Chapter LIX - Assassin (part 3)

I had nowhere to go with this dead body, so I ended up going to Hod's restaurant.

Thank god it's closed, otherwise people might freak out.

I slowly opened the door and sees Hod sweeping the floor. He was quickly gone on guard when he saw me enter, but as soon as he recognized the mask, he eases up.

"Rize?"

"I need a place."

"Not here. Follow me."

Hod left the broom to fall to the floor and head outside of the restaurant. I followed behind him as he leaped to the top of the roof.

We parkoured from roof to roof and we finally arrived at the Office. But we didn't enter the Office through the front door. Instead, we went to the roof and walked somewhere a little back. 

Hod stopped before the edge and pointed down, saying that we should head down there. He jumped down and landed without any sound. I did the same thing.

After landing, I placed the dead body on the floor and removed my mask and robes back into the ring. Hod quickly checked out the guy's body. He placed his finger on his neck, searching for impulse.

"He's dead?"

I took out a knife from my ring and threw it to Hod.

"It was his knife. Careful, it contains a really powerful venom."

Hod looked at the knife and turned to the dead body. He stared at the hole in the middle of the corpse's clothes.

"Why is there a stab hole, but no wound?"

"He stabbed himself in the chest, so that he can kill himself before I gain any information from him. I tried to heal him, but it was too late."

Hod nodded from my answer, then he checked out the corpse again. After a while, he let his butt fall to the floor.

"We should call for help."

"What?"

"Rize, if someone is after you, they may or may not have known about your meeting with the council of the Office."

That's…

"How did you know about the council?"

"Fran told me. She had her connections."

I assumed it's the golden haired noble lady at the meeting. She must be related to Fran somehow.

"I see…"

Hod is right, though. I need to find help. If someone tried to assassinate me, then they will surely have already known about what I can do. And the fact that they sent a really powerful assassin at me, shows that they already know about it.

I let out a sigh, and I recalled the bloody pond in front of my room.

"I had to go for now."

I showed Hod my worried face, then he nodded.

"I'll take care of it from here. I'll go talk to the master."

"Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow, here."

With a single leap, I reached the roof and jumped away.

Hod looked at the corpse one last time before entering the Office to find someone to talk to. But to his surprise, the master is at the receptionist's desk, talking with Klane.

Hod knocked at the glass, separating the room and the outside.

He smiled awkwardly at the master and Klane, making the two rather confused.

.

I entered the inn with extreme speed. The inn owner didn't even get the chance to say hello to me. I quickly went up the stairs and arrived in front of my room.

The blood... my blood is still there.

Looks like no one has found it yet.

I quickly grabbed a large towel and tried to drain it from the bathroom in my room. Little by little, the puddle slowly went smaller until it no longer looked like a pool of blood.

I was doing just fine, until my senses picked up presence coming from the stairs.

I quickly took out a bottle and hoped that whoever it was coming, wouldn't smell the stench of blood. Luckily, it doesn't look too wet anymore. And the bottle is empty.

Let's just hope I can make this story look good.

The person finally showed up at the stairs. It wasn't a single person. There's two.

It was a young man and a young woman, and I'm guessing couples. And from the looks of it, the woman was quite drunk.

I quickly realized the situation and made a weird face. The man saw my expression and felt annoyed, he suddenly looked pissed.

"Ha!? What are you looking at."

I quickly turned around and headed inside.

"Don't make too much noise. We have thin walls."

I closed the door behind me and sharpened my senses. The two walked away without having to go to my room.

I let out a sigh of relief.

He is probably too ashamed to be mindful of his surroundings. Since he is carrying a woman that he is going to play with in one of these rooms.

After making sure there's no one else, I headed back out of my room and continued where I left. I cleaned up the floor using a mix of materials that simply made anything smelled good. 

Perfume doesn't exist here. Shampoos and soap also don't exist. I had to make them myself using whatever materials I could find.

As long as no one else knows about my creations, I won't cause a stir in the economy. That was never my intention anyways.

So I mixed a bunch of natural materials, like lime and palm oil. And voila, my own homemade soap.

I poured the soap on the floor and started brushing. After a few minutes of cleaning up, the floor finally looks clean, and the stench is no longer there.

After making sure everything is clean, I headed back inside my room. I haven't checked anything. Did that guy steal something?

I have his magic ring with me. I took it off before coming to Hod.

I put the magic ring on me and tried to look inside. But my mind was suddenly blocked. It's like there's a barrier that stops me from peeling the insides of the ring.

I tried imbuing more magic into the ring. Little by little, the barrier weakened. I could finally see what's inside after a minute of trying. I had to nearly enter most of my magic inside the ring. I'm surprised the ring didn't break.

I could see everything he put inside. Weapons, weapons, oh! bread, and more weapons.

This guy really is a professional assassin. These weapons are all sharp and dangerous, nearly all of them are covered in poison.

Then I finally found what I was looking for. A scroll.

I took out the single paper scroll from inside his ring. I opened it up and read it. As expected, it was a mission scroll, and his mission was to assassinate me and then assassinate the Office master the day after.

Why the day after?

It also says that the mission issuer is someone with the name 'Black dog'.

"Black dog?"

I continued reading, but in the end, that was the only important information. The rest of the words are only about details, like where I live and my abilities.

It didn't really say that I have the ability to use healing magic. That's probably why the assassin failed. Because the lack of data caught him off-guard.

I guess being low profile is indeed the right call.

I'll find out the rest of these tomorrow. For now...

"God, I'm tired."

Probably because of the great amount of blood I lost, my body felt extremely tired. I jumped to the bed and fell asleep instantly.

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