Cazhi smiled sickeningly at Silvy’s question. “Oh, don’t you worry dear Silvy, undeads have many advantages people don’t even realize. They see the obvious, like a body that doesn’t fail, but miss the subtle. Tell me, Silvy, have you ever seen a very old undead? They are skeletons, with no flesh attached, and yet they walk around with no problem whatsoever. What does that mean?” he asked.

Silvy thought about it for a second, but couldn’t think of anything particular. “It means I can walk around even if I’m a skeleton? How does that help?” she asked, confused.

“My dear, it helps by giving you a storage no one would ever think about, one right inside your chest.” Cazhi said, pointing at Silvy’s chest. She lowered her eyes, incredulous. He was right… she didn’t need the organs inside. If she removed them, there would a cavity where she could store stuff… How had she never thought about that?!

“Timapha here can cut and sew you up so well no one will notice anything, removing your organs without damaging your bones. We can’t use a healing potion to repair the damage, unfortunately, because it would prioritize regrowing your organs before everything else. Rhahnud is a smuggler, capable of bringing in and out of the guild any item, items that will be put in your new storage. I’ll teach you how to escape any restraints they put on you, leaving them as if they were untouched, and how to open the cell they'll lock you in. They’ll probably collar you against magic, and those are nasty to escape, but I’ll do my best to teach you how. Once the king is in front of you, you’ll attack and eliminate him, with or without magic, depending on whether you removed your collar or not. We planned everything, you just need to follow it and the king will fall. A new golden age for the Empire will arrive!” Cazhi said standing up, closing his fist and shouting, sounding, and looking, like a lunatic. Timapha and Rhahnud followed suit, escalating the madness. Silvy smiled, amused these people were nutter than her. That was unexpected but welcomed. She might even grow attached to them if they didn’t betray her. Something she could check right now.

“All right, let’s say I go with your plan. How do I know you won’t betray me, before or after the fact? Can you swear it?” she asked, pointing at the truth tablet and panning her eyes over everyone.

Cazhi smiled, putting a hand on the tablet. “As long as you don’t betray us and keep our secrets, we won’t betray you, neither before nor after the fact. I swear it on the name of the Barkorz family.” The truth tablet confirmed his statement, and everyone followed suit, making Silvy feel a little better. They still might betray her, but it didn’t seem likely. Well, now she needed the details of the plan.

“The king will surely have powerful guards protecting him. How do I handle them? And how do I escape after the fact?”

“We have thought this through, don’t worry. The king will most likely have a single guard with him, the others outside the prison ready to intervene. Don’t be relieved yet, because this guard is a retired Platinum adventurer, a [Advanced Bulwark], a warrior subclass focused on defense. You might be strong, but he’s way stronger than anyone you ever fought before. Obviously you won’t fight him in a straight fight. Here we have something ready for him.” Cazhi said, bringing out three different glass flasks. One of them had a yellow liquid inside with a few air bubbles moving around in it. The second had a white liquid, the color so transparent Silvy thought it was a gas more than a liquid. The third was red, boiling and moving around as if it was boiling, even if no heat came from it. “This,” he said, pointing at the yellow one. “is a paralyzing potion. One whiff of the content and you won't be able to move for a few seconds to a minute, depending on your level and resistances, if you have any. We have no clear information on the adventurer, but we are sure the king has no resistance to paralyzing effects. This means that while the king will be helpless for roughly a minute, we don’t know if it will take effect on the adventurer, and even if it does, expect a window of only a few seconds. Therefore, we have another potion prepared.” he touched the white potion. “This is a sleeping potion. Unfortunately, we don’t know if this works either, so think of this as a backup. The ideal would be to throw both potions at the same time at the adventurer, immobilizing him, and killing the king while he’s unable to defend him. Don’t worry about a fight against the king; he’s no trained warrior, so you’ll overwhelm him easily. As I said, though, keep in mind the effect will last only for a few seconds, so you’ll be quite strained with time. Lastly,” he touched the red boiling potion. “this is a frenzy potion. Think of it as a last resort, something to use only if everything else fails. That’s because calling this a potion is wrong, as it doesn’t take effect by breathing or ingesting it. Inside this flask there are Wraiths, monsters found in the southern swamps. They are ghostly creatures, immune to physical attacks. They phase through solid objects, including living beings, and possess them, sending the victim in a bloodlust frenzy until they die, either killed or by exhaustion, or they are purged by holy spells. Five Wraiths will rush for the closest being when released. That means you, the king, and the adventurer, Lem Redshield. And yes, you are not immune: they can also possess undeads. Use it only as a last resort, because doing so would increase the number of innocent victims, shedding a bad light on us, and we’d have to remove the Wraith from you with holy magic, something you probably want to avoid being undead and all that. Got it?”

Silvy nodded. “So, I hide the potions inside my chest, together with a wand and a sword. When I’m alone with the king, I throw the potions at the adventurer and eliminate the king right after. Alright, let’s say I manage to do it. What happens after that? And I mean both ways: how do I escape after killing the king and what happens to me after, when the Empire knows of my deed?”

Cazhi nodded. “It’s nice to see you are not clueless. You might recognize this.” he said, taking out a pitch-black mantle. “It’s an invisibility mantle, even if the name is a bit misleading. It’s easy to use, touch and flow some mana into it and it’ll wrap around your body, making you much harder to see, just like the governor’s shadows. After the king is dead, put this on and escape from the castle. We’ll also give you a few smoke bombs to facilitate the escape. We’ll tell you the meeting point at a later date. Once you have escaped and reached the meeting point, we’ll handle things. Our leader will take control of the city through his birthright, supported by some nobles, and it won’t be hard to help you out of the problems that arise. Once everything is settled, we’ll forge you a new identity. You may decide to join and work for us, or walk away: your choice.”

Thinking about working for humans, Silvy felt repulsed. It just felt wrong thinking about receiving and carrying out orders for them. She could work with them, just like she’d do with the revolutionaries, but no for them. On the other hand, a new identity didn’t sound too bad, leaving her name behind not being a problem. It was just a name, nothing more.

“Alright, I’ll take the new identity and walk away. Can I choose some details or I’m stuck with what you have?” she asked.

“We can probably handle your requests, as long as they are not outrageous. Even a small noble title is possible if you wish.” Cazhi answered.

Silvy shrugged. “If you offer it, I’m taking it. But I was thinking about an adventurer rank. I don’t want to repeat the test for Silver rank.”

Cazhi laughed, Timapha chuckling and Rhahnud shaking his head at her naivety. “That’s easy, don’t worry. Silver rank adventurer, lost daughter of a noble family thought disappeared. We won’t be able to assign you a fief, unfortunately, but I doubt you’d want one. Of course, the reward for the job will be substantial. What about your new name?”

A new name… that was easy. “Erika. Can I keep Wurlrud as a surname? I never knew it, so I doubt anyone will link it to me.”

“Sorry, that’s not possible, as we have a list of noble families to choose from. You’ll have to move out of the city, probably the continent, after this. People here know about you, so you can’t stay. On another continent, you’ll just be one of many kids who share some similarities with a rumor. Do we have a deal?” Cazhi asked, extending his hand.

Silvy nodded, shaking his hand. Killing a king… Would there be a special Skill for the feat? What if she killed the platinum rank adventurer? A single hit on Zatha, so long ago, had given her six levels, meaning the system had considered that feat almost impossible to accomplish, given the disparity in power and equipment. Silvy could fight on par with her now, and Zatha was probably around Eiram’s strength, a gold rank. A platinum rank would be even stronger. How many levels would she gain? Although the disparity was probably not as much as it was between her old self and Zatha…

Shaking her head, she asked a question she had had in the back of her mind all this time. “Can you tell me about my father now?”

Cazhi answered. “Sure, but unfortunately, there isn’t much to tell. His name was Roland Wurlrud, from Sella, an elven city in the forest. No human knows where it is and keep in mind, that name might be false. He met your mother after completing a quest to exterminate a nest of Giant Fire Ants near her village, and I’m sorry to say, the relationship between the two was most likely just a single night. And, I’m even more sorry to say this, he died a few months after the act, more or less right after you were born, killed by Pterodactyls in the northern mountains, while on a quest given by a nearby village raided by them. This is the extent of the information gathered by the guild master, as it happened more than a decade ago. His team was four members strong, composed solely by elves, and only one came back alive from that quest, retiring right after and going back inside the forest, never to be seen again. The name of the surviving elf was Rarken Boltru, but, as I said with your father, it might be a false name.”

“I see. Thank you for the information.” she said, her eyes looking down. A single night… Did they love each other? Or was it an accident, something neither of them expected? Her father probably never knew about her…

Pondering about this would bring her nowhere, so she shook her head and asked something else. “I wish to buy some ingredients, alchemical ones. Can you buy and bring them to me without being traced?”

Rhahnud laughed loudly, his hand smacking his belly. “Ahahah! Dear Silvy, you are asking if a bird can fly, if a human can walk! Of course I can! Smuggling items is my specialty, and no one has ever found out, not even the [Archmages]. Just tell me the name of the herbs, and I’ll have them ready in three days. Unless there is something rare, then it might take a while more. Don’t worry, no one will ever know you bought them unless you tell them.” he said, winking with a toothy smile.

Silvy unconsciously smiled back, Rhahnud disposition contagious. She listed ten different herbs in enough quantities to create twenty batches of a laxative, adding eight more for the soporific one. She wouldn’t craft so much of it, but she’d have to train in its creation first, some batches surely failing.

Rhahnud carefully wrote the list, his jovial face and smile disappearing and changing into a business one. Timapha, watching the list from over his shoulder, spoke up at the end. “Are you trying to poison a whole town Silvy? There’s enough for at least a hundred people!”

Rhahnud waved her away. “Nonsense. Here, the first ten ones are for a laxative. Unless you change these two around, then it’s a hallucinogen with a weak laxative side effect. But the last ones are for a sleeping potion. Unless you rearrange them like this, then that’s a poison.” Rhahnud said, pointing at the various items, Timapha nodding alongside.

Silvy closed her eyes. Of course they knew what those herbs would create. Whatever she thought, opening her eyes again. “It’s not that I don't trust you, but I want some backup. What if the plan fails? Poisoning the guards might be a good way to escape.”

“If you can reach their food.” Rhahnud said.

“The plan won’t fail.” Cazhi said. “Moreover, I doubt those potions would work against the castle’s guards, as they have resistances and are trained to recognize and disable most poisons, including these simple ones you are making. Not ours, mind you. They are extremely powerful and expensive, and you just need to breathe them in, not ingest them. But if those potions make you feel better, we’ll help you, for free.”

Yeah, that made sense. Many people had certainly tried to poison the guards in the past, so it’s obvious the royal family would take precautions. And if they did, then the archmages did the same. Her plan wouldn’t work, meaning she had to go with the revolutionaries’ one.

“Alright, but I want those ingredients, anyway. We’ll see each other in three days? Here, or should I talk with the receptionist again?”

“Here.” Cazhi answered, tapping his finger on the table. “Three days from now, come here in the middle of the night and Rhahnud will give you the herbs. Timapha will remove your organs so you can check if there’s anything wrong. After that, come here every afternoon and I’ll teach you how to open locks and escape restraints. I hope our collaboration will be fruitful.” he said, standing up and shaking Silvy’s hand again, the others following his example.

“Let’s do it Silvy!” Timapha said.

“It will be an honor.” Rhahnud said.

“Lindrl will notice my absence, though. How will we handle that?” Silvy asked.

“Don’t worry. Rhahnud is a professor here, and he’ll officially teach you the creation of magic items. That way there won’t be a problem, as [Archmage] Mizhal is not teaching you the same things.” Cazhi answered.

Three days passed in a flash, Silvy training every day, getting better at magic, alchemy and changing her undead core further, attuning it to magic more and more.

Deep into the night, Silvy got out of Lindrl’s house without problems, reaching the building she had met the revolutionaries, knocking on the door leading to the laboratory. A wary Rhahnud opened the door, inviting Silvy inside with a smile.

The table at the center of the room, which had felt out of the place last time, was nowhere to be seen, only two chairs remaining near the metal desks. One of these metal desks was without equipment, covered with a blanket. Timapha was also there but Cazhi wasn’t, even when she checked with [Sphere of Sensation].

“Come on in.” Rhahnud said with a smile, Timapha jumping down the metal desk with a blanket and waving at Silvy, greeting her.

“Hello. Do you have what I need?” Silvy asked to Rhahnud, straight to the point.

“Yes, I do. Here.” he said, handing her a bag of holding as big as hers full of the herbs Silvy had requested. She quickly moved the content to her bag, giving back the other one to Rhahnud.

“Thanks.” she said.

“It was no problem at all! Happy to be of service for such an incredible child.” Rhahnud said with a toothy smile. Did he ever stop smiling?

“I’m going to cut you up real good, Silvy! Are you ready?” Timapha happily asked.

“Yes.” Silvy answered, emotionless.

“Alright, off with your clothes! I’d say leave your pants on, but some blood might stain them, so it’s best if you get naked.” Timapha said.

“Excuse me then, I’m going outside. Let me know when you’re done. I’ll just be out front.” Rhahnud said, going outside.

Silvy complied, removing her clothes. She felt a bit embarrassed, and that’s when she realized it. Her emotions were not being suppressed by the core but were remaining there. But just a small push and… gone, suppressed. Was this… relief? Fear? The power to be emotionless was now in her hand, and she didn’t know if she should use it or not. Well, at least for now, it was better not being embarrassed, so she suppressed it easily.

“You know, I’ve never cut a willing person before. This will be a new experience for both of us! Aren’t you excited?” Timapha asked, her eyes shining with a dangerous light, a long sharp dagger now in her hands.

“Excited? Not really. What’s your job, anyway?” Silvy asked.

“Weeeell, let’s say some people know things, things they don’t want to reveal, and I’m the one making them speak!” Timapha deviously laughed, her eyes showing a bit of madness.

“A torturer?” Silvy asked, her head tilted. She didn’t feel much being in the same room with a torturer, but she attributed it to her pain missing. After all, why being afraid of someone whose job is to use pain against you, if you can’t feel it?

“It’s not like I enjoyed it! They are threatening me!” she said with a false restlessness and fear. “Ahaha, I’m joking!” she stuck her tongue out. “Maybe I enjoy it, just a tiny tiny bit.” she pinched her fingers, but seeing Silvy expressionless she gave up. “Okay a lot, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?! Love your job, and you won’t work a single day in your life! Ever heard of that?” Timapha asked, dangerously gesticulating with the dagger.

Silvy had never heard of that saying. She felt it made sense, as if you enjoyed something, then you weren't working anymore. But wasn’t work the definition of something done during a job? It didn’t make much sense… Whatever, she would not dissect a saying just for the heck of it.

“It’s best if we start, don’t you think? Lie down on that desk, please.” Timapha said pointing at the one with a blanket.

Silvy did so, Timapha studying her body. “Such a beautiful body.” she said, tracing her finger over Silvy’s torso. “Look at your skin! It’s like porcelain! I’m so jealous. Undeads don’t have such skin, how do you?”

Silvy shrugged, unsure of the answer. “I don’t know, but it’s something to do with my transformation for sure, I wasn’t like this before. For example, I had a scar right there, and now it’s gone.” she said, pointing at her right foot.

“Damn, now I want to be like you. I use various creams to keep it beautiful, but my skin is nowhere soft like yours. And so pale. When you grow up, men will fall at your feet for sure!” Timapha said, winking at Silvy. “Now, time to start.”

“Don’t remove my heart and lungs, please, I need them. You can remove everything else.”

“Aye aye, captain!” she said, mocking her with a salute. “Don’t mooove~.” she started from Silvy’s right sight, carving her flesh from shoulder to waist without scratching her ribs. She then moved the dagger horizontally just above her legs, then up her shoulder, completing a rectangle.

Blood poured out but stopped after a few seconds, Timapha cleaning it with a towel.

Taking a pair of tweezers, she reached below the skin and gave a bit of a pull, dagger gently cutting away without mistakes. Blood kept pouring out, but Timapha stopped each time, toweling it away and continuing the incision in silence and concentrated, her previous playfulness disappeared completely.

She removed the rectangular piece of skin from her torso, Silvy looking down, curious. Red flesh was now visible, moving whenever she moved a muscle.

“Now I will cut away these pieces.” she said, pointing at her lower torso. “Don’t worry, I’ll sew you up real good, so good you won’t even notice!”

Dagger in hand, she cut the muscles away, remove a big piece after a few minutes of labor. Blood dripping down, she quickly put it to the side in a container, focusing again on Silvy.

“Do you know what those are? They are muscles. They move your body around, but undeads don’t need them! Those monsters can still move around as skeletons, but we don’t know how. Below these muscles are the organs I will remove. This one is the stomach. This is the liver, and this is the spleen. This long stuff, similar to a snake, is called intestine, and it’s where food goes through before you poop it out! It’s very interesting, isn’t it?!” Timapha asked, blood on the dagger and hands, a mad look in her eyes. A normal person would have felt terrified at such a display, especially at such a deep understanding of the human body.

Of course, many people had an interest in studying it, but many stopped because Adriar, the human God, perceived the action as heresy. This same stance was taken by every god, so the people who, even after being told not to by a god, studied the body of sapients were rare, and most of them kept quiet about their knowledge.

Silvy wasn’t fearful of her, as she was quite sure she could win a fight, even in this state and unarmed. After all, the only way to kill her was to remove the core from her head, but the long dagger wouldn’t be able to cut through her arms that she would use to cover her only weakness. But, she was quite curious about her knowledge, so she asked about it.

“Where did you learn all this?”

Timapha smiled. “Well, I made experiments! You know, torturing people is an art. After all, the line between enough pain to make even the toughest guys speak and too much and killing him is quite thin, and I can’t exactly go around resurrecting people, you know? I’m not a priest! That’s why I had to understand how a person worked: for example, does a person die if you remove their intestine? What about their stomach? Liver? What’s the limit?” Timapha smiled more, transforming the innocent smile into a mad one. “You have no idea how people are willing to talk after you cut away a few pieces! They just cry and cry, begging you to stop, to kill them, to save them from the agony. But you don’t stop until they speak, because if you pay attention to the blood flow, you can cut away a lot of stuff. For example, you can remove one lung and they’ll keep breathing! You can remove a kidney, the spleen, and so much more! You can even cut away their arms and legs, one tiny piece at a time, if you’ve got some potions to keep them stable!”

Silvy was quite impressed the human body could receive so much punishment before death. After all, people died quickly in a fight. Maybe it had to do with blood loss. “And you tested all of this?”

“Oh yes.” Timapha answered. “But enough chit-chatting, I’ve got a job to do. Stay still!” her dagger disappeared into Silvy’s cavity, cutting away her stomach and removing the intestines in a matter of minutes. “All right, this is probably enough. I’ll sew a bag of holding to your insides, so you can retrieve items from it.”

“Wait,” Silvy said. “will items appear outside my body? Or inside?”

“Oh don’t worry, we’ve already tested this. As long as it’s close to your skin, they’ll appear outside, close to your stomach.” Timapha said while sewing a bag of holding to Silvy’s muscles she had previously removed.

Silvy lied down again, waiting for Timapha to finish. She sewed quickly, finishing the job five minutes later, the bag securely attached to the muscles in different spots. “All done!” she said smiling. “Now, time to close you up.”

She placed one muscle at a time into its right place, sewing it to the closest one before passing to the next one. The threads were barely visible, her work quick and clean. Even with her knowledge, it took a good part of an hour to close Silvy up again, reattaching the removed skin. Studying the work done, Silvy noticed how she couldn’t see any thread keeping everything together, too thin and colorless to be seen. She’d probably pass most checks.

“Try to move around. Everything should stay in place, but check just to be sure.”

Silvy complied, running and jumping around, stopping and suddenly changing direction, feeling nothing out of the ordinary. Silvy nodded, happy with the result. “Feels normal. Should I try taking out items from the bag?” she asked.

Timapha nodded. “They’ll appear near your stomach, and putting them close to it will store them inside the bag. Inside there are a few things already:” she counted on her fingers. “the three potions we showed you, a high-quality sword, a high-quality wand, fifteen smoke bombs, a mask and cloak to cover your face, the invisibility mantle, lockpicks, false locks, five healing potions, and five mana potions.” she stopped for a moment, thoughtful. “Yes, that should be all.”

Silvy tested the bag, willing the sword outside, her hand close to the stomach, the sword appearing just like Timapha had said, willing it back inside with no trouble. This trick was neat.

“How is it? Everything all right?” Timapha asked.

“Yes, everything works fine. Are we done?” Silvy asked.

“Yes. I doubt we’ll see each other again soon. Come here!” Timapha said, quickly hugging Silvy. She let that happen, awkwardly hugging her back. “Well, it’s time to say goodbye. Have fun!” she said, walking away and waving at her. Silvy quickly clothed herself again, looking over at her organs. She should probably take them away.

Rhahnud returned a few minutes later, the organs taken by Silvy together with the bloody blanket and towels. “There was no need to clean; I’d have done it myself. Well, thank you anyway. We’ll see each other tomorrow if there’s nothing else.” Rhahnud said.

Silvy shook her head. “No, that’s all. I’ll come again tomorrow. Goodbye Rhahnud.”

She walked out of the building, reaching Lindrl’s one. There was probably a couple of hours until dawn, so she didn’t have enough time to train in alchemy by herself. Entering her room, she trained with the elemental core, copying the rune over and over in the smaller cores.

A day later, the morning after the lesson, Lindrl asked Silvy. “So, you found a new teacher? Am I not enough?” she said with fake sadness.

Silvy rolled her eyes, unimpressed. “It’s a different subject. He will teach me how to create magic items, not potions or magic. You are always busy in the afternoon, anyway.”

“Indeed, I can’t teach you the whole day. Well, have fun with Rhahnud. He’s a good teacher. You should be fine with him.”

She already knew who it was, of course. She waved off Lindrl, reaching the meeting point a few minutes later. Cazhi was already inside, Rhahnud working at a desk on a magic item.

“Good, you’re here. We’ll start with a few simple locks and go up from there. Do you know what’s the principle behind them?...”

The afternoon passed with Cazhi explaining how to open simple non-magical locks with lockpicks, moving around the internal parts. Silvy already had some experience, so she blasted through the initial ones, but her progress quickly grounded to a halt after the first three locks. Cazhi patiently explained how to unlock it, Silvy following its instructions and failing many times before opening it. And then another lock took its place. And another.

Silvy went back to Lindrl after having opened six locks, each one harder than the previous. Cazhi did not leave the lock with Silvy when she asked it, saying she has to try only with him present to correct her mistakes.

All in all, these people didn’t seem too bad, helping her as long as she could kill the king. Killing the king… would it start a civil war? Most likely. Many people would die as a consequence of her actions. A small part of her was sad, but she easily ignored it. After all, people died every day, from illnesses, monsters, humans…Why would a few more death matter? And now, there’d also be a war between elves and humans, with her killing the king in the middle of it. She shrugged, making her way back to her room and her training. Why was this nagging her so much?