Kind of bad that after I say that I will try and upload daily I don't upload for two days but whatever, here's a chapter.

Chapter 39: Joining Daethia

Alex kept walking towards the city. Even though he had killed someone not even a day ago he held a large smile on his face. The truth was that Alex really didn’t feel anything when he killed. There was simply nothing which made him regret his actions. Alex realised that death was a part of reality, and that he could not always live in a reality where death is considered a bad thing. It was simply a process of life, and after he heard of the death of his family he fully realised this. The reason Alex wanted to join Daethia was not because he could kill, but instead simply in order to get stronger. While Daethia was an assassin organisation it still had some of the most powerful people on the continent working there, and if he could get anything from those people, be it advice, skills, or something else, it would significantly help him develop and become stronger.

When Alex got closer to the city he heard from other people that the city was called Gourn and was in the far east of West Hrior. Alex had heard of Gourn before, and he knew that it was one of the larger cities in West Hrior, and that it was primarily known for trade and fortification, as it bordered the country of Mistrai.

Gourn was not a beautiful city, but it was an honest one. The governor of Gourn has been said to be a genuinely nice man and the city has very little corruption, causing the people living there to be happy. When Alex looked at the city he recognised that it was not pretty, but it had a homely feel to it. People were always smiling and welcoming to any visitors. This caused Alex to doubt that there actually would be a place for Daethia here, as there would be no one using their services. However this did not make Alex give up as he continued to search for a Daethia hideout of headquarters in the city.

After several hours it had already turned night and Alex had made no progress. His motivation had reached close to zero. He sat slumped against a building trying to think of something he could do, before an angelic looking woman appeared in front of him. She seemed to be around 30 years old and her skin was virtually flawless. Her eyes were green and full of light and when she looked at Alex he felt his heart start to beat rapidly.

“Are you lost and have nowhere to stay, little boy?” she said

Alex calmed himself down. He had never been faced with such beauty, but he has had bad experiences whenever he blindly accepted people’s hospitality. Looking at her Alex decided that he would not go with her, but instead he would try to get some information from her.

“I want to join Daethia. Do you know where I need to go?” Alex asked

It was a good question, because no matter what the woman answered he would not suffer. Either she would walk away in fear or she would lead him in the right direction. However what the woman actually did truly shocked Alex. She took out a knife and stabbed him. Alex saw his world turn black as he felt blood rushing out of his chest.

‘Where am I?” Alex asked himself. He opened his eyes and looked around. What he saw was a small room. There was a large window which revealed the city and the morning sun. He saw that he was lying in a bed. When he tried to get up he felt a large pain in his chest, when he looked down he saw that there was a bandage where the woman had stabbed him. As difficult as it was to move Alex still managed to get himself up, however, when he tried to get out of bed he fell directly on his injury. The pain was immense and Alex could not hold in a loud scream of agony.

After he screamed Alex heard a high pitched voice from next door saying “Oh! It seems he is awake!”

After this was said a small and incredibly cute girl skipped into the room. She looked to be around the same age as Alex. She had golden blonde hair that just barely touched her shoulders and light blue eyes. There was a large smile on her face; however, one of her teeth was missing so it looked rather funny and goofy. If Alex weren’t in so much pain he would probably have fallen in love with her.

The girl easily picked up Alex and put him on the bed. That was also the moment when the woman that stabbed him walked in. Alex could barely get out the words so he basically wheezed “Y-You stabbed me!”

The woman smiled at him and said “Well I didn’t know how serious you were about joining Daethia so I made you fall asleep for a while so I could bring you to headquarters without you knowing the way.”

“Wait… This is the Daethia headquarters?” Alex asked. He had expected there would be, well, a little more. Although he had only seen this room he knew that this was not exactly a large area with a lot of people.

“Well, yeah. Of the 500 different headquarters this is ranked the lowest, but it is quite cosy with just the two of us here.” The little girl said

“Wait it is only you two!?” Alex screamed in surprise.

“Yes it is. Of course it was larger before, but with the new governor our old base got destroyed along with many of our members killed. Now let me ask you, are you serious about joining Daethia?” The woman spoke

Alex looked around and really didn’t know what to do. However, what would happen if he said no? The woman could kill him or stab him again. He decided that his answer would be a yes. However when he nodded the woman grabbed some poison opened his wound up again and poured it in there. Causing Alex to faint again.

However, when Alex woke up this time he felt no pain, instead he saw that his wound had completely healed. He also saw that the location he was in had changed and he was in a forest. When he stood up he saw both the woman and the little girl smiling at him.

“Finally awake?” the woman asked

“Look,” Alex began with an annoyed look on his face “why didn’t you just bring me here in the first place without causing a major wound. Why was it even necessary to go to the other place.”

“That was just to give you an idea of the size and if you said you didn’t want to join then we could have disposed of you easier.” The little girl said while smiling brightly. Something about the little girls look sent a shiver down Alex’s spine.

“So why are we here then?” Alex asked

“Consider this your entrance exam. If you at least show us that you have potential to be trained into an assassin then we’ll let you in.” the woman’s eyes turned cold “but if you do not meet our standards then we will have to throw you back on the street.”

Alex nodded in understanding. “Ok, what do I have to do?”

“Fight her.” The woman pointed at the little girl “I’ll watch and determine if you are strong enough. A little hint would be, don’t fight fairly. This is the real world, you will die if you do not realise that.”

Alex looked at the little girl and while he tried to imagine her as strong he just couldn’t do it. She had such a cute and bright smile. She didn’t seem like she could even hurt a fly.

“BEGIN!” The woman said

Before Alex could even react the girl jumped towards Alex and nearly sliced him with a hidden blade. ‘She’s actually trying to kill me!’ he thought. However, this did not discourage him as he immediately shot fire towards her. Even though the fire missed it was still enough to convince the woman to add Alex to their little group. To have control over fire magic at such a young age is incredible, so even if Alex could barely fight he would still have the potential to become an incredible assassin.

After Alex missed with his fire attack the little girl literally flew towards Alex with incredible speed, nearly slicing his throat. Thankfully Alex dodged at the last second, but he was already thoroughly defeated. Since the woman was thinking about other things she almost didn’t see the little girl nearly slice Alex’s throat. The woman knew that the little girl wouldn’t stop until she either ordered her to stop or if Alex died so she immediately said “Ok, stop the fight! Kid, you have potential. Welcome to Daethia!”

Alex sighed in relief. He knew that he wouldn’t have lasted another minute if the fight continued. That thought terrified him. Just the idea that there was such a strong little girl in the world scared him a lot.

“Ok! Let’s start with introductions. The only thing you need to know about me is that I am the boss and I will be addressed as such.” The woman said

“Yes boss!” Alex replied, catching on quickly.

“And this little girl is called Mabel. I found her in a building when she was 8. She was holding a knife and there were 3 dead bodies around her. So don’t piss her off.” Mabel let out a little giggle when she heard the boss say that.

Alex almost couldn’t believe that someone so terrifying could exist, but he hid his fear and said “Nice to meet you Mabel.” Which was met with a cute smile from her.

Then Alex introduced himself “My name is Alex… I am 10 years old and from East Hrior. I can use fire magic.” He didn’t really know what to say, but the boss seemed to be satisfied with his answer.

“Nice to meet you Alex. In order to get to know each other a little better we’ll start training together for the next couple weeks. Before that do you have any other questions?” The boss said

Alex did have a question. “Why did you approach me before when I was alone in the street? What would have happened if I just pretended to be a normal kid?”

“Well, even though we are assassins we are not inherently bad people. In fact most of the people we kill are people that deserved to die. The reason why I approached you was because kids living on the street here get forced to live in orphanages. Half of these orphanages are real, but half of them are actually pretty much an execution factory, which they have in order to avoid overpopulation. If you hadn’t answered the way you did I would have made sure you were brought to a real orphanage.”

Alex was shocked. ‘I guess this city isn’t as great as I initially perceived’ he thought. He shook his head and pushed all these thoughts to the back of his head. Now it was time to train and get stronger.