The Tollen Merchant Guild (1)

Leaving behind his lingering regrets over the truffles, Xiel departed from the Riversong estate. Albert had insisted on providing an escort to the very end, but Xiel politely refused. It was a rejection rooted entirely in pragmatic calculation; if assassins truly came, as he suspected they would, a conventional escort would serve little purpose. If anything, Xiel would merely end up having to escort his own guards.

"He truly left all on his own," Albert murmured, watching Xiel’s distant silhouette with a troubled, regretful gaze.

"Don't worry, Father. Instructor Xiel is... genuinely terrifyingly strong."

"Even so, the Tollen Merchant Guild is ruthless to the bone. From their perspective, the loss they've suffered is astronomical."

Had the guild's scheme succeeded, they would have forcibly delayed the repayment of the twenty-million-Cel principal, seizing the collateral and bleeding the family dry through exorbitant late fees. In the long run, their goal had undoubtedly been to swallow House Riversong whole.

It was premeditated from the very beginning.

Yet that meticulous plan had shattered on day one, all thanks to Xiel. Because of him, House Riversong had bought invaluable time. So long as they held the confessions of the captured mercenaries, the Tollen Merchant Guild would not dare act openly against them.

The problem is that Instructor Xiel has become their new target... Will he truly be all right?

"Father, Instructor Xiel losing a fight is... something I simply cannot fathom," Yon said, his voice brimming with unshakeable conviction.

"Is your instructor truly that powerful?"

"I told you, didn't I? He brought down a Ruinbark practically single-handedly. And besides... whenever I think back to how he trains us, the very thought of anyone defeating him doesn't even cross my mind."

It was natural for a student to praise their teacher, but in Yon’s demeanor, Albert glimpsed something far beyond ordinary admiration. It bordered on absolute reverence.

To that extent? Then why on earth is such a man teaching at an academy?

It was the perpetual question that troubled anyone who witnessed or heard of Xiel’s prowess: why would an individual of such caliber remain a mere instructor? Yet Albert had no luxury to dwell on the riddle.

"Son, we must leave for House Lercadia immediately."

"Pardon? House Lercadia?"

"Their family head has always covetously eyed our ancestral heirloom. We don't have much time."

"Yes, Father. I'll make the preparations."

They could not afford to squander the precious window Xiel had created. While using the ambush as legal justification to dispute the principal was an option, Tollen was hardly the type to acknowledge such claims in good faith. Whatever happened, they needed liquid capital ready at hand.

Meanwhile, having left an indelible impression ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on two noble households during his home visits, Xiel walked leisurely toward his next destination. He strolled unaccompanied beneath the canopy, his gait far too tranquil and his expression far too placid for a man expecting an assassination attempt.

If the contract was placed on an emergency priority, they should strike sometime tonight.

It had been a while since he last crossed paths with assassins. Regardless of who came, however, Xiel harbored no particular concern. His objective remained singular: complete his home visits smoothly and return to the academy. A minor enemy had materialized along the way, but that was of little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠consequence.

A forest is convenient for disposal, at least.

It mattered little who chose to make an enemy of him, so long as his educational rounds concluded without incident. There was certainly no danger of his cover identity being exposed; every individual who had ever seen his unmasked face during his days as an operative was dead, and all corresponding archives had been reduced to ashes.

Cadet Quantus Hophel... I'll have rather a lot to discuss regarding him.

Xiel turned his thoughts toward the consultations he would conduct upon arriving at House Hophel. In essence, Quantus could be summed up in a single sentence: a dull mind blessed with tremendous talent.

It was rare for intellect to be completely detached from martial aptitude, yet in Xiel’s evaluation, Quantus undeniably possessed exceptional potential. He was physically extraordinary, a towering vessel of raw might. Within the realm of a warrior—where one swung cold steel and traded flesh with opponents—that alone was a colossal advantage. The trouble lay entirely with his cognitive faculties.

To put it flatteringly, he was headstrong and relentless. To put it bluntly, his body moved long before his brain could formulate a thought. Xiel wondered whether it was a hereditary trait of the Hophel bloodline or a defect exclusive to Quantus himself.

Unless his tactical awareness improves, his growth will inevitably plateau.

That was why Cadet Anne Peshua's presence beside him was indispensable. He needed someone at his flank capable of reining him in and issuing clear, step-by-step commands.

I should make sure to bring up Cadet Anne Peshua during the conference as well.

Lost in thought as he traversed the deep woods, Xiel suddenly checked his pace.

Step.

His strides gradually slowed.

Right on schedule.

He had chosen the woodland path partly because it offered the shortest route to the Hophel territory, but also because of another reason.

Three ahead, two behind. Five in total. Decently trained.

For killers of the night, a dense forest was an ideal hunting ground. Just as Albert had forewarned, Xiel had become a priority mark for the Tollen Merchant Guild, and precisely as anticipated, their hired blades had arrived. Having learned that four armed mercenaries were casually dismantled, Tollen had apparently opted to commit substantial funds to a professional syndicate. Yet the merchant coalition could not have known that Xiel was far from a mere liberal arts lecturer.

One above.

Swoosh.

Xiel pivoted on his heel, cleanly slipping past a throwing dagger that cleaved the air. In the same fluid motion, his fingers snapped shut around the hilt in mid-flight—

Thwack!

He hurled the weapon straight back along its trajectory. The dull thud of punctured flesh echoed softly through the branches, followed immediately by the dead weight of a falling body plunging from the canopy. The assassin struck the forest floor, stone-dead with his own blade driven deep into his skull.

Four left.

Xiel went to step forward, then paused. A tripwire crisscrossed the path ahead, coated in matte, non-reflective paint designed to absorb all ambient luminescence, rendering it invisible against the nocturnal gloom. Snagging it would undoubtedly trigger a lethal payload, yet to Xiel’s vision, the snare stood out in stark relief.

The Breathing of the Polar Night.

From the moment he detected the ambushers, Xiel had elevated his sensory perception to its absolute zenith. His amber gaze traced the taut wire in a fraction of a second, locating the spring-loaded release mechanism concealed in the underbrush.

Thump!

Flung with imperceptible speed, a loose pebble from Xiel’s hand struck the counterweight, prematurely tripping the snare. Simultaneously—

Crack!

A second operative leaped from a high bough, plunging downward like a hawk to skewer him. Or rather, that was what should have occurred. When the killer descended upon the target coordinate, Xiel was already gone. Before the ambusher could even process the vacancy of the space beneath him, cold steel found him.

"Ghk."

A dagger pierced the nape of his neck from behind, the razor tip bursting cleanly through his throat. Seeing the horrific efficiency unfold in silence, the remaining three operatives realized with chilling clarity that something had gone terribly wrong.

"—!"

Before the thought could even crystallize into an order to scatter, Xiel vanished from sight once more.

Squelch.

Materializing behind a thick trunk, Xiel buried a trenchant blade through the heart of the third assassin who had been lying in wait. Before the dead man’s chin could even slump against his chest—

Crunch.

Xiel drove his longsword downward into the loamy soil a few paces away. The blade drove straight through the subterranean hideout of the fourth operative, impaling his skull through the earthen ceiling.

The mission is a failure. We have to retreat!

The sole surviving operative turned on his heels, trembling beneath the weight of a sensation he had not experienced in years: raw, suffocating terror.

Not every guild subjected its killers to the ruthless mind-wiping methods of Black Sky. Many outfits preserved their operatives' individual ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠desires, allowing their basic humanity to remain somewhat intact. Yet universally, one emotion was always meticulously excised from every professional blade: fear. In their line of work, nothing was more lethal or useless than cowardice. Yet here, in this suffocating darkness, the terror he thought long eradicated roared back to life with agonizing clarity.

And that terror peaked an instant later.

"—!"

Skidding to a halt, the operative found himself staring down at the neat, orderly pile of his four dead comrades, stacked directly in his path.

Wh-When did he...?

Barely a breath had elapsed—hardly enough time to take half a dozen strides. How could anyone have dragged and arranged four dead bodies right in front of him in that microscopic interval? Without leaving a single whisper of displaced air?

Clink.

A razor-thin chill grazed the back of his neck.

Who in the gods' names is this monster...?

That was his final thought.

Squelch.

Xiel severed the carotid artery, ending the fifth operative’s life before he could scream. In his dying seconds, staring wide-eyed at the abyss, the killer came to an undeniable realization: this mark was never something mortal men were meant to hunt. The disparity in their realms was incomprehensible. One would need to summon the mythical Phantom of legend to stand a fighting chance against a creature like this. But they were merely ordinary killers.

Thud.

Watching the final body collapse, Xiel murmured in an even, flat tone, "That makes all of them."

No further hostile presences lingered in the perimeter. Approaching the neatly assembled pile of corpses, Xiel began thoroughly searching their gear.

As expected, operatives of the Black Blade.

Judging by their movement doctrine, equipment signatures, and scent, their allegiance was unmistakable. In that case...

Xiel drew a blackened dagger from the breast pocket of the squad leader. It was the namesake signature of their organization: a blade tempered to an obsidian hue.

Fwoosh.

Igniting a small spark of mana, he applied heat to the flat of the metal. Gradually, glowing crimson runes bled through the tempered steel, spelling out an encoded directive. Every syndicate had its own protocol for issuing contracts; the Black Blade inscribed enchanted characters that remained dormant until subjected to precise thermal conditions. Having dismantled rival outfits and occasionally assassinated other assassins during his past life, Xiel was intimately familiar with their tradecraft.

"Six million," Xiel murmured softly.

Possessing virtually no practical grasp of high-level economics, his mind immediately translated the sum into his standard unit of valuation.

"That is precisely six million skewers of grilled chicken."

Framed in that manner, the magnitude became strikingly clear.

If they capture me, they can purchase six million chicken skewers.

It was an exorbitant figure. Placing such a massive sum on a conventional contract meant either that the operation carried extreme peril, or that the client demanded success at all costs. An emergency dispatch, a strict requirement for live capture, and the target being an academy instructor closely monitored by the imperial family and great noble houses—there were plenty of reasons for the inflated price tag.

"Nonsensical," Xiel concluded, entirely incapable of comprehending why someone would value his living body at six million chicken skewers. Do they suspect something about my true past?

Naturally, having spent his life sheltered from ordinary society, he could not fathom the mercantile greed or corporate machinations driving the Tollen syndicate. He simply understood that an active threat had been levied against his person. Reaching a pragmatic decision, he set to work.

This approach will serve best.

He would erase all traces of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the engagement. An assassination without witnesses was a clean mission, but an encounter that left not even a corpse was far more psychologically devastating. Terror. To find a comrade’s dead body was dreadful, but to have comrades vanish entirely off the face of the earth without a trace bred an unfathomable dread. For those hunting in the dark, total disappearance inspired the greatest horror of all.

"Completed."

In less than thirty minutes, Xiel eliminated every trace of the skirmish. Blood spatters, disturbed foliage, trampled earth, and the five corpses themselves—all were eradicated. When he walked away, a gentle breeze rustled through the canopy, whispering across the untouched forest floor as though nothing had ever transpired.

Deep within the same woodland, two newly dispatched scouts from the Black Blade stood frozen in utter bewilderment.

"...You're saying their trail cuts off right here?"

"It appears so, Sir."

"What in the blazes happened...?"

Contact with the five-man strike team had abruptly severed, prompting the guild to dispatch two elite trackers to investigate. Yet upon arriving at the coordinates, they found themselves completely dumbfounded. It was rare for hardened assassins to display overt agitation, but the current situation defied all professional precedent. There was not a single sign of passage anywhere in the clearing.

"Are you certain of this sector?"

"All five were confirmed entering this perimeter. There is no doubt."

"..."

This was neither an ancient forest saturated with primordial magic nor a monster reserve crawling with high-tier apex beasts. Had a beast attacked them, there would at least be shredded gear, bone fragments, or pooled blood left behind. Yet despite scouring the area throughout the night, they had discovered nothing. Not even a broken twig.

Faced with an impossibility that defied logic, only one unthinkable conclusion took shape in the scout leader's mind.

Did he eliminate all five and completely scrub the scene?

Even from the perspective of an assassin, that hypothesis seemed absurd. The Black Blade was a premier underworld syndicate. For a contract valued at six million Cel, they had deployed five mid-tier operatives—a force capable of guaranteeing the execution of high-ranking targets. Yet all five had vanished into thin air without leaving a smudge of ash behind.

Could the target have done this alone? Or does he possess a monstrous shadow guard?

Syndicates did not rely solely on the data provided by clients. Cross-referencing their own intelligence networks, they had pegged the target as a simple elective lecturer at an academy. Even if he were shockingly proficient, he should have peaked around the level of a distinguished Great Knight. A single mid-tier operative was deemed sufficient to neutralize an unwary Great Knight, yet they had sent five out of an abundance of caution.

Something is profoundly wrong.

Assassins generally relied on calculated logic and empirical evidence, but occasionally, survival demanded bowing to sheer animal instinct.

"We are suspending this contract immediately."

"Understood."

"Prepare for the possibility of a total abandonment."

"Abandonment? But the guild's standing—"

"The target, or the protector shielding him, is far beyond our initial estimates."

It had to be a protector. How else could a man antagonize the infamous Tollen Merchant Guild and continue strolling along the highways all on his own? To wipe out five seasoned operatives and sanitize the terrain so thoroughly that even fellow trackers could find nothing—that required an entity of unfathomable power.

If such a monster is involved, our current fee is an insult.

They would need five times the bounty. No, tenfold at the bare minimum. Even then, taking the job would be courting annihilation.

"We withdraw for now. We need to confront the client directly."

The two operatives slipped into the foliage, vanishing into the shadows of the woods. Overhead, the wind hummed softly through the branches, whispering through a forest that held no answers.