23 - '12'

Jack sighed before he lowered his crossbow, the crossbow itself was an intriguing piece of engineering, it had 3 strings and was able to fire 3 bolts before one needed to pull back the strings and the crossbow would reload the bolts again from a magazine that held 30 bolts in total

'13 left…'

Mentally keeping count of his bolts Jack stepped over and to the corpse and drew his dagger before he stabbed it into the back of the corpse piecing the heart before he twisted the dagger half a circle counterclockwise before he pulled it out again, then he took the pulse of the corpse to confirm that the man had departed this world, then and only then did he sigh before he muttered

"I am getting too old for this…"

Then he retrieved his dagger and stood up before he spoke out

"Report"

"Clear, 14 dead"

"Clear, 16 dead"

"Clear, 5 dead"

Four figures gathered around Jack, they were wearing the same black leather armor he was and each was equipped with various exotic weapons that seemed to be years ahead of what could be found on the market technology-wise, they had just finished clearing out underground base connected to the 7 Ring crime syndicate, these weren't toddlers they had just wiped out without receiving a scratch, they were stone-cold killers capable of facing tens of people each, still they never knew what hit them as these were the elite unit of the Engir kingdom, they operated under the name '12' as there were no official name form them, the number 12 simply stated the number of people that were part of this elite death squad, Jack the current leader cracked his neck before he spoke

"Take that one's head, he said something that intrigued me… Then let's exfil, nice and easy"

The 4 figured nodded before one of them walked over and simply cut the head of Simon was freed from his body, then the group of elite killers climbed up the ladder that Simon had come from and simply donned clocks before they walked out onto the streets, though at this point they looked very different than before as their leather armor wore had changed color to an unassuming brown, they simply looked like a party of adventures, though there was a faint smell of blood around them, as they returned to the castle in the center of the city they passed through the gates and soon arrived at an underground barracks, Jack spoke

"Get that head to the mages, I want to know about this night raid he was talking about"

The figure that had picked up the head walked through underground corridors before he arrived at a lab where he found a pale girl sleeping on with her head resting on a table, the man showed a smile and knocked on the table waking the pale girl that spoke at once

"I wasn't sleeping, you know that right, Gregory?"

"Of course, corpses don't sleep"

The pale girl struck a pose before she and Gergory both spoke

""That's right! Corpses are eternally sleeping!""

Then the pale corpse giggled slightly before she reached out with her hands

"You have a head right, give it here"

Gregory nodded before he took out a sack made of waterproof fabric and handed it to the pale corpse that opened it up and took out the dismembered head before stuffing it into a wide glass tube, then the corpse pressed a button on the instrument which filled the tube with a clear liquid before it asked Gergory

"How are the kids?"

"Oh they're fine, Nicole just started walking"

"Oh~ A shame I can't see her for myself"

"Well she's really cute, I'll tell you that much"

As the person and corpse spoke the head inside the wide glass tube began twitching slightly, though the two of them weren't concerned about that, they both knew that this was part of the procedure, then the corpse asked

"What did the captain need?"

"Something about a night raid"

"Okay, one moment…"

The corpse then began chanting a spell in a long-forgotten language before its eyes suddenly opened wide as it relived the life of poor Simon, or at least the last few days of his life, then a few moments later the corpse 'breathed' out a sigh before it turned to Gergory and spoke with great urgency

"Get word to his majesty, there's a wanderer just outside the west gate!"

Gregory's eyes widened before he nodded and hurriedly ran off leaving the corpse in its cave as he rushed back to the barracks and reported to the captain

"Jack!"

As Gregory called out to the captain the others raised an ear, Jack turned to Gregory and was about to give him an earful about not calling him captain when Gergory spoke

"Jack, the corpse says there's a wanderer just outside the west gate!"

The people present paused before Jack quickly gave commands

"Jey, Rick… No... all of you, move to verify the wanderer's position! I'll pass the word to his majesty!"

The members of '12' quickly moved, even though they were tired from the previous mission, they all knew what a wanderer could mean for their country, he or she could sway the power balance of the entire continent, after giving his orders Jack ran off at once, after climbing several flights of stairs he opened a secret door and kneeled down at the spot before he called out

"Your majesty!"

Next to Jack was a sturdy desk field with documents, the person behind them sat up straight even though he had been at it for several hours, he had short obsidian black hair and sky blue eyes, he didn't look away from the document he was reading as he spoke

"Speak"

Jack swallowed once before he spoke

"According to the corpse, there's a wanderer outside the west gate of the city"

The king stopped reading at once before he trembled slightly, then he quickly looked over at Jack and asked

"Has this been confirmed?"

Jack lowered his head

"I've sent my subordinates to verify the information"

The king sighed before he muttered

"If this is another prank by that thousand-year-old corpse I swear I'll…"

Then he seemed to change his mood as he spoke

"Never mind, Guard me, I'll take a look for myself"

"Yes, your majesty!"

Jack stood up and flowed a small amount of mana through his armor as it quickly changed the color scheme into that of his official title, captain of the royal guard, then he walked over and opened the door with the king following after him as he called out

"Somebody, prepare a carriage to the west gate!"

"This seems… Weird… Power on the engines, keep them idle for now… Jane, Geo!"

Jane nodded and picked up her newly brought sword as she stood up on the turret of the King tiger and began scanning the area around them, she could also tell something was wrong, Geo also had an inkling that something was wrong from his long experience as captain of the Jera guard, he muttered

"It's like suddenly being looked at by a dozen venomous snakes at once…"

Merlin nodded before he commanded the tanks mentally to load high-explosive shells, as for the two Centurion's he ordered them to load canister shells as he scanned the crowd of curious onlookers that had formed around the tanks, then he yelled as his enchanted jacket oozed coldness

"All of you get back unless you want to die!"

His voice carried surprisingly far and the people all quickly felt a chill before they hurriedly began backing up away from the tanks, Merlin's eyes scanned the people in the crowds, then he spoke

"Circle formation, Geo get on one of the .50's!"

"Got it!"

Geo quickly climbed onto one of the M4A2's and pulled the receiver back as he chambered a round, then he pointed the barrel of the .50 cal down and began scanning the crowds as his finger hovered over the trigger, a few tense minutes passed before Merlin suddenly pointed towards one of the people in the crowd

"You! Who the fuck are you people!"

As he did the entire half-circle of tanks that were on Merlin side pointed their barrels towards the crowd where he had pointed, the person that was hiding in the crowd felt a chill before he sighed and raised his hands as he stepped out into the open in front of the crowd

"You're sharp, kid"

"Yeah? now tell me why the fuck I shouldn't turn you into a bloody mist!"

The barrel of the Centurion pointed directly at the center mass of the person, inside the breach was a canister shell, for those that didn't know a canister shell was basically a cannon sized buckshot shell, the Centurion Mk 3 tank was right now an 84mm shotgun pointed right at the suspicious person, and he felt it as if the reaper's scythe was closing in on his neck, something told him that he better start talking quickly or he really would turn into a bloody mist, he sighed before he removed his sword belt and threw it on the ground before he raised his hands again and began speaking

"My name is Gregory"