Verana of course stayed and accompanied me in the library, but what I expected was going to be a relaxing time of her reading the books to me, instead turned out to be a full-blown class of her teaching me how to read and write in Elvish. And even though I had a relatively high Intelligence Stat, that didn’t make things much easier. Because like learning any language, Elvish required a whole lot of conversing and making mistakes, not to mention racking my brain trying to remember every single word and phrase of their specific meanings.

I was disappointed when we first started, being unable to know what was written in the books right away, but I knew finally learning Elvish would be better for me in the long run; as we then spent the entire evening learning Elvish. But after noticing Aelthar and Amariina enter the library from the lower floor stairs, Verana remembered she hadn’t cooked dinner yet, and so we decided to stop for the night. And as I joined the others as we headed upstairs, I was actually happy and impressed by how well I picked-up on Elvish—be it from naturally being able to speak it already, or that having a higher Intelligence actually did more than I thought it did. I was even able to learn the meanings of all the members’ names: Verana’s meant Maker of Peace, Aelthar’s Family Protector, Shutyrr’s Poisonous Seed, and Amariina’s Hidden Beauty.

Dirty and sweaty from cleaning and fixing up the Training Chamber all this time, Aelthar and Amariina stopped by the baths to clean themselves up before dinner. Meanwhile, Shurtyrr headed to his room to add some finishing touches to the three letters he claimed to have already perfectly written per my request. And wanting to thank Verana for kindly teaching me Elvish, I volunteered to help her cook dinner for everyone—her face immediately brightened in delight from hearing my offer. Then needing to grab ingredients for dinner, we headed up to the last door on the first floor, and went up one last flight of stairs before arriving on the very roof of the House. What was there was a beautiful, diverse, and thriving garden; growing multiple fruits and vegetables in several plots all around this central area, colourful bushes of fruits and nuts planted near the edges of the roof, and some small fruit and nut trees growing in the space in between the two sections. Verana handed me a basket and gave me permission to pick whatever I liked, so I collected some extra fruits in my Inventory and carried the rest in the basket.

Returning to the kitchen, I washed everything we picked from the garden, while Verana seasoned and prepared some stored meats from the storage fridge. Coming up with some basic dishes of my own, I sliced up some familiar fruits and mixed them into a large bowl to make a fruit salad with a touch of honey and freshly squeezed orange juice. I also borrowed some meat to cook an improvised meat and vegetable stir fry—pleasantly surprising Verana with the dish. And with Verana beginning to cook as well, the delicious smell of food filled the air, causing the others to run up the stairs and set up the plates as they eagerly waited for dinner to be ready. Verana and I then carried out dishes to the dining room, and we all had a delicious meal together.

“Oof, I am absolutely stuffed.” Aelthar said, happily patting his full belly.

“And may I just say, what a delicious meal you prepared for us, my Lord!” Shurtyrr happily complimented.

“It really was quite delicious, Lord Eyes.” Verana agreed, nodding her head in approval.

“Yeah, did you come up with that stir fry thing by yourself?” Amariina questioned excitedly.

“Hah, no way I could’ve come up with that.” I refuted. “Stir fry just happens to be a fairly common dish where I come from.” Though after seeing their curious looks, I quickly changed the topic, saying “Actually, while we’re all here, I think there’s something I should tell you guys.”

“Seems you are serious.” Verana noted, with all of them deciding to listen intently on what I had to say.

“Okay, but don’t go and freak out and start being overly protective of me, got it?” They nodded in agreement. “So here’s the situation; I’ve been informed by Drune there are at least two assassins—maybe more—hired to kill me. They’re supposedly hired from the Underground Guild, and they’ve probably already been here in Ven’Thyl for a few weeks now, searching for someone who looks exactly like me.” Their faces showed they wanted to interrupt, but they let me continue. “I’ve avoided them all this time ‘cause I’ve only really spent time training inside the House with Odelia, but with her in her current state, I can’t keep staying inside if I want to get strong enough to save her. And that’s where I was hoping you guys would come in.” Gesturing that they could talk now.

Verana spoke first, saying “Thank you for finally informing us yourself, Lord Eyes, but you should know we are very well aware of the numerous threats against your life. Though it does make us immensely happy you have finally begun to trust us enough to be depended on to deal with your troubles for you.”

“Wait, you guys already knew?!” I exclaimed in surprise, and they all answered noddingly. “When? How?”

“Since the first day you arrived—although at the time we were not even aware of any hired assassins yet.” Verana then explained, “After you went upstairs and rested for night on that first day, Odelia brought up the idea of taking immediate precautions to ensure your safety and protection, and so we proceeded to spend most of that first night devising some plans and preparations to ensure your safety.”

A few weeks ago…

“We have no idea if there will be any assassins, or if even any other threats are coming for our future King's life, but I for one will not stand by and allow there to be any chance of losing him!” Odelia avidly voiced to the others in the dining room.

“I believe we all feel the same, Odelia.” Verana concluded, gesturing to the others also agreeing with Odelia’s concerns. “Now the question is, what do we plan to do to ensure our future King’s safety?”

“Well, 90% of all visitors that arrive in Ven’Thyl first come from the TCs, so I could monitor everyone who arrives there if I ask to be reassigned to upkeeping the Arrivals Circles. Then I could simply relay the information of any suspicious individuals to everyone else with my Sending spell.” Amariina suggested.

“That could be very helpful. Good idea, Ama.” Aelthar praised, adding “With that I can inform Captain Sae of the suspicious individuals arriving at her entrance checkpoints, assign some trusted guards to tail them if they happen to make it inside the city, and then immediately arrest them if they try to do anything illegal.”

“I guess if you got up top, then I’ll deal with the underbelly.” Shurtyrr shrugged, telling Aelthar “I’ll make sure nothing happens in the markets and the Deep Roots without my knowledge or approval, and inform you and the House of the circulating rumours accordingly.” Shurtyrr and Aelthar nodded to each other in understanding.

Odelia spoke next, stating “As I am his teacher, I will be spending the most time with him, which makes me officially his personal bodyguard—”

“Hey, you can’t just declare something like that!” Aelthar interjected, arguing “The King has to be one to make it official!”

“Oh calm down, Ael, O’de’s obviously just messing with you.” Amariina said, pointing out Odelia's smug and grinning face.

“Well I think the stronger one should be the King's official bodyguard, but I wonder who that could be?” Shurtyrr wondered openly, purposely trying to entice them both to fight.

“Hah! Please, O’de wouldn’t stand a chance.” Aelthar grinned back, hoping to pick a fight.

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Odelia ignored him and continued, “Back to what I was saying; although I may be with the King the most, I believe there should be a new House rule—one where at least one of us must accompany the King at all times.”

The others immediately accepted and agreed with the rule, but Verana suddenly spoke up, saying “I see we are all in agreement, but do allow me propose one more thing to you all.” and they all intently listened. “The King’s survival and eventual ascension to the throne is the key to the Elven Kingdom’s—No, the key to the Elven People’s prosperous and unbound future! And as he, a Descendant of Ven’Thyl and the only apparent Heir to the Elves has finally made himself known, we cannot allow anything to force him to disappear from us again! It is our House’s ancient sworn duty to ensure the protection and preservation of our future King and his Royal Bloodline at all cost, even if we must each sacrifice our own lives and the entirety of House Ven’Thyl to do so!” Verana then announced, “For our future King, and the prosperous future he will surely bring upon the Elven Kingdom and its people!” and they all rose from their chairs and solemnly swore in a cheerful agreement.

I groaned after they informed me of their discussion that first night, “Ugh… I thought I told you guys I didn’t want to be King? And who says you guys are allowed to sacrifice yourselves and die without my permission, huh?”

“But, Lord—”

“No, buts!” Adamantly rejecting any of their reasonings, and telling them “From now on none of you are allowed to die with my permission, got that? And if any of you so even try to sacrifice your own lives for mine again, then I’m packing my things and disappearing from this place for good, understand me?” And all they could do was obediently nod, not wanting to test my threat of leaving. I took a breath and relaxed, asking “If you guys have been dealing with the assassins all this time, does that mean I’m safe to roam around the city now?”

“We have captured, detained, and interrogated 52 known assassins and mercenaries hired to kill you in the last few weeks, but I would not say you are necessarily safe, my Lord.” Aelthar answered, relaying the information to me.

“52 assassins?!” I exclaimed, shocked by the sheer number.

“Yes, and there are still plenty of highly-skilled assassins and mercenaries that could be potentially hired to assassinate you in the future if the previous ones failed—including many rumours of cloaked individuals asking for any information that could lead right to you.” Shurtyrr added.

“I wouldn’t count out the Nobles and the High-Houses posing as a threat to you either, my Lord.” Amariina chimed in.

“Do not count out the Nobles indeed…” Verana reiterated.

The others then carried on by stating how they were going to continue to protect me regardless of my wishes, but all I could think was “Jeez, with 52 people being sent to kill me, you’d think I’m someone important or something…” then quickly realizing, “Oh wait, I kind of am!” Laughing to myself in amusement as the conversation and the night soon concluded.

***

Along the Tops near a neighboring Sky Tree across from House Ven’Thyl, an invisible Ignus grumbled in frustration, saying “Lefan, I’m dying here. I’ve been so utterly bored and uninterested in this job for days now!”

“And what do you want me to do about that? Kyra already told us to keep watch of the place every night, so if you have a problem with it, go and tell her yourself.” Lefan replied, continuing to carefully observe the House’s activities from afar—while also being invisible.

“But it’s already been weeks since we first located the target from figuring out who that Odelia woman was, so do you really think spending any more weeks doing the same thing is gonna make any difference?”

“Maybe… No...” Lefan hesitantly answered.

“Exactly! Plus you heard who these people are, they’re absolute monsters!” Ignus stated expressively. “They have an undefeated Guard Captain actively hunting down every assassin in the city, a Black Market Leader who killed the previous Leader and took complete control of the city's underground when he was only 12 years old, a Head of the House who has the Great Hero Sya's Legendary Healer Class, and then there's that Odelia woman who’s known to have trained half the Trinity Archers in the entire city—not to mention she was even crazy enough to stay inside a Millennium Dungeon on the night of a Blood Moon, while we were overwhelmed and forced out when the moon changed!” adding, “I mean I can only imagine us being able to kill the girl from the TCs, but I’ve even heard stories that she’s never run out of mana before, and that she’s likely hiding her true magic potential and power from people.”

“You’re overcomplicating the Request, Ignus. None of them matter. We only have one target, and one target only.” Lefan corrected him.

“Sure, but those monsters never leave the target alone! And the one time they do leave him alone, he accidentally gets blown away to the Roots by himself, and somehow meets those two other monsters who partied with him for the rest of night!” Ignus explained.

“Those two showing up was unfortunate, but another opportunity will come again…” Lefan told himself.

“Hah, you keep thinking that, Lefan!” Ignus scoffed, putting an unlit cigar in his mouth. “Now where’s Kyra, she said she would meet up tonight to tell us something important?”

“I’m right here.” Kyra whispered, nonchalantly approaching the railing the two were invisible near—acting as if she came to admire the view. “And didn’t I tell you two to not speak? You're invisible, not silenced. You do know we’re surrounded by elves, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ignus whispered back dismissively. “So what did you want to tell us?”

Casually looking around, Kyra quietly relayed “The Requester left a message for us at the Guild.”

“About?” Lefan inquired.

“Do you want the good news, or the bad news first?” Kyra asked them both.

“Is that even a question? Of course the good news first.” Ignus replied.

“Well in light of all the reports of other assassins and mercenaries being sent and captured here in the city, the Reuester has determined the rumours of a living Elven Heir to be true, and has increased the Request’s reward to triple the amount of the original.”

“Triple!?" Ignus exclaimed, with Lefan and Kyra immediately trying to shut him up. Then after a quick beating, he whispered "I thought 1 million was already a crazy amount, but what kind of person can just offer 3 million Gold like it's nothing?”

"The kind who even has connections to promote us to Orichalcum-Ranks if we succeed." Kyra mentioned, knowingly intriguing and enticing her partners.

“If that’s the good news, what’s the bad news?” Lefan questioned.

“The bad news is they also hired two Orichalcum-Ranked mercenaries from the Grayson Family to complete the Request before us—the Sword and Spear Brothers.” Kyra revealed.

“Haha, Sword and Spear Brothers? The Requester isn’t even trying to be subtle anymore.” Ignus chuckled. “The least they could’ve done was hire assassins from the Nightingales, and not from those military brutes of the Graysons—I mean that’s as good as hiring a Silverfoot to do an assassination.”

“Says the Copperbeard.” Lefan remarked, causing Ignus to grumble in irritation at the mention of the name.

“Well ultimately it doesn’t matter who gets hired, from our Requester or any other like them, ‘cause at the end of the day, we’re the ones who’re gonna kill the target and receive the reward.” Kyra confidently stated, grinning widely alongside her partners, and continuing their careful watch of House Ven’Thyl.