Chapter 257: BONUS CHAPTER: Frostbite.

Frostbite:

My name? I don’t have one… Well not really, none of that stuff matters. At any rate, my dad told me once that I should find someone I look up to while I’m at the academy… He said our purpose was to be the dagger that tore down people and would stop great people from upholding their lofty ideals… To be honest… I don’t really get it, or care… But when I met this weird little girl, as short as me, but with eyes that burned like white fire, it started to feel like that person might have found me.

‘How long has it been since I left my room… The fresh open air, the vast sky in the distance stretching across the plains, the sound of the wind blowing past my hood. I really… Hate all of it… I want to go back to my room…’

I sat atop to roof of a towering building designed for nobles to stay for a night or two when visiting the city, from there I could see everything. Thanks to the drugs I took every day my eyes could focus more than a hawk, and my ears could pick up more information than those of a bat. ‘So noisy…’

After a moment of silence, I singled in on my target. ‘Found you.’ I quickly double-checked the information my father sent me. ‘Male, Avian, traits include birdlike facial appearance, as well as hands and feet, but no wings. Carries a long curved sword from the far east, and wears plate armored greaves from the south, and western imperial leather armor…’ I quickly rolled up the paper and placed it back on my belt. ‘A traveling merchant who seems to enjoy selling young girls off as slaves over the border…’

I leaped from the top of the building, keeping my body straight and twisting to guide myself perfectly onto a large pile of overgrown puff moss from a nearby rooftop garden. It absorbed my weight like gell before softly spitting me back out and onto my feel. ‘It’s rare I don’t mind killing someone… But that still makes me feel bad, in its own way.’

I pulled out my large curved dagger with the symbol of a dragon breathing fire carved into its blade and stared at my reflection. ‘Well… Not much point in thinking about emotions…’

At the sound of his bird-like talons clanking against the stone path I tracked him perfectly, and without needing to confirm with my eyes I lept off the second roof as well, flipping in the air so that my arms would be the closest thing to his neck, and slashing it clean through, landing and sliding with my momentum before sprinting off into the ally across the way.

‘In and out, one clean cut, no blood on my clothes… A perfect execution… A dishonorable death where you never even see your killer's face. That’s what you deserve…’

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I sheathed my dagger and stepped deeper into the shadows, loosening the buckles on my mask so that it would hang around my neck and pulling down my hood to let the heat escape from my head. ‘Dad was afraid I get dull out here on my own… But I feel even sharper… Was it that girl? She put me on edge… Every time I think about attacking her my blood grows cold… Like she’s somehow higher up on the food chain…’

“Little miss… I’m afraid it’s not your lucky day…”

‘Maybe I am losing my edge… I wasn’t thinking about the mission… And I forgot I came threw this ally for a reason…’ I slowly put my mask back on. ‘The last color they’ll see is the flash of my blue hair against the night sky. The color of the river of death, frozen over… To get to the other side… People like you… Have to walk.’

I filled my lungs and took a step back, spinning around slashing his knees, then his stomach, stabbing down through his neck before jumping off his corpse and landing on a nearby wall, making my way up to the roof and disappearing from there sight.

As they panicked to try and find me and crossed over to the other side and jumped back off, landing with my feet directly on a man's shoulders, bending over and slicing his neck. Before his body fell fully limp I flipped off backward, blocking a swing from a shortsword before landing and stabbing his knee, dilating his shoulder as I moved behind him before snapping his neck and taking my knife back before he finished falling to the ground. ‘Only three?’ I sheathed the dagger again as I looked down. ‘Oh… I guess I got blood on me in the end after all…’ My heart pounded, skipping a beat before it calmed itself again. ‘Even a drop is too much…’ I looked back at the last man I killed. ‘I broke his neck because it would make it easier to avoid blood while searching his corpse, but now it’s just a waste…’

I sighed, searching for him anyway and stealing his wallet. ‘On days I work I’m allowed one meal to help my body relieve stress.’

After taking the coins I loosened my mask again and headed off to the other side of town, wandering around until my stomach started to hurt at the scent of all the amazing food. At that point, I just stopped and sat down at the closest stall. ‘This is… One of the times it’s ok to talk right? What should I say…’

“Hello little there little lady? You look hungry. Here’s the menu, if you can’t decide I’ll give you some of my favorite dishes, sound good?”

“Ah…” I felt my face heat up as we blankly stared at each other.

“Can’t decide? I’ll just make you something special then, how does that sound?”

‘Why is it so hard to talk to people when I’m not trying to threaten them…’ I slowly nodded ‘Someday… Will I have to kill this man as well?’

Eventually, he gave me a massive bowl of Phu filled with noodles, eggs, and every meat I had seen before, even a couple I hadn’t. I ate as much as I could, but since my stomach wasn’t used to eating normal food it wasn’t much… He must have sensed I felt bad about not finishing it because after staring at it for a while without taking another bite he let out a sigh with a soft smile. “If you can’t eat it don’t worry about it… I’ll just finish the rest myself. And… Since I’m finishing it up, it’s on the house.”

My eyes shot up. ‘No, that’s not ok. If I don’t pay then I’ll be as bad as some of the people I killed… But… I…’ “I don’t have anything else to use this money on…” I muttered, dropping the whole coin purse at the stall before leaving.

‘I hate being outside…’