Do You Have a Signboard?
After dinner at the mansion, I slipped out alone. I walked briskly through the streets until I reached the back alleys, then descended deeper into the most secluded tavern I could find. Mud squelched under my shoes at the entrance. Beside a sign so battered it looked ready to fall at any moment, I pushed open the old wooden door.
The air inside was thick and stale, heavy with the acrid stench of cheap tobacco and the sharp tang of old urine. In the damp gloom, the scattered patrons all wore the same vacant stares, eyes fixed on nothing. They looked like men who wouldn’t bat an eye if they died tomorrow. It made sense. This was a cheap dive. The kind of place where the only customers were those who lived for the next drink, the kind who chose liquor over sleep or food. The sort who had already given up on tomorrow.
In that dead air, only the tavern owner was actually working. The thick scars on his rolled-up forearms caught the light at an angle. He was the man who had spent years repaying a massive debt to me by handling my assassination contracts. Without so much as a glance, he slid a mug of overflowing beer across the counter.
The heavy glass scraped against the wooden surface with a dull thud that echoed through the room.
“Looks quiet tonight,” I said first.
He answered in the same sullen tone. “I’d love to stock better stuff, but someone keeps killing every decent request that comes through.”
In other words, I was the one blocking them all.
I toyed with the mug, murmuring in a low voice. “The empire’s in chaos right now. If we start making moves in times like these, the authorities will look for any excuse to make an example of us.”
“That consideration of yours isn’t making it any more enjoyable to watch good liquor rot in the cellar.”
The mutterings of drunkards, the creak of chairs, and the clatter of tables provided just enough cover for our conversation. I stared directly at the tavern owner—Jean—and asked, “So, among those decent requests, was there anything useful?”
It was my way of asking for the list of contracts.
Jean gave me a quick once-over. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he’d noticed the subtle shift in my demeanor from the old Victor. After a brief silence, he jerked his chin toward the back room.
“Good liquor isn’t something you open just anywhere. Why don’t you step inside? The cellar’s still a bit of a mess.”
He woke the dozing server near the counter, handed over the bar, and led me into the back. The room beyond the door was a dim storeroom stacked neatly with barrels. But the moment we entered, the apathetic tavern keeper vanished. In his place stood a seasoned assassin radiating every ounce of the killing intent he usually kept hidden.
Jean muttered in a low voice, as if reciting a code. “Is yesterday’s wine thicker than tomorrow’s blood?”
Without hesitation, I gave the proper response. “Every secret is carried in the morning dew.”
A phrase no outsider could ever deduce. Jean scratched the scar on his forearm and studied me.
“I’ve been hearing about some unusual disturbances lately. You let live men whose throats you would’ve slit without a second thought. And now you’re rubbing shoulders with high society and drawing everyone’s attention.”
“I didn’t have much choice if I didn’t want to starve. If I kept living the old way, I’d be buried at the bottom before the empire itself collapsed.”
Jean let out a short sigh and leaned against the wall. “I suppose so. Back when we were cleaning up those dogs from the Valois family…” His eyes darkened. “We were too perfect. We left not a single trace. That’s exactly why they could stab you in the back without hesitation. A ghost that doesn’t exist is easy to erase.”
A bitter silence settled between us. Then he pushed aside one of the barrels in the corner and opened a hidden compartment. Inside lay a single sheet of worn parchment.
“Fine. If you want change, start with this. Three major requests on the list.”
Instead of names, the list used titles: Senior Administrator of the Treasury, the Baron controlling central logistics, and the Chief Justice of the Imperial Tribunal.
I tapped the line for the Chief Justice with my finger. “How long ago did this request come in?”
“About a week.”
A week was plenty of time for other groups to have received it and still be testing the waters. The target was the very symbol of imperial justice, and noble factions friendly to him were involved. No one would move recklessly and risk a backlash. They would all be watching each other, waiting for someone else to blink first. Going after a real heavyweight was something only madmen did.
Like the old Victor.
In a web of interests as tangled as capillaries, killing one person would never solve anything completely. In this world, if you didn’t have the skill and confidence to shatter the entire structure, stepping in usually got you killed instead. Many requests in this business weren’t even meant to be carried out. They were sent simply to intimidate or warn: We’re watching you.
But a genuine assassination request carried certain unmistakable signs known only to real clients. This one for the Chief Justice included the exact advance payment amount, the target’s daily routine, and meticulously mapped movements. It was a request soaked in real bloodlust.
“We need to keep the Chief Justice alive.”
“Reason?”
“Simple. Those noble bastards have gone mad with greed. They want to monopolize even the black money flowing through the back alleys. If the last bastion that understands and respects the ways of these streets disappears, the nobles will run wild.”
I tapped the list again. “More importantly, he’s a card we must hold. The man originally came from these very alleys.”
“From the back alleys? For a position like that?” Jean asked, incredulous.
“He was the son of a fallen house. When his parents were stripped of everything by nobles and left to die in the gutters, he survived among the corpses by devouring law books. During the imperial war, he caught the eye of an old judge who had earned merit. The judge adopted him, and he thoroughly laundered his identity until he reached that seat. The nobles have no idea the judge they want dead is the very vermin they once trampled.”
“How do you know all this?”
At Jean’s question, I recalled a fragment of the original Victor’s memories. “While digging into the Valois family, I happened to obtain documents containing his true origins. Even now, the Chief Justice secretly protects small merchants in the back alleys and uses the law to block the nobles’ monopolies. He’s worth far more than the immediate payment on any contract.”
Jean, who had been listening quietly, let out a stunned chuckle. “I thought you were just a simple murderer. Now you’re playing chess with the entire empire. Fine. I’ll move according to your will this time as well.”
He straightened up from where he’d been leaning against a barrel and roughly scratched the thick scar on his forearm. Then he added in a low voice, “But do you know how many other places this request has been scattered to?”
When I simply stared at him, he held up four fingers.
“At least four that I’ve confirmed. Yet even after this much time, no one’s made a move. The name Chief Justice carries heavy pressure, but more than that, everyone knows that if you bite and fail, you’ll be buried in this business forever. Once an organization accepts a request and then abandons it, their credibility is finished.”
I nodded. As I’d said earlier, no sensible group would take this job. But the ones I was worried about weren’t the sensible ones.
“Then those lunatics must have received it too.”
Jean’s expression darkened instantly. “The Order of the Glorious Watch… those bastards. Yeah, they’d charge in without caring about fire or water. They’ve thrown the rules of this world to the dogs.”
They were like cancer cells with a bizarre survival mechanism even among assassins. Normal organizations faded from the market after a failed mission tarnished their name. These people were different. If a job went wrong and their group collapsed, they would simply rebrand a few days later as the Dawn’s Guides or the Noble Justiciars and resume business as if nothing had happened. Just change the signboard and carry on. Surprisingly, their success rate wasn’t low, making them the perfect cheap tool for clients who wanted to target heavyweights.
“If those madmen have started moving, there are only two choices.” I looked at Jean with cold, sunken eyes. “Offer them a bigger reward before they begin, or erase the entire group from existence. The only way to stop them is to physically cut off their breath.”
Jean chuckled dryly as he toyed with the list on the barrel. “Erasing them won’t be easy. No one knows where they’re hiding. Are you really going to step into that mud just to save one judge?”
“The mud’s already on my shoes. It’s too late to pull my foot back out. Where have they nested this time?”
“The Glorious Watch. This time they’re operating under the signboard of the Sacred Shield, holed up in an abandoned brewery on the western outskirts. Be careful. As you know, their leader isn’t sane.”
The air in the abandoned brewery was thick with the stench of grain that had fermented past rot into something worse. From the darkness came a bizarre laugh.
Deep inside, a man sat atop a broken oak barrel like a throne. He wore luxurious noble attire, but the sleeves were crusted with blood and filth.
“Oh, who do we have here? The madman of the back alleys has personally come all the way to this humble place?”
The leader, Vargas, staggered to his feet. His eyes seemed unfocused, yet they pierced straight through me with a strange gleam.
“The Chief Justice job—have you already accepted it?”
Instead of answering, Vargas lightly tossed the dagger in his hand and caught it again. With unfocused eyes, he examined his own reflection on the blade from every angle as if admiring a work of art. A faint smile crept across his lips.
“Accept? Hmm, what does that even mean? If it smells like money, we sniff. If we see footprints, we follow. Since when were we respectable gentlemen who stamp documents before starting work?”
He picked at his teeth with the dagger’s tip and giggled. “The client wants to believe we ‘bit,’ and we simply confirmed that his pocket ‘opened.’ Whether we’re the ones holding the judge’s leash or if it’s some other starving mutt… well, I suppose we’ll have to roll the dice to find out?”
He was dodging a clear answer, but his tone made it obvious he already had both feet firmly on the board.
I took one step closer, pressing down on his gaze with my own. “Drop the Chief Justice job.”
Vargas clutched his stomach and burst into wild laughter. Then, in an instant, he was right in front of me, breathing foul breath into my face.
“Ah, that’s always been your problem. You make silver off other people’s lives but act like you’re upholding some grand chivalry. Trust? Reputation? Don’t make me laugh. Kill and money comes out. Don’t kill and it doesn’t. What elegant rules are supposed to exist in between?”
He dug under his fingernails with the dagger and giggled again. “Today we’re the Sacred Shield, tomorrow we could be the Fallen Angels. What does a name matter? The truth is we’re all clowns dancing on corpses. Look at you, Victor. You played the proud ghost so well, and in the end the Valois dogs discarded you like a mutt, didn’t they?”
He had struck the exact painful point from the original Victor’s history. I’d thought he was just a lunatic with a few screws loose. Apparently he had more brains than I’d given him credit for.
“Victor. I can see it in your eyes. You’re not trying to save that judge out of some sense of justice. You’re trying to set up a new board, aren’t you? But be careful. One kick from me and that board could collapse.”
Vargas slumped back onto the oak barrel and gulped down the murky liquid from a bottle whose contents were of questionable drinkability.
“So, are you going to kill me and erase this organization? Or will you let me sit at your new table? Either’s fine with me. As long as it’s fun.”
Vargas drew in a long breath, as if trying to suck back in the alcohol that wanted to escape his body.
“Or did you bring money to make me give up the request?”