Chapter 40: A Helping Hand

The hooded man was shrouded in a shadow on one part of the alley.

"I noticed you didn't give the cursed bracelet to him and even gave him one of the more prized pieces, how do you explain this?"

Lilith merely smiled.

"Well I already marked him on his shadow, so there was no need for the bracelet. Most importantly, it's entertaining to see such a young boy in love.

This time the hooded man stepped out of the shadow partially and his hood was revealed, which had a symbol of eight arrows with a fancy design in a radial pattern which was embroidered on the black hood.

"Tch, it was relatively useless. I guess we will just have to take it back when we finish the mission, that knife is way too valuable to leave behind."

Lilith started to walk out of the alley.

"I just wanted to have some fun, anyways I will update you on his location. When is the raid?"

Slipping back into the shadow, the hooded man merely spoke briefly.

"It goes down tonight."

Hearing this, Lilith walked out of the alleyway and the hooded man was nowhere to be found either.

Leon was on his way back to the square, where he was supposed to meet Erik. He had the hairpin he bought safely tucked in his inner pocket, which was beneath his low-quality metal chest plate. The sun had already almost completely disappeared from the horizon, with only a tiny slip of light still shining and the darkness started to creep into the street only to be quenched by the oil-lit street lamps scattered alongside the street.

When Leon was only a few minutes away from his destination, he heard a couple of voices in the distance in an alley.

"Come on now, don't resist. This will be over quick and easy."

"Don't think just because you are the target, that we won't hurt you."

Attracted and intrigued by the threats, Leon stealthy made his way towards the alley using stealth, as he did want to take any chances. When Leon finally saw the situation, he had a relative understanding of what was happening.

There was a body of what looked to be like a bodyguard of some sort who had been defeated and knocked unconscious on the wall of the alleyway. At the back of the alleyway were four people with various weapons who were facing a skinny, lanky boy dressed in silk clothing who was on the floor at the back of the alleyway.

As the four men started to get closer, the boy's voice did not tremble surprisingly.

"Hmph, are you guys new to Orsini or something? Soon the guards will be here soon and you will be imprisoned."

The four men just looked at each other and laughed.

"I don't think you understand the situation you are in. We are here to kidnap you and we already know there's ample time before the guards make their way here. If worst goes to worst we can always kill you too."

This time the merchant's expression of calmness faltered a bit. As he was about to say something, one of the men who was holding a giant hammer about a meter long was approaching the poor boy. The man with the hammer was huge and was just a tad taller than Leon, but was very muscular like a bodybuilder which stood out even among his leather armor. As the man starting to take practice swings as he got almost within a 2-meter distance to the boy, he heard a commotion behind him.

Leon had been slowly sneaking up on the group, using the darkness to his advantage combined with his stealth. While Leon did not know how strong the people in front of him were, he felt a need to at least attempt to help the poor boy and he knew that Erik would look for him if he went missing. He also wanted to try to test his limit, since his skills had leveled up but he had yet to use them. Using his surprise factor to his advantage, Leon decided to strike first.

He approached the man on the outside of the group who had a dagger sheathed on the back of his waist. Pushing off with all his strength, Leon took out Ensis and used his dash ability to instantly close the distance between him and his target without even touching the ground once. Trying to limit the noise, Leon used his left hand to cover the kidnapper's mouth and thrust Ensis through his heart with his right hand.

The scream was muffled by Leon's hand and the blood flowed freely from his wound and mouth covering Leon's hand with warm blood. However, to his surprise the man whose life was already fading attempted a counterattack, he swung his elbow into Leon's stomach and it made an audible sound as the elbow hit the armor.

By now Leon's surprise and sneak factor were useless now, the man with the hammer and another man with a staff looked towards Leon with shock as they saw their accomplice die in front of them.

However the remaining kidnapper was not phased and seemed too experienced and confident, he sounded like the leader.

"Kid, you are messing with the wrong people today. Leave the boy, for now, let's go take revenge for our fallen comrade."

The man who spoke had his arms crossed with a long sword sheathed and did not move an inch as the two remaining kidnappers moved in. What stood out about him was an eye with a long scar alongside it making it unusable, which gave Leon the sense that he was a veteran at this sort of thing.

Although Leon did have a lot of confrontation with the kidnapper he killed, he felt the power behind the last-ditch effort of the dead kidnapper and guessed that the strength for the assassin was around the same level as himself, which Leon evaluated himself in the middle of E Tier.

The man with the staff did not approach Leon even though he was closer, instead, he merely started to cast magic with his staff in hand as the man with the hammer started to run towards Leon. However, since he was so bulky, the run was like a rhino starting its charge.

All Leon could think of was simple.

'Shit.'

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