Assassin's Chronicle

Slanbrea was not pretentious at all. He released magic without any hesitation. The Holy Light, like a strict judge without any sympathy, held two bodies under it; one big, one small. The bodies were rotten, but they had stiffened swiftly under the light and turned into dust. The darkness and gloominess in the basement had gone, thanks to the Holy Light.

Because Anfey had been an assassin in his previous world and had bad experiences in the Evil Abyss, he did not like glory lights. He disliked mastering Light magic by accident even more. He thought this must have something to do with Slanbrea. If Slanbrea did not want to explain to Anfey, Anfey did not plan on asking him.

In choosing whether to be aggressive or passive, Anfey had always liked the former. When he spent time with Slanbrea, he had been in a passive position, whatever perspective he was looking at it from. If he asked Slanbrea before Slanbrea wanted to explain to him, Anfey had to spend some time figuring which part he said was true and which part was not. He also had to figure out Slanbrea’s purpose for speaking as he did. Instead of spending too much time guessing and analyzing, Anfey would rather pretend nothing had happened. Even if Anfey needed to get those answers, he would not ask Slanbrea.

Anfey had trust issues. He was born with them. It was hard for him to trust anyone. He was very subjective about it. If there were anyone Anfey trusted, they had to be Saul and Ernest. Anfey would never forget what happened on the isolated island and the trip with Saul and Ernest. Anfey would rather ask Saul for help to get those answers. In addition, it was not urgent for him to get the answers now.

It was a big deal for Bruzuryano to lend his Heart of Nature to Anfey for the time being, but he still did not gain Anfey’s trust. When Bruzuryano lost control of himself, Anfey used his actions to show his opposition and fight against him. If he had not been a student of Saul, if he had not taken his group with him to escape, or if he had not exposed the conspiracy of necromancers, Anfey did not think Bruzuryano would lend his Heart of Nature to him, otherwise Bruzuryano would be crazy. The help from Saul and Ernest was selfless. They did not have any evil intentions towards Anfey. The help from Saul and Ernest was quite different than from Bruzuryano.

Anfey slowly walked to the bookshelf. There were many books on it. The top two rows of books were tidy, while the bottom rows were a little messy. The books on the bottom rows were old and worn. With the blink of an eye, Anfey already knew the books on the top of the shelf were not important. They were only there when they were needed. The books on the bottom were the ones Nana read a lot.

Light magic and Death magic were indeed opposite from each other. The remaining flame, the pages on the books had started to get visibly yellow and torn. There were even a few pages which became so brittle that they broke into pieces. Anfey bent down and tried to read an open book. His desire for knowledge had always been strong. If he were in college, even the most strict professor would love to have a student like Anfey.

"Anfey, don’t touch any of that filthy stuff," Slanbrea suddenly yelled at Anfey.

"Okay," Anfey obeyed. He looked around and laid his eyes on a cabinet next to the bookshelf. Anfey searched his memory. He remembered there was a hat made of white bone. It looked like a medieval time crown. Now that crown had turned into dust. Anfey looked down and reached his hand out and pulled slightly on the cabinet door.

With a huge sound, the stuff in the cabinet fell everywhere. They were all weird gadgets. They were able to survive the Light Flame only because the magic kekkai around the cabinet was ruined. Everything inside the cabinet was a mess, so when Anfey pulled the cabinet door open, it all poured out on the floor.

"Anfey, why are you acting like a little kid?" Slanbrea heaved a sigh as he walked over. He looked like a teacher, angry at a student who always made trouble in the class. He stomped hard on few gadgets. There were crushing sounds beneath Slanbrea’s feet.

"I was just curious." Anfey smiled.

"Anfey, do not touch any of this filthy stuff. Do you understand?" Slanbrea said.

"Hey?" Slanbrea suddenly looked surprised. He kicked something. A little gadget rolled on the floor. It was a small medallion shaped as a round shield infantries would use. A woman with black wings was carved on it. With blood red as the background, it looked very special.

"Is that the badge of a Fallen Angel? It seemed that Nana had a pretty high position," Slanbrea snorted. A bright light showed up at the tip of his fingers.

"Master, wait a second," Anfey said quickly.

"What?" Slanbrea was shocked for a second before he turned to look at Anfey.

"This... this Fallen Angel badge is important to necromancers, isn’t it?" Anfey asked.

"Very important," Slanbrea said.

"Master, necromancers are getting more powerful nowadays, aren’t they?" Anfey said.

"Go ahead." Slanbrea slightly frowned.

"They are more powerful than before, which means they should have more secrets. These secrets need to be protected by more people. Nana, as a city master of Punk City, has provided a perfect disguise for himself. I think this place should be their base. A Fallen Angel badge should not be the only important stuff here. Those books must have many secrets that we do not know yet."

Slanbrea was quietly in thought for a while and nodded.

"Because of the spy, I think necromancers had already known that Bruzuryano has been secretly protecting us. After this loss, they might want to give up this mission. If we take their stuff and leave them some trace to let them know we took their stuff, to protect their secrets, they might pluck up enough courage to continue their mission with some change in their plan, even though they are scared by Bruzuryano and you." Anfey smiled. "Necromancers used to be in the dark, but now they have come out half in the public eye. They are seen everywhere. I think their leader should be able to have the courage to fight us."

"What you said made some sense, but is it 100% going to happen as you think?" Slanbrea asked.

"If it made some sense, I think we should try it. We have their important stuff so we can destroy them at any time," Anfey said in a low voice. "I do not think you are happy with things like this, are you?"

"Aren’t you scared?" Slanbrea smiled.

"I have already offended them. They will come to kill me if they want to. It does not matter if I am scared of them or not. If that is the case, I’d better ..." Anfey said.

"You’d better teach them a lesson while Bruzuryano and I are still here." Slanbrea smiled.

"Don’t you agree?" Anfey said.

"If you, a kid, are not afraid of it, I do not have any reason to be afraid," Slanbrea said.

"I really want to see them desperate and scared if they could even make those faces." Anfey laughed as he tried to pick stuff up with his hands.

"Don’t touch them!" Slanbrea suddenly yelled at Anfey.

"What?" Anfey was scared and jumped. He immediately took his hand back like he was shocked. He looked confusedly at Slanbrea.

"I just told you never to touch any of this filthy stuff." The seriousness and sadness flashed in his eyes.

"I got it. Thank you for reminding me." Anfey nodded and looked like he realized he made a mistake. "Then...who is going to take care of this stuff?"

Slanbrea frowned. In fact, he hated these things. He had been keeping himself from destroying the stuff necromancers had collected with magic.

"I will take care of them." Suzanna walked over.

"Ok." Slanbrea nodded. "You hold on. After I hand these things over to Bruzuryano, I will remove any filthy things off them."

Anfey stepped back to make a path for Suzanna. Anfey wanted to take Nana’s things to shake up the necromancers’ emotions. Necromancers would have to decide between continuing to carry out their plan and giving it up. Anfey added a bargaining chip to the former idea. This was Anfey’s big plan that he had thought up in the moment, but he needed to do something more and could not let anybody know.

Anfey was good at finding the key to a mystery: in other words, he was good at finding a breakthrough for the problems. He would make plans based on the breakthroughs. Suzanna could touch those things, but he could not. Why was that? What was Slanbrea nervous about?

Slanbrea found about a dozen of magic books in different sizes, some ripped out pages, and necromancers’ magic tools. He even noticed a small case. There were few regular grey magic crystals in the case. Slanbrea put everything in a leather bag. He even carefully sealed it with magic before he asked Suzanna to pick it up.

The rest of the stuff was not important. Slanbrea released light magic while Anfey shot out small fireballs like the Fire God in the legend. Unfortunately, there was not much flammable stuff in the basement. Anfey shot out many fireballs at the bookshelf and the cabinet. Now they created a firewall, which swallowed the magic books.

A small room across from the study suffered under Anfey’s fireballs. Anfey was not interested in the chemicals of necromancers. He always thought about the chemicals in the movie Resident Evil. He did not have the courage the girl had in the movie. Even when he shot many fireballs at that room, he was standing far away from it. He did not stop shooting the fireballs until Slanbrea told him the chemicals had lost their effectiveness after being exposed to the light of Holy Flame.

When they passed the exit of the cave, the guards of the garrison residence all walked up to them. One of them saw the package in Suzanna’s hand and timidly asked, "Master, inside..."

"There are some death spirits inside, but it should be fine since we have cleaned up. You don’t have to worry about staying here," Slanbrea said calmly.

Anfey looked away from Slanbrea and wondered whether it was really fine for them to stay here. When necromancers came next time, the people staying here would probably have trouble, because necromancers would get information from them. If Anfey knew that, Slanbrea as an archpriest should understand that as well. From a different angle, what Slanbrea had done was nothing seriously bad. People showed different emotions towards different people in different situations. A civilian would not show his anger towards his king, neither would glory and rescue easily fall on a civilian. Even if Slanbrea asked them to leave, they probably would not escape from necromancers anyway because no one could protect them.