Nathan bent down, only narrowly avoiding a flying blade. He could aim at the enemy’s weak spot right now, but he wouldn’t do much damage from his crouching position.

Rather than attacking, Nathan rolled back and repositioned himself. He could see that the situation was dire now—every enemy was armed with a weapon. He hadn’t been able to eliminate any of them in the past three minutes. Dodging blades was a lot more dangerous than avoiding fists.

He had little time to ponder the risks, though. Armed with a short knife in each hand, a nearby enemy launched himself forward. Nathan countered, Shadowstepping to his side and kicking his exposed torso.

Slow to react, the enemy collapsed to the ground. Nathan used this moment of weakness to land a well-aimed Rabbit punch. One down, six to go.

A glistening object entered his field of view. This time, however, Nathan extended his hand, catching the flying knife by its handle before it could hit him. Using its momentum, he redirected the knife into the eye socket of another unsuspecting enemy. Two down, five to go.

Nathan refocused on the figure with throwing knives. This one provided good support for his team, but he would be relatively easy to deal with. With a single Shadowstep, Nathan managed to close most of the distance. But it wasn’t enough. He dived into a roll to avoid another flying knife, quickly travelling the last couple of metres.

Nathan punched the back of his opponent’s knee, folding him backwards and putting him into a headlock. With a groan and a snap of his neck, the enemy fell to the ground. Three down, four to go. Nathan had this.

He utilised the distance—and the moment of respite that came with it—to solidify his plan and catch a breath. Two enemies in the middle, both wielding katanas, one in the back with a longbow, and the last one flanking him with a mace. It was risky, but he had to do it.

Nathan’s break ended forcefully when the archer shot his first arrow. Using a curved Shadowstep, he dodged the incoming arrow and reappeared in front of the katana-wielding enemies. He wouldn’t be able to Shadowstep through them, he knew. They foresaw his movements and began slashing horizontally towards his body. Nathan used his momentum to jump not away but towards the incoming blades.

It was a crazy move, but the payoff was huge. The blades flew past his body—one above and one below him. He wasn’t sure whether it was luck or skill, but his plan had worked. He now had a clear path towards the archer, who was preparing his second shot.

The arrow exited the bow and Nathan once again Shadowstepped around it. He was right in front of the archer now. He had little more than a second; he knew the three behind him wouldn’t let him eliminate their archer easily. Luckily for him, he only had to incapacitate the archer or destroy his bow. Nathan reached down to his enemy’s leg, snatching a knife from his ankle sheath.

The archer quickly retreated. Nathan had just enough time to throw the unbalanced knife at his opponent before wheeling around to face the remaining three. The archer ducked, thinking Nathan had miscalculated his throw. But when he reached for an arrow and slotted it into his bow, the cut string dangled uselessly in front of his eyes.

By the time the archer realised what had happened, Nathan had already seized a katana and decapitated its owner. Four down, three to go. He prepared to repeat the move with the other swordsman, but the enemy managed to parry his strike.

Sensing the uselessness of a struggle, Nathan abandoned the manoeuvre to conserve energy. The enemy, still pressing hard, was caught by surprise. He lost his balance, and his blade slashed through the air.

Nathan saw his opportunity. He immediately struck at his opponent’s elbow, cracking and bending it at a sickening angle. With his free hand, he grabbed the dropped katana. The enemy’s headless body dropped to the ground. Five down, two to go.

Nathan Shadowstepped over to the opponent with the mace. In one smooth move, he dodged a strike and thrust the katana into the enemy’s neck. There was a small thud as he landed, the katana sticking out of his throat. Six down, one to go.

Nathan slowly turned around to see the archer running in his direction, empty-handed. Easy kill. He had a moment to decide what method to use, but he opted for simplicity. With a surprise Shadowstep, Nathan leapt forward to strike his enemy’s trachea with his thumb.

There were two thuds. As much as Nathan enjoyed fighting, he was beat. He collapsed to the ground to rest for a minute.

“Finally,” he muttered.

Eventually, his need for water overcame his need for rest. He stood up and looked to his right. Then his jaw dropped.“You can’t be bloody serious. RAFAEL!” Nathan shouted.

“Freaking hell! No need to be so noisy, kid.” Rafael flinched.

“I knew that getting you a deck chair was the worst possible idea. You fell asleep, didn’t you?”

“WHAT?!” Rafael tried to fake outrage, but Nathan’s expression told him it wasn’t worth the effort. “Okay, I may have taken a little nap. A really, really tiny one.” Rafael showed a minuscule gap between his thumb and index finger.

“Oh really? Well, then how did you like the fight? The part you didn’t sleep through, I mean.”

“I loved it! You finally managed to kill all seven of them!”

Rafael was honestly amazed by the kid’s progress, but Nathan wasn’t having any of it. “I’m glad to hear that,” Nathan said, crossing his arms. “Could you humour me and tell me which part of the fight was your favourite?” The fact that they were standing at least thirty metres apart didn’t make the conversation any less weird than it already was.

“Um. . . the. . . the one where you killed the RTD? I mean. . .” Rafael scratched the back of his head.

“You’re unbelievable. What have I gotten myself into?” Nathan grumbled, heading for the resting room.

“Wait for me,” Rafael shouted.

As much as Nathan was irritated, he couldn’t help but smile. It was his second day of training under Rafael, and he’d finally beaten all seven enemies. Fighting armed enemies was the first new regimen his instructor had implemented. Nathan had only just learned that RTDs could wield weapons. The ones in the resting room weren’t just for show, as he had previously assumed.

Nathan took a bottle of water from the fridge and sat down. Shortly after, Rafael came rushing through the door.

“Rafael, I have a question,” Nathan said, without waiting for him to sit down.

“Listen, kid. I didn’t mean to fall asl—”

“It’s all good. I don’t really care about that. It was a joke,” Nathan grinned.

“You should act like it when you’re telling jokes. I seriously thought you were angry with me.” Rafael sat down, placing his folded deck chair beside him. “So, what did you want to ask?”

“I’ve been thinking. I have questions about the whole assassination practice and the three companies in the past and a plethora of other subjects.”

“Go ahead, ask.”

“Firstly, I presume I can’t order an assassination and then execute it myself, right?”

“Precisely. That would be pretty dumb, honestly. This is all strictly regulated. As I’ve said before, every assassination is accompanied by a ton of paperwork. We’re talking a month-long process at least. Of course, with enough money, that can be bypassed.”

“Like everything,” Nathan chimed in.

“Exactly. In this case, if you know where to pay, you can use an express route. But even then, you won’t avoid most of the crucial paperwork. Essentially, you need to file a document stating that you’re ordering an assassination on someone. This will then be added to your personal record. This is very risky, because just like criminal records, assassination records are something that schools or jobs look at. Some ignore it, others not so much.”

“I see. But isn’t it pretty much normal to order an assassination?”

“Depends on what you understand as ‘normal.’ Yes, it’s legal. Yes, it happens pretty regularly. But is it moral? That’s a hard thing to answer. Just because something is done regularly and is legal doesn’t mean it’s also good, moral, or normal. Thousands of years ago, slavery was legal. It was even more common than assassinations. But did that make it good?”

“I guess not. It’s a delicate topic. I guess it all depends on factors such as what position you work in and what outlook the people around you have. If you work as a mafia boss, you don’t really need to care about an assassination record. But a kindergarten teacher might have slight trouble finding a job if she had one.”

“Exactly. But back to the question. The answer is no, an assassin can’t order an assassination and perform it personally. That’s strictly forbidden. So is blackmailing or bribing someone into ordering it for his sake. But that does happen a lot. There are actually some people who work as cutouts. They’ll order the assassination and pay for it with their own money. After the job is done, the assassin transfers the payment and the extra costs for the assassination to the cutout. They usually charge around 10%.”

“Do they ever get caught? Sounds like a pretty profitable business.”

“Cutouts need to be careful. If the government notices someone’s ordering more than one assassination every year, they will start a thorough investigation. If the person is found to be a cutout, they will be charged with the same crime as an assassin who orders an assassination.”

“What’s the sanction for that?”

“Death penalty.”

“Wha—what? Death penalty?”

“Exactly. That’s why I said it’s very risky. The government isn’t messing around.”

“So—so you mean to say, if an assassin kills someone outside of his job, he will be sanctioned with a death penalty?”

“Yes. That’s why I said it’s a dangerous job. You can’t just go killing people left and right because you’re an assassin.”

“I see. This answers a couple of questions I had already.” Nathan placed a hand on his chin. “How are condemned assassins apprehended? Do the police have someone strong enough to handle a skilled assassin?”

“There is a government institution that deals with this stuff. They have people with mutated genes that discovered their gift but didn’t want to be assassins. After all, not everyone is capable of killing someone. That’s why these people decided to go the ‘good’ route.”

“Are they as strong as assassins?”

“Hard to tell. I know a couple of them who are quite formidable. But most of them are amateurs. They rely on numbers, and on the fact that when an assassin is to be executed, Occidendum won’t interfere. But of course, if you know where to invest, you can avoid even a death penalty.”

“How surprising.”

“Anything else? Go ahead and ask.”

“Let me think. . . I don’t think so. If I’ll have anything else, I’ll ask.”

“Sure.”

“But I do have one question on an unrelated topic.”

“Ask away,” Rafael replied, curious.

“Do you think that we could take a break from training for two days?”

“And why would we do that?”

“I promised to go camping with a bunch of my classmates.”

Rafael raised his eyebrows.

“Roy included,” Nathan added.

“Trying to get closer to him, eh?”

“Exactly. If I want him to trust me, I need to help him. I already helped him with getting rid of the assassin. But that’s not enough. If I manage to help him with his social insecurities, we’ll become best buddies. After that, I can do pretty much anything I want around him.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Just be careful not to overdo it.”

“Of course!”

“Well then, if you’re saying that you want to slack off for the next two days, I think we should adjust today’s training a little.”

“Does it include getting rid of that chair and actually paying attention?”

“No.”

“I thought so. Well then, what am I doing next?”