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RICK Oswald was the head of the Dark Guild. I had wanted to contact such a dark guild sometime after training to prevent my senses from dulling, so I was glad I happened across him in the shop and that he asked me to join. It made things easier for me.
As the head of the Dark Guild, he carried out both normal requests and took on the role of eliminating anyone opposed to the king or kingdom.
“The contract’s complete,” he said. “We can’t have your absence from the mansion being discovered while you’re training or on a mission. For that, we have Sia. Sia, come in.” When he called, a girl about the same age as me with white hair and red eyes came in. “Her name is Sia. She’s an expert in disguise, though you’ll believe me better if you see it. Sia, show her.”
She stepped out of the room for a few minutes, then came back looking exactly like me. I was shocked.
“What do you think? Looks just like you,” Rick said with pride.
In front of me was a perfect duplicate of myself. There wouldn’t be any problems with something as complete as this.
“She can change her voice too. There’s a magic stone in the choker she’s wearing. She can speak with the same voice as you if you record yours into that.”
The choker was studded with small diamonds, aquamarines, and sapphires. In the center was a tear-drop-shaped sapphire. That was likely the magic stone. At first glance, the choker looked like a simple accessory that wouldn’t be out of place around a noble girl’s neck. No one would suspect it was a magic stone.
Magic stones were special gems created by people of old, anyway. The method for creating them was lost to time. No one in modern times could create them, making them incredibly rare and valuable items most people never even saw. Just encountering one was said to be a miracle in and of itself, and purchasing one would require, at minimum, enough funds to buy an entire castle.
No one would realize it was a magic stone, even if Sia wore such an expensive object while transforming into me.
I was surprised this man had such an item, but things you never saw out in the world of light circulated the world of shadows like it was perfectly normal. They were probably relatively easy to acquire. And a dark guild could make far more money than a guild that played by the books.
People placed a price on another human life when requesting they be killed. That price was normally very high. Every time I learn what that price is, I can’t help thinking people value other people’s lives far too highly. The only difference between humans and other animals is that we have logic and intelligence. That’s it. I don’t feel a life that can be taken when someone tells me to take it has any value at all.
“I think this is the start of a good working relationship, Selena,” said Rick.
I’m likely an abnormality among all the nobility, raised wanting for nothing. Normally, I was met with disgust and suspicion for that, but Rick just said, “The number of things I don’t know about this world is as vast as the mountains. So, regardless of everything else, I won’t pry.”
He just accepted me as I was.
What a strange man.