Book Three – Chapter Eight – Part Three – Wetwork

They were complete amateurs. The way they moved and breathed gave away their true intentions. Servi didn’t know why she knew how to spot the two people trailing her, but her instincts were sounding alarms. She first realized something was wrong when she leaned up against the side of an abandoned building on the less fortunate side of town. The homeless stuck out like a sore thumb, but maybe that was wrong. Perhaps Servi, with her nearly spotless leather armor, was the one who stood out. Out of the hundred or so people she saw, only she had a complete set of protective gear. She felt the gazing eyes lustfully staring at her armor and dagger, but nobody made a move.

She figured Carmelo would send someone after her, but she didn’t think it would be so soon after she left Deset.

That one there in the yellow shirt and black boots... He’s trying too hard to match the absented-minded state of that old man behind him. And that woman with the dirty face; her nails are too clean and proper to fit this shitty place.

Servi sighed and pulled out the first of three contracts while the man with the black boots walked by her. She turned to look at him, and he slowly nodded and smiled.

Fucking amateurs.

Turning her gaze back to her paper, she discovered she didn’t have a picture to go after. She only had a description, and it wasn’t that thorough.

His name’s Markka, and he lives on the east side of town next to the guard tower. He’s an Elf, and he has that tattoo on his neck. If I kill all the Elves I see, I’m bound to run into him.

Servi rolled up the paper and walked in a random direction after sliding it in her pouch. Out of the corner of her eye, the man and woman began to move. The bright early morning sun did more to damage their attempts than it did to help. Perhaps they thought it would help hide their out-of-place motions, but they were wrong. Servi went from walking to jogging and turned down the first street she saw. The two trailing behind her also picked up speed and followed her.

The street small and dinky, but it also had a small shack that had nearly collapsed. The metal sliding door had seen better days, and it was weak enough for Servi to tear it off without arousing any suspicion. Before she stepped inside, she looked up at the sky and found a single bird. Its fluid movements in the slight breeze meant it was a spirit because even a swallow wouldn’t have been able to fly straight into the wind without slightly jittering.

And that’s another mistake. If I can find the summoner, I’ll go ahead and take care of it.

She heard footsteps coming from her right and immediately ducked into the shed. Small and cramped, Servi’s shoulders brushed against spider webs, the spiders themselves, and a lone rat that had gotten trapped. Dust covered practically everything, and her ripping the door off was more than enough to send it in to a dusty frenzy. One eight-legged freak fell from the shed’s ceiling onto Servi's head. She remained calm, grabbed it, squeezed it to death, and activated The Shadow’s Embrace. The very familiar feeling of darkness and shadow erasing her life from existence filled her up. It was like she was made for killing, and her face couldn’t help but twist into a killer grin.

Glancing at her right arm, she saw the familiar hidden blade. A ring and chain were attached to her middle finger. With a simple motion, the weapon extended from its sheath, and Servi waited. The footsteps grew louder, and she heard the two followers talk.

“She’s in here! The 6th said we get a bonus if we find proof,” said the man.

“What proof? And shut up! She can’t find out about us!” the woman cried. Her voice was louder than her companion’s.

“Calm down. Carmelo said we can kill her if we find anything anyways.  She’s only a Rank 10. I say we make up some shit about something and kill her. It’s easy money, and no one will find out about it,” he said. “If she’s in here, then it’s even easier. Get your sword out, and let’s get paid!”

“Fine, but you’re taking the blame if we fuck it up.” Servi heard and watched as two swords left their sheaths. They expected her to be cowering in the corner like a baby playing peek-a-boo, but in reality, Servi leaned against the back center wall. With how Servi tore the door off, she had a meter and a half of space to see out of, so she saw their every move.

The man counted to three, and the both of them rushed in with their swords out. The woman stabbed to the left of the door and the man to the right. Considering the shed wasn’t but 5 m x 6 m x 3 m, there weren't many places for their target to hide. Beforehand, they agreed that if their blades didn’t strike true, they would charge the back wall with skills at the ready.

“Sword Beam!” shouted the man with the yellow shirt as he finished off his pre-casting. Swinging his sword in a wide arc, a beam of white energy materialized from nothing and sliced in front of him. It propelled itself forward until it left a wide horizontal gash n the wall in front of them.  It went right through Servi because she currently did not exist in the world.

“Flame Sword!” the woman shouted. Her blade, lit alive by fire that rivaled the heat of a Greater Fireball, illuminated the trash-filled shed. Its inhabitants didn’t like the sudden light, and all sorts of spiders rushed out in fright because their slumber was disturbed.

“KYAA!!!” The woman wasn’t any good with arachnids, and she dropped her sword to the ground.

“Damnit! Don’t drop your bloody sword! You trying to burn us?!” Her companion maneuvered his foot under the blade and kicked it up. He caught it with his empty hand and waved it around.

That was when he realized something.

“Hey, she ain’t in here,” he muttered.

The girl, still screaming and shuttering in disgust, continued to swipe the already-gone bugs off her hair.

“Hey, I said she ain’t here!” His raised voice captured her attention, and she held out a hand to retrieve her sword.

Only the sword wasn’t there anymore. It vanished, almost as if someone erased it from existence. With the primary source of light gone, the man and woman's eyes had to take time to adjust to the darkness. But that didn’t stop the girl from freaking out about the missing sword.

Before she could get a word in, she felt something sharp and dusty pierce her stomach. Blood poured from her mouth along with shadowy tendrils that almost had a mind of their own. Like the demonic smoke created from a demon’s fire, the shadows suffocated the body from within by destroying whatever oxygen circulated around. But there was more to it. When the shadows reached her heart and lungs, it applied ever-increasing pressure from both sides until the three organs stopped in their tracks.

It was painful and quick, and the chances of surviving it were closer to zero percent than one percent. A Koena had the best shot, but survival depended on how efficiently they used Pulmoni Oxygeni.

“Shit, I can’t see shit! Here, take my hand! There’s no telling if she’s gonna strike from the back!” Like a puppet master, Servi placed the deceased girl’s hand on top of the man’s hand. He gripped tightly, and Servi stopped supporting her body. The man wasn't prepared for it, and he fell on top of a pile of trash and debris, some of which were spiky and sharp.

“AAAH,” he cried as he felt a foreign object enter in through his upper back. Whatever it was had been sharp enough to pierce through his shoulder. “Hey, what’s wro—”

His eyes finally adjusted, the man in the yellow shirt stared at the dead body of his closest friend. But that wasn’t the reason he screamed.

Servi undid The Shadow’s Embrace and stared at her would-be killer eye to eye, with only millimeters of space separating them. Her facial expressions and non-verbal body language conveyed her aggression and power better than her words could. And like a feather in the wind, she erased herself from existence once more and stabbed her shadowy blade into his throat. With all the calmness of a serene lake, Servi moved her hand down, cutting the man from his neck to this stomach. The smoke billowed out like there was a fire in his belly, and it took longer than usual for Servi’s weapon to grow back to its regular size.

The kill may have been brutal, but it provided an excellent source of information. Unlike the other skills, knowledge of The Shadow’s Embrace didn’t immediately enter her mind. It was possible there were things she was capable of that she didn’t know how to use, but that was extra.  But as she thought about it, it didn't make sense. Every other time she had learned or used a skill, the knowledge was just there. Was it possible Rank 0 skills went by different rules?

If I can kill with it, then I don’t need anything else. A weapon is a weapon. It isn’t some type of fucking toy.

Absorbing the bodies, Servi stood up and made her way out. A queer movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention. The weird bird she saw earlier sat perched on a nearby wall. Its beady green eyes focused on the shed’s entrance. For fun, Servi moved in front of the bird and walked to the left. As she expected, it ignored her.

If I kill it, its summoner takes damage. All I have to do is follow the screams.

Straining her ears, Servi struck the spirit with her shadowy blade and immediately ran towards the cry of pain. Servi retraced her steps to where she first saw the two now-deceased stalkers and found her target.  To her surprise, it came from a female Singi who couldn’t have been older than sixteen. The shaggy robes she had on had a deep hole stretching from her stomach to her chest. The dirty brown blanket in front of her must’ve been her only way of covering the hole. The little recess she sat in protected her from the blistering sun, and from what Servi saw while looking about, the girl had one of the better spots.

Blood poured from her eyes.

“I can’t see! I can’t see! Whisp, are you okay?! Where are you?!” she cried. Her hands went from clutching her chest to covering her eyes. The sudden display certainly attracted a lot of attention, but none tried to help. It was like they were watching a wounded animal trapped behind an invisible fence. It wasn’t their fault she suffered injuries. If they helped her, what would they get in return? Appreciation and ‘thank yous’ didn’t feed their empty stomachs. They didn’t put clothes over their bodies when the snow came. If anything, they would lose out on what little resources they had. In terms of survival, helping strangers was a fast way of losing it all.

Everyone present thought the exact same thing, and that pushed Servi into a rage.

IT’S THEIR FAULT ARCTON HAS GONE TO SHIT!!!! THEY DON’T EVER WANT TO FUCKING FIGHT FOR WHAT’S RIGHT!!!

Her breathing quickened, and she acted. With her right hand held out, she walked by the group of people watching and stuck the tip of her shadow blade into their necks. One by one, the bodies fell to the floor while her deathly shadowy tendrils invaded and destroyed from within.  In total, 22 people dropped dead in three seconds.

It didn’t take long for there to be a panic. With people falling dead from an invisible assailant, the area within a four-block radius soon became empty.

Only Servi, the corpses, and the girl were left alone. And after absorbing the dead bodies, Servi took care of the last bit of trouble. Unlike the man with the yellow shirt and reddish-brown eyes, Servi didn’t spend any time prolonging the young summoner’s death. She may have been a teenager, but at the end of the day, the summoner was an enemy. If the girl in front of her, who wailed and panicked at the sudden panic and subsequent silence, had enough conviction to join the Mafia as an observer, then why couldn’t the she harness that strength to fight against them? Servi didn’t know the answer, and she wouldn’t claim to know.

“Whisp, save me! I’m scared! I can’t move!! What’s happening?! Whisp!!!” The terrified child-like voice filled with an unknown fear rang out to all who listened, but no one present was interested. With a simple sigh, Servi jabbed her blade into her forehead, destroying her brain in a single strike. The strength left her body, and she collapsed on her side as blood and smoke poured from her orifices.

In only a few short minutes, Servi added 25 more people to her ever-growing body count. By the time she rescued Momo, there was no telling what it would be.

But as far as she was concerned…

I still have a lot of killing left to do.

Since The Shadow's Embrace erased her from existence, Servi didn’t have to hide her ever-increasing physical abilities. As she made her way to the east side of town, Servi's mind only focused on completing her task.

Markka the Elf was going to die before the day was up. The two targets after him would follow suit and join him in the afterlife. The only question on Servi’s mind was the elusive fifth target.

But like all the others, I will kill whoever stands in my way.

“Tell me again why we are guarding him? We’re supposed to be out patrolling, right? Then let’s patrol,” the one guard on the left said. With his hand firmly grasped around his axe’s handle, he was ready to go. He talked to the man sitting in front of him.

“Shut up and stand by. We got orders from the top, and you can’t ignore orders because you don’t feel like following them,” replied the sitting man. Unlike his standing companion, his armor had no modifications or designs. Plain and dull was how he liked it, and he didn’t care much for ostentatious red and blue aftermarket modifications because he thought it was stupid to stand out.

The two of them were in a small room near a door that had no door handle. The only way to get into the room they protected was from the inside. The person they guarded had to be the one to open it. The dust and cobwebs plastered about was proof the entire building had gone unused for a few years, so it was the perfect place to hide Markka.

“Hey!!!” A fist pounded on the door from the inside. “Do you see the assassin?!”

“Like we already told you a hundred times, there’s no one here. It’s only us. Besides, there are thirty men stationed in the living room in front of us. We’ll hear em' coming before they show up,” said the guard with the plain armor. His hands rested on the greatsword lying in his lap. He knew it wasn’t the right weapon for the job because of the low ceiling and cramped room, but it was a disguise.

The hefty blade only weighed a single kilogram because it was purposely designed that way. Sixteen throwing knives littered his waistband, and they were hidden away by a small cloth that acted as a towel for his sweaty hands when he took off his gloves. In the worst-case scenario, he could use the decoy sword as a weapon, but that meant he had exhausted all options.

His eager companion slapped his bright blue breastplate and stomped the ground with his red metal boots like a child throwing a tantrum.

“But—”

“No buts! Shut the fuck up and do your goddamn job!”

“Tch!” The immature guard spat on the floor and leaned back against the wall. The chandelier above him was the only source of light. With the cramped space and heat, it wasn’t long until he nearly sweated through his armor.

Right as the sitting guard was about to reply, the door to the living room disappeared. The two men were trained, and both instantly went on the attack. The one with the decoy sword hastily reached to his waist and threw four throwing knives in a single motion while his companion sliced downward with all his strength.

Nothing. There was no one there. The guard one with the axe rushed out through the open doorway with a silent roll, coming to his feet with both hands outstretched. A small rope attached his axe to his wrist, and it dangled freely while allowing the use of his hands. He turned left and saw nothing. Turning right, he didn’t see a single thing, but his training told him there was an enemy afoot.

“Hey, where—” he spoke and turned forward, and that’s when he saw it. More precisely, that was when he saw nothing when there should have been a lot.

The thirty men that he knew were there a short twenty minutes ago weren’t there. Alarm bells sounded off in his mind. He did his best to retreat, but when he turned his body around to run back, his head smashed into a shadow-infused hidden blade. Dying instantly, Servi absorbed the corpse and calmly walked into the small room.

The man with the fake greatsword had his emotions halted by his training. There was no way a body could disappear like he had witnessed, but panicking meant he lost the battle before it began.

That’s how he was trained, but no mere training could help fight a woman with the powers of a Goddess. His beady brown eyes darted from corner to corner to the open doorway. His ears, strained to their limits, tried to pick up even the tiniest noise, but they didn’t register a single thing.

In his haste, the man threw four more knives, but they hit the wall. Servi had no more time to waste watching a dead man act, so she took his life by thrusting her blade into his stomach. Marching off to the door he guarded with his life, Servi allowed the shadow to finish the job because she had something more important to take care of.

It only took less than a moment to kill her target. She absorbed the door and held her hand out with her blade extended. Markka rushed forward with a dagger held out, but he ran chest first into Servi’s weapon. She didn’t even have to move or adjust. It was like she knew how he would act.

Human? Elf? They may look different, but they're the same on the inside. When you know how one acts, you can predict what the other will do.

Deactivating The Shadow’s Embrace, Servi retrieved a dagger and tore off Markka’s expensive-looking silk robe. The evidence she needed stared right at her. Like a hot knife through wax, her blade gently pierced his skin. Its sharp edge separated his neck without any resistance. By the time she had finished, he had a square patch a few centimeters across, exposing his red flesh.

Is there anything special about this tattoo? If all three have them, then it’s bound to be something special.

As she looked it over, she couldn’t find anything special or ominous. Carmelo’s words led her to believe she would find something sinister and vile, but it wasn't that at all. It was only a tattoo of Markka’s name written in a child’s shaky handwriting.

Now that she had her evidence, Servi didn’t care if someone found the body or not. She lifted him with a single hand and threw him towards the back of his room. Smashing into a table, a cabinet, and eventually the back wall, he came to a stop on his bed.

Still, she didn’t see why he had to die. Markka was rich, that much was for sure, but then again, it didn’t matter at all. Somehow, Servi knew he was partly responsible for the Mafia’s easy takeover of Arcton. That was more than enough reasoning for her to kill him. And if she met him on the streets, she probably would have killed him regardless of whether or not she had a contract.

With her job complete, Servi retraced her steps and went back to the living room. The bright sunlight filtered through the empty doorway and illuminated nothing. The thirty people who had been in here when she started the attack had died within three seconds, and thanks to her unique skills, there wasn’t even a single drop of crimson. With no evidence, anyone who came to investigate wouldn’t have been able to find anything at all.

Even before she started her attack, the only piece of furniture in the otherwise empty room was a single chair leaned up against the right wall. She took a seat and reached into her pouch.  Pulling out the second folded-up paper, Servi scanned over her next target.

Great. It’s another Elf, but this one is named Merkia. It says he’s a frequent RASP visitor, and the building is the most popular in town. Wait, there’s something about a colorful sign. I wonder if it’s the same one near that base I destroyed last night…

“Ain’t no time like the present.” Servi stood up and stored her paper. Activating The Shadow’s Embrace, Servi slipped away from reality and ceased to exist. She stormed out of the open doorway and took a soft glance at the large building to her right.

The massive structure was over six stories tall, and it was home to the majority of Arcton's guards. She didn’t think it was the central headquarters, but she didn’t have anything to back that up. What she did know, however, was that the building in front of her was the only thing even resembling a guardhouse. There was a chance the main headquarter was disguised like the Mafia bases.

Whatever, I’ll be back later to massacre all of you. The guards in this shitty town are worse than literal fucking maggots, so why don’t I make them into maggot food?

She didn’t know if it was going to happen that night, the day after, or the day after next, but her violent cleaning of Arcton’s filthy disease wasn’t anywhere close to being over.

But that was a story for another day, and Servi knew she had to focus on killing her next target. With a little bit of haste, she sped off towards the fancy RASP building to search for Merkia.