When Herscherik’s name was mentioned, Kuro lost it. He was the one person in the world whom Kuro wanted to protect from his past. Just imagining Herscherik’s disappointed look was too much for Kuro to bear. He closed in on Rook in the blink of an eye, thrusting the dagger that seemed to materialize in his hand straight toward Rook’s face. Rook dodged the attack with ease, albeit only so easily because Kuro had lost his cool, making his attack predictable. Under ordinary circumstances, Kuro could have taken Rook in a fight easily. After his stab failed to connect, Kuro lowered his center of gravity and turned to kick Rook in the torso. Rook saw that coming too and caught his kick with one hand. Kuro glared up at Rook, almost audibly grinding his teeth.
Rook calmly met Kuro’s glare. “What a mess. Didn’t expect to shake you this easily. Did I really overestimate you so much?”
“Overestimate...?” Kuro relaxed. Finally realizing that he was being tested, Kuro regained his cool.
Rook released Kuro’s leg and cut to the chase. “Shadow Fang, will you be Prince Herscherik’s butler of service?”
Kuro gulped. It was precisely what he wanted the most. Still, he saw many obstacles in the way for him to assume that position. “But I’m...” He couldn’t finish his sentence, so he only shook his head and stared at the floor. Anyone who served royalty was required to have a reputable background. At the very least, he would have had to be born into nobility or to a rich merchant. Kuro, by contrast, was an underground spy who had abandoned his home country to roost in Gracis. What’s more, he had committed numerous crimes throughout this career. Even as he longed for the position, Kuro couldn’t help but wonder if he would actually be allowed at Herscherik’s side.
“I’ll make you a background. Don’t worry about your criminal record, either. We can even do a trial run if you want,” Rook declared, as Kuro silently struggled with the decision.
Rook had begun researching Kuro ever since his first encounter with Herscherik. Using his own network, he had uncovered everything he could about Kuro, as well as the work he had performed. Whenever Kuro gathered information, he always made sure that his target didn’t even realize that anything had been taken from them. He never put any informants in danger, either. He never accepted assassination requests without a good reason behind them, and he never killed anyone he didn’t have to. In particular, he never accepted any mission to assassinate a child, no matter the price. In fact, any such requests proposed to Kuro always vanished in a matter of days. After looking at every piece of information he had gathered about Kuro, Rook was sure that he was the only one suitable to become Herscherik’s butler of service. Rook had intended to propose the idea to Solye all along, and the kidnapping had only sped up the process.
“What do you want?” Kuro asked, expecting Rook to use him to get to Herscherik.
Rook’s answer, however, blew Kuro away. “Just one thing. For you to stay by Prince Herscherik’s side.” Kuro looked up at Rook’s steel-colored eyes piercing through him. “Stay with His Highness, help him, protect him, and support him. Otherwise, do whatever you want.”
“Don’t you think I’ll hurt Hersch...?” Kuro countered, glaring back at Rook.
Rook scoffed. “Could you hurt him if you tried? You two already have nicknames for each other.” Kuro couldn’t deny that. “What say you?”
Kuro closed his eyes at the question. What he saw in the darkness was the prince sitting on his sofa and quietly watching the flames in the fireplace. He had no doubts about it. “What do you think?”
Rook nodded in satisfaction and turned his back. “Then let’s get started. First things first, leave that underground guild. After you take care of anything down there, meet me at my manor. You know where it is, don’t you?”
Kuro nodded and blended into the dark of night, vanishing from the castle.
A shadow entered a certain well-off market through the back door. It silently moved through the abandoned shop and through a door labeled “employees only.” Beyond it, there was a simple room with nothing but a basic set of a table and two chairs, as well as a bookshelf against the wall. The shadow stood before the bookshelf and started pushing on the spines of some of the books rather than taking any of them out of the shelf. Then, the floor directly by the bookshelf slid away, revealing a downward staircase. The shadow descended the staircase to another door at the end of it. Upon opening the door, the shadow was met by a woman.
“Oh, Shadow Fang,” she greeted him. “What are you doing here at this hour?” The faint light of a lantern flickered over the woman’s face. She had brunette hair cut in a boyish style, with piercings on her lips as well as her ears and a ring on each finger of the hand that supported her chin at the moment. Each and every one of those accessories were magical items. This woman, the receptionist of the underground guild, was a highly powerful spellcaster.
“I’m out,” Kuro simply said.
The woman widened her eyes in surprise. “Oh... Really?” She couldn’t help but be skeptical, but as soon as she looked into Kuro’s red eyes burning bright with determination, she knew he was serious. Slowly, she stood up. “All right. Give me a minute.” She disappeared into the space beyond the door.
As he waited, Kuro observed his surroundings. He was standing in the headquarters of the underground guild in Gracis, which also happened to be the guild leader’s hideout. Kuro usually accepted jobs at one of their branches in a separate location, but the guild leader rarely showed up at branches. Ordinarily, leaving the underground guild was an extremely involved process that took some time. Kuro couldn’t afford that. In fact, he had only come to this place a few times prior. The first was when he joined the underground guild, and he had come here occasionally after that to receive important missions straight from the mouth of the guildmaster. All in all, this was not even his tenth time coming here or seeing the guildmaster. The only thing Kuro knew about the leader was that he could never read him.
“Boss wants to see you,” the woman called.
Kuro stepped into the guild leader’s room, where a man greeted him. The man didn’t have any identifying characteristics to speak of and was average-looking overall. The lamps in the room illuminated this average man. His eyes and hair were light brown, the most common shade in Gracis, and he wore a calm smile. If Kuro didn’t know better, he might have forgotten the man by the next day—that’s how unimpressive he was. The desk before the man was piled with papers, with an uncovered inkwell on the corner and a fountain pen leaning on it. The room looked to be nothing more than an ordinary office. For Kuro, who had spent years in the underground, the fact that the man’s appearance and demeanor seemed to actively avoid giving off any strong impressions was a huge red flag.