Chapter 22: Gains

Aion flew though the sky thinking back on his registration with the Assassin’s Society. Upon walking in there were five reception desks. In each desk sat an assassin working as a receptionist with his or her eyes closed.

When he entered with his grandpa only two of the assassins opened their eyes. One of the assassins quickly approached and greeted them with respect. From what Aion was told later by his grandpa was that, what the receptionist had done was a small test for an assassin’s concealment skill.

Having their presence only perceived by to two stronger assassin they were naturally treated with respect. Following the receptionist Aion was registered in the Society as a solo assassin under the identity of Little Crow.

Most students of a prestigious academy that enter into the assassin department would usually register into an assassin group made by the school but Aion was a knight department student and needed to register as a solo assassin.

This was considered fairly dangerous as taking a job could be potentially traced back by someone with enough influence, and without backing sometimes solo assassins would simply disappear.

Following all the procedures Aion was then registered as an assassin and quickly took a jog to assassinate some small bandits that terrorized a village, causing them to gather enough money to pay for the assassination of the leader.

The leader of the bandits was a small criminal for the kingdom and sending soldiers there would be a wast of resources so the leader like many other bandit groups went unchecked. This being Aion first contract made him anxious, so he immediately flew off and towards the bandit group, the leader was a level eight primary rank human stage warrior.

It took him four hours of continuous flight to reach the bandit hideout, normally it would have taken at least a week on horseback but with his new strength Aion could fly incredibly fast.

Arriving at the bandit’s hideout Aion circled it a few times from what he could determine their were at least thirty people inside, outside the hideout were two guards watching in case anything came up.

The hideout was just a large wooden structure that appeared to be one large room for all the bandits. From the description of the bandit leader was a large axe whiling man with a large scar on his face.

From what he could see most of the bandits had large bodies and the only way to see their weapon was to launch a frontal assault to entice them to fight back. Aion decided to kill the guards then sneak in and kill the largest man if he happened to have a scar on his face. Taking to the air Aion decided to kill them as a crow instead of taking human form as his movement speed was much greater.

The two guards died before realizing what killed them as Aion landed on one of the guard’s neck killing him instantly and flew towards the second tearing the guard’s windpipe out with his talons. Changing into human form Aion walked into the large wood building and began looking around for the large human with a scar across his face.

Deciding he spotted his target, a tall bulky man sleeping next to what could only be described as a overgrown woodman’s axe. Aion walked up to the man and called for Melli but didn’t wake her instead just stabbed the man in the heart.

Having his chest pierced the man didn’t die immediately instead he was able to let out a howl of pain before drawing his last breath. Hearing the howl of pain all the other bandits woke up.

“What was that!”

“Everyone get up!”

“Assassin!”

“Get the boss!” Multiple shouts of warning were given and all the bandits were now ready to fight, some of the later yells confused Aion as he thought that he had killed the Leader of the bandits.

Soon a large man standing at about two and a half meters walked in from a small room that Aion missed in his earlier inspection of the hideout carrying a large two handed axe as big as his torso.

“Boss he killed Big Joe!”

“Boy you killed my men, now you die. Men show this boy that killing our men leads to death.” The large bandit didn’t waste any time in attacking him and Aion began to kill every bandit that came near him with a stick to the throat or incapacitating them by braking their knees.

Most of the bandits were around level four of the primary rank in the human stage so killing them was not a major problem for Aion although he did take some strikes from the back when surrounded it wasn’t anything major much less lethal. Seeing his men killed or downed easily the bandit leader grew enraged.

“Everyone leave this to me, as you lot don’t seem to know how to kill a single brat.” Aion quickly drew his attention to the bandit leader who was now charging at him. From what he thought the bandit leader should fight in a fairly straight forward way.

Following his expectations the bandit leader didn’t seem to use any complicated skills and simply brought his axe smashing down, Aion was able o easily dodge and get into striking range to beat his opponent with his fist.

The bandit leader however had more experience in fighting and quickly shot his knee towards Aion who was directly in front of him. Aion was able to block the stick with his hands and received little damage, however he no longer took this fight as easily as before, now he brought Melli in front of him positioning the dagger to strike.

Charging at the bandit leader Aion decided to finish him quickly and then kill the rest of the bandits, in order to return to the academy before the sun came out. Once he was in range of the bandit leader’s axe Aion decided to side step the blow of the axe that came at him diagonally.

Once again the bandit leader showed his prowess in combat by instantly releasing one of his arms from the handle of the axe and growing a punch towards the oncoming Aion. This time however Aion was ready and mixed his body low avoiding the strike and quickly jumped towards the bandit’s head piercing his skull.

Seeing their leader fall after only a short battle with someone who seamed to be a child the other bandits were in shock.

But they quickly realized the dangerous situation they were in when they heard screams from their comrades who Aion continued to kill. Having completed his contract Aion cut off the bandit leader’s head and threw it into his holding space to take as prof of completion.

“Master your going to have to carry my as I do not wish to share a pace with that mongrel’s head.” Melli woke up of her own accord and spoke for the first time in a while as she usually slept to try and understand the Lightning Tyrant’s technique and the lightning element better in order to reach the fourth rank.

“Not possible.” This was not something Aion was willing to do as Melli’s aura was quite unique and caught the attention of many and if he were to carry her on their way back it would cause problems if they were found by someone.

After all who wouldn’t try to take a good dagger from a crow especially if it was a three eyed gray crow.

“But Master I have pride and refuse to share space with the head of that nasty creature. Additionally if you place me with it I'll stop listening to you for a least a month.” This was also not something that he was willing to do as he would need her help to quickly drive off the other knight students that constantly bothered him, although he could do it himself it was a lot faster having Melli assist him.

“Fine.” Following that he brought out the disembodied head and moved Melli I do his personal space making sure time was moving for her. Instead of caring Melli who might cause problems he decided to carry the head.

Although the head made him slower Aion was still above to return in five hours and turn in the bandits head receiving his payment of ten silver. Money was something Aion had learned to deal with form his grandpa, it was split into copper, silver, gold, and white gold coins.

He found the latter three pointless, Aion did understand their value and what they were used for but the silver, gold, and white gold coins seemed pointless as they were weak metals and not much could be done with them, at least some cheap weapons could be made of copper.

As far as he understood it the metals were worth more simply because humans liked one more than the other based on their sense of aesthetics. Regardless of reason the humans would trade goods for money and with a silver coin he could eat plenty of food from the BlueBear Inn.

Having returned to the dorm Aion washed up his clothes that were dirtied from the fight then washed himself and Melli.

“Master you have to wash me faster and if we’re going to be killing then can we at least find something of a challenge I need to test my limits to you know.” This was something that she would bring up from time to time, Melli didn’t like to be covered in the blood of weaker opponents saying that a really challenge was necessary.

“And always have me out, while it is comfortable inside your holding space I can’t gather elemental energy.” Aion agreed about the part bout the real challenge but his strongest was still much weaker that Melli’s and although she could fight on her own it was a bit inconvenient as her physical body was that of a dagger.

“Un, stronger.” Aion fully planned to get stronger and he had also realized the importance of real battle experience in his fight with the bandit leader, the bandit although never trained had experienced real battles more than Aion and gave him some trouble despite being a level lower.

But that was something that would happen over time as Aion continued taking contracts he would gain experience in real battles.

But for that he would need to not only silently kill his target but fight them head on, thinking this he formed a plan. It would be simple to train his assassin skills he would continuously raid bandits and kill all their members except the strongest one and with only one left he would fight directly to gain battle experience.

Determining the strength of the bandits would be difficult but that was also something he would need to be able to learn. Finishing his thoughts and all the washing necessary Aion headed to the knight course as today most of the students would bring mounts and for those that didn’t have one the Academy would lend out horses to train the students in mounted combat.

Following what Clad told him Aion once again wore the assassin outfit that she sold in return for a small favor which ended up being him fighting with Iris.

According to her a uniform is important and if he wore one of an assassin his instructors would have to move him to the assassin department, and although he doubted anything would change Aion felt good in these clothes as they were actually made with comfort in mind instead of overall practicality.

Walking into the classroom he received many weird looks from the students, most of them knew who he was because one of his golden eye was visible through the shadows the large hood made.