Chapter 7 Is This Really It?

Fear and confusion filled Arvell's mind as his eyes opened wide in shock

His body spasmed before he slowly looked down at his chest, noticing the sharp silver object protruding out of his chest.

(cough)

He spat out a mouthful of blood which dyed the surrounding grass blood red. A steady stream of blood began flowing out of his chest as it turned began to turn sections of his shirt the same crimson colour.

He slowly reached towards the blade that was impaled in him and ran his hand along with the cold metal, covering his hand in his blood.

Arvell desperately tried to reject reality, to believe this was just some nightmare, after all, how could this happen? He just turned thirteen yesterday. It was a day he was looking forward to his whole life, but how come everything went wrong? He found out he lacked even a trace of mana, his family abandoned him, his fiance annulled her marriage with him, and he was going to die the next day.

'What kind of sick joke was this? Why did he have to go through this? What did he do to deserve such a fate? Who was at fault for this?'

Questions began to cloud Arvell's mind as he desperately sought an answer.

'Power… If only I was strong this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have been abandoned, I wouldn't have been embarrassed by my ex-fiance, and I wouldn't have been stabbed here. I desire power… Power to control my fate. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF OTHER PEOPLE DICTATING MY LIFE'

Almost as a response to Arvell's burning desire for power, his amulet lit up for a moment before the light faded again. However, as it was tucked within Arvell's shirt it wasn't visible to him nor the assassins

'But… It's too late for me, there's no way I'm going to live through this. If only I had a second chance, I would have gathered enough power to change my fate and make the people who wronged me suffer,' he solemnly thought to himself.

The man who stabbed him pulled his sword out of his chest and let Arvell fall face-forward, hitting the ground hard.

Since the sword that was acting as a stopgap was removed from his chest, a massive spurt of blood came out of Arvell's chest drenching the assassin red. After falling to the ground a pool of blood rapidly began to surround his corpse leaving a sizeable red patch on the ground.

Arvell saw the amulet on his chest that was poking out from his chest, reminding him of the only girl he ever loved.

'Mom, Lily, big brother Tristan, big sister Alecia… I'm sorry for dying so soon. I wish I could have seen you one last time…' he thought to himself as a tear trailed down his nose before hitting the ground. He slowly gave up resisting and eventually succumbed to the feeling of drowsiness that enveloped him.

Arvell slowly closed his eyes and breathed his last breath.

"Boss he's surely dead now! No one can survive that!" the assassin proclaimed

"..."

The leader turned to face his subordinate, and even with the mask on it didn't take an idiot to figure out that he was pissed.

"Idiot! Don't just raise a flag! Almost every time someone says that they somehow miraculously survive, have you never touched a book?"

The leader sighed and then ordered his men to go check on Arvell's vitals, while he wiped off the blood on his blade.

One of the men touched Arvell's wrist. "Boss he has no pulse and I can feel the aura of death around his body, the mission was a success".

"Don't worry about looting him, whatever we can salvage from his body won't be worth the time wasted."

The leader simply nodded his head but still felt some kind of unease with this setting. However, after visibly confirming that there the man was dead was there any need to worry?

It's not like he would come back as an undead immediately, and if he was to even come back as an undead he would need to have had a sizable mana pool while he was alive. However it was common knowledge by now that the prince was trash who lacked mana in the first place, so reviving as an undead without outside assistance was impossible.

The leader used this reasoning to comfort himself and remove his feeling of unease.

"Dump his body in the river, if we try to burn his corpse we would risk his accomplices seeing the smoke and light from the fire. Just let his body drown and never be found again."

"Yes, boss!"

The assassins carried Arvell's corpse to the nearby river and unceremoniously chucked it in.

His body began to flow along the river slowly dyeing the water surrounding it blood red. After a few seconds, his body began slowly sinking further and further into the depths while his necklace mysteriously lit up for a moment before returning to normal. However, Arvell's corpse was too submerged for his killers to see.

After confirming that his body had indeed sunk into the river, the assassins dispersed from their locations and began their journey back to the capital city of Talmek to report the news to second prince Carnis.

Shortly after the assassins escaped two masked figures covered in blood and wounds appeared at the place where Arvell was killed.

Jessica and Calen were able to kill their opponents, before heading in the direction in which Arvell ran, however they were greeted by a pool of blood instead of the prince that they were tasked to protect.

Jessica ran her hand through a blade of grass and collected a few drops of blood on it.

"We were too late" she somberly muttered.

"FUCK! To think they had reinforcements! We just got stalled by their cannon fodder! The Queen is going to be pissed. We'll probably lose our jobs if not our lives! FUCCCCKKKKK" Calen raged.

"Calm down. Her highness won't let us off that easy, she still needs us to protect her. Even if our credibility took a hit she still understands our value. But you're right, she's going to be pretty angry at us and will probably find some way to punish us. Our lives are going to be much worse now. After all, we did let her precious child die."

"(Sigh) Yeah you're right…" Calen took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"I still feel bad for the kid tho. From what I've seen from him in the past, he was a good kid. He was caring towards his family too." Calen turned his gaze away from the bloody patch to the trail of blood that led toward the river. "Too bad the royal palace is a den of vipers, with his family being some of the most deadly kind."

"Such is life in this world. For a world dominated by magic, his very existence is seen as a sin."

"We probably won't be able to recover the body now, it's probably somewhere at the bottom of the river far downstream. Her highness won't even have a body to bury."

"We should hurry back and report the news. If we waste too much time we would only serve in angering her further."

The two of them disappeared in a way similar to the earlier group, allowing for an eerie silence to envelop the area.