NOVEL NEXT Chapter 266: Throne
After pulling myself together I started heading back to my room, pulling up her companion window or… Whatever the screen was.
Frostbite.
Loyalty: 3
Opinion: 100
Intimacy: 25
Attitude: Friendly
Mental state: unstable.
‘Oh, it increased again. Seeing these numbers go up just makes me feel more guilty… It’s easy to take advantage of her and get her to like me… Even if it is stressful…’ I blinked and closed the screen, tensing my hand and feeling the tight bandages over my wounds. ‘So… If I was helping her out of the goodness of my heart or whatever and wanted to be her friend, then how would that look? Hm…’ It wasn’t long before I came to the answer, it was staring right in front of me.
‘Instead of getting her to help me, I would help her… Right? I already saw inside of her soul. I know she’s killed many people, but also hates it. So… To help her I would have to get her to stop being an assassin… Or possibly help her cut ties with her family… Hm… I haven’t even finished this job and I’m already making more work for myself… But then again I guess this is just what they call thinking 3 steps ahead right?’
I let out a sigh, stopping by my room and quickly grabbing both of my swords, latching them to my hip and back. Then I set off. ‘I bet the others are waiting.’
Moving in the dark was easy with my small size and dark armor. When I came upon the castle, sure enough, they were stalemated. ‘Looks like the plan worked.’ If anyone got too close my brother would knock them out cold with a training arrow from his great bow. They could try sneaking in… But I was sure Gild and the others had that covered.
With a quick glance, I counted roughly 14 of them. ‘Everything up till now was pretty easy… But this part will be a bit trickier…’
I looked closer, and some of them, particularly the older ones, were much faster and stronger than I would have guessed, some even rivaling my brother, although none of them surpassed him, and even then they were only close in speed, nothing else. Using the dark to my advantage I quieted my footsteps and toughened my body, sneaking to the perimeter of the encampment that was set up amidst the ruined stone barricades outside the castle. ‘With Gild, Lilly, Kai, and Airsidh, I should only need to take out a few, assuming they can each handle two…’
I paused behind a wall, waiting for one of the rogues to walk past, but they stopped just short, staring out into the darkness. ‘Suddenly this feels like a completely different kind of game…’
With one quick step out from behind the wall I ripped them out of the passageway between ruins and spun, taking them with me behind the opposite wall as I choked them out. ‘13…’
Peaking my head around the corner I quickly set up a map in my head that tracked how they were moving, at least roughly. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave me enough information. The rogues weren’t set up like a real encampment, and they weren’t professional soldiers, so their defense was full of holes. I took off the girl's belt and tightly bound her hands behind her back to limit what she could do if she regained consciousness too soon, and silently slipped through a hole in the wall, ducking behind a tint. ‘Just a couple more and I’ll give the signal.’
Just like before I waited, although this time my target actually did walk right past me. This one was so large I had to jump in order to reach their neck, but it still wasn’t long before I was dragging them behind the tint and tying them up. ‘12’
Ducking inside the tint I slowly moved through it and waited at the entrance. Two girls came in at the same time. I froze time to stop my panic, but they were conveniently lined up perfectly. I grabbed my greatsword off my back and knocked them both out with one swing. Honestly, the harder part was catching them so they didn’t make noise as their bodies fell to the ground. ‘I wasn’t thinking about this… But hitting someone like that… Makes me feel kinda guilty…’ I sighed, rubbing the back of my skull ‘Although, they are so tough they aren’t even really human… 10…’
Exiting the tint I loaded a blunt arrow and launched it across the field into the back of another person's head, and as their attention was drawn I took the opportunity to climb up an old half-crumbled staircase to the top of a watchtower’s remains, where I took out the lookout. ‘9… That’s more than enough I think… should I give them the signal?’
I tore a piece of fabric from the lookout's shirt and carved a message into it with my knife, wrapping it around my next arrow and shooting right at my brother's head. I admit, a part of me wanted it to hit him… But no, he caught it like I knew he would and read the message with a smile. “Whenever you’re ready brother…”
As the gates to the castle opened it once again grabbed everyone’s attention, allowing me to jump down from the tower, making my way across the camp again and taking out another 2 rogues. ‘That’s 7 left. In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter how high your stats are if you get taken by surprise.’
They all engaged in a fight atop the bridge leading to the castle gate and held their own surprisingly well. Which made sense. I didn’t want to take any chances, so I had only been taking out the weaker ones for the most part, just in case any of them really were as scary as Airsidh. Still… With their backs turned it was easy to continually sneak up on them, and I got another two before they finally noticed me. ‘5’
Airsidh took out one with his bow, Gild took out two, and Kai hit one so hard his knife shattered, sending him off the bridge altogether. ‘Just one left. Already?’
He jumped off the bridge on his own, trying to run away, but Lilly simply picked up one of my brother's arrows and tossed it like a javelin, hitting his leg mid-stride and leaving him tumbling to the ground after twisting his ankle.
After we tied them all up we brought them inside the castle and locked them in a room together, taking all of their marks and dividing them evenly… Counting the original group holding down the fort, and Yamaria and her guards, There was a total of 33 people and 943 marks. Sense Airishd and I were both leaders of everyone else, we made it simple and split it between just us. I took just over half, getting myself to the 1k mark, and gave him the rest.
Then we sat in the throne room and waited for the prisoners to wake up. “So… We took down the guild… But won’t we just have to let them go? And it’s not like we can kill anyone, so they’ll still be out there.”
Airsidh slowly walked up and sat next to the throne “Unlikely. Without marks, you can’t form a guild, and without the guild protecting their marks there is no reason for them to stay, the guild failed to do that. If nothing else there will be some infighting, and possibly even a full-on disbanding. Stealing marks becomes difficult after the first couple of days, so that means it won’t be easy for them to rebuild their supply so easily.”
‘Well… That makes me feel better at least.’ Isy timidly stepped up to me holding a large jewel. “We got it back… Kai did I mean… They found it in her room…” She slowly started to cry through her smile, and not knowing what I was supposed to do I placed a hand on her shoulder.
“See, I told you it would be fine didn’t I?” I looked down at the gym. It glowed a soft blue like the ocean, mixed with beautiful white fog-like clouds. It was a bit odd. Generally speaking, the family jewel reflected said family. A perfect example would be my family's orange and white, reflecting our red and white hair. She was blond though, not even having two-toned hair. ‘If she was the result of an affair I’m pretty sure her parents would be executed, and she definitely wouldn’t be a noble… But I doubt she would have been adopted either. Genetic mutation? Considering how I turned out different hair color is hardly something of note…’ I sighed looking to the side. ‘I should just ask her about these things… But I’m too nervous about it being a touchy subject, I mean look, she’s already crying over just this.’
Without warning she suddenly hugged me, making me freeze up, placing my arms out to the sides. All I could do was awkwardly hug her back and try not to think about how everyone behind her was weirdly smiling at me. “This is really sweet Isy… But you should probably stop crying before the prisoners wake up…”
She instantly let go, as if shot by lighting, and wiped her eyes, placing the jewel in a satchel at her side. “S-sorry, You’re right.”
I stepped away and turned to the prisoners. ‘33 people… This should be an interesting chat…’ I walked up to my brother and crossed my arms, coming to the top of the staircase. ‘Is it that time already?’
He stared back at me, and our eyes hung onto each other as if we were the only two people in the entire room. ‘Well… It’s not like there’s ever been a chance to turn around anyway…’ I heard each of my steps echo as I approached the throne, and although it was small, and the back had been broken off halfway up, it was a throne nonetheless, and I was the one to sit on it, my brother at my side. While it may not have seemed like much to those around us, it felt almost like at that moment we had made a silent pledge. At least… Until he pinched my cheek and ruined the moment…
After shooing away his hand I sank down into the chair and crossed my legs, leaning onto my hand, supported by the one armrest that was still intact. “Alright then. Kai, wake her up… It’s time she learns what exactly she did wrong.” I glanced back at Airsidh who was casually smiling about the whole thing… I thought I sounded and looked pretty cool… But… With him there I just felt like a child playing pretend…
‘Why does he have to ruin everything…’