The Path of Ruin

Perhaps what surprised Kael the most... was that Laen asked him to use two daggers.

He didn't understand why at first. Because... it was difficult to keep both hands busy with daggers. Leaving one hand free was much easier in terms of balance and ease of movement. For a while, he even thought that Laen didn't know anything about daggers, that he might have asked him to do so with the mentality that two is better than one.

However, as time passed, he slowly began to change his mind.

Using two daggers had its advantages and disadvantages, yes. Using a single dagger made more sense in many ways. And when he thought about these things...

A big part of the disadvantages of using a double dagger was the difficulty of mastering it. The difficulty of controlling two daggers at the same time, the lack of a free hand to keep your balance, the errors in coordination, and so on...

But as he slowly began to master these skills, things began to change.

No, Kael did not suddenly become a master dagger wielder. But he slowly began to grasp how to move both hands at the same time in different ways. He slowly got used to and began to overcome his coordination problem. He learned how to keep his balance in new ways.

And once he became aware of these things, he noticed a noticeable improvement in himself.

The advantages of using double daggers were much greater than he had thought.

He could switch between offensive and defensive forms much more easily, for example. The flexibility and variety of his attacks had also increased dramatically. His offensive skills were almost doubled.

Not only that, the more he forced himself to deal with the disadvantages of wielding two daggers, the more he was able to improve in scenarios where he was left with one dagger in case he lost one of them.

His empty hand became more useful, for example, as he had more ways to keep his balance. He was still able to apply some of the flexibility and versatility he had gained from using dual daggers.

In short, while at first he thought Laen was being absurd, the last month had changed his mind considerably.

Laen knew what he was doing.

However...

"Huh...?"

Kael paused for a moment. He went over what he had heard again in his mind, repeated it. Then, with his eyebrows slightly raised, he gave a puzzled look to the giant man sitting comfortably at his desk in front of him.

"I didn't understand...?"

And Laen, the giant man who was the cause of his puzzlement, couldn't help a big smile when he saw Kael's confusion.

"It's what you heard, Kael. This time, your mission will be a little different from the others. And serious."

Over the course of a month, he had completed many missions. Most of them were to go into the forest and hunt creatures. Sometimes he had to run errands around town, though. There was quite a variety of them.

But a mission like the one he was on now... it was quite different.

"Assassination... really?"

Laen nodded his head in agreement.

"And... to a merchant group that we were originally supposed to protect on their journey?"

Laen nodded again.

"Because someone else paid more than them?"

And again.

"Exactly! You understood everything about the mission, why are you so surprised?"

With the smile on his face and the look in his dark brown eyes, it was clear he was amused.

"What, you can't do it?"

Kael paused for a moment. His widened eyes narrowed slowly as he lowered his head, his eyes fixed on the floor.

He did not enjoy taking lives. All the lives he had ever taken had been a necessity, a necessity with no other way to survive. He felt the same way even about the creatures and animals he killed as a mercenary in the forest. He took their lives because he needed to satisfy his curse and he needed to get stronger to survive.

But this time, it was different.

This time, he would not take a life for survival or for strength.

He had to take an innocent life for someone else just because they paid more money. No, not even one life... many lives.

But...

But since when was the world an innocent place? Didn't he know it himself, that this world was rotten to the core.

How far could he go with such a mentality?

His eyes narrowed even more. This time, he clenched his fist. His expression darkened with each passing second.

The world was full of people who had no reason to kill and yet were murderers. And now... he had to be one himself. A murderer who was going to betray someone who trusted him to be protected... just to get paid, just for the sake of completing a mission.

But...

'Why am I still hesitating?'

He lifted his hand, placed it over his heart. He felt the pulse, then the chains that were determined to extinguish it.

'I need to change more.'

The world was a cruel place. And it had no intention of changing for him.

Even if he wanted to keep his ideals, he had to change. He had to be ruthless, cruel, like the world itself.

No one should have any real importance in his eyes, except himself... so that he could take lives without hesitation.

He had to think of them not as human beings, but simply as overgrown pieces of meat, so that he could fit into this world.

He raised his head slowly, his eyes on Laen, who smiled as if nothing was wrong. His hand still on his heart, he sighed deeply as he felt his pulse calm.

He lowered his hand, nodding decisively.

"I will do it."

This mission... would be a stepping stone for him. A stepping stone that would allow him to let go of his ideals and changing them, a stepping stone that would allow him to fit more and more into this world.

"Good! I knew you wouldn't let me down."

And before his eyes, Laen pulled the first piece of paper on the table towards himself and began to scribble something on it.

Under normal circumstances, Kael's name would have been put on the list of people to guard the Blue Birds Merchant Group on a four-day trip to another town some sixty kilometers away.

But... that didn't happen.

Instead, he was assigned to another mission, one in which the same merchant group was to be wiped out.

Kael was still a mercenary in training. He was to join the merchant group as a trainee at no extra cost to the merchant group. In other words, he would not be mentioned in the official records held by the merchant group. In short... he would not be branded as the sole survivor when the merchant group was wiped out.

Of course, not being named in the assassination mission too would have been the best option. But in the Mercenary Corps, it was a requirement that every mission was recorded. Of course, due to the nature of assassination missions, his name would not be on the copy of this record that would be given to the other side. At least that would be a good thing.

And when Laen put the final dot on the paper, Kael was officially assigned to his first assassination mission.

*******

Under the November winds, a harbinger of the coming winter, Kael moved with slow steps towards the meeting point. He was dressed in clean clothes, leather armor that did not restrict his movements too much, and his daggers hung at his waist.

The town was as usual. People kept as far away from each other as possible, avoiding interaction. Kael was already used to it. He had already understood the reason why.

The world was not a safe place. That's why everyone tried to avoid human contact as much as possible. No one trusted anyone, even if they lived in the same town.

Though there were still some exceptions. For example, the man whose name he remembered as Ahkan and the other guards seemed to be friends. There were those who sat at the same table in the building where the mercenaries gathered, laughing and pouring alcohol down their throats. And then... there were the children at the orphanage.

"Hmm...?"

Kael paused for a moment. He saw a pair of brown eyes staring at him from the crowd.

Normally, he didn't mind people staring at him. But these eyes this time... they were looking at him in a widened way. And they belonged to a familiar girl's face.

Kael sighed. He ignored her and kept walking. But just as he was about to pass her, she suddenly stopped in front of him, causing him to pause again.

"Are you... still alive?"

Kael's brow furrowed. He felt uncomfortable looking at the girl, whose name he recalled was Miny.

"Why wouldn't I be alive?"

He tried to step aside, but Miny stepped in front of him again. She examined his armor, the daggers, some of which were visible at his waist. Then, her eyes widened.

"When you didn't return to the orphanage, I thought you were dead... but you survived! Do you hunt for money?"

Kael rolled his eyes this time, trying to walk past her again, and answered simply.

"No, I'm a mercenary."

Her eyes widened even more. She was looking at him like he couldn't possibly exist.

And... not to lie, but Kael actually liked it.

He still remembered the challenge he had accepted against himself in that orphanage, in his own mind. When the day came for him to leave this town, he would stop by the orphanage and show them they were wrong about him. He would say nothing, just thank them for the clothes, and then would leave.

And one of the people who annoyed him the most was this girl.

"And now, I'm going on a mission, so... I'd appreciate it if you didn't bother me."

As he walked past her, he tapped her on the shoulder twice, as if to confirm that he was not a dream. Then, without looking back, he started moving forward again.

His lips curled slightly upwards. He actually felt satisfied, seeing her expressions change.