Mirai takes the knife away from the bard's hand.

"This blade.."

The tips of her blade is dyed of an eerie primary color.

“It is coated with venom. And from the looks of it, it is the venom of an unknown snake. A deep cut from this blade, and a man could die in minutes.”

Mirai explains. 

As soon as she hears this, the woman goes into a rage and tries to escape. 

But with her whole body being pinned to the shadow on the ground,  it all prevents her from taking any action.

But what surprises her the most is that she could barely move her body. No matter how much effort she put in the struggle to let go, it is too hard for her to even move her body by inches.

The assassin, pretending as a bard, conducted a honey-trap on me, planning to poison me as soon as I let down my guard.

I feel something weird as  a beauty like her selling herself at the back alley but instead of avoiding, I decided to play along, as Mirai is watching closely.

Either way, it ended up with the woman being caught off-guard and in the strangest way she could ever possibly imagine.

"How did it go, Hiro? What the……hell?” 

Clementine who was made to come to the alleyway late, is immediately surprised upon seeing the frozen half naked girl.

“You’re finally here, Clementine. Your timing is perfect, just as we planned.”

“You said you’re going to catch her off guard and pin her here, but I never thought you would pin her this way! This is not some sort of play, is it? Is it?” Gertrude has also arrived.

"Who ordered you to kill me? And what is your purpose?"

"That aside, from any angle, she looks like a normal city girl……I won’t even believe that she’s an assassin if not for the fact that you caught her red-handed!”

“Indeed. Her disguise is excellent. She is a big failure when it comes to improvisation and situational awareness, though.”

Clementine and Gertrude exchange remaks.

This remark is also because we notice that the girl hasn’t taken any other actions like killing herself yet, like biting her own tongue.

"Mirai, watch out!" 

At Gertrude’s warning, Mirai lowers hee head as quickly as she could. Immediately after, a chained weight replaces the position where her head had just been, crashing into the wall and making a huge noise in the middle of the alleyway.

“They have another one?!”

“Bguh!”

“Damn!”

However, because Mirai was distracted, this also created an opening for the assassin to escape, to where she immediately uses this chance to pull herself out of the shadow binding first.

“Don’t. Move.”

Still, it is futile in the end because as soon as she recovered, she is confronted with a sword on the throat by Gertrude.

Seeing that the female assassin is successfully put in check, I immediately switch to the new intruder from the direction the chain weight had been.

The second throw is already approaching me when I do this, but Clementine just intercepts it with a cleave of her dirk, slicing the metal weight in half.

"That accuracy even against a mass that is flying at high speed…….as expected of Countess Clementine." Gertrude praises; she admires Clementine who is obviously a better fighter than her.

"How is that? I have just destroyed your weapon. Do you want to run away and abandon your partner, or do you still want to pull a new one to test out my blade?”

The alleyway is dark, and it is hard to tell who, if anyone, is in it.

But out of that darkness comes a set of footsteps, and soon, the culprit that attacked them appears.

It is an old man.

But this old man has a torn chain hanging from his hand, convincing us that he is definitely the other foe we need to be wary of.

"I know him. He..is the leader of the assassin guild!" Gertrude says worryingly.

Mirai and Clementine look at me and I shake my head. We are clueless.

Gertrude ads, "There is a small guide of mercenaries that offer their services secretly to the noble families in the south Thedas. It is Assassins Guild."

“So you’re saying he is the head of the assassins guild? This old man here?”

Gertrude nods. "The former margrave at my place used to meet them in secret. I was there. I won't forget his face."

"Oh really? Still, It’s such a surprise to find out that such an old geezer is related to the assassination business himself. You are such a hard worker."

I give a retort.

Using that as an opening, Clementine gives a thrust at the old man without any second thoughts.

However, the old man just dodges nimbly and backs away.

“I gave that position to my son a long time ago, but he has never improved, even after a decade has passed. So I had no choice but to go up on stage again, whipping this old body back in shape.”

“Is that so? But I think you picked up the wrong stage here, old man. You sure you can take me on?” Clementine retorts him.

"I like your confidence. Sadly, I know very well the stage I am stepping on. And my senses are still very good, even to this day.”

"Gertrude. don’t let down your guard on that female assassin. I need to talk more to this old man.”

At my command, Gertrude holds her sword firmer towards the female assassin’s throat.

At the very least, this old man is cunning, and I can always feel a dangerous aura about him.

"Elder!"

It is then when the female assassin, who is about to be left alone, panicked. But with Gertrude still holding a sword to her throat, she is not able to barge in.

Following this trend, Gertrude also almost put down her sword, thinking there is no longer a need to capture the failed assailant.

“Don’t follow me, you idiot.”

But all of a sudden, the old man speaks aloud, to which the female assassin couldn’t help but freeze.

As for the reason, her master’s happy tone just earlier has now switches to one that is dry and cold.

"I didn’t have expectations from you from the very beginning, but to think you couldn’t even make him draw his sword to test his skills before you became his captive? You struck so low that even I am left speechless."

"Please, give me another chance…..!”

“No can do. You can’t even fill the shoes of your predecessor. You are useless to me…"

"Tina Ijaniya..good bye."

Tina Ijaniya..is that the bard, no..the female assassin's name?

This time, the old man completely disappears into the dark alley.

"The first time he threw the chain weight at me, I couldn’t believe how strong it was, despite it coming from an old man…….”

Their short face-off was enough for Clementine to get a glimpse of the old man’s strength.

As for the female assassin, Tina Ijaniya, she still stands in a daze at the direction where her former master left, still shocked at being abandoned by the said master…

…all while the rest of us continue our mayhem in the background.

***

Meanwhile, on a plain between two villages in central Castall.

There are about a hundred corpses lying around. Devas, the dark elf led the knights with a combined force of Redcliffe knights from another village, had just defeated a reinforcement squad to take over the villages. As the knights placed in each village are always ready, when the reconnaissance team spots a large group of enemies, they will notify the nearest villages so that knights from different villages could assemble and combine their forces. 

Yet again, another effort from the cautious Margrave Sigismund Jagiellon to retake the many villages failed.