Chapter 325: Introduce Ourselves

Toby POV

When Mackenzie told him and Aaron about the job, they had both been a bit hesitant. It didn’t have to deal with the fact that they were killing a person. No, they had taken plenty of assassination jobs before.

However, they usually strayed from those involving certain people. One of those groups included children. Especially younger ones.

Yet, she had come to them with a job to kill a boy. He wasn’t a little boy, but he was still young. The only thing that made the idea somewhat tolerable was when she mentioned the boy was Tier 3 and had done some bad things to deserve the punishment.

He didn’t know who had hired Mackenzie, and she wouldn’t say, no matter how much they tried to get her to talk. But he had a feeling that the mission came directly from her family. He knew her well enough by now that she only ever got this quiet when it involved her Clan or people connected with it.

They all believed it would be a simple job. A Tier 3 boy? They had assassinated a Tier 4 noble and his guards the other month without any issue. A Tier 3 boy was a walk in the park compared to that mission.

At least that was what they had thought.

Everything had been carefully planned; no matter how easy they thought it was going to be, they understood the need to be professional. They found out everything about the boy they could find.

They learned who his friends were and what his schedule was like. While he seemed friendly with some influential kids, it shouldn’t matter. It wasn’t like they were actually going to be assassinating them. Their only target was the boy, and he was an orphan with no family that might retaliate.

They even investigated his abilities, although that was a bit easier to figure out since he was an active participant in the local tournament.

They observed him fighting and labeled him as a warrior who used his fists as his primary method of attacking. This was good and bad for them.

The good news was that he didn’t seem to be the most sturdy or tanky type of bare-fist fighter, which improved their chances of killing him with poison.

But they were a bit worried because they all noticed how quick the boy’s reactions were. Undoubtedly, he had some type of advanced perception skill to go along with an equally impressive body enhancement skill. Additionally, the boy was quite skilled, as he had to be since he had claimed a top sixteen spot for the final round.

Thankfully, he was still just Tier 3. If he had advanced to Tier 4, then Toby wasn’t sure they would be able to get the drop on him. But the three of them were all Tier 4s, and if it came to it, they would take him down.

However, all of their plans went to shit when the first plan failed spectacularly. Mackenzie had managed to administer her potent poison, but the boy reacted even faster than they could have ever expected.

Before they could react, he had Mackenzie down on the ground, completely immobilized. Sure, the boy had managed to take her by surprise, but it was still alarming to see him keep her there and somehow disturb her shadow skills that should have allowed her to escape.

She escaped only thanks to the good fortune of the other man intervening. The only other way to save her would be to cause an even larger disturbance than they already did.

While the lords who ruled over Heston didn’t like to interfere with stuff like this, they wouldn’t hesitate to step in and make their presence known if something got too out of hand.

Fortunately, it didn’t have to come to that, and she was able to make it away safely.

However, what came as an even bigger surprise was their target leaving himself wide open to them. Perhaps he believed he was safe after the failed attempt, but he must not have known that Toby had been watching him the entire time with his unique skill.

A part of him was worried about it being a bait, but after making sure that nobody was following the boy, they decided to finish the job. They had a reputation to uphold, and they were already paid up front.

Yet, the boy managed to hold his own. It didn’t matter what they threw at the boy; he just didn’t die. Why couldn’t he just give up and die? It would make their job so much easier.

He kept on supporting his team. He made sure that Aaron was always protected by infusing his body with mana and other supportive skills. He also ensured that the boy wasn’t able to get comfortable, always throwing a random attack at him, forcing him to either dodge or block it.

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Some people liked to tease Toby that his method of fighting was not honorable and that it was sneaky. But, to hell with these people. The only honor there is in the world is the one where you live long enough to experience it.

He didn’t care if he had to fight dirty. As long as he survived, it didn’t matter. You can’t complain if you’re dead.

Yet as he thought this to himself, he widened his eyes as the tide shifted so suddenly that Toby froze for a brief second. The boy managed to disappear into thin air, and Aaron got hit by Mackenzie’s attack.

Thankfully, the woman was able to pull back before the poison killed her teammate, but that momentary lapse of concentration was enough that he lost view of the boy.