Royal Blood : Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Chapter 13: Blood in the Water

For memorizing a complex piece of information, you have gained 1 Intelligence

+2048 exp

You have reached level 15

10 Stat points awarded

You have unlocked 1 Skill slot!

1 Skill point awarded

You have unlocked 1 title slot!

“Fucking finally!” I pushed the massive tome away from me. “I thought it would never come.” With a grin, I opened my character sheet.

Sure, the growth wasn’t quite as fast as I hoped. After that crazy first week where I burned down a house, Boss forced me to lay low for a long time. I barely even got to see Nezza. That, plus how rarely the boss man—who had lived with me for a whole year without letting slip his name—was actually around to train me really put a kink in my growth.

Part of me thought he was limiting me, but there was also the sense that he was in the dog house for kidnapping a prince and forcing me to become his apprentice. I was just stuck dealing the the fallout.

Training on my own was more difficult, and even without putting stat points in, I was starting to run into diminishing returns. There were only so many points in Strength I could get before I ran out of weights heavy enough for me to lift. Like, I’d kill someone for access to a gym. With a couple of plates, I could have maybe gotten my Strength all the way up to 30 by now. That was why I had to spend more time working on mental stats by memorizing tedious lists or trying to make better choices.

Wisdom was still my dump stat. Hell, maybe if I was a bit wiser I would have run away. I’m sure the Palace could have broken whatever geis I was under for my apprenticeship. I’d seen Royal Guardsmen looking for me.

But then I wouldn’t know who was the traitor inside the palace, and the guard didn’t seem to be looking for me very hard. So I stayed.

The lure of easy levels was a part of it–I knew myself well enough to say that.

In any case, my inflated stats were starting to really show. Never mind my ridiculous luck, with my stats giving me 2048 exp I was getting closer and closer to 20 stat ups per each level up. That would be twice what most people got. In another five levels, by the time I unlocked my second class, I’d be a stat monster, maybe even able to go toe to toe with people who had their third class unlocked.

Of course, the best part of all was the title slot. I’d been sitting on this title for years, because you couldn’t hotswap titles, and Prince of Nothing was too good to give up until 15. It would have slowed me down even more.

My grin grew a few inches as I equipped [Daemonbound], feeling the buff go into effect.

Nezz and I had discovered a lot about her new racial class in the past year, but I hadn’t been able to equip the title itself because I didn’t have any open slots. Without the title, I could still use her dagger form, but all the good tricks were locked behind the title itself. Also, until I equipped the title, Nezz told me she could still offer [Daemonbound] to other people.

Not that she ever did.

As for Nezza herself, she’d gone from a ‘demon-blooded’ human to a ‘Daemon’, which essentially amounted to a half demon, as opposed to someone who just had a Demon ancestor.

Her lineage apparently had something to do with soul weapons—I think I remember hearing something about that from the last Demon Lord that came to Norvusk–Go figure. She’d also gotten a few other bonuses, like additional stat points on level up, but most of her new bonuses came from her demon weapon form. I just got to take advantage of that as her ‘wielder’.

Apparently, it had something to do with how I’d directed her on that fateful night when we’d broken into her old home, killed a few people, and burned it down. Nezza herself didn’t seem too upset with what she could have unlocked, and I wasn’t certainly going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

On top of being able to use Nezza’s Bite at full potential, now that I unlocked the title, I was supposed to know her location at all times, and we’d be able to communicate when she was in dagger form. A quick glance over the title showed that it still had a few things locked, meaning there was room for even more advancement.

I focused on the locator ability. It was…trippy. As I stood up, it was like I had a hook in my stomach, pulling me in the direction of Nezza. I even had an idea of approximately how far away she was.

It would have been easier if she could have stayed in the house with me, but Boss was not a nice person. Instead, I’d helped her carve out a place for herself in the North side. Sure, we might have beaten up a few people and threatened a few others, but it turns out there weren’t that many people willing to go against an Assassin with an obviously magic weapon.

Now, she was staying at a rundown inn, and with my help, was more than able to pay for herself with her own Thief skills. It was downright cozy compared to how she used to live. Not gonna lie, though, being Daemonbound without ‘my’ daemon close at hand was already an uncomfortable feeling.

Still, it wasn’t enough to keep the smile off my face as I left my room. Boss was currently back from one of his missions—not that he ever told me where to—and I found him in the ‘kitchen’ area.

“I did it.”

He looked up, eyes flashing. I held back a shiver as I felt his enhanced form of Observe look over my character sheet.

“Daemonbound, huh?” He showed his teeth. It wasn’t really a smile. “I guess that little orphan of yours turned out to be good for something after all.”

I shrugged. “She also keeps me up to date on Iduneth’s underworld.” Boss hadn’t said much about Nezza over the past year, but he made it clear he knew about her.

The rest of the city didn’t much care what happened to the plebs, so other than that Nezz and I had gotten off scot-free.

Well, almost free. I bet Boss was just chuffed to have one more leash around my neck.

“Heh, I bet she does all kinds of things for you.”

I rolled my eyes. I was eleven. Honestly, my body hadn’t even hit puberty yet.

It was gonna suck.

More than that, though, I couldn’t let the man see how much I cared about Nezza. Or that I cared about her at all. I’m sure he knew that I wouldn’t want to leave her behind if I ran, but there was a logic behind that as well. An enchanted weapon was already a prize to be hoarded, but a soulbound weapon? Something so rare even the Royal Armory boasted only a few?

Well, best keep that one close.

“Still, it’s good you have a decent weapon,” he waved me over, tossing a sheaf of parchment on the table, “because it’s time for your first job.”

I walked over after a short pause. “Isn’t level 15 a bit fast?”

He laughed, slapping the wooden counter that separated the wood burning stove from the back door. “You think I’m going to babysit a brat for another year? Make sure you’re nice and ready for a safe mission?” He slapped me over the back of the head. It was a testament to my Endurance that I didn’t flinch. “I’m training you to be a killer, boy, and you had a longer apprenticeship than most get.”

“Just so you could take more missions on your own, you psychopath.”

His smile just grew wider.

“Here’s the details.” He slid the sheaf of paper over towards me. “I’ll be going with you, but you have your own target. I won’t catch you if you fuck up.”

I picked up the sheaf of paper, flipping through it quickly with my Intelligence-enhanced recall. “Port Royal?” I glanced up. “That’s a few days’ ride.”

“We’ll take a carriage.” He chuckled. “Isn’t it about time to ‘broaden your horizons’ anyway?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you hadn’t kidnapped me, I would have toured every city in the Empire by now.”

“You’d be dead in the sewers if I didn’t kidnap you, brat.”

I shrugged, going back to the parchment. It was written in a messy hand, and didn’t say ‘go here and kill this person’ in as much as it gave the details of one particular harbor official.

Apparently he’d been singled out for refusing to take bribes. Can’t have that.

“And who am I after?”

“Did I stutter, brat? That’s your target.”

I blinked. “Who’s yours then?”

He waved his hand. “That’s for me to worry about. Now, do you have it memorized yet?”

My eyes widened. “Gimme a second, damn!” I quickly went back through the sheaf of papers, memorizing details of where he lived (the Imperial Quarter) and how he liked his coffee (black). No family, no close associates, no one that really would care to want an upstanding official dead unless—

Boss snatched the parchment from my hands and shoved it into the wood stove. A second later, he had it lit with a kettle of water sitting on the top.

I sighed. “I was still reading that.”

“Read faster.”

“Asshole,” I muttered, ducking the answering fist. I took a few steps away. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as the carriage gets here.” Boss leaned back against the counter. “I sent a runner ten minutes ago.”

I blinked. “I thought you were waiting for me to get level 15!”

“Boy, I’ve never waited for a person in my entire life,” he said. “And I’m not about to start now.”

I glanced towards the door.

“Go ahead and grab your girl toy. If you’re not back in time for the mission, I’ll take her for myself.”

I glared at him before dashing out the door.

Just try, and I’ll kill you in your sleep.

With Daemonbound I could tell that Nezza was in her usual stomping ground. I darted out the door and sprinted down the street, taking quick turns one after another. This time, it felt like she was near our favorite bridge, which was good because that was close to the house.

I caught sight of a familiar splash of white hair down a side street.

“Nezz!” I waved a hand, sliding to a stop next to her and letting out a breath of air. Even though I’d sprinted for nearly a mile, I barely felt out of breath. Endurance was a hell of a drug. “Nezza, we gotta go.”

She blinked. “Go?” She flicked her hair. It came down to her shoulders now, rippling in downy waves that anyone would love to run their hands through. “Go where?”

I held out my hand. “We don’t have time; Boss has a job for me, and If I’m not back in time for the carriage, he’ll probably kill us both.” If only because Boss always made good on his threats, and we would both die before we let the old man separate us.

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m kinda in th’ middle of’a job.”

“So am I.” I waved my hand again. “Either pick your job or pick mine, but do it fast.”

She waited for a few seconds, placing her hands on her hips. Really, the last year had hit Nezza with the puberty bat. She’d shot up about a foot in height (way more than me), and had started getting all kinds of muscle. It hadn’t helped her get rid of the persistent baby fat on her cheeks.

It didn’t help her graduate from her b-cups either, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“Fuckin’ fine, let’s go.” Nezza grabbed my hand, and in a flash she’d been replaced by her dagger form.

Like I first noticed, the blade was bone white, the same color as her hair. More than that, blood wouldn’t stick to it. It just ran off the blade like it was waxed. There was a blood red gem set on each side of the hilt. Nezza had told me that she couldn’t really see through them, so much as she was aware of everything around her in dagger form. The hilt was made of soft black material wrapped in a golden filigree, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what any of it was made out of.

Certainly nothing so mundane as metal.

I slipped her into the spare sheath I always carried with me—lined with the nice sheep wool, because she could tell the difference—and took off running.

Now that I finally had the Daemonbound title, a few more quirks of our bond came into effect. For one thing, we could finally communicate while she was in this form: a fact that Nezza took advantage of immediately.

“What’s the job?”

Amusingly, she didn’t have her accent in her thoughts.

“We’re gonna assassinate some harbor master; apparently he doesn’t take money to let people skip inspections, and someone took exception to that.”

I felt the mental equivalent of a laugh. “Doesn’t sound like he’ll have much to steal…”

“Tell you what; I’ll worry about killing him, and you can deal with robbing him blind after.”

“I love it when you talk like that.”

I rolled my eyes, taking a tight corner. With a quick inhale, I jumped up and over a cart, waving at the swearing driver. “Have a good day!”

“Don’t ignore me, Aly!”

Nez had also gotten a lot more playful over the years. I hear eating three square will do that to a girl.

“I literally can’t ignore you anymore. You’re in my head.”

“Only while I’m a dagger.”

I shrugged, coming to a stop in front of the house. “Maybe you should be a stabby implement of death more often, then.”

“…Was that an insult?”

It looked like the carriage wasn’t here yet. I smiled for two different reasons. “Why don’t you figure it out.”

I pushed the door open, striding back inside. “I’m back!”

The Boss was in the hallway. He raised an eyebrow as I caught my breath. Okay, so maybe I was exaggerating about being able to sprint a mile and a half without breaking a sweat. It’s always the back half that gets you.

“Well? Let’s see the girl.”

I curled my fingers around Nezza’s hilt possessively. “I don’t see why you—”

There was a flash of red light, and then Nezza was standing in front of me.

“—do that all the time,” I finished in a mutter.

A full year of keeping these two apart, and it goes up in smoke in a heartbeat.

“So, yer Aly’s master, huh?” Nezza crossed her arms. “Ya don’t look like much.”

The boss chuckled, eyes flashing. Nezza took a step back, shoulders tensing. I could feel her activate her own skill through our bond.

“A level eighteen thief, huh? You’d do more good as a lump of metal.” He patted her on the cheek as he walked past. “Cute skill though. Or it would be, if you knew what Demon Eyes could actually do.”

We looked at each other in surprise. I was the one that asked, “What can demon eyes do?”

The boss looked over his shoulder, amusement flickering in the pits of his dark grey eyes. “Why don’t you figure it out.” I flinched back.  He shoved the door open just in time for a nondescript carriage to come to a stop in front of the house. “Now let’s go. We’ve got places to be, and people to murder.”

I sighed. “Now do you see why I never introduced you two?”

Nezza stepped into my side, turning back into a dagger. I caught her out of the air with practiced ease.

It was a lot easier when I knew exactly where she was, though.

“I think I’ll stay like this for the rest of the trip.”

I nodded. “Probably for the best.”