Chapter 1: Bounty

(Blake's POV)

It was morning and I start cooking my food, I live alone so doing the house chores is my own responsibility and I dont want Shadow to do everything by himself in this house. Well despite him being half shadow and half human he still needs food and I do not mind at all cooking for both of us. I put some bread at the toaster while cooking more eggs then suddenly Shadow appeared out of nowhere.

"Good morning my friend." He greets with a hint of royalty but I decide to let it slide for now. The toaster made a ding sound as it pops the toasted bread out, Shadow put it on a plate while he puts bread again in the toaster. I am nearly done cooking until someone knocked on my door.

"Shadow take care of the food, I am going to see who is our guest." Shadow nods as I hand over to him the spatula, removing my apron and hang it on a hanger, I approach and opened the door to see the village elder.

"Hello Blake or should I say The Night's Veil." the elder jokes around about the title that people gave me without my approval. I let the joke slide as I let him enter our house, I signal a number three to Shadow and he understands it when he saw the village elder. As we wait for the food I brought out water from the fridge and pour it on two glass cups. I gave on for the elder while the other is for myself.

"I must say, I am impressed that you have a comfortable house in the middle of the forest. It is no surprise that no one can find you." the elder said and he drinks his water.

"Well no one except you wise one. But with the pleasantries aside, you wouldn't come to me unless there is a job needed to be done." I replied as I grasp both my hands together and lay it down on the table.

"Well someone started a bounty on this gang, do you know them?" He reached through his pocket and brought out a paper that has the words 'Wanted dead' in all caps and the bounty is 5 million Ed per head. What caught my eyes are the people who are being hunted.

"What kind of an idiot start a bounty on the Elgang." I say with a hint of disgust and at the same time Shadow finished cooking and placed the food on the table. The elder did not hesitate to take one bread and coat it with butter. I on the other hand made an egg sandwich and as a prince I need to show fine dining so taking the knife and fork to cut the sandwich in pieces and started to chow down.

"A rival or an enemy I suppose. So what do you think of this situation." Shadow took his seat and kept his mouth shut since he always support my decisions. On the topic at hand, I think that this is a nice bounty but a hard job and I am sure that the other assassins and bounty hunters know about this already.

"It is an easy job to kill them, but it is a race against time because the other assassins know this already right?" I replied.

"Well it is true that they are hard to kill and other assassins are already notified about this, knowing them they must be arming themselves right now." the elder said and he took a bite out of his bread, by the look on his face I can tell that he likes it.

"So you want me to do this job and kill them before they do?" I ask as I put the cut egg sandwich into my mouth.

"No, I have a different job for you Blake. Instead of killing them I want you to protect the Elgang and kill all assassins and bounty hunters that want their heads." I choked a little about his job for me because I am an assassin not a bodyguard. I fix my composure back to normal and drink a bit of water.

"I am not trying to be rude elder, but you know that I am assassin, why would you want me to do a job that is the exact opposite of my profession." I stated the fact but still showing respect to him.

"Because only you can do this job, I also owe that gang a favor and it is my time to repay it by hiring you." the determination that I can see in his eyes which makes me harder to refuse the job.

"How much?"

"Huh?"

"How much will you pay me per month while I do this job."

"Hmm, I can give you 50,000 ED per month at most." he said with confidence but for the sake of this job I would be asking more but my mouth betrayed me as I say.

"20,000 ED will be fine, I do owe you by not telling anyone where my house is."

"Deal!" we closed the contract with a simple handshake and a paper of proof of course. With that said I wasted no time when it comes to my job and a lot of questions come up to my mind waiting to be answered.

"Well these are my questions that need immediate answers, where is the gang right now, where do they live, and how's the progress of the bounty hunters so far." I quickly fire away while eating my food.

"How do you think I'm suppose to know all that?"

"I know you have a villager network with you and I am sure that they already gave you the reports." I replied in a monotone voice and he laughed it off because what I said is true.

"They are currently on this part of the woods of Velder probably hunting animals for food or what not, they live at Velder of course and their house is located at this location. The assassins and bounty hunters from Feita and Hamel are already done stacking up and ready to move at any minute while the others are still preparing." the elder brought out a map showing the entire map from Ruben to Lanox, he then starts pointing out the locations of the targets and shows me where the path route they might go as time goes on including the bounty hunters.

"I need something fast to get to Velder as soon as possible." I mumble to myself because Elder is far away from Velder even the Cobo Express carriages takes a bit long just to get there.

"You do not need to worry about that, my network told me that the gang will be in their home by noon and I have transport at the ready outside, you just need to prepare the things you need for the job. I also rented the house opposite of the people you need to protect so that you will be less suspicious." I am really suprised about the preparations of the elder for the job, no wonder why everyone on the village relies on him.

"That is good to know, well give me and Shadow half an hour to prepare all of our stuff." I said to the elder as finishing my food and water and not too long after Shadow finished his. The elder remains seated as he waits for us to pack up.

I enter my room and closed the door behind me. First I opened my closet that holds my clothes, picking a few of them that is good for at least 8 days, I also put the other necessities that I need in one case with the clothes. Second I opened my other closet and see my battle gear and weapon. Knowing that my job starts as soon as I get to Velder, I decided to wear it now. First I wear my black double buttoned shirt and making sure all my buttons are closed, next I put on my pants and closed its buttons on the ankle. Next is the case where I keep my weapon. Deciphering the 10-digit code, the case made a click noise and I pull up the cover and I see my big sword Fanar. I take it out of my case and my shadow spirits quickly attached themselves to the sword. Due to the weight of my sword I can clearly see that it can be a cause of extra weight that will slow down the transport, I let my shadows swallow it into the abyss for safe keeping and get it later when I need it. Last but not the least, some ED that we need for our daily needs. I do not want to bring so much so I only brought 30,000 ED. Double checking every item and it seems I got everything I need for the trip, heading out of my house and see the elder waiting for us with his assigned carriage for us.

"Every time I see you wearing that outfit gives a chill down to my spine." The elder jokes my outfit but it is certain that my dark spirits are within me, it also freely surrounds me. Ever since the incident I am now half shadow and half human, due to still being human, I cannot store all of the spirits within me so I let them roam around near me and my clothes are enhanced with Shadow's spell that it lets me store spirits within them as well. With all these things happening to me, people can sense it but cannot see it and Shadow is suppose the only one that can see it. But, for some unknown reason the elder can see it as well.

"Anyway, this carriage can take you to Velder within an hour and a half, this is the fastest transport we can offer to you." I take a good look of the carriage but it just looks like an identical ordinary carriage of the Cogo Express. However, the elder is kind enough to give us a free ride to our location so it is not a bad idea to accept it. As the time ticks away we load our stuffs accordingly and we still have enough space to sit on.

"Good luck on your job." the elder says his last words.

"Luck is child's play, strategy is needed for victory." I replied and the carriage started moving. I glance towards the window to see the elder one more time and he looks relaxed and relieved.

"Alright since we accepted the job it is time to do our own plans now." I said and immediately direct my gaze towards Shadow. Despite his looks he already has numerous items already in his hands.

"What should we do first?" he asks.

"Well for starters it would be wise to set eyes on the entire city. I'll send some shadow birds on the way so we can get a better view of the situation." I open the window and my hands are filled with very small shadow balls floating around. I combine the balls together as it form a black bird but technically it is a shadow bird since it is made out of shadows. One by one I release the birds and there are five of them in total. For now I gave those birds a task to locate where the Elgang is located at the moment and we will improvise from then on.

"I have all the necessities we need to assasinate people." Shadow is holding two cases and gives me one. I unlock the locks and open it to see its content. So far I am impressed that ehat is in it, there are throwing knives, tomahawks, small daggers, throwing stars, throwing needles and smoke balls. I remember now that these were the equipments I used to do my assassinations. Despite them being a bit old, everything was polished and sharpened.

"You took care of my equipment?" I ask him and look to his eyes.

"Well you always come home tired and barely had any free time to do any leisures, so I decide to do the maintenances for you." he really is a great partner of mine. Taking care of the things I can't and considers what I want to do in my free time.

"Well thanks bud. I knew I can count on you."

"Do not mention it, I'm doing it as a friend."

The rest of the trip was juat idle chatter and preparations for the job. However, every minute of the trip feels longer that it normally does and I grow impatient. Our trip is still far from over and I asked the person to speed it up a bit and he agreed without hesitation. Now that there is nothing left to do I decided I will rest for the remainder of the trip.

(Ara's POV)

Instead of buying food from the market we are out in the woods collecting herbs, vegetables and hunting meat as well if we can see one. If we can't find any animals we will just buy some raw meat at the market as an alternative. We are on the outskirts of Velder to the north and we can find sorts of things from here. So far we already have everything we need for dinner and we will regroup with our friends.

"We should head back, the others are waiting for us." I said to Raven who is accompanying me to get the herbs. He took the last one and he nodded as a response. As we regroup I felt something weird as like someone is watching me. I look behind me and look for something suspicous but there is none. Then all of a sudden a bird appeared out of nowhere and nearly hit me in the face.

"Hey, you alright?" Aisha approached me and asked if everything is okay.

"I'm fine. A bird just flew away all of a sudden." I replied as I hold down my chest to relax my heartbeat. With it being relaxed Aisha stayed right beside me as we walk back home.

(Blake's POV)

I woke up from the sudden stop of the carriage. Rubbing my eyes and check my surroundings and all that I see was the sun is about to set, Shadow preparing his weapons, and a tons of bandits outside. Analyzing the situation properly and a conclusion went into my mind.

"These bandits are going to attack us huh." I mumbled to myself then afterwards Shadow noticed my awakening.

"They look a lot more organized than common bandits, I would say they are carriage raiders." those words are so disgusting to hear. Carriage raiders, these are the type of bandits that hide near the road, ambushing any carriage they see and take every loot that they can possibly steal. As for the people that are caught in the mess are either killed or being held hostage. However, this unexpected event is ruining my time schedule and one of my bird scouts message me a visiom of the gang returnimg back to the city that is filled with those bounty hunters.

"We don't have time for this low-life weaklings. We need to leave now." I said to Shadow because every second we waste by not moving the later we reach Velder.

"Do not stop for anything." I told the guy controlling the carriage. His signs of fear makes me doubt this fast travel. I nervously nod and whip the horse to make them run.

The ride isn't a normal ride anymore, it became into a rush in a poor made road as I feel the carriage rocks from all directions.

"Shadow I will move to the roof, I entrust you the flanks and protect the tires. If we stop here things will not go to plan." I ordered Shadow as I took the sword, throwing knives and tomahawks from the case. Opening one of the doors I leaped up to the top of the carriage and glare at the raiders chasing us. As we pass through the forest, their numbers were doubled.

"This is such a disappointing ride." I take my throwing knives and prepare to kill the first raider that comes close to us. It took a while until one raider became impatient and agressively chase us, waiting for the right time then quickly I threw the knife and it landed between his eyes. Seeing one of their buddies died by my hand everyone of them has been filled with rage and indecisively chase us. Throwing my remaing knives I manage to kill five more raiders but that didn't stop them from closing the gap between us. They all start banging the carriage with their swords while some are boarding in, I focus on killing the raiders that are boarding while Shadow on the other hand is clearing the raiders that are damaging the carriage. I waste no time as I thrust my sword in them and watch them fall emotionless. I look beneath me and see Shadow handling the situation but.

"We don't have time for all of this." I murmur to myself as I see enemy reinforcements and unexpectedly an explosion bursts just a few inches away from us, scanning my surroundings then I saw it. There is a giant chariot that is being pulled by five horses. As it chases us I notice that it was equipped with two main cannons on top and I'm guessing the ammo is hidden within. Such a craft is surely deadly but I see a way to demobilize the thing, the ropes that are connected to the horses are all tangled in one place. Also the crew are still loading the cannon ball, seizing this opportunity I take one of my tomahawks and aim the rope. As I was about to throw it a raider slashed me from behind, causing to mess my aim and missed the target by an inch. A small hint of anger course through my veins as I turn around and see the raider already prepared to deliver another slash. Instead of using my sword I decided to use hand-to-hand combat and I struck my elbow to his stomach. This cause the raider to step back, releasing the weapon, as he prevents to puke. I didn't just stop there I landed a right hook to his face and grabbed his arm and throw him towards the chariot, it was a disgusting sight that the person was stomped by the horses and got squashed by the wheels afterwards. Looking my surroundings there are no more raiders left and that is automatically a sign to do a second attempt. I noticed that they just finished loading the cannons and about to fire, making it decisive and get another tomahawk and throw. It hit the target and all the horses broke free then the contraption became unstable as its tires broke and fell forward, they manage to shoot the cannons but it ended up short and we escaped.

We repelled the attack of the raiders and everything went back to how it used to be. After an hour we finally arrived Velder but getting in was quite tiresome since every villager are looking at us and the guards always ask us why our carriage suffer moderate damage. Nonetheless, we finally arrived at the house that the elder bought for us. At first glance it looks a simple small house, however, when we entered it I was quite surprised. It is totally different inside as it has like everything a big house would have. Enough with the awe as we start to unpack our belongings.

After a while all of the stuffs that were in the carriage had been transferred inside the house. I gave the carriage guy some ED for the repairings that it needs. Thanking us and he soon left us, at the same time, I saw at the corner of my eye the Elgang has returned. Raised my hand in the air then the shadow bird that was tracking the gang flying towards me. As soon it made contact with my palm it transmit everything it saw, surprisingly there were no hunters yet but the vision that one of the gang saw the bird was not a good sign. I decide to stop looking the rest of the vision and I regain its shadow back to me. I felt a gaze as doing this and looked to where I felt it and it was the girl that is part of the gang. She looks at me with hint of confusion and suspicion, letting it slide as I act like I didn't know she was looking and entered the house.

"Our day one as bodyguards begins tomorrow." I tell Shadow as he awaits me inside the house.

"Indeed." he nods and he starts preparing dinner.

I can feel the remaining birds flying around the vicinity and this is the start of a very long job.