Ch 53

The unsteady sound of drunken footsteps was music to my ears as I followed my target. His dingy shirt was too dirty to make out what the original color was, now closer to a grey, his pants dyed brown. I had just witnessed this man rape a young woman and now, after receiving the order from Lilly, it was time for me to practice assassination.

            It was dark out, and difficult to see anything as I followed him deep into the slums. I was worried for a bit that I would lose him in the dark but after a moment I realized that I would have no trouble following the sounds of his drunken steps.

            I probably needn’t have bothered with hiding myself by using the movements that Lilly had taught me, but she had given specific instructions not to be seen or heard and I did not want to fail my very first test. It hardly mattered, I had been using this method of moving any time I went out in public, so it was becoming second nature to maintain it.

            We traveled for about 20 minutes before the drunken rapist stopped at his home, barely more than a hovel really with the walls made of mud and clay and dilapidated thatching for the roof. It must have leaked badly whenever it rained.

            As I waited, watching him as well as I could in the gloom, he started fumbling for something at his belt and then after a few moments there was the sound of a click and the door swung open inward. Grunting in satisfaction to himself he stumbled in, quickly slamming the door shut behind him.

            As soon as the door was closed, I moved closer, placing my ear against the door to hear inside. The door was very cheaply made and did not fit well within the frame and so there were a couple of decent gaps to look inside through.

            A few moments passed and then I heard the sound of metal striking and saw a burst of sparks. This happened a couple more times, followed by some cussing before finally a candle burst into flame and illuminated his home which was only one room.

            Through the crack I was using to spy on him, I could see a bed that looked to be little more than a pile of blankets on the floor and a single chair which was pushed back against the wall. Kicking empty bottles out of the way he lay down on his pile of bedding and quickly fell asleep.

            I waited for a few minutes, watching to see if anything else would happen but nothing did. As his snores filled his home, I carefully inserted a pick into the lock and found the tumbler before sliding in a tool to turn the lock. It clicked open as easily as expected, unlike the training house that Lilly had set up for me, this guy was dirt poor and the lock was of the simplest kind.

            Stashing away my lock picks, I slowly pushed open the door and slipped inside before carefully pushing it closed again behind me. Afterwards I turned and considered how best to eliminate my target.

            According to the instructions set by Lilly, I needed to leave his body behind and make it look like a drunken accident. This meant that simply stabbing or strangling him was out as that would be too obvious. Looking around the room I considered my options.

            Looking around the room turned out to be just what the doctor ordered because as my eyes fell on a chamber pot in the corner, I had a sudden idea. Smirking to myself a little I considered that this was going to be a very undignified way to die but hey, this asshole had earned it.

            Stepping lightly over numerous empty bottles that lined the floor I moved towards the chamber pot and gently lifted it up from where it sat in the corner. It was a clay crockery pot that look not entirely dissimilar to an oversized coffee mug that was created by a five-year-old with an attention disorder in art class.

            Looking down into it I had to suppress a gag as it was already quite full. It seemed that this disgusting slob not only robbed people, beat people, raped people, and drank in excess, but also was too damned lazy to empty his chamber pot regularly since several inches of urine and feces floated around in there.

            Moving towards the bed where he was sleeping, I set the chamber pot down next to the bed and then grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into a sitting position. I was prepared to act quickly when he woke up, but I needn’t have bothered, he was quite sauced and did not even stir when physically moved. Not looking forward to what came next, I grabbed a handful of his dirty hair and plunged his face into the pot of urine and excrement with a sickening splash.

            I held him down tightly with my heart pounding heavy in my chest. Adrenaline coursed through me and I could hear my pulse thrumming in my ears. A minute passed and then another but still the drunk did not move. Careful not to take pressure off of his head in case he was faking it I moved a hand to his chest and waited.

            Almost as soon as my hand was on his chest I was moving again and out the door, taking time to close it firmly behind me and then relocking it from the outside with my picks. It would likely be days until anyone found him, and then only because of the smell. At any rate there was nothing to tie this back to me, so I turned and headed away.

            It was already quite late and while I did not have a fight scheduled for tomorrow, I would be missed if I did not return to my cot before the morning shift change. I had killed a number of people now since coming to this world, but this was the first one that had felt like I was truly doing something wrong.

            I had not been forced to kill him in the arena. I had not killed him in order to save the girl that he had raped, as soon as Lilly had stopped me from doing so it had already been to late to save her. I had followed this man to his home in the dead of the night and asphyxiated him with his own shit and piss. 

            This one might sit with me for a while. On the other hand, it might not, he had clearly been deserving of death and had lived his life hurting others for pleasure and so was human trash. As the arena came into view ahead of me, I decided not to think about it too much. Tomorrow would come and unless Lilly talked nobody would ever know what had happened.

            It was a little bit scary to think about just how easy it had been to kill someone and presumably get away with it. After all, this was not the modern world filled with cameras and crime scene investigations. This was a very low-tech world where the most investigating that could be done was going through their belongings and asking their friends if they had any enemies.

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