"Kill the kid, and I will let you live."

"Wah?!" I uttered in disbelief. To say I wasn't shocked would be a lie. The Fidelis family had hired Faevyre, and breaking their property was certainly not part of her job. If I die here because of her, she would need to compensate five times my worth by law to the mistress, which is 50,000 silvers, a staggering amount by all standards that is not insignificant for even a great noble family¹$1,000,000 in a society where the minimum wage is $20 a day.. Among all the people that had an interest in harming me, Faevyre was not one of them. That was why it was so shocking to hear her say such a thing.

Despite my shock, Faevyre continued, "You can try killing the kid with your hands, leg, or even teeth, but do not use a weapon, even a rock. If I see you attempting to pick something up, I kill you."

With those words, my surprise gave way to suspicion. If Faevyre really wanted him to kill me, she would have let him use weapons. Although the man could punch, stomp, or strangle me to death, those things were too inefficient compared to a dagger.

The thug leader grumbled at the unfair treatment but didn't comment as he painfully struggled to his feet. As a weakling, he didn't have the right to complain. Instead, he stared at my relatively short and weak yet healthy self, and in turn, I stared at his large and buff build that was twice as large as me, yet with a bleeding and limping leg with a shiv stuck to it.

I realized as I looked at his limping leg that if I ran away, he wouldn't be able to kill me! Why should I fight the man to the death if I can run away? I was a little slum pickpocket, not a bloodthirsty warrior! Even that time when I stabbed that drunk thug's balls were in a sneak attack. This time, I was up against a robust thug that was probably E-rank! If the man catches me, even unarmed, I am a dead man.

While I was thinking of running away, Faevyre looked at me and said in a serious tone, "Alright, kid, this will be my second lesson for you - Dodging. Unless you are a crazy berserker under the blood rage, every warrior who knows his salt will learn how to dodge, and especially rogues. Sometimes, no matter how good we can block, a strong enough force can mean death. A giant's every attack can crush any lesser men instantly, a mage's fireball can turn an aura-clad warrior into cinders, and a rogue's deadly blades can slice through flesh and bravado alike. Even this crippled, bleeding, and unarmed thug can also crush an ordinary kid's bones and windpipe."

She then pointed at the thug, "Your task is to avoid the brute over there until either he collapses from exhaustion and blood loss or you are caught. If you are caught, he will try to kill you, and although I can guarantee your life, he will still hurt you badly. You must also stay within 10 feet of him at all times and cannot leave this alley. You can even try to kill him with your dagger if you're feeling brave."

That was a tall task. This particular alley was only 110 feet long and 10 feet wide. In other words, I must somehow bypass the thug a couple of dozen times in narrow conditions, which is incredibly hard. The thug isn't a fool, and I wasn't perfect, so even as a cripple, he could still catch me if I made a single mistake. My survival instincts as a pickpocket, instilled into my bones since early childhood, screamed at me to just run. Even if it might sound cowardly, I only survived to this day thanks to these instincts guiding my decision-making. Listening to these instincts, I was naturally disinclined to do as she tells me right now. The thought of killing the man didn't even cross my mind, as the man could counter me. My cheek still hurt from that backhand earlier.

I looked at Faevyre silently before tentatively asking, "And what if I run away?"

Faevyre glanced at me, "Then I let the thug go, releasing the scourge back to society, where he will kill more kids like you for a living and rape more poor women to death. Also, I will be greatly disappointed in you, and I will refuse to teach you further in the future. I'll also tell our head guard, Agrippa, not to teach you how to fight. I can do that because teaching you isn't our job; it's just a favor for the mistress, the daughter of our employer. Your call, kid."

I analyzed what she said and became pale with the realization of my position. I looked at the dead thugs sprawled on the ground and clenched my hand, digging my untrimmed nails into the palm of my hand, making it bleed. Although her orders were completely against my training as a pickpocket and my mind screamed at me to run away and hide, the pain increased my resolve to make a decision.

"I can't run away! If I run, then my future will be full of hardships! Ignoring the guilt from letting the thug go, I won't have specialized training, and as a result, my rate of improvement would be significantly lower than it should be! If I want to be strong, I have to do this! It will determine my future achievements!" - I roared in my head.

I then locked my gaze on the impaired thug, who was staring at me with equally clenched fists and teeth and a look of rage and shame on his face. The thought of being used as a whetstone for some kid must have bothered the man greatly. Honestly, I am not surprised by it. Nobody likes being humiliated and taken advantage of at knifepoint. Still, he deserves it since he was planning on doing exactly that to Faevyre, and she just retaliated. I believe father once called it karma, and the temples preach similar concepts too.

Faevyre leaned on the wall in the middle of the alley and said lazily, "Alright, start killing each other." She then took out a blood-red apple from within her cloak, and despite the horrible smell and gore around her, she bit into the apple's flesh and ate it casually while staring at me.

Meanwhile, the thug's eyes glowed with extra venom as he limped over with painful labored steps. He said viciously, "Sorry, brat, nothing personal."

I scoffed but didn't reply. It was pointless to converse with an honorless scumbag who was about to die. Faevyre clearly said that "if I die," she will let him go. However, when she said she would make sure I didn't die, she contradicted herself. The man would die here, whether he beat the shit out of me or not. The only question was, how many of my bones will he break before he dies. The thug must be too desperate to notice this small detail, or perhaps he did notice but is hellbent on making me suffer first or turning me into a hostage, which would fail since Faevyre would kill him before he manages to do anything.

As he got closer to my position, he finally got to within 10 feet of me, so I began backing away while maintaining my distance from him. The two purses on my person started to jingle as I backed away, so I quickly removed them both to avoid impeding my movements, dropping them on the floor with two thuds.

I continued backing away until I reached the end of the alley, leading to a T section. Both the thug and I knew that now was the time where I needed to bypass him.

"Now or never!"

I gritted my teeth and did a roll to the right, the side of his injured left leg. As I passed by him, I felt the man's hand brush against my cloak before he stumbled to the wall while cursing. In the meantime, I already stood up and watched as the thug steady himself on the wall while grunting in pain. Having a disabled and injured leg did a number on him, but I didn't dare belittle him. I was just a hair's breadth away from being caught by him, and if he catches me, he will pummel me until Faevyre intervenes, and that would hurt badly.

As I watched the crippled thug stumbling towards me like an undead from stories, I could only lament in my heart.

"This will be a long day."

Faevyre POV:

I couldn't help but click my tongue in disapproval as I watched the kid avoid the thug before I disgruntedly took another bite of the apple I conveniently picked from a fruit stall earlier.

"Why isn't he kicking him where the shiv is stuck? Such a waste. If he did that, the thug would collapse right then and there, and he could stab the other leg and from there finish him off. It's a piece of cake for even a greenhorn! I was right to do this. His experience as a pickpocket has clouded his judgment, and he turned into a coward. At least he didn't run away. The thug is also a rookie. I would have tried to leap if I had been in his shoes, but he is instead just trying to catch the kid like catching a ball, talk about stupid."

I disgruntedly shook my head as I watched the kid dodge a few more times. I then assessed the kid's rate of improvement to determine his talent as a rogue. Putting pressure on others can reveal their talent in certain aspects. Apart from teaching him the importance of dodging, this is the way to determine rogue talent. The faster he improved the higher his talent.

The second reason was to try and reeducate him and remove the pickpocket teachings that were engraved to his bones. Although rogues and pickpockets were similar, rogues should not be cowardly, but instead, daredevils. A thief would usually attempt to backstab someone and run away when it fails, but a rogue would dance through a hail of blades to deliver a lethal strike. Both were stealthy, but one was cowardly, and the other was daring and direct.

After watching the kid dodge seven times, I noticed an improvement in his dodging skill, however small it may be. He was almost caught several times at first, but now the kid is rolling faster and smoother, allowing him to avoid the thug more efficiently. I immediately determined that the kid has intermediate talent as a rogue.

I nodded in satisfaction - "Not bad. Intermediate talent is worth teaching, although it is inferior to Livia and me. I also heard from Erno that he has F-rank Aura and hasn't trained, so he should have some advanced warrior branch talent."

Honestly, I was relieved the kid agreed to my abrupt and crazy task. Although I told the kid all of that to scare him into not backing out, I knew it was a bad idea to get on the wrong side of young mistress Consentia, the true master of the house. Although my real employer is her father, Legatus Bultatus Volgio Fidelis, who hired me to teach Livia and do some relatively safe errands on the side, she is still the real boss in the house. Not even her handsome and talented yet racist and idiotic brother, Aulus, has any power over me. In fact, from my observations, he is manipulated like a goddamn marionette by her, which shows just how pathetic he is.

Erno is her right-hand man, and the rest of the high-rank servants are also under her thumbs except for Agrippa who is loyal to her father, and those two oathbound stooges who protect Aulus. I even doubt she is just a C-rank alchemist and more likely a B-rank one, given how generous she is with potions. Also, she is a bit of a control freak, so I don't want to mess with that terrifying woman.

Besides, working for her is lucrative. I get free potions and creams, including those for skincare and healthcare, really expensive shit out in the market that is not in my paygrade. She is effectively paying me triple of what her father is paying me through her potions alone, which is enough to buy my loyalty over. I honestly don't care if they call her an orc-loving slut. As long as she doesn't lay a hand on my darling, I don't care if she even has sex orgies with a dozen orcs daily, and from what I see, she doesn't. At most, she sleeps with an orc once every few days, which is surprisingly normal. In my year of staying in the mansion, not once have I seen her bringing more than a single orc to her chambers. In my opinion, she is simply a multi-talented yet unlucky woman with different tastes embroiled in stupid political bullshit over an extravaganza of nonsense.

As I thought about insignificant things out of boredom, my eyes suddenly noticed something different. The pose of the thug was now slightly different. Although it could be mistaken with his previous position, he could now leap to the side of his limp leg. A smirk played on my lips as I threw away the apple core in my hand.

"Finally, the thug figured out how to properly catch the kid, but I'm afraid he's too exhausted now. Still, he can pose a threat. What will you do now, kid?"

Mog's POV:

The thug and I were currently in a standoff. Both of us were sweating and panting, and I was also dirty from rolling around. Although I needed to do extra movements to dodge him and even roll on the ground, I had a decent amount of time to rest between each roll, so I wasn't that tired.

The thug, on the other hand, didn't need to move as much, but he was heavily panting and sweating bullets because he had to move on one leg without the support of a crutch and he was enduring pain. His left leg was also still lightly bleeding, ebbing away at his already dwindling lifeblood. He will collapse sooner rather than later if this trend continues.

Although I didn't talk at all, the thug would sometimes spout a slur of curses, probably out of exhaustion and pain. I ignored anything he said, though, as I took it as the last struggling words of a dead man.

Now, after rolling after a dozen times, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right, I saw a slight change in the thug's posture. It was a leaping posture. He was going to make a jump on me, something he didn't do until now. If I try and bypass him, he will, without a doubt, leap on me.

"If he manages to land on me, he can grapple me to death. Even if he catches one of my arms or legs, he can beat me to death! W-What do I do? Do I run away now? But if I run away, Faevyre won't teach me! What do I do...?"

As I internally panicked, I unconsciously felt the dagger on my waist.

"Do I have to fight him? If I use this dagger, can I take him down?"

I felt like a cornered rat in front of a cat. Even a cowardly rat would bare its fangs when cornered, let alone me. As I stared at the exhausted and disabled thug twice my size, the thought became more and more prominent in my mind, overshadowing the lessons that my father had instilled in me over the years.

"I can do it. I can do it. I can do it..." - I kept chanting in my mind as if it would bring me courage.

A ruthless glint flashed in my eyes, and I decisively rolled to the right while stealthily drawing my dagger. As expected, the thug leaped on me, trying to pin me down. However, before he could land on me, I had already turned to face him, dagger raised and held in both hands.

Psh*

With that sound, my incredibly sharp dagger stabbed the thug's gut, stopping at the hilt. However, to my dismay, it was not enough to take the wounded beast down. His rugged, calloused, and dirty left hand clutched my throat, threatening to choke me to death.

"Ghk...! Ah...!" - I could barely utter, choking to death. It hurts.

"You... little... FUCKER! DIE!" - The thug hollered with a bit of blood spilling from his mouth, fouled by only rage, pain, and humiliation to keep him going, hellbent on taking me with him to the nether world.

I felt his hand tightening up, threatening to break my fragile neck before I choke to death. I began twisting the dagger in his stomach out of desperation before raising it upwards. Like cutting a piece of bread, the dagger sliced through flesh, muscle, sinew, and organs, spilling them all over me from the open wound. As I kept going, the grip on my neck began to loosen, eventually dying out when my dagger collided with his ribcage. His once anger-filled eyes were now dilated and unfocused, and his mouth dribbled hot blood and saliva onto my face. Then, he collapsed on top of me, dead as could be.

He is now dead. I killed him for my selfish interests. I could have chosen to run away, and yet here I am, a killer of man. And yet, why do I not feel anything from killing him? No pity or remorse? No guilt? I only feel an emptiness inside and the sore pain from my throat.

However, soon after the emptiness appeared, something warm and comfortable filled it up. I feel like my body changed somehow. It was as if the gods were rewarding me for killing the man. I knew about this phenomenon from my father.

"I leveled up."

It came by no surprise, however. The man was most likely E-ranked. Most people at E-rank are at level 5-10, so even if I leveled up twice, I wouldn't be surprised.

However, after the warmth disappeared, all that remained was a crushing emptiness.

While I was still lying on the ground, crushed under the thug's weight, I felt the weight suddenly lessen and disappear as Faevyre picked it up as casually as picking up a rabbit's carcass, unimpaling it from my tightly clutched dagger.

She stared at me and said while tossing the thug's body to the side like a used rag, "You look like a mess."

That was an apt description, as the thug's inner organs and a third of his blood had spilled all over me. As disgusting as I would usually find this to be, I strangely didn't care right now, so I only replied absentmindedly with my sore throat, "Yeah."

Faevyre looked at me for a bit before sighing. She then silently took out her healing potion, kneeled next to me, propped up my head, and put the potion's lid to my lips.

"Drink." - She ordered, and I silently complied.

After drinking a few drops, she took back the potion and closed its lid. I could feel my throat becoming itchy as the pain dulled and slowly disappeared. However, even then, I still didn't get up, still absentminded from the ordeal.

Unknowingly, hot tears streaked down my cheeks, and I sniffled, "I killed him... I could have not, but I did..."

Faevyre silently stroked my now-filthy hair with her seemingly gentle yet calloused and powerful hand, caring not about the blood and gore covering me, before asking, "Do you hate me? Do you hate it that I effectively made you kill him?"

I stayed silent, my numb gaze staring at the clear blue sky above, "I don't, I just feel... empty inside. Why don't I feel bad about killing him? Why? I hate it. I hate this."

Faevyre stayed quiet for half a minute, continuing to stroke my hair, before saying melancholically, "Sorry, kid. It's not a safe world out there, and to survive, you sometimes have to kill other people. If you want to grow stronger, it is inevitable, so doing it now rather than later is probably for the better.

As for not being able to feel anything from killing him, it is because your talent as a warrior is curbing this feeling. All warriors need to kill, and a talented one needs to kill even more. The more talented you are, the more it curbs the feeling. You likely have an advanced warrior-type talent, so your feelings are curbed to the point where you will feel only slight guilt for killing an unknown innocent man, let alone killing someone that wants to actively kill you and deserves it. That is our blessing. That is our curse."

After a minute, she slowly let go of me, stood up, and said, "Okay, kid, get up and take your belongings; we still have ashes to collect."

At the mention of ashes, I finally woke up from my trance. I unclutched the hands that were both still holding the dagger tightly until they turned whitish from their originally greenish-grey. By now, the injury on my palms also healed due to the potion healing it.

Getting up and removing the gore and guts on me to the best of my abilities, I went and wiped my dagger on the clothes of one of the thugs that died earlier before putting it back in its sheet. I then returned to Faevyre after retrieving my two purses and reattaching them to my belt.

"Let's go." - I uttered.

Faevyre just nodded as we went on our way. Strangely enough, nobody bothered us during our fight. Most likely, the people around here didn't want any trouble, so they took a roundabout way around the alley without calling the guards. It is a common occurrence in these slums. By the next day, the five bodies will be gone, transported by the corpse collector. As for their coin purses and possible belongings? The pugio of the thug I just killed was taken by Faevyre, as it was military-grade and was worth about a gold coin²$500. She also took about 8 silvers from their purses before ignoring the rest, including the copper coins, leaving it to scavengers. They were robbers for a reason, after all, and their belongings were poor quality at best. 

The slum dwellers who saw us walking through the slums stared at me, wide-eyed, probably wondering why I was caked in blood. The stares were uncomfortable, but I endured. On the bright side, nobody approached us or bothered us, so the journey was now smooth. After a bit of walking, we arrived at my house, still as empty and decayed as ever. Next to it was that old dying tree and the grave of my father.

I silently turned to Faevyre and presented my hand, wanting the shovel in her hand.

Faevyre didn't say anything and gave me the shovel, not offering any help. There are some things that only family members and close friends are allowed to do, and digging your relative's grave for you is an act of shaming and great dishonor. Only if I was a disabled man can this rule be broken.

I took the shovel and approached the grave, and then started carefully digging. Because the grave was shallow, I was able to uncover a portion of it after only a few shovels. Throwing away the shovel, I used my hands to uncover the rest of the funerary urn. A few minutes later, I was holding my father's sealed funerary urn, made from ceramic. It wasn't expensive or extravagant, only serving the bare minimum, merely costing 5 silvers from a potter. However, it is worth to me more than anything else my father left behind.

In the meantime, Faevyre silently closed the now-empty grave with a few shovels and then said, "Alright, kid, we need to go now, or we will worry the people back home."

I silently nodded to her in confirmation, cast one last melancholic look at my childhood home, a place full of unsaid memories that filled my childhood, and resolutely turned my back and followed Faevyre back to my new home.