Chapter 369: Dark Shadow. |
Whoever had thrown the projectile was clearly trained in assassination given the fact that Haru didn't sense him at all even after killing the man in front of him. It was the perfect assassination and was much more capable than what he had seen so far come from the people that were after him. This assassin could have certainly attacked Haru and retreated without being caught but since he didn't do that it made it clear that Haru wasn't their target and it was, in fact, the assassins that had come to kill him.
Haru jumped to his feet and ran over to where he had left the woman behind the counter and sure enough, she was also dead. Her throat had been cut completely with a large gash all the way along it causing blood to pour out onto the floor.
'Was it because they failed their objective in killing me? But I'm sure that he said that they have only trained guards to be assassins. There was no way that was a guard. They were quite clearly a master assassin if I couldn't detect them at all.' Haru thought as he knew how much skill it took to perform perfect assassinations and that was amplified during the day.
It was hard enough to stay hidden with the cover of darkness but to stay hidden with sunlight beaming down on you took much more than skill alone. Whoever it was they had to know a lot of stealth orientated cultivation techniques.
Haru stood there for a moment before panic hit him.
'If I didn't sense them come in then they could have been here for a while. Shit… Hong Xia! She would have no way to fight back against them if even I didn't stand a chance.' Haru thought as he quickly ran upstairs to the room that he was staying in to find Hong Xia sitting on the edge of the bed still reading the book that Haru had given to her so she could practise the language of this world.
"Oh, I'm glad you're safe." Haru sighed in relief as he saw that she was okay and there was no need for him to panic. He just didn't want to see her die because of him.
"What? Did something else happen? What is it?" Hong Xia asked as she saw the look on Haru's face and then stood up.
"Yeah, the person who tried to break into the room last night came back with an accomplice a few minutes ago. It seems as though you scared them away last night as they thought they had the wrong room since they heard you scream.
As long as Haru didn't kill any of their people then there wouldn't be any major repercussion from the Kastron star alliance. But if he did then they would send all their forces to make an example out of him for going against them.
Haru was hit with sudden dread as he knew that if the bodies downstairs were ever found by someone then he would have no choice but to run away. Haru quickly ran downstairs without saying another word as Hong Xia followed closely behind, unsure of what was happening.
But as soon as he reached the ground floor the door to the Inn opened up to reveal a small group of guards standing with their weapons raised as they were ready for a fight.
They looked at Haru for a moment before looking down at the corpse lying in the middle of the tavern.
"It looks like the fight was over before we even got here." One of the guards said as Annabeth pushed her way past them to see the body before looking up at Haru with wide eyes.
"Oh… You killed them…" Annabeth said with a worried expression as she looked at Haru.
There was a long pause of silence as everyone in the room waiting for someone to say something but Haru remained silent. He knew that if he tried to explain what happened it would make him look even more guilty.
"Hey, what's going on?" Hong Xia asked as she slipped her head past Haru's arm to see the guards standing behind Annabeth with their swords raised.
"Oh, this doesn't look good." She whispered before retracting her head back and grabbing Haru's shoulder before trying to pull him back upstairs but he remained still until Annabeth broke the silence once again.
"Okay, first we need to get rid of the bodies. You three! Bag them up and take them out of the back entrance we don't want anyone finding out what happened here okay?" Annabeth asked as she looked up to see that Haru was surprised by her actions.
He thought for sure that she was going to blame Haru for what happened in order to spare their town from answering to the Kastron star alliance but instead she ordered the men to get rid of the bodies.
"Oh, and if any of you feel like you want to betray my family then don't forget that you are the ones disposing of the bodies. If they find out that you guys helped out then you won't be spared either no matter what pretty lies they whisper in your ears." Annabeth reminded the guards, confirming that she knew that a member in the guards had betrayed them and shared information with the Kastron star alliance.
Neither of the guards batted an eye at what she had warned them about and carried on with their orders of getting rid of the bodies. One of them pulled out 2 large body bags from his storage ring and then laid them down on the ground beside the bodies.
Annabeth then walked closer to Haru as she asked what had happened. Haru then replied in a hushed tone so that no one else would hear him.
"I incapacitated the woman and the man agreed to talk to me about the plans but after a few questions, someone else snuck in without me realising and killed both of them right in front of me before vanishing. I think they were trying to frame me for killing them." Haru said as Annabeth began to chuckle, thinking that he had just told her the cover story that he would tell the alliance if they came looking for him.
"Come on tell me what really happened. And you need to come up with a better story than that. No one would ever believe you. It would be easier to say it was self-defence." Annabeth said as she advised him to get his story straight before the alliance could come for him but it wasn't just a story.
"Well, that's what really happened. He was telling me about all the things that his employer was doing and was just about to answer another question that I asked him when something shot through his head and killed him instantly.
By the time I turned around whoever was responsible had vanished. The only thing I saw was a shadow leave through the door. When I checked on the woman she had a large cut on her throat." Haru said calmly as he knew that he was the only one that knew the truth.
It was a pretty unbelievable story on the surface but there was nothing he could do about that. She had the choice to believe him or not but he wasn't too concerned with what she chose to do. The only thing that Haru was worried about was the alliance tracking him down with their whole force and killing him before he even gained the strength to fight back.
Hare thought for a moment as Annabeth began to lose her mind. She was spouting nonsense about conspiracy theories and stories that she had heard about people going missing without a trace in the forest nearby and how some people said they had seen a hooded figure in the forest nearby but when they sent guards to investigate they came back with nothing.
It was at that moment that Haru returned to the conversation as he remembered what he had seen when hunting rabbits in the forest. There was a dark shadow in there that had moved a lot faster than he did and it was a struggle to even spot them when the time was slowed around him.
As he thought about it some more he came to the conclusion that whatever or whoever was living in the forest was probably the one responsible for killing the two assassins that had come for him.
Haru's thoughts were interrupted once again as one of the guards called out to Annabeth.
"Lady Annabeth! We found something strange!" The guard shouted out causing Annabeth to run over to his location and look at the ground to where he was pointing. Haru looked back at Hong Xia for a moment with a confused expression before the both of them joined them to look at whatever was found beside the man's body.
