System Change

“Oh… now that sounded ominous,” Vanessa said and shook her head. “Now, where is the nearest teleporter?”

“We’re in Savannah,” Derek said. Then moved over and opened the door to his private Void Travel room. After that, he led the Shadow Witch up the stairs, then out of his shop. “Follow me.” He took a step and headed toward the Teleportation Building.

“I never thought I’d end up going back to the guild’s base of operations again,” Vanessa said as they walked,

“Why is that?” Derek asked.

“For starters, it’s part of my oaths and contracts with the Kingdom of Cydaria. I can’t knowingly reach out to and associate with my former assassin acquaintances.”

“You’re doing it now,” Derek said.

“It’s a special circumstance,” Vanessa replied. “King Edward, through his intent, gave me permission to help you—and since that help included contacting the Assassin’s Guild, it is being allowed. As long as I am with you and we are not plotting against the kingdom, it will be okay. Surprisingly, the oaths and contracts are not overly convoluted and put great meaning in my intent. Since I have no intent on going against the Kingdom of Cydaria, there is no problem with me doing what I am doing now.”

“I see,” Derek said. “That’s good. That means that I don’t have to take you back to the palace to get specific permission from Edward, so you don’t break any oaths or anything.”

“It is because the new king places a lot of trust in you,” Vanessa said with a nod. After a short while, the two made it to the Teleportation Building and Vanessa took the lead. Before long, the two were standing outside another Teleportation Building in a city known as Rivalt—which was one of the more mid-sized cities in the kingdom—and located in the west central part of the kingdom. It was a city that Derek had not heard anything about before.

“I guess the Assassin’s Guild does a good job of keeping their location a secret,” Derek said as he walked beside Vanessa through the city.

“They do a very good job. The guild even keeps Rivalt as average as possible,” Vanessa said. “But the guild is not actually located in this city, if that is what you were thinking. It is also not the…” she started, then shut her mouth. “Looks like I was on the cusp of giving out too much information about the guild.” She shivered. “I cannot say that I’m a fan of that feeling.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to be stuck between two oaths like that,” Derek said.

“It could be worse,” Vanessa replied. “Neither the guild nor the kingdom are exactly at odds with one another. The assassins are punished harshly if caught, but unless the guild completely oversteps, the kingdom does not go out of its way to hunt them down.”

“It’s a sort of balancing act, then?” Derek asked.

“Exactly,” Vanessa said.

“And you used to be second in command, huh?”

“I did,” Vanessa said as she led Derek down one of the streets in the city, and eventually into an area that looked to be the slums. “It was not a position I wanted, but it was more so forced upon me because of the death of the previous Vice Leader and a few other circumstances. That is why I tried to take some long-term missions whenever possible. It was always more work for me when I wasn’t on a mission than when I was. And… sometimes, I would do a little freelancing once a mission was over, just to not have to go back as soon.”

“And that freelancing is why you were with that piece of crap noble,” Derek said.

“Exactly.” Vanessa then turned a corner into an alley. “This way,” she said. She looked at Derek and raised her index finger over her lips to indicate that they should be silent.

Derek nodded and silently followed the woman down the alley. After a short while, Vanessa stopped, and Derek did the same. Moments later, multiple hooded figures stepped out of the shadows and in front of the duo.

“Well, if it isn’t the witch,” what looked like the leader of the bunch said.

“Lazrus…” Vanessa muttered, unimpressed.

“When the leader said that you were going to be paying us a visit, I had to see it with my own eyes.” The hooded figure pulled his hood from his head, and Derek got a good look at him.

The man was sporting a short mohawk with very dark red hair, along with matching irises. His skin was near porcelain white, and very smooth with almost no blemishes, and he had piercings through both his right eyelid and the left side of his bottom lip.

“So… are you here to show me around? To take me to your leader?” Derek asked with a half-chuckle. He was also unimpressed with the man named Lazrus. “Also, could you give me the name of your hair stylist? I’d like to know which ones to avoid in the future.” Beside Derek, Vanessa shouted and Lazrus narrowed his eyes.

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“You can’t speak to our Vice Leader like that!” One of the other cloaked figures took a step forward and shouted.

Lazrus held his hand out, stopping the other from taking another step forward. “That’s enough!” He reprimanded his subordinate. “Let them talk. That’s all it is…”

“So, he made you the new Vice Leader?” Vanessa asked with a yawn, but didn’t expect an answer. “You always were jealous of my position in the guild. Looks like things worked out for you after all.”

“It should have been mine to begin with,” Lazrus spat.

“Yet the leader forced it upon me even though I didn’t want it,” Vanessa said. “That shows a lot of confidence in you.”

“You!”

“Are we finished with this?” Vanessa asked dryly. “We came to meet with the leader, not talk to you.”

“Be careful, witch!” Lazrus said. Then, after seeing that neither Derek nor Vanessa said anything else, the man scoffed and turned around. “Come on.”

Lazrus led Derek and Vanessa through a myriad of alleyways and buildings before finally approaching another door from an alley. Derek thought it was going to be just like before—he was going to open a door, then lead them through to another alley, then so on and so forth. Fortunately, this time, it wasn’t like that.

Instead, Lazrus actually led the two of them and his few underlings—who made sure to keep behind the duo—downstairs once they entered the building. From there, he led them to a miniature teleportation circle.

“Come, step into the circle,” Lazrus said as he stepped into the circle himself. Both Vanessa and Derek stepped in with him, then his underlings activated the circle from the outside. The familiar white light of a teleportation circle washed over the three of them, then they all disappeared.

Once the light disappeared, Derek found himself in a room almost identical to the previous one he was in. In fact, if not for the increased number of robed figures in the room, he’d think that he hadn’t even left it—that, and the fact that he was standing in the middle of a teleportation circle on the opposite side of the room than the last one he was in.

“Come on, I don’t have all day,” Lazrus said as he walked out of the circle, then into another—this one was located at the same place in the room as the previous had been.

“You’re the one who chose to escort us,” Vanessa said. The man was obviously angry that his appearance didn’t get the reaction he was hoping for.

Derek saw the man in front of them clench his fist, but, in the end, Lazrus didn’t say anything. Derek laughed internally. The man in front of them really was envious of Vanessa, and it seemed like he’d volunteered to escort them just to rub in the fact that he had her old position and that she wasn’t part of the guild any longer, however, none of anything that Lazrus did seemed to have any effect on the woman.

The duo and Lazrus continued doing the same thing multiple times. They would teleport through a personal teleporter to one building, then move on to the next. After the sixth time, the blinding light left Derek’s eyes, and he finally saw something different. No longer was he in a basement of a building in the slums. Instead, he was in an obsidian black room built out of stone with a single center teleportation circle in the middle.

In the low light of the room brightened only by the mana running through different runes, Derek saw ten new figures standing around. Other than those figures and the teleporter, the only thing left in the room was the door—which had five of those standing figures on either side.

“We’re here,” Vanessa whispered. Derek looked at her and saw her looking around. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her mind at the moment. Did she miss being a member of the Assassin’s Guild? How much did she regret getting caught by Edgar?

“Let’s go,” Lazrus huffed and walked out of the circle, toward the door. The ten figures in the room made no attempt at moving—apparently, they were there specifically for the teleportation circle, and that was it. The new Vice Leader of the Assassin’s Guild opened the door leading out, then walked out. The duo of Vanessa and Derek followed.

“What’s the deal with all these damn mazes?” Derek asked as he followed the man through dimly lit hallways. After around the eighth turn, he stopped trying to keep track of where he was and how to get back. After all, it didn’t matter if he could remember where the teleporter was or not, he had his own ways of leaving.

“It’s all Assassin’s Guild redundancies,” Vanessa answered. “They can’t make anything easy… ever.”

Eventually, Lazrus led them through what looked to be a train room for the younger recruits. All the recruits in there at that time were about Thomas’s age, maybe a little younger. They were paired off and sparring with one another. They were being watched over by multiple cloaked instructors—and the only thing that Derek had any problem with was the fact that the instructors let the sparring continue a little long for his liking. Instead of declaring one of the recruits a winner when the situation was made obvious, they chose to wait to step in until the loser was no longer able to make any attempts at defending themselves or fighting back.

However, Derek knew that the kids all chose to be there—or at least, they ran out of other choices. It was the same way with Bones and Ogre. They were orphans who joined the guild at a young age, then made their way up through the brutal training. By the looks on the recruits’ faces, they all knew what they were doing there. Derek wondered whether the Vice Leader took him through the training room for a reason, or if they actually had to go through it to reach wherever it was that they were going.

In the end, Derek could only shrug and continue to follow. The Assassin’s Guild training was none of his business—it wasn’t something he was there for. In his opinion, system worlds were brutal, and it wasn’t like they were slaves. Sure, they were all getting into something that they would never easily be able to leave, but it was a choice they made for themselves once they unlocked their systems.

Kids with lives like the ones in the training hall had before coming to the Assassin’s Guild tended to mature fast. The system seemed to think that thirteen was the appropriate age for the children in the world to make the most important decision in their lives, and it seemed to be well accepted by everyone. So who was he to say anything about it? In fact, he had to admit that he wasn’t exactly easy on Thomas when he trained him in the beginning. He was actually pretty hard on the kid, but in the long run, he felt that it worked out quite well.

Finally, Lazrus took Derek and Vanessa through one last corridor, then opened a pair of heavy double-doors. The doors creaked as they opened, and soon, Derek got a peek inside. However, before he could really scan the area, his attention was drawn away by a voice.

“Vanessa… welcome home!”