kingdom there were multiple organizations and sometimes they even entered into conflict. However, this wasn't the case in the capital. Since it was the most guarded city in the kingdom, and was directly under the jurisdiction of the king, it was best to avoid starting a war between criminals and attracting attention. So, very cleverly, the aristocrats who led each organization had met and decided to combine into one huge criminal organization that controlled the entire city. They would each carry on their own businesses and share the profits among themselves. Even if it wasn't as fruitful as running the city yourself, it was still better than risking attracting the attention of the king, and so every aristocrat was fine with that situation. They had called this super-organization 'The spider', since like an arachnid they continuously spun a web that harnessed everything and trapped any poor insect.

The way the organization operated was very simple. Generally, when they wanted money, they just went and asked for it, and their fame was enough for people to give it to them right away. If that didn't work, they would attack them or one of their loved ones, thus showing that the guards couldn't always protect them. At that point, generally, everyone just gave up and gave them what they wanted. However, there were exceptions; they were rare, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but they were there. Sometimes that particular person was too clever, too skilled, or too strong to be intimidated by ordinary criminals. And then it was time to play the ultimate card: send a hitman.

Of course, there was no talk of a simple criminal holding a weapon. A hitman was a person trained and skilled in the art of killing. They were rare because almost all people of this type joined the military. But deep down, every person had a price, and aristocrats could find someone who was unscrupulous. Thus, 'The spider' had a real team that included eight hitmen, as many as the legs of a spider; these hitmen were all level mithril, so their identities were kept secret to avoid capture by the military. They were paid handsomely, housed in secret locations, and were only used in very extreme cases. Just as a diamond armor to avoid damaging it would only be used when there was really a need for extreme protection, in the same way the hitmen to minimize the chances of being captured were sent only in cases where there was no other possibility. They were a kind of elite group directly under the orders of the leaders of the organization.

Andreus Hisman was one such hitman. Born into a common family, he had enlisted at a very young age in the army and thanks to his talent he had quickly risen up the career ladder, until he reached the mithril level. But he was a greedy man, and the army salary wasn't enough for him, and unlike many others he wasn't exactly a patriot and didn't care about the consequences criminal organizations had on the kingdom, so as soon as he was offered the possibility to join 'The spider' and to be paid profusely he accepted immediately. Over the next ten years he had had to go on just seven missions, and what he was about to do today would be his eighth.

It was the new shop recently opened in the city, 'The dragon's shop'. In reality his was a double task: he had to kill one or two of the owner's sisters, and then kidnap the latter and bring her in front of his bosses. In fact, these didn't want to eliminate the woman, since it would have meant giving up an enormous source of money; they just wanted to scare her enough to make her more compliant. They had tried conventional means, but apparently at least one member of that family was diamond level, and for some reason managed to fool even the guards' detectors. Andreus had immediately accepted that mission because he also hoped to obtain that secret, so that he too could use it.

For him, getting inside was child's play: the lock on the shop was so simple that anyone could have been able to pick it. Once inside, he closed the door behind him and went looking for the girls, who were almost certainly asleep at this time of night. He wasn't concerned that they were yelling or making noise: his bosses had assured him that they would make sure that there would be no guards in the vicinity of the store tonight, so no one would come to their aid. How his bosses planned to keep the guards away, Andreus didn't know and didn't care. He had only one task to perform and it wasn't in his interest to know the rest.

"Can I help you?"

Andreus looked at where the voice had come from. A young woman had appeared on the stairs leading upstairs and was giving him a rather strange look. She didn't seem scared, just curious. Thanks to the description he had received, Andreus immediately understood who it was. "Miss Drachia, I presume"

"It's me. And unless you want to experience a new source of pain and suffering, I advise you to get out of my shop while you still can do it on your own feet" the woman replied.

Andreus shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that" he said. "My bosses want you to know how you should behave. Don't take it personally, I'm just doing my job"

"So you are in the service of those who sent that idiot here to threaten me and those thugs to attack my sister?" the woman asked, but there seemed to be no anger in her words.

Andreus nodded. "I guess it's obvious. Why so much interest?"

A grin suddenly appeared on the woman's face. "I just wanted to make sure you were the one we've been waiting for. Sister, take him"

Andreus felt movement behind him. He turned around and noticed out of the corner of his eye that another woman had appeared behind him. 'How did I not notice her!?' he exclaimed in his mind, but then he realized the woman was about to hit him in the face. He dodged just in time, but the blow hit his shoulder which, despite the mana protection he'd summoned, still started to ache. 'This isn't the power of a level diamond! Is it possible that she is even stronger?'

Whatever it was, he had to attack. His hands gripped two knives slung across his back. They were night-black knives made of the hardest metal in the world, adamantium. He lunged at his opponent and tried to hit her. The woman raised her arms and attempted to block him, and the mana protection she summoned was enough to stop his first knife… but the second one passed through her defenses and struck full in her belly. Andreus forced himself and opened a deep wound until the intestines were almost out.

Normally, an ordinary person would have died at that moment. A warrior or mage of level gold or higher would have been able to mend the wound with their mana, but it would have taken a few seconds to do so. But to Andreus' surprise, the woman didn't even try to use mana to stitch herself up, but instead simply stuffed her intestines back into place and the wound mysteriously vanished seconds later. Judging by her expression, she hadn't even felt the pain. "What? How is it..."

He didn't have time to ask for anything else: the woman attacked him again, and grabbed one of his knives by the blade. Blood began to flow from her hand, but she didn't seem to notice anything. Andreus understood that she wanted to deprive him of his weapon; he pretended to fight to hold it, but as the moment was right he raised the other knife and plunged it into the woman's heart. Then he used his mana to tighten his grip on the other and freed it from the woman's grip, and then drove it directly into her neck.

But what happened next left him speechless. The woman didn't gasp, didn't fall to the ground, didn't try to remove the knives from her body or heal the wounds with mana. Instead, she stood still, with the daggers still planted in her vital points, staring at him with an amused and disturbing gaze. Andreus couldn't help but feel a sense of dread at the sight. "How is that possible? I destroyed your heart and your throat! What the fuck are you!?"

The owner's voice suddenly rang out in the room: "Malchia, seriously, stop playing with the food. Just catch him"

"Uff, Sisna. You're such a killjoy" Malchia grumbled, and immediately after that an immense aura emerged from her body. Andreus could feel its pressure all over his body.

His face paled. "It's not possible... you're a level adamantium!?" he exclaimed, but in response Malchia appeared before his eyes and punched him in the face, making him fall to the floor and faint.

"That's it. Are you happy?" Malchia said lifting the man up and tying him in a corner of the room.

"You know we have to hurry. Our sisters are checking the outside to make sure we are not interrupted" Sisna reminded her.

Malchia snorted. "We both know they'll block any interference! If you really wanted to hurry, you could have gone downstairs and knocked him out!"

Since the dragons didn't want to risk attracting the attention of the guards and didn't know that they had already been driven away by the members of the criminal organization, they had decided that only Sisna and Malchia would think of him, while all the others would go out and they would check that the noise didn't attract anyone. In practice, they would have played the role of sentinels, and in case they saw any guards they would have attract them away. Therefore, as soon as Sisna had come down to meet Andreus, the others had come out through the windows and gone to positions where they knew they could keep an eye on the whole street. After all, they had no reason to face Andreus all together: even if he was a level adamantium, both Sisna and Malchia had already replaced their hearts with ones that contained a level adamantium mana core, and two against one would have been an easy battle. Malchia had attacked first just to check their enemy's strength, but after realizing that he was only a level mithril she started playing with him.

Sisna disapproved of her sister's behavior, but she didn't waste too much time scolding her: now that they had finally captured a big shot, she wanted to get the information she needed. She approached the unconscious man and slapped him several times until he regained his senses. When Andreus opened his eyes again he wasn't happy to have been woken up like that, but after noticing that Malchia was still staring at him with an evil look he didn't dare complain. Judging by the tightness of the ropes binding him, they must be enchanted, so he couldn't break free even with his level mithril strength. "It's useless" Malchia laughed as he noticed his pathetic attempt. "We've carved runes of fortification into every inch of those ropes. Not even my current avatar could break them. We've been through this before, and so we've prepared ourselves to avoid repeating it"

"Yeah, you can't free yourself" Sisna said bringing her face close to his. "Now you will tell us everything you know about your clothes and where to find them"

Andreus gritted his teeth. "What if I won't?"

"Oh, you will" Sisna replied, and behind her Malchia opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, as if she were licking her lips while admiring a tasty dish. "You better do it"