Chapter 4: The Izlude Massasscre

"Van!!!" the little swordswoman called as she ran towards the other swordsman. The girl stopped in front of him and paused for a moment, trying to catch her breath.

"Hey, Shurelia. I told you to wait at the guild." Van coldly said with his arms crossed.

"You're not the boss of me! Beh!" The girl said as she stuck her tongue out. "I wanna see you graduate into a Knight!"

"Go home now before it gets dark. The streets aren't safe when it's night, you know."

"I know! I Know! I'm a big girl! I don't need you to remind me about those stuffs." Shurelia annoyingly replied, looking away from Van. A slight blush covered her face.

"I don't want you to get hurt and you know that right?" Van sweetly said as he patted her head,messing her hair a bit. The girl blushed more and stepped backwards.

"Yeah. Yeah whatever." she said with annoyance. "I wish we could graduate together..." she mumbled.

"Huh? What did you say?"

"N-nothing." Shurelia shyly said, covering what she said a while ago. She was the type of girl who won't admit what she really feels. Van was always there for her ever since she was a novice and her feelings towards him grew for the past years. These two were bestfriends from the beginning and they were inseperable. Van's caring personality compliments Shurelia's reckless trait.They are even room mates in the guild that cost their fellow guildmates to tease them that they were doing "it" at night.They fight once in a while but always manage to fix what went wrong. That's how close they were but neither of them wanted to make the first move or confess their feelings.

Shurelia waited patiently at her room. She took a 30 minute walk from Prontera to Izlude after Van telling her to go back. She sat on a wooden chair,her face and hands over the table. She stared blankly at the window which gave a good view of the city. It was dark outside and not a single star appeared in the sky, indicating that it will rain soon. "I should've brought an umbrella for Van." she thought. Her eyes started to get heavy and her eyelids slowly closed. She eventually fell asleep..

Crash!! A loud noise has woken up the sleeping Shurelia. She immiedietly stood up, looking outside the window. She heard a loud thunder which crashed below the ground. There was a fight at the center of the city! There were a lot of people at the center. Some were injured and being healed by priests and acolytes. Some were fleeing, avoiding any part of the fight. A wizard casted ice wall around the injured and the helpless civilians, protecting them from any attacks. Eventually, a single slit on the throat killed the wizard. It was an assassin. He looked like the leader of the attackers. Shurelia knew that this was serious. She needed to get out of there right away. She needed to flee. But where? Will she just stay put and hide under the bed until they leave? That seems like a good idea but her mind changed just like that as she saw some assassins holding up torches. They began to throw them at the houses, each one of them. "What in the world are they doing?" she spoke aloud. Her eyes, full of terror, widened as she saw the people below being killed one by one. "This is...This is.."

"What?" a deep voice spoke. "This is what? Tell me miss."

Shurelia gasped as she turned around to see who it was. It was the assassin, who had white hair, that looked liked the leader of the group

"You're.."

In a single second, the assassin moved across the room, beside Shurelia's stiffened body.

"Don't judge us.This is nothing compared to what your leaders are doing to us right now."

Shurelia was stunned. She didn't say a word. She wanted to cry for help but no tears went out. She turned and faced the assassin. She had miserable-looking eyes, thinking how sad will Van be knowing that the next news he'll hear is that she's dead. Thinking that she won't have a chance to live anymore. Thinking that she died a horrible death, in the hands of some blood-thristy rebels. She thought about the memories that she had. "Everything is over" she thought.

"Choose."

Shurelia's eyes widened. "What?"

The assassin glared at the terrified young swordswoman and began to open his mouth "If you want to live, you can join us who continue fight for our freedom.Choose otherwise, and you'll never get to live another minute."

Shurelia stared at the assassin's sharp eyes. He was full of determination. He was someone you can trust but someone you wouldn't want to become enemies with. She thought for a second. A tear drop fell on her face.

"I'm sorry Van..I'm really sorry..."