I walked to Garlan’s floor, leaving my lady in the room after picking up the master key from the corpse. It was a risky choice, but one that made me feel the thrill of uncertainty again. Further, there was [Ward] and multiple [Static Mines] at the entrance, so even an elite assassin would be electrocuted.

The grimy corridor didn’t have mana lamps shining in the stench of the night, so I lighted them up as I walked alone in the silence. My footsteps resounded in the corridor, and light poked out of the Garlan’s door. A silhouette crashed on the wall opposite his room, a knife glittering in their neck. Garlan sat before the corpse and removed his knife. A blob of water wiped the blood clean from his knife in the lambent glow, and he waved at me as soon as his knife was ready for another slashing.

“One for me,” he said, kicking the limp body with his boots. “Amateur mage. As weak as commoners, if you ask me. What about lady Letitia?”

“I erected [Ward] and dropped a few static mines,” I said, watching the blood seeping out of the woman’s neck. “You killed a woman? That’s a surprise.”

He rolled his eyes. “You expect me to bang her while she nips my manhood? I am Garlan for a reason, bastard. Survival precedes everything and ranks only next to loyalty.”

“Loyalty?” I laughed and patted his shoulder. “It’s a worthless trait, bread lad. Though, loyalty toward me is always an exception.”

“What next?” he asked, searching the man’s body for any clues. Not that he would get any because they were assassins despite being mortals.

“Let’s meet the eye-patch. He looked interested in my gloves.”

Garlan nodded, and we trudged to the ground floor that was vacant. A flickering light illuminated the smoke behind the counter, and a cigarette dangled from the receptionist’s mouth. Our presence surprised him, but his eye patch helped him veil other emotions.

“What brings you here?” he asked gruffly, putting out the fag by rubbing the reddish glow on the plate that wasn’t on the counter on our first visit.

“You need to clean the bodies on the first and the second floor,” I said, keeping my distance from the dingy counter.

He wiped the drool that had slipped out of his mouth. “What are you talking about?” His speech was hard to grasp as always, but he appeared a bit tipsy now and more slurry. I didn’t appreciate drunkard doing business. This world didn’t have any qualms about it.

Garlan held the man’s head and rammed it on the counter hard, and lifted him by the hair. “Stop your pathetic act. I abhor people who interrupt my sleep.” He stabbed the master key on the man’s already bleeding forehead. Shrieks filled the room as I erected my second [Ward] before they could wake up other inhabitants.

“Will you talk, or should we make you talk?” Garlan asked, pulling the man over the counter and tossing him to a nearby table. The furniture was a lot sturdier than it appeared, so the man might have just broken a few bones. “Why did you give them the master keys? And our room number?”

The man whined, rolled out of the table, and fell to the floor with a thud. I sighed and cast [Heal] on him after removing the pierced master key. “Did it have something to do with my gloves? We are just travelers from the capital, if you don’t know already. Misidentifying us for someone else will cost you heavily.”

He looked at me gratefully, and I stabbed the key back into his forehead. Kicking his abdomen did little good, as he started wheezing pitifully, forcing me to cast another [Heal]. Garlan kneeled before the man in annoyance and fished out his knife. “Another stab and you are blind for eternity.”

Eye-patch dropped his head and touched Garlan’s legs. “I’m just a fucking middleman! They asked me to inform them whenever gloved travelers dropped by the inn.”

“Who are they?” Garlan asked, glancing at the ale bottles behind the counter. “I can drink those, can’t I?”

“Garlan,” I sighed. “You want to get buried sooner than eye-patch?”

Garlan glanced at the bottles longingly before turning to the man, “Who are they?”

“I don’t know! I got no fucking clue,” he pulled out the metal from his forehead in tears and groveled before Garlan. “I-I just earn some money occasionally for odd jobs. Nothing complicated, except for providing information about my visitors. Those with leather gloves. And later cleaning the bodies and rooms. Usually, different people come for the mission and payment, covered in masks in the dead of night.”

“Do your clients have glove fetish?” Garlan stood up, blowing on his hands that had grown frigid. “What now, Rudolf?”

“We don’t have much time,” I cast [Heal] on the man and helped him up. “So, when are you getting paid?”

He stayed silent for a while until Garlan’s snicker forced him to open his mouth. “If their dispatched assassins do not return within an hour, the second round of assaulters will follow, much stronger than the first.”

“Damn! Shouldn’t have killed the woman, Rudolf,” Garlan kicked the man on the face and knocked him out cold. “Now we got to torture this stronger mage for more information. What do you say? You or me?”

“You handle the reception,” I ambled to the stairs and gave him a flat look. “No one asked you to knock him out.”

“This bastard sold us for some puny shins,” Garlan deadpanned and jumped over the counter with a blitheness that would have surprised the fastest animal on land. He was about to reach for an ale bottle when a strong bolt electrocuted him. “Fuck! Let me drink at least one bottle!”

“Not if you want to tag along,” I shrugged. “My lady is still sleeping, so I’ll keep an eye on her. Send the next mage to my room, and I’ll try my best not to hold back. I’m not the best person for the job, but I suppose we don’t have much of a choice.”

“Stop at nipping a few digits,” Garlan waved at me, trying his best not to touch anything. “Don’t go overboard. I’ll clear this rubble before we get our next batch of mages. Haven’t been excited in a long time.”

“I’ll see you in a while, Garlan,” I climbed the stairs, waving the back of my hand.

“Yeah!” he cheered, and I heard some thuds and creaks before the silence of the corridor of the second floor surrounded me.

My lady was fast asleep on the bed, so I took my usual seat on the wooden chair and waited patiently. I counted seconds, for I didn’t have an hourglass to help me time. An hour crossed with ease, and the second counter crossed three-fifty hundred, much to my dismay. I got up and ambled to the ground floor. It was deserted, except for the flooring, where Garlan was lying in a pool of blood, convulsing heavily.

I sighed and kneeled on my right leg before him as his pleading eyes begged me to stop bleeding. No, he wasn’t beseeching. He was pointing at the silhouette behind me in desperation, and a blunt metallic object laden with [Strengthen] smashed my forehead from the side. I was airborne, taking a few tables with my body. After breaking some bones of my waist, I lay sprawled close to the entrance, where another blade opened my abdomen in an attempt to study the anatomy of my gut.

If there was a manhole, the game would have been no different from golf. However, do they really try to slither the ball after scoring a goal?

Blood gushed out uncontrollably, spraying the grimy floors of the inn, and my gut appeared appetizing when I saw it roll out with the sword. Death was farthest from the undead, so I saw my wounds closing up just as fast, gut slithering back inside hidden beneath the veil of flowing blood. The ignorant mortal walked toward his mate, disregarding my amused gaze for a change. [Undead] spell always did the job for life-threatening injuries, but others like my mashed head decked with clotted blood needed personal attention since it wasn’t deemed lethal by the spell. Hard luck, yet something I had been accustomed to for a long time.

The glowing light of my [Heal] spell restored my disfigured face, and I got up, cracking my head in annoyance. They stared at me in surprise, but the blithe one was back on his attempt to study my gut. He slashed his sword at my neck in close proximity, and I ducked, disappearing to his left with sizzling sparks over my body. The blood draining from my crushed half head changed to a long knife. I caught it with my upturned palm and pierced his temple all the way to the other end. Blood splashed on my face and suits as the man collapsed to the ground instantly to die in a single stroke.

The second mage was horrified by the exchange, but I couldn’t afford to kill him. My second [Heal] helped Garlan up as his body glowed with soft light mending his injuries at a phenomenal pace. The assaulter had slashed his neck, and my bread lad had managed to avoid his vitals, much to my surprise. I suppose he called himself undead for more than one reason.

“I’m surprised you went down without a fight,” I said, watching the man taking cautious steps back.

“That damned receptionist never told us that these fuckers knew his face. They dragged me out of the counter as the dead meat cast [Dispel], so I was a goner before I knew it. You cannot understand the struggles of communal mages, bastard,” Garlan snarled and walked toward the mage in annoyance as the latter tried materializing a spell only to succumb to my [Dispel] followed by [Gravity] that didn’t let him lift the sword on him.

My suit was stained with blood, and I was particularly annoyed at having my head smashed by that hammer. An unconventional weapon, though, but perfect for mages with [Strengthen] because they can break brick walls of the buildings with ease. The black mask on the man’s face covered everything except for the face, and he was done on his knees, supporting his weight with the sword.

Now, why would anyone want to break walls when there was a door? I say this with much regret, but not everyone is as sane as undead.

The man couldn’t move under the intense gravity. I erected an inverted chair and leisurely took a seat, only to fall on my butt when the leg of the darned wood broke. Garlan turned around in alarm but burst out laughing as I pulled myself up with annoyance. The mana lamp attached to the ceiling flickered for a while until I materialized [Static] around me.

“He saved you, asshat,” Garlan turned to the man with a grin. “I’m in a good mood now, so you better talk before I start doing unforgettable things to you.”

I forced the man to kneel on the ground by burning more mana in my body to increase the magnitude of [Gravity] around the radiant circle. It certainly helped, and the man started groveling before us, almost voluntarily.