Chapter 266 - Calm Blade

Although Julius seemed to have been rather overjoyed due to him finding his target which he would simply kill and get to go back tk the guild to pick up a dungeon type mission, he still felt annoyed by the words of the man who had simply overpowered him. 

"What did he mean by my hearts always racing? Of course it is. Battle is exciting, it allows me to enjoy my life," said Julius to himself as he leaped forward towards his opponent which caused the man wearing the bandana to try to cut Julius' right arm off so that he would let go of his weapon then he would be easy to kill.

"Even now, his movements are far too slow for me, I can read him like a book," said Julius to himself as he began to bring his blade to the side as he had dodged the attack of his enemy and was really to fight by with a slice of his own. Unfortunately for Julius, things wouldn't play out in his favour as he was kicked back by an unexpected new enemy which jumped into battle to help Julius' enemy. It was one of the man's henchmen.

"Nicely done Takkun, I hope you injected him with the poison as well," said the man with the bandana with a rather sinister look on his face to which the man known as Takkun nodded which caused the leader of the gang to grin even more as the victor of the battle was decided.

"What the hell was that for? Even so, it was rather a weak kick so I should be able to win easily-" Julius began to speak before stopping as he was cut out when he realised that he had lost a grip on his body. He was extremely dizzy as he fell to his knees before passing out.

"Well that was rather amusing. Take this boy to the hideout, I want to speak to him for a bit," said the gang leader to which Takkun began to drag Julius to the gang's hideout.

...

"Where am I?" Julius asked as he awoke from his slumber with a headache that was strong enough to kill an elephant.

"Boss, it looks like he's awake," said Takkun as he rushed to get the leader of the gang.

"Thanks Takkun, please exit this room, things might get a bit violent around here," said the gang leader to which Takkun nodded without even hesitating and left without asking another question. As for the man in the room with Julius, he has a big grin on his face.

"I see that you're awake, it's a bit unfortunate though since I will be knocking you out again in just a few moments," said the man as he began to crack his knuckles as if he was getting ready to break Julius' jaw. Julius himself was tied to a chair and was binded to it with a metal chain.

"What? Oh I see," said Julius before laughing.

"What's so funny about getting knocked out?" the leader of the gang asked with a rather angry tone.

"I just think it's dumb. You see, if you wanted me dead, I would have already been 6 feet under. However I'm still alive and you're holding me hostage. Seeing as how you plan on knocking me out, you're not seeking information since you could jaw damage to my brain which could cause a loss of information. The only possible conclusion is that you're keeping me alive because you want me to join you, however since you're rather slow in the head you must not understand that abuse to your future comrades will cause insubordination which will end in your downfall. I'll make things rather simple for you since you like to act tough and I don't want to waste my time. I'll accept to be a member of your gang, just free me already and give me some food, I'm rather hungry," said Julius to which the gang leader began to laugh.

"You're a rather arrogant one aren't you? Do you think that I'll let you go just because of that? You see, I have a whole group of people capable of taking you down if I tell them to," said the leader of the gang with a smirk.

"That's clearly a lie. I would say that the man by the name of Takkun is the strongest man you have since you made him incharge of you main support in battle. Seeing as how you seem to clearly not understand that you're a horrible leader, I doubly that anyone who's stronger than you would willingly work for you. Instead they would have killed you by now but seeing as how you're alive, even the entirely of your gang can't defeat you because if they could, they would have teamed up and killed you by now," said Julius as he carefully disassembled the life of the gang leader which left the gang leader speechless however he was excited to have someone so strong and smart on his side.

"Sure then, I'm so happy to have you at my side, thank you so much," said the gang leader as he untied Julius and even did him a favour by handing back his blade.

"I was going to cut him down before but he seems rather dumb. I should explore this place a bit more," said Julius to himself as he got up from his chair.

"I have a few questions to ask you," said Julius to which the gang leader looked ready and happy to answer any any and all questions which Julius had to ask.

"Okay then, first of all, tell me why you got into this business, what is your reason for doing this?" Julius asked to which the gang leader looked rather confused but still made an effort to reply.

"Well, I don't remember exactly but from what I remember, I believe I started doing this a long time ago to gain a name for myself. Both my parents had been killed due to them being frauds which used to trick people for money and as such one day they got caught and were executed publicly. I couldn't do anything but watch in tears. That's a day I'll never forget. The people of the town were the ones that reported them to a merciless guild which took jobs for a low price since they got off on murder and as long as they were allowed to do so from the guild association, they did it. As such, this village had no problem getting my parents killed. After that day, I began to train as hard as I possibly could. I wanted to grow stronger. All for the sake of revenge. That's all I ever wanted. To be honest, I would be happy to die right now. I've managed to steal enough money from these people that they all lost quite a lot of weight and are now living with what little they have. I managed to torment them for this long so I was just playing the waiting game until I would be executed," said the gang leader with a sad smile.

"That's the reason you're here right? You were a hired executioner right?" the gang leader asked with a rather sad look to which Julius could see the man had already accepted his fate and as such nodded in agreement.

"I understand. Please cut me down. All I ask is that you tell Takkun that this was my decision. I told him to wait outside because I knew he wouldn't want to be there when I was killed. Although he wouldn't like that, it's for the best and as such I've decided to go on with this plan," said the gang leader, which made Julius sympathetic towards him.

"I understand. You've lived a fulfilling life, even if some might hate you for the rest of their lives," said Julius as he slowly drew his sword and made the smoothest and quickest slice he could have made right to the neck of the gang leader which had a smile on his face as his head fell to the ground.

"Thank you," said the gang leader in his head before passing away.

"It's alright now, you can cry," said Julius as he could sense that Takkun was right outside the door of the basement-like structure that Julius and the gang leader were speaking in. He already thought something like that would happen and at least wanted to listen. Even so, it had a large impact on Takkun however Julius wasn't ready to deal with such a situation and as such asked Duke Drake to teleport him back to the guild building. 

Duke Drake did as he was told as he teleported Julius right inside the guild building to which he walked up to the first desk and handed the woman that was working there the paper. Not a single person spoke as they could see the lost look in Julius' eyes as he obviously saw something which he didn't want to.

"Mission complete."