n

n

n“I have a request….”

nBoth I and Aisa looked up at Findir, who slowly cocked his head back to look at the dark clouds in front of us, signaling that it was about to rain on our little picnic.

n“What? Want me to change the weather?” Aisa smirked, but Findir’s serious attitude immediately shut her up.

nHe didn’t seem to be joking right now, so I as well made sure not to speak out of line.

n“If we survive, I want everybody to help me with my village. The dark elven village, of course,” Findir said, and our eyes widened a bit.

nSo he wasn’t originally a resident of Amlas… that makes sense.

nEverything about the way he speaks acts and looks like he is from the eleven forests where the elves clash with the opposing race.

nBoth the normal elves, otherwise known as light elves, are currently at war with the dark elves, and I heard that most villages were pushed out of their boundaries under the pressure of the light elves.

nTo be honest, the light elves are superior in almost every way, with the dark elves only being proficient in battle within the shadows.

nThey are the perfect assassins in the dark, but when revealed to a pure battlefield, they’ll get overwhelmed no matter what.

nI have no clue what happened when they got corrupted, but it’s obvious they lost most of their power by basically giving into a demon god… or something like that.

nAll the information on this war is very hard to find, and I never really cared to put in the effort to find out more anyway.

n“I see what you’re tryna say… Okay, we’ll help you, but you should’ve asked this with the others around,” Aisa said.

n“Nah, Orion would’ve shot down the idea immediately,” I butted in for Findir as I knew he wanted to say this but just didn’t have the heart to.

nHe could be cold and menacing but also a big softy at times… kind of life Bella.

n“And why would he do that? What would his reason be?” Aisa replied, very confused as, in hindsight, it didn’t make sense.

n“He’s a cold man, and having a new goal would distract us from the matter at hand. Having a goal to survive this war is nice, but in his eyes, the only goal you should have is to literally survive this war. There shouldn’t be something after your goal that is motivating you,”

n“Well, that’s his **ing prerogative….”

n“Mhm… Anyway, telling it to him now isn’t good. I’ll tell Cy eventually, but he’s very loyal to Orion, so I doubt he would follow me if Orion said not to… Now that I think about it, Orion has a good grasp on everything right now,” Findir chuckled.

n“Well, he’s just like that. Being his friend is hard work, but the payoff is pretty nice… and he’s pretty funny,” Aisa chuckled.

n“No, he’s not….” I sighed before falling onto my back.

n,m And after a long silence, Findir spoke up once again.

n“So, who’s watching out for enemies tonight? We weren’t exactly stealthy, which was part of the plan, but I don’t see anybody trying to get us,”

n“And why is that?”

n“Because they’ll think we’re trying to bait them. Reverse-reverse psychology is pretty nice… but we should still be careful. Let me watch out for tonight as I have the sniper,” Aisa suggested, and we had no complaints with this, so Findir and I both hit the sack, falling into the land of dreams.

n…

nThe next morning, we set out for our mission which was to infiltrate the Bonebloom household and assassinate the heirs to the next family head.

nThey aren’t very strong due to the greediness and also the arrogance of their father, and with Orion’s descriptions, we knew if we weren’t careful, we could easily die.

nEspecially if their father actually didn’t leave and the tip-off was fake.

n“*yawn*… Fuck… I shouldn’t have taken the last shift,” I complained while slowly trailing behind the two beasts in front of me.

nThey had a seemingly endless amount of stamina which allowed them to do all sorts of crazy things with such minimal amount of sleep.

nThey’re still watching out for things as if we’re being trailed when I barely have the energy to even drag myself across the border of this damn city.

n“Alright, stop your complaining and shut up. We’re finally here,”

nA mansion made of gold and silver appeared in front of us, a distinguished black blade bordering the door frame, and an insane amount of jewelry hung from the lush greens in their front yard.

nOnce we moved to the backyard, we saw how normal it was and also possibly just a bit unkempt and a bit neglected.

n“Hmmm… that’s a good sign,” Findir whispered before slipping through the gates by turning into a gust of wind.

nAisa also did this but held my shoulder, and as we both dispersed into a cloud of snow, we slipped through the bars.

n“Ugh, I’m gonna throw up,” I complained once again as my body, basically dematerializing, wasn’t the best feeling in the world.

nThe farther we walked into the backyard, the more we realized how unkempt it was, and just as we were about to step right in front of the mansion, I stopped the two.

n“Hold on. There is a magic array of Sun Stones… it’s specifically meant to counter illusionists… **….” I muttered before allowing the two to step back and allow me to fill in their spots.

nI crouched down to get a better look, and a smile appeared on my face.

n“Well, it only works from the outside. Once we’re inside, I can use illusions… though that most likely means there are more traps. We have to be careful,” I said before creating a little crack in the array by shifting the sunstone at the cost of burning my right hand.

nThis allowed us to slip in without anybody actually detecting us through the barrier.

nIt wasn’t meant to detect people in the first place and was more to protect them from large-scale illusion attacks most likely made by my family.

nHow fun…

n