Rafael strode forward, causing Nathan to tense up even more. Last time he checked, he’d gotten mugged right after a phone call with this man. He still wasn’t sure if he was looking at an ally or an enemy.

Rafael sensed this and stopped immediately.

“Looks like I still don’t have your trust,” he said calmly. “I guess this is about the attack?”

So he knew about it! Nathan knew there was something wrong with him. He’d been the one behind the attack.

“Please, let me explain.” Rafael raised his hands above his head. “I mean no harm.”

Nathan was still hesitant, but for some reason, even though Rafael seemed extremely dangerous, Nathan didn’t feel any sense of danger at all.

“Go on,” Nathan snapped.

“No need to be so tart, boy,” Rafael chuckled. “As I’ve said, I mean no harm. Even that incident wasn’t meant to harm you. We were just testing the goods, one could say.”

“Goods?”

“You came up with a rather intriguing proposition and we wanted to find out what we were investing in. From what I’ve inferred, your father doesn’t know about any of this, does he?”

Nathan remained silent.

“I thought so much. Anywa—”

“Where is he?” Nathan interrupted. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to ask if you know where my father is.”

“He’s away right now. I’m not sure when he will be coming back but he’s on a . . . ” Rafael paused, thinking. “. . .You could call it a lengthy mission. I can’t tell you the details, sadly. I guess he hasn’t contacted you yet?”

Nathan shook his head.

“The mission was very dangerous. He couldn’t risk blowing his cover. I’m sure you can understand as much.”

Nathan monitored the man closely, but he didn’t seem to be lying.

“But that’s not what I came here for. We have some business to do, boy.”

“Business?”

Rafael turned around and walked towards the middle of the grassy field. “Follow me.”

Nathan obliged, looking around the room at all the limp RTDs. “I wanted to ask you this. Did you do anything with the RTDs?”

Rafael stopped and looked around. “This will do,” he whispered. “Oh, you were asking?”

“When I was training, the RTDs all started acting strange. They were a lot stronger, more coordinated, and faster. I have never seen them that way.”

Rafael stood still, playing with his goatee. It took a while before he replied.

“How much do you know about RTDs?”

“I—I’m not sure actually,” Nathan stuttered. “Well, they are robots designed to be as realistic as possible. They are used by people to train. And that’s about as much as I know.”

“I see. Blithe didn’t want you to join any time soon. Can’t really blame him,” Rafael said, walking towards the nearest RTD. “As you correctly pointed out, the RTDs really were stronger in pretty much all aspects. The reason for that is very simple.”

He bent down and lifted the metal doll off the ground as if it were weightless.

“You see, these RTDs all have a built-in control panel.” Rafael tapped the RTDs chest thrice to reveal a screen.

Nathan was shocked. He had been training with the RTDs for years now, but he had never seen this before.

“I assume that since there is a control panel and they all got stronger, they have various strength levels. That would explain a lot!” Nathan muttered. “I was sure that I was missing something. This is it!”

“I guess intelligence runs in the family,” Rafael chuckled, interrupting Nathan’s mumbling.

“Pardon?”

“You know, when I met your father,” Rafael dropped the RTD to the ground, “he was just a young boy, a little older than you. He didn’t know anything about the world. He was weak and naive. But he had something that a lot of assassins lacked and still lack to this day—a brilliant mind.”

Nathan was a little angry to hear his father called weak, but the anger was soon melted by the words of praise.

“You know, it took Blithe quite a while to gain strength in a shielded environment. Back when I was younger, the situation was a lot different. Assassins killed each other on a daily basis, and we either became stronger fast or we died.”

“They did?!” Nathan was shocked. “Why would they?”

“Why wouldn’t they? The assassination business has always been a lucrative one. At one point, assassinations cost so much that a dozen high-profile assassinations could make an assassin financially stable for life. I thought you would know as much. Have you ever thought about the history of assassination companies?”

“I guess I haven’t.” Nathan scratched his head. “I’m going to be honest, I’m not really that much into history. Or anything that isn’t related to training, for that matter. But I’m trying to broaden my horizons right now. I realize I might have been a little too focused on training.”

“That’s good to hear. I’m sure Blithe told you this all the time, but you’re still a kid. Enjoy life while you can,” Rafael smiled. “But back to the topic at hand. Twenty-five years ago, this country had three major assassination companies and several smaller ones. It was a saturated market. Aren’t you thirsty? Let’s continue in the resting room.”

Rafael walked towards the resting room and Nathan followed suit.

“You said there were three major companies. Was Occidendum one of them?” Nathan asked.

“Yes and no. The company that you know, or rather will know, is vastly different from what it was twenty-five years ago. But yes, essentially you could say it was one of the three major ones. You see, the current boss. . .” Rafael paused. “. . .the current boss is a very sleazy man. If I can give you one piece of advice, never believe what that man has to say.”

Rafael stopped walking and turned around.

“What I will say to you now will stay between the two of us.” Rafael’s face turned serious. “Never trust that man. I know this may sound weird now, but please keep these words in the back of your mind at all times. Trust me, I will explain everything in time. But for now, all you need to know is not to trust that man.”

“Y—yes, sir.” Nathan stuttered, shocked by the sudden seriousness. He still wasn’t sure if he trusted this man, but there was something calming about him.

“Drop the ‘sir.’ I want you to call me Rafael. You’re Blithe’s kid, after all,” Rafael smiled. “As I was saying, the current boss of Occidendum—his name is Daeril by the way—is a rather sleazy individual. Back when Occidendum was one of the three major companies, he was a nobody. He was an assassin, but he was good for nothing. His first missions were all failures, and he almost got himself killed a couple of times.”

“Then how did he—”

“Lies and deceit. He stopped taking missions and started focusing on something he was good at. Just as your father was an incredible assassin and a brilliant mind, Daeril is a world-class schemer. He used his cunning to destroy the whole hierarchy from the inside. Even I don’t know how he did a lot of the stuff he did. I only see the results. It took him five years to gather a following and orchestrate a coup.”

Rafael stopped in front of the white wall. Nathan was about to step forward to open the resting room, but he stopped when Rafael tapped the wall and placed his hand against the display. It flashed green, displaying a familiar message: “Identity Verified: Rafael Ravilla.”

“How did—?”

Rafael laughed in response. “Oh, boy. Who do you think built this city for you and your father?”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“That’s a story for another day. We will be spending a lot of time together for the next couple of months,” Rafael smirked, making Nathan extremely uncomfortable. “But back to Daeril. The coup went off without a hitch and the previous leaders died by his hand. Or most of them. Daeril isn’t a good assassin, but he sure enjoys his fair share of torture and killing. A wicked man, he is. Water?”

Nathan took a moment to process. Rafael took out two bottles of water from the fridge and placed one in front of Nathan.

“Oh, thank you.”

“No worries,” Rafael smiled, taking a sip. “Once Daeril took over the company, he renamed and completely restructured it. The previous oligarchic structure was replaced by a more monarchic one, and Daeril became the one and only leader of Occidendum. The company had around a hundred members, twenty years ago. I estimate around thirty were ardent followers of Daeril. They were willing to sacrifice their lives for him. Not sure what he did to garner such support, but it certainly worked.”

Nathan listened in awe. Even though this Daeril person was an evil human being, one had to acknowledge his intelligence.

“Every once in a while, a group of assassins would decide that they were unhappy with the way Daeril ran the company. They would form a group of ten to thirty members and try to take him down. What do you think Daeril did?”

Nathan pondered for a while before he replied.

“There are several options. The first one, and arguably the most stupid one, is to fight them head-on. Not only would Daeril and his party lose members, making them vulnerable to another coup, they would also be seen as tyrants by the others. You can’t run a company if the majority thinks ill of you. The second option is to try and kill them from the inside. Start chipping away, killing the people one after another. But now that I think about it, this isn’t really that different from the first one. The repercussions would be the same. That’s why I think the third one is the ideal one. I think that’s the one he used. You said there were a hundred members and thirty of them were Daeril’s men, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Rafael was impressed by the detailed analysis.

“Okay, then this strategy should work. I’m sure of it. If you have thirty members with Daeril, ten to twenty members explicitly against Daeril, and the rest I assume neutral, then there is a simple solution. Make the ones that are neutral target the ones that are against Daeril.”

Rafael looked at Nathan with a raised eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re just fourteen, kid?”

Nathan giggled a little. “I’ll take that as a confirmation. But still, this is all just theory. Executing it is something completely different.”

“Yes, you’re right. One time, he had the brother of one influential assassin killed. He then planted evidence that suggested the anti-Daeril group did it. It didn’t take long before all hell broke loose. This happened multiple times, and Occidendum was on the verge of collapsing on several occasions. After all, internal strife and dead assassins didn’t really work in the company’s favour. Our two major competitors wanted to take over Occidendum, but they never dared to do so. By the time all this started happening, everyone in the assassin community knew about Daeril and how his enemies usually ended up. The situation was never dire enough to entice them into a full-out war they risked losing. If they did, they’d become Daeril’s play-thing.”

Nathan thought this over, proud he’d managed to hit the nail on the head.

“You’ve called Occidendum our company on several occasions. What were you doing in the company when all of this was happening? And how long have you been there?” Nathan asked, impressed.

“I was one of the four original founders, so I was there from the start. That would be more than thirty years now,” Rafael smiled. “I never was the bureaucratic type, so I stayed away from the high-ranking positions. I was usually just an assassin. My three colleagues made sure the business side of our, what was back then a gang, ran smoothly while I ensured our targets died without problems. We were the first assassination gang to be founded. A year later, two more emerged. Unsurprisingly, the three of us wound up growing into the three major companies that I spoke about earlier.”

“Wow! So you are one of the first assassins that ever existed?!” Nathan jumped from his seat.

“Oh God, no!” Rafael laughed “I was one of the first members of the first assassination gang. Assassins have been freelancing for a long time before I was even born. You see, assassination wasn’t legal until thirty years ago or so, I think. Sorry, I’m getting old and my memory fails me sometimes.”

“Still, that’s so cool!” Nathan couldn’t hold in his excitement.

“Thank you,” Rafael’s lips curled up. “I’m glad that at least someone enjoys this old man’s tales.”

“Of course I do! Please continue.”

“Where was I? Oh, yes. So the three gangs became the most influential gangs in the country. Not even drug cartels could compete. Which made sense, since drug cartels employed us the most.”

Rafael took a sip of his water while Nathan waited with bated breath.

“Each of us had some ups and downs, but usually we managed a fragile equilibrium. However, as time went on, all of us grew. Our four-member gang became a larger one with almost fifty members. The same went for our competitors. This, of course, meant that there were not enough jobs anymore. It was at this point that we really became competitors. And as you can imagine, what started was a full-blown war. Streets were filled with dead bodies, and the government couldn’t really do anything about it. Law enforcement officers were nowhere as strong or trained as assassins, and the whole country risked falling into anarchy.”

“What happened then? Wait, let me think.” Nathan closed his eyes, visualizing what must have happened. “Well, it’s clear that assassination becoming a legal profession must have played a big role. But how?”

Rafael was curious to know what the boy would come up with, so he allowed his gaze to wander as Nathan struggled. He remembered showing this room to Blithe for the first time. Nothing had changed. . .

“I think I’ve got it!” Nathan exclaimed at last. “The problem was that criminals were out of control. Dangerous criminals. What was the cause of the problem? The criminals were essentially businessmen, doing illegal business. And regular marketing wasn’t how they overcame competition. So the government needed to find a way to make them stop killing each other by eliminating the whole cause—lack of people to kill, which essentially translates to lack of money. Am I right so far?”

“Pretty much.” Rafael was growing increasingly impressed.

“But I can’t really figure out how they would control them. As I’ve said, I don’t know much about history and stuff, so this is all just guesswork. I really can’t think of how I would make this work.”

“No need to stress yourself, boy. You’ve already proved to be quite the mind. Let me just tell you what happened, and you’ll see the logic behind it.”

“Yeah. . . I just really hoped I could figure this out.”

Rafael laughed hysterically. “You really—you really remind me of your father, you know? He always had unrealistic expectations. Listen, boy. You can’t expect to figure out in five minutes what countless people spent months planning. I feel like what you’ve analyzed is already astonishing. Give yourself a break.”

“I guess you’re right. So how did they do it?”

“It’s quite simple, actually. As you’ve correctly identified, the core of the problem is money. So if you want them to stop killing each other, give them money. The government started funding us. Millions went into the project that was supposed to stop gang wars. Every gang was transformed into a company. A lot of legal documents had to be filed, making everything official. I admit, it was a bit of a hassle, but my colleagues handled it, so I didn’t have to worry. The way the government did it was actually really smart. They gave us funding, we received money, essentially for free, and we didn’t have to fight and lose our comrades, friends, and family in meaningless battles. Everything seemed amazing. Business was doing well, and we were back on track—this time even legal!”

“That’s when the government, or rather the president who created this whole scheme, made a brilliant strategic move. He implemented the assassin license. The assassin license was something that every assassin who wanted to work legally had to buy. And trust me, it isn’t a cheap thing to buy. It costs almost quarter-million Sils. You could buy a house with that much money.”

“And why didn’t the assassins simply refuse to buy those?”

“Why would we? I mean, even with the ridiculous price, it was still worth it. We were getting paid by the government annually, we were making money from the assassinations, and we weren’t losing any people in needless bouts. Even though the licenses were costly, in the end, it was still worth it.”

“I guess that makes sense. And it also explains why freelance assassins no longer exist. I mean, who would hire a freelance assassin, risking being caught and persecuted, when you can hire a completely legal professional. That’s simply brilliant!”

“Indeed. When I realized how everything fell into place, I was speechless for a week. Not only did the president avert a disaster, he actually made sure that it was a profitable business. Truly work of a genius. But we got sidetracked. About your original question and about Daeril. . . long story short, my three friends chose early retirement. They never really liked assassinations that much. They were in it just for the business side. I, on the other hand, loved being an assassin, so I decided to stay. I was part of the committee that ran the whole company. When Daeril came along, I decided that I didn't want to forfeit my life for the company, so I stood out of his way and let him do his thing. . .” Rafael clenched his fist.

“That was most likely the biggest mistake I have ever made.”