The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

In the end, Zaos couldn't help but feel a headache. According to the merchant which he sold the magic weapons of the bandits to, the current head of the Melvins family didn't show any signs until now that he was someone greedy. However, some people noticed weird movements in his mansion in the last few months.

His name was Meriton, and for the last thirty years, he had been studying the use of herbs on the creation of fragrances and sold them all over the kingdom along with his numerous merchants who commercialized only that. As far the rumors go, his father died ten years ago, and he assumed the family business at the age of twenty-five… nothing else there was to be known about him.

"Am I missing something here?" Zaos frowned. 

Although Zaos continued with his original plan of listening to the city's people slowly to gain some intelligence about the target, he didn't get anything. Just like the merchant said, he had a perfect record. The only weird thing about him was the fact that no one had seen him in almost a year.

"Is he dead, and someone else is doing this?" Zaos rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What do you think, Aleni?"

"Will that change anything?" Aleni asked.

"It might change our target, of course," Zaos replied. "We can't kill the wrong person and hope that we won't be bothered again. We have to make sure that this whole mess will be solved once and for all, and nothing will come to bite us in the back."

"… I agree with you," Aleni said after thinking for a second. "The soldiers you mentioned are stationed inside the mansion… while I can't sense their presence from so far away, I can tell that there is something odd about them."

As if that weren't enough, only one of them would have the chance to enter the mansion and finish the job. Zaos didn't like this whole situation, and he was confident that he could endure whatever the enemies threw at him, so he was planning to leave Aleni behind. Lately, Milliendra barely wakes up at night and cries, after all. It should be fine. In any case, Zaos had one week to convince Aleni to stay behind while he did that job… in the end, Zaos didn't notice that Aleni noticed what he was thinking.

After working together for so many months, Aleni finally noticed when Zaos was sleeping deeply or not. Usually, even the smallest movements inside the room would wake him up. Still, Aleni found a method to counter his Mana Tracking. At least, she confirmed that it worked while he was sleeping… She practiced that for the whole week since she knew that he would force her to stay behind.

"I may not have my vengeance against those who took my freedom from me, but I will at least get rid of all others who think that they can take things from others…" Aleni thought.

After that, Aleni left the inn in the middle of the night and headed toward the mansion. She moved around the mansion a single time to confirm the number of guards outside, there were only eight walking around the place, and as usual, they were walking as if they weren't expecting an attack. She also could feel the presence of the other eight moving around the garden. So, she could make any noise.

Since the guards were also walking in groups of two, Aleni will have to knock them down at the same time, and in less than a minute because half of them were moving clockwise and the other was moving toward the opposite direction and thanks to that, every group was supposed to meet the next one every minute. Still, that wouldn't be by far the hardest of her jobs until now.

When the first group appeared in the southeastern corner of the wall, Aleni dashed toward them from behind, and while making even less noise than the wind, she hit their napes, making the enemies fall. She couldn't kill them yet since the smell of blood would spread around quickly, so she slowly fell before moving toward the west.

As soon as they arrived there, the next group appeared, but they didn't find her since Aleni jumped and then landed above the wall and then jumped again to land behind them. The very moment the two soldiers noticed their fallen comrades on the other side, it was the moment they felt an intense pain on their backs.

Aleni repeated that two more times and defeated the eight soldiers. For a second, she hesitated since it has been a long while since she killed someone in cold blood, but in her eyes, those who work for scum are scum as well. So, she pierced their hearts with her knife before throwing them in a dark alley fifty meters away from the mansion. Although she was slim, Aleni was surprisingly strong… since she was able to carry adult men while they were wearing armor without making any noise.

Regardless, before the guards inside the mansion could notice anything, Aleni jumped over the wall and mixed within the darkness. There were plenty of places for her to hide, so she would have even an easier time. When the enemies approached the darkness, she pulled them in and then sliced their throats, and then moved toward the next spot. The enemies inside wouldn't feel the smell of blood for a while, so it was fine. Not to mention, she didn't have time to carry them outside.

After dealing with the enemies outside, Aleni approached the mansion, and even though she couldn't sense enemies that easily while there were walls between them, she could sense something else… the tension in the air. Since so many lackeys had been inside the mansion waiting for an attack, there was a crazy level of tension inside it. Aleni moved around the building to find a spot where she couldn't sense that tension in the air and found some rooms on the third floor. That was probably where the target and his family were sleeping, and someone so rich wouldn't allow soldiers to stay that close because of their pride. Aleni climbed the wall and then unlocked the window with an uncanny master. However, when she landed in the room, something paralyzed her…