Chapter 14: Insurance

17 people, clad in black, observe their target house from a distance. One of the assassins use his presence detection spell, ordered by their Leader, to search for a presence inside of the house. He confirmed that there are 10 people inside, sleeping.

The assassins breaks in to their target house. The noise they made was perfectly silenced, a feat only expert night killers done so.

The leader of Assassins looks around at the room, it was clean and no other things can be seen on sight.

He ordered his underling to use his presence detection spell to scan the target house, again.

"!"

He was alerted by the disappearing presence of a two people.

(I was imagining things. This work must be done!)

"There are t-"

A sudden explosion from the outside of Alamennia's hideout went off.

"What is that?!"

"What are you saying, leader?"

The sound of an explosion was not heard by other of his underlings, except for him.

(Damn it!), He thought as he's hearing things he should not hear it.

The assassin leader orders his underlings,

"You three go outside of the house, two of you must go back and call others. I have a feeling we will fail this mission."

Felt unsure, he has to call others as an insurance.

"I and five of you will break in this door, the remaining will go to the other. Kill anyone inside of it. Understand?"

His underlings nods. Other of his underlings went outside and disappeared.

Done ordering, they suddenly felt a cold sensation going down on their spine.

"My my~ how unsightly of you breaking up on the woman's room? You need some disciplining, little kids."

"Wha-?! Ahahhahahha."

Laughing on his pathetic self, the assassin leader was rather unsurprised when an unarmed young girl suddenly showed up from their backs but his guts has a bad suspicion.

Vigilant and feel desperate, he throws several poison-infused knife at her but she dodge it completely.

"Is that you can do, little boy?"

"Arrrggghh!!"

"No!"

An underling come close to fight her head-on. The leader tried to stop his underling but no to avail.

A sword popped out from somewhere cut the underling's hand, flowing out a buckets worth of blood.

Only he can do is watch his underling slowly die.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"

"You can shout whatever you want. I already put silencer magic spell in this place."

Miltinna coldly smiled at them to scare the assassins.

Their body stiffens as she slowly comes closer to them.

"Say goodbye to your life~"

Unlucky for them, they can no longer see another sun. They were mercilessly killed by Miltinna in just a few moves of her sword.

On the other hand, the leader and few of his underlings managed to escape from her but they're now being chased.

"I guess I had to let them go. Alan will be angry at me. Gotta clean this mess before he knows."

•

"Nggwaahh. When they will stop running?"

Tired of chasing down the two assassin underlings, Alan complains them for being too boring.

After they stopped running, the two assassin underlings returned to their hideout cave to request an assistance.

It's place is on the rocky plains with no vegetation nor water stream besides it. It can be described as the rocky mountain, though it is not a mountain despite being kilometers away from the real mountain itself.

"What?! Did he say that? This is really bad. He must not sent you here! You stupid idiots!"

A voice of a furious old man coming from a cave reverberating outside of the forestry.

Alan assumes that the old man must be their superior or just an ally superior or similar to that. There are several light footprints can be seen by trained eye that a normal can't see. Based on it's marks left by supposedly assassins, it's around 20 to 75 or more than hundreds of people are inside of this cave.

"What should we do? Leader said there's a high chance that his mission will fail. He needed an insurance."

"Insurance? Are you crazy?"

A long silence follows after the old man replied to the underlings questioning them.

"If your Leader did say that, it must be..."

Another man's voice echoes out from the cave, suspecting.

Alan wanted to take a look inside on the cave He went out from the shade of darkness, revealing himself and walk slowly towards to the entrance of the hideout cave.

To his surprise, the assassins appears themselves from the near entrance inside of the cave.

Their reaction is fear when they saw the silhouette of a young boy with a clothings of a ragged cloak.

"Who are you?! Who sent you?! Answer me!"

The old man in his masks asked.

"... I am supposed to say my name? Whatever."

Alan wobble his head to relaxes his stiffened neck, looking only in a single direction.

Standing still, he was not moving in his place. He's waiting for the assassins to make a stupid move.

The assassins didn't move an inch further.

The old man seems wanted to say something.

"A-a..a..."

"You can speak if you want." Alan respectfully says.

"Information. Is that what you want?"

"No. I just need you to shut up and let us make a peace. I don't wanna stain my hands for senseless killings, unless you wanted."

The old man nodded but one of the other apparently leaders of another squad is assassins offended by Alan's actions.

"Coming from a mouth of a boy whose not even in his adult age. You must respect your elders first!"

"Don't move you stupid!"

"Oh heck. Here we go again."

That man's ego was probably a dumbest thing ever. He went straight to Alan as quick as lightning. Before he landed, he was killed with no one sees how he was killed. Other of his underlings give in, but too bad for them, they met the same fate as their leader did.

Terrified by the scenes of heads detaching from its bodies, the old man ordered the other assassins to stay on their ground.

"I apologize for my subordinate's actions."

"Don't worry. I'm not like you killing people for money, position, and glory."

Again, they all went silent for a hour-quarter straight until Alan speaks his requests.

"I just want an assurance from you people to not disturb us any further or else this happens."

He points at the dead bodies of the dead stupid-minded assassins.

"Heh. You sly kid. Well then fine, I don't wanna lose my rags leaving the mess up. We don't want you to attack but when that bastard Waltr ordered us, it seems that you request will be not fulfilled. 'tleast we know who's our ender."

Still feeling the fear, The old man smugged at Alan to cover his fear. The assassins turn their backs from Alan, hiding in the caves.

"That was...it? You just turn away from me? Okay." He shrugs.

Unlucky for Alan, the Assassins actually encircled around the forestry to gang him up.

"Oh this is exciting."

The voice that speak those words wasn't Alan, but the Old Man.

A barrage of knives coming from all directions targeting the boy. He was hit by the most of it, and collapses.

The assassins felt ease when the boy shed his blood into the ground. Until,

*poof*

A lump of smoke covering up the boy. When is dissipates, the only thing they see is a lump of wood and a beast's blood.

The uneasiness that the assassins felt went to the roof.

"Disperse!"

The assassins trying to scatter themselves but their sense slowly disappears, their bodies was sliced perfectly clean, their visions slowly darkens, and the sensation of pain slowly disappears. Unfortunate assassins was killed by the boy who didn't even move an inch.

"How?!", A youngster assassin blurts

"I do move, you just don't see it."

Alan face twitched in disappointment.

The Old Man reappeared from inside of the cave, angrily glaring at his underlings.

"You insolents! Don't touch that kid! You're making yourselves killed!"

"This is not what insurance I want, old man."

"Wait! I can explain!"

The old man coldly sweat when Alan confronts him.

"Why Gramps is too afraid to that kid?!"

"I don't know. Don't talk any further."

"We better not to know. I hate to admit it but he is a real danger."

In the old man's mind, if they still attack the boy, they'll meet their end, and that's not good for them since their only job is to kill high-profile people.

While in Alan's mind, he is confused why the assassins still attacks him. He don't really want to kill them all since they will be useful in the future, to learn assassination skills from them.

"I'll let it slide since it's a miscommunication. It's my fault for arriving too early, right?"

He gazed at the young assassin, pressuring that person.

Feeling pressured, the young assassin hid at the nearby tree.

Alan throws a few pieces of silver to insult the assassins' pride. Knowing that they only work for money.

The old man infuriates but he know that was just a payback their fault.

"Good night."

Alan raised his hands, gesturing that they don't have to worry. He turned back and fades away in the woods. He rephrase his words,

"We'll meet next time, but as an ally. Gotta go back 'cuz Miltinna probably killed those guys already."

And then a long silence follows.

Much later that midnight, the escaped Assassin leader and few of his underlings arrived at their hideout but all of the present assassins there, except for the dead bodies of the assassins, frozen in fear.

"Old man! We should leave here! That kid is dangerous! She might attack us anytime soon! "

"She? Yeah, we should. We are abandoning General Commander Waltr's contract. That kid is way dangerous than I expected."

(Now there's two them? And probably more??? This is why I don't want to get involved against Juyatt family. If my hunch is right, they hired an unknown killers from an unknown land that the parliament of principalities doesn't know about.)

The old man's assumptions is almost right but not that wrong either. The pair just want to pass through the border but due to their clumsiness. The border is pretty much closed at the other side of the mountain. Since that civil war happened, they will more likely to stop this war as soon as possible.