Chapter 89

Fractured (III)

That was fairly easy, Emilio thought, a grin appearing on his face. Damn, Classes really do make everything much easier. It was a great idea to choose an Assassin, otherwise, I'd never been able to sneak in here...

He easily ducked under the sight of a group of patrolmen, six in total, as they walked past him without even flinching. He felt like a shadow blending into the darkness, arraying as he willed, without an eye to see his movements. It was exhilarating, perhaps even more so than dancing in the spotlight; after all, blending into the shade and vanishing from people’s sights was beyond empowering, making him feel as though he could do anything.

That’s the main one, huh? He looked up at the massive frame of a mansion, clicking his tongue silently. Old bastard really played us. He shoulda realized he will get his comeuppance eventually... he waited for a moment until the guards cleared up to vault up and through a slightly askew window, easily dipping into one of the side-rooms of the mansion. Though it was completely dark, he saw everything, every tiny detail of it.

Grin widening, he quickly reached the doors and pressed his ears against their rough surface. Nobody there... good! He opened them and ducked out, blending against the wall, scuttling sideways toward the master bedroom on the second floor.

He moved silently and invisibly, as though not even there, perfectly blending in with his surroundings. He constantly had to pause, however, especially when making corners as he had to re-calibrate the path he should take to reach the side-stairs toward the upper floors. Hmm... right here and then a left... that should be it...

Just as he was about to take another step forward, he paused, frowning. Mana... w-- something erupted beneath his feet and, before he even had a chance to process what was happening, he was flung into the air and bricked against the wall with a force of a thousand fists. He felt the bones in his back break under the pressure, the cracking sounds melding with the ones of the broken stone behind him.

Blood sprayed out of his mouth immediately, eyes bulging, as pain the likes of which he never felt before burned through him in a singular motion. He couldn't even think for a moment, his entire body screaming at him in unison as he came crashing to the ground, dizzy. Through the rumble of the thunder in his ears, he could faintly hear the approaching footsteps, but couldn't do much else. Neither his body nor his mind functioned for a moment, and even scarier thought that his spine might have gotten broken took a hold.

“... oh? It was him?” a voice broke through the rumbling, a very familiar one.

“Yup,” another one replied, though Emilio was unable to recognize it. “You got a place we won’t be bothered?” he suddenly felt himself being lifted up, yet not by hands -- at least not the ones he could feel. He floated, or, rather, his body floated all on its own.

“Yeah, follow me...”

He tried peeling his eyes open, but everything still hurt too much. At the very least, however, he had managed to restore his cognitive abilities partly. I... I was found out?! How?! It was perfect! What... what threw me into the wall...?

He had a thousand questions, yet no means of voicing them. He could only wallow in silence and wait... and wait... and wait...

Not even a minute would pass before his body felt a hardened surface once again, signaling him that he’d been put down and was no longer floating. He forced his eyes open and took a look at his surroundings -- a dark room full of bookshelves. That’s all he could see -- besides the two men standing above him.

One of them he recognized immediately -- Rick Garcia, the man who’d lucked into the possession of land around the Tower and was raking in the sort of wealth that Emilio couldn’t even imagine. The old, yet still stalwart-looking man stared at him emptily, yet his stance and his demeanor clearly reflected that he was deferring to the man next to him -- someone Emilio did not recognize.

The man didn’t look particularly impressive, standing at just over six feet and appearing fairly lanky. He had drab-blonde hair and a pair of fairly luminescent green eyes and could hardly be considered handsome by most metrics. Yet, there was something peculiar about the man’s gait and the way he held himself that caused Emilio to shudder.

“... around level 20-21?” the man mumbled, stroking his chin. How?! How does he know?! There’s no way to see other people’s statues without their permission! “Fairly high. He probably has at least ‘B’ ranked Stealth in combination with Chameleon Trait. No wonder he managed to sneak in...” Who the hell is this guy?! How does he know everything about me?!

“You think he could have killed me?” Rick asked.

“I dunno,” the man shrugged his shoulders. “If he outright attacked you like an idiot, no. He could have shot you, though, or poisoned your food or something. Anyway, he’s here now, so, wanna find out who sent him?”

“Like, interrogate him?”

“Too long,” the man said, taking something from a seeming limbo -- a pear-shaped fruit and leaning over toward Emilio, stuffing it whole into the latter’s mouth. Though the taste wasn’t the greatest, Emilio couldn’t even put up a fight, letting the juices and chunks flow down his throat. Yet, to his shock, just a few moments later, he felt his body slowly healing and his throat opening up as he violently coughed. “Go call Diya--no, she’s gonna freak. Find a Bard among your trusted buddies or whatever.”

“... you gonna torture him?” Rick asked, faintly frowning.

“I told you,” the man replied hollowly. “I’m gonna make it so they piss themselves if they even dream of attacking you. Go, now.”

“R-right... I’ll go find someone.”

Rick left as Emilio’s heart dropped. He could only stare at the man and feel the shivers crawling up his spine. The look in the man’s eyes... was harrowing. Those weren’t the eyes of a person, Emilio realized. I... I should have never come here... who... who the hell is he?!

“If it’s on your mind,” the man said, pulling out a chair and casually sitting down onto it. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”

“... y-you won’t...?” Emilio spoke out in a raspy tone.

“I’m trying to keep a clean conscience, you see -- well, cleaner, anyway," the man said. "That doesn't mean, though, I won't put you through hell. While healers may be irreplaceable in the Towers, they're also quite handy at the times like these. I can go as far as I want in breaking you without fearing you might die. No modern medicine can ever truly ensure that, you know? When torturing, you always have to worry about their blood pressure, whether you've squeezed out too much of it, whether there's a chance of infection if it's long-term torture... so many things to keep a track of. It really gets tiring, you know? Well, at least the guy who used to whip my skin off on a daily complained about it.”

“...” Emilio remained silent, shivering still.

“Anyway,” the man extended his arm out and opened his palm, a kindle of flame birthed on top of it. E-Elementalist...?! “I’ll kindly ask you to give me a list of names of people who want Ricky dead.”

“T-they... they’ll kill me...” Emilio said.

“I’m sure they will,” the man said. “Men don’t ever climb that high without some skeletons in their closets. Especially now, with everything being so close to going up in flames, nobody’s gonna risk it. But, you are a talented man, Emilio. You’re a decent Assassin. You can easily escape and continue your career as a Conqueror elsewhere.”

“I...”

“... ah, I see,” the man said, sighing and standing up, walking over to Emilio and crouching in front of him. Those green eyes stared coldly at his, unmoving. “I’m being too nice.”

“I--AAAGGHGHGH!!” he couldn’t help but scream -- scream with a thousand voices. The burning palm rested on his inner thigh for but a moment, yet it appeared as though it burned through all his nerves at once, overwhelming his brain.

“True, I can’t take it too far before Ricky brings back a healer,” the man said coldly. “But... that doesn’t mean I can’t touch you. Don’t make me do this, Emilio. I don’t wanna be this guy anymore. I’m trying to change, you know? Forget about all the times I became someone’s worst nightmare. Forget about all those souls who still curse me even beyond the grave. Tell me. Just... tell me the names. If fate favors you, I might even end up killing them.”

“S-s-six... six... people...” Emilio spoke through clattering teeth, too terrified. It wasn’t even the pain as much as it was the absolutely emotionless voice. It sounded as though the man was talking about buying groceries or something else mundane, and not about killing someone. “Six... six people...”

“Six people? You see? Isn’t that a great start?” the man smiled suddenly, yet it hardly lifted Emilio’s terror. “Now, all I need is the names of those six people, and all this pain... all this pain will end. Like it was never there to begin with.

“... f-fine... I... I’ll give you... the names...”

“Smart,” the man chuckled, suddenly ruffling his hair as though he was a child. “If you didn’t try to kill Ricky, I might have even invited you to my party.” Y-your party? What... what kind of monsters... we made a mistake... a big, big, big mistake... no wonder... no wonder the old bastard was so confident... it wasn’t him or some rando guards... he had this guy... and... and an entire party of guys like this... shit... shit!