Chapter 140 - Assassinate The Assassin

As Merlin finished giving out instructions to the kidnapped victims, some of which seemed confused at the mention of Madame Hartlace's name, the group eventually began moving down the road towards Macedonia.

As they made it out of the forest, Merlin received a notification telling him he had completed the requirements for the quest.

「You have completed the quest, "Intercepting the traffickers", rewards have been delivered.」

"Alright, works for me." He muttered, thinking he'd have to do a lot more. "I guess that counts as getting away undetected, masks are pretty convenient."

Merlin started running around to all the wagons, freeing the horses that were still alive before resting his hand on one of the wagons and chanting a spel.

「Skill ⟪Ignite⟫ Activated.」

He continued to the other wagons, waiting for ignite's ten second cooldown before casting it again and again on the other two carts.

"Alright lets get out of here before the guards show up." He muttered before dashing into the forest.

Merlin took off his warm panther cloak and owl mask, throwing them both into his inventory and pulling out his old apprentice black cloak.

Once he was dressed, he slipped through the forest, only to end up in the rolling hills a little distance away from the road.

Merlin started killing more boars with his daggers for about ten minutes, until he saw a group of eight city guards marching down the road. Merlin continued slashing at the boars, not paying the guards any attention, and they just continued down the road without giving him any attention either.

As the guards marched past, Merlin began making his way down the road and into the city.

The guards at the gate seemed to have changed, although he wasn't sure if that was just a shift change or something had happened with the other guards and the kids.

He quickly made his way towards the mercenary guild and stepped inside. He walked over to the friendly receptionist, who greeted him with a smile.

"Hi there! Have you completed the tasks already?" She asked.

"Yes, I'd like to turn them in." He said, pulling the three quest sheets out of his inventory and handing them over to her.

"Excellent. Lets see here." She muttered before vanishing behind a door into another room, she came out moments later with a large basket. "Please unload all the meat in this basket here, and all the skins in that collection basket over there."

She pointed over to the basket that he had previously unloaded a ton of goblin ears into, fortunately it seemed like the basket was cleaned regularly.

Merlin did as he was instructed, unloading one hundred kilograms of wild boar meat into the one basket, and forty meters of boar hide in the other.

The receptionist seemed to be counting everything that was being unloaded as she messed around with coins in her hand. 

"So in total that'll be one hundred and twenty silver, would you mind if I paid that out in gold coins?" She asked.

"No, not at all." Merlin said.

He watched as she threw the large handful of silver back into a hefty drawstring bag, only to pull out a smaller bag and take twelve gold coins out, placing them on the desk.

"Thank you." She said, pushing the gold coins towards Merlin.

"Not a problem." Merlin took the coins, saying goodbye before wandering out of the mercenary guild building.

He weaved into the crowd as usual, making his way over towards the slums once more.

He checked his surroundings as he made his way towards the thieves guild, and believed that he was fine. Once he was confident, he slipped down the alleyway and made his way into the run down tavern.

"Welcome back." Fae said, poking her head up from behind the counter. She started making her way towards the cellar before Merlin could even say anything.

Merlin gave her a wave as he followed her down into the cellar, he walked through the door into the thieves guild.

As usual the elf was sitting around in his favourite spot. Merlin approached him, weaving through the tables that seemed to be more barren than usual.

"Hey boss, that one is all done, what next?" He said as he sat down besides him.

"You're raring to go this early in the morning, don't you ever sleep?" The elf turned and asked him.

"Well, this body doesn't require it, so no." Merlin answered, "It shouldn't be that unusual, you don't really sleep either, do you?"

"No, I suppose you're right." He muttered, turning back towards his drink.

"You're drinking that this early in the morning too, don't you ever get tired of it?" Merlin asked.

"Yeah..." The elf muttered softly, which Merlin barely picked up on.

A few moments passed before the elf asked the bartender to pour another glass of the same whiskey, just a tiny amount this time rather than the full glass that the elf usually had.

As the elf received the drink, he pushed the glass to Merlin.

"Just taste it, you don't have to finish it or even swallow it." The elf said with a stern voice.

Merlin was going to refuse, but since the elf was being so adamant, he decided to go through with it.

He picked up the glass and poured the contents into his mouth, swirling it around his tongue for a moment before he ended up swallowing it anyway.

Merlin began coughing, and he felt his stomach immediately start churning. The alcohol was still so powerful even with the effects of corpse eater cutting it down by sixty percent.

"Did you just make me taste dwarven armpit sweat?" Merlin retorted as his body started heating up. "That is the most disgusting thing I have ever put in my mouth."

"I suppose that's a good name for it." The elf said while cracking a smile. "This is the mountain's tears, a disgusting whiskey brewed by dwarves, and it's the only alcohol that you can find in all of Arcadia that can get elves drunk."

"Albeit briefly, before our bodies reject the alcohol and we become sober once more." He continued. "This batch was brewed on the same year that me and my wife were married."

"Does that serve your curiosity?" The elf asked.

"You did all that just for that?" Merlin sighed.

"Well, no." The elf said, "I also got you to drink, didn't I?"

"Although I'm impressed, you seem perfectly fine..." The elf continued, his eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Your scythe wielding friend was curious about it too, but he was drunk after the first sip."

'Aha, I guess my high constitution and corpse eater title saved me this time around.' Merlin thought to himself, 'If I raised my constitution much higher I could probably challenge a dwarf to a drinking contest.'

"We'll make an alcoholic out of you yet." The elf muttered, "Well, back to what you came here for, good job on protecting the kids."

"Did they get into the city safely? I suspected that the guards at the gate were being paid off, so I was worried that they wouldn't be safe." Merlin said.

"Not to worry, we've already dealt with the corrupt guards and a few guards of our own have taken custody of all the children." The elf explained, "They will be used to build a case against Madame Hartlace, and we should have results by the end of the week."

"Alright, that's good." Merlin breathed a sigh of relief.

"There is however an issue that has arisen." The elf continued. "Madame Hartlace has heard the news by now and grown more paranoid, she has suspected that someone is working against her. And we have heard rumours that she considered using her connections with the oracle to hire someone dangerous."

"There is an assassin famously utilised amongst the nobles to silence those who oppose them, he goes by the alias Ghostsaw." The elf explained, "I fear that Madame Hartlace will use this assassin to silence the city officials that we have under our control, so your task is to protect them and deal with this assassin."

As the elf said this, a quest window appeared before him.

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[Hidden Rare Quest]

Cutting off the spider's legs: Ghostsaw.

The thieves guild leader has given you a mission to assassinate Ghostsaw, a famous assassin who operates within Macedonia.

He is famously known for only taking kill requests from high paying customers, mostly high ranking nobles, and his victims are almost always high profile targets. He appears for brief moments of time, sometimes only a few times a year, only to disappear without a trace, never to be heard from again until the next year.

This behaviour pattern has given him the first part of his nickname, Ghost. While the second part was due to the fact that his weapon of choice is always a nasty serrated blade, which always leaves cuts that looked as though the body had been sawed rather than sliced.

Failure to finish him off and get away undetected will result in dire consequences.

Failure to finish him off before he kills his target will result in associated quest, "Cutting off the spider's legs: Madame Hartlace" to increase in difficulty.

Eliminate Ghostsaw.

• Warning: This quest involves severe criminal activity.

• Warning: The completion of this quest will cause unpredictable changes within Macedonia.

• Warning: The completion of this quest will cause Serpent-Bearer Kilo to become wary.

• Reward: 1000 EXP, 1200 Thief Soul EXP, Ghostsaw's Blade

• Failure: Become a wanted criminal, -50 familiarity with Serpent-Bearer Kilo, -20 familiarity with the Leader of the Thieves Guild, -20 familiarity with the Thieves Guild.

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