My sword swayed a bit in the wind as I tried to balance it upright only using the palm of my hand. Snow blasted onto my mask, as I took a step forward, nearly losing all the balance I worked so hard for.

“Gosh, can you not die somewhere else?” I muttered towards the guy who still held onto my ankle, pushed the sword up a little, grabbed the hilt in mid-air and sliced through his arm shortly afterwards.

“Oi.” I said as someone stumbled out of the snow towards me, an arrow in his throat and barely clinging onto life. Luke and I were kind of forced to work together exactly a day after the second prince´s birthday. So far, his actions bore no fruit though as we slaughtered us through the eastern slums, my home turf.

We didn´t even murder that many civilians here, but rather littered the streets with corpses of guards which is even better. They couldn’t encircle us as we were running around, hiding and attacking from behind them quite often. Additionally, they were split up into so little groups in an attempt to search us that it was fairly easy to take them out one by one.

And to make things even better, the snowfall helped us considerably, as it hid where we were and covered our traces. Surprisingly, the assassin was in no way incapacitated by this weather, which was quite fascinating on its own. I wouldn’t say he was better than me, but he certainly had some skill.

Sadly, our massacre of these small fries didn´t continue for the whole night as the upper ranks ordered a retreat in the middle of it. And so, we went back to mindlessly slaughtering civilians who had no other choice but to stay in this part of the city. There was no place for them inside the city walls, and the harsh winter would give them the rest if they fled.

That was their sad reality. Mine was that our other nightly operations cost silver coins now as our subordinates went from house to house in the commoner district and gave them all a few coins, completely undisturbed by the guards who focused heavily on the eastern slums.

The king either had the option to try and stop our rampage or to contest our operations in the other part of the city. But that would come to an end soon as well.

Three days after their first push to get me, alive or dead, the guards simply stopped coming altogether. Instead, they sent assassins … which we all massacred as well. The kingdom had surprisingly little capabilities of fighting against a monster like me with the support of another skilled person. I really would have liked it otherwise, but whatever.

A day after that, we just stopped.

No climax, no anything. We just didn´t continue murdering in the night as all of our objectives had been achieved. First of all, we showed how little the king was interested in his poor subjects. He simply let us do as we pleased during our first nights and didn´t want to risk his men for a few powerless peasants.

As soon as he realized that nobody had any idea who we were though and he couldn’t hunt us down during a more favourable time, he put it on hold and concentrated on pleasing the nobles again by getting their money back … that was a few days before the party.

After the party though, that changed dramatically. He knew the peasants weren’t a threat to him at all. They could barely fight, had no financial backing and so forth. What could be a threat on the other hand was an organisation that could do what he couldn´t. As I declared ‘The Crown´s’ interest in the matter, he had to act.

It was a false sense of security that led the commoners to be docile. As long as they didn´t act up, they would have a relatively smooth life, completely unlike those outside the gates. And they really didn´t want to be like them. They felt superior behind their high walls and I really stroked that ego by not murdering a single one of them.

But it was all a hoax. They weren’t safe or at least the king didn’t provide that safety and they had to realize that as the news spread from every mouth. ‘The Crown’ dealt with the monsters. We already had a very high standing among them and the peasants, but our evaluation rose dramatically after that.

We were giving out free money, took care of everyone and were capable of dealing with monsters. It was only natural they would see our organization not for what it was, but what we tried to represent.

A kind, but strong group of those the nobles didn´t want.

And it worked. As I rode from the orphanage back home one week before everything would end, I stared out of the window to see a flag of us flying at a shop. And the guards? They had no chance but to take it down because of les majesté. The conflicts were already brewing, but they weren’t escalating yet.

Part of that was probably because the first army that was ordered to stand by closely. They could become quite a hassle in the near future, but they camped outside the city walls, not inside. If that wouldn’t change which I was sure of, I could easily shut them out for the single night they could absolutely not be around.

But before that, I had two very important meetings. One with the king, and the other one with Pope Dustin, the head of the church of life. And possibly even my last conversation with Hannah as well. We spent a lot of time together lately, but if we wanted to follow the plan, she needed to deliver a message, sooner than later.