Enigma of Sin

The day passed by quickly with Kayn walking around and exploring the various areas of the middle ring in a close proximity. He could have just gone back to the hidden Black Hand area, but he didn't want to risk being seen by anyone, plus his main goal would always be to take care of Lara.

He thought it was bad parenting, or rather brothering, to leave her to the avatar all day. She needed real interactions with him as she was now 2 years old and her development was coming along quite well.

As night fell, he rented a room at an inn, but still placed the Villa down inside the room. It had an anti-gravity feature, so it wasn't like he was placing a house down inside of a room, which would definitely cause the floor to collapse. Once Lara was worn out and put to bed, Kayn put on his gear and snuck out of the window with his stealth spells active.

He could only lament that there was no real stealth spell in this world, just people who did things similar to him, like erasing their presence. Upon asking Charlotte about this, she stated that she only knew of one person that could vanish completely like he was talking about. This person was a mythical creature and even Charlotte wasn't sure what it actually was as she only met the person in his humanoid form.

Kayn's personal spells would do well during the day time, but bending light was far more difficult than just sitting in the shadows. Not to mention if one looked closely, they would be able to see the outline of something moving, even if they could 'see through' him. Knowing this, everything was better taken care of at night.

Kayn swiftly returned back to the dimly lit hallway and knocked before entering the room. Just like the last time, the old man was sitting writing on a bunch of documents that were spread out on the only piece of furniture in the room besides his chair.

"Oh, Mister Jester is back. Can't figure out the map?" The old man chuckled as looked up from his paperwork.

Using the voice changing aspect of his choker, Kayn replied with a deep grit filled voice, "No, I'm here to return the parchment as it says."

Even if he was confused about being called Jester, the man would soon have his name when he registered the name that he and Charlotte had chosen to be his assassin pseudonym.

"Oooooh, figured it out that quick huh? Well hand it over and we can continue the process."

Kayn handed the parchment that had absorbed his blood over to the old man. Even though the parchment only changed what appeared on the outside, Kayn finally realized he probably shouldn't have used his own blood. If they could extract it and use it for tracking or something, that might be bad.

To confirm Kayn's worries, the old man then pulled a bottle out of the desk drawer next to him before casting a spell using a language Kayn didn't recognize. Slowly, the blood inside the parchment began to drip from a corner into the bottle.

Kayn watched as the bottle slowly filled up, there was at least 100 milliliters of blood inside once the parchment returned to its usual appearance. Kayn then watched as the man corked the bottle and was looking at it in front of his face holding it with only one hand.

However, the next second the bottle flew out of his hand and towards Kayn who also grabbed the parchment as well. They both vanished in an instant as Kayn used Extinction Flames on them, though he covered it up with regular elemental fire so that the old man wasn't able to see the black flames.

"My blood stays with me."

"Interesting little trick there! Are you a vampire or something? I can tell you're going to be a fun one Jester! However, that bottle and parchment you just destroyed are worth about a gold coin each, and you won't be making that kind of money for a while. So, what shall I do about this? Hmmmmm…"

The old man struck a pose as if he was pondering on something. He didn't ponder long though as four gold coins were tossed onto the desk in front of him.

"For the materials and your troubles." Kayn acted quickly as four gold really wasn't a big deal to him, especially if it would save him from future problems.

"Oh! You know how to drive a bargain! Fine, fine, I'll let it go this time." He placed two of the coins into a pouch in the desk drawer and the other two into his own pocket. He then grabbed a round orb from the drawer as well as another piece of paper. He scribbled something on the top of the page first before he handed it over to Kayn.

"Please fill out the rest of the form Mister Jester." And when Kayn looked at what he had written, the name portion was already filled out.

[Name: Jester]

Kayn couldn't stop his eye from twitching at this point, "My name isn't Jester. I go by-"

However, before he could finish his sentence the old man interrupted him.

"No, you will be Jester, as your mask makes you look like one. All we need to do is replace that hood with the proper jester hat and you'll be set! Ahahahah! I jest, I jest, hehehe haha." The old man couldn't stop himself from laughing at his play on words or making fun of Kayn.

"Regardless, you're stuck with the name Jester, deal with it. Fill out the other areas quick and hand that back." The old man finally turned a slight amount more serious. He even seemed a bit threatening, which caught Kayn off guard a little.

Kayn left the race space blank, but filled out his core strength and set the area he would be willing to take contracts to the whole of Palatine. This way, if authorities ever tried to find him, they would have to travel all around this massive city.

He stated his elements as dark and fire and lastly, he circled the option for face-to-face transfer of the contract rewards once the job was completed. He didn't want to risk being followed when he was picking up his rewards from a drop site, nor did he want to be tied down like that. 

There really wasn't much to fill out, which made sense as an organization such as this didn't like to keep information of their assassins on file in the case of infiltration. He handed the paper back to the old man at that point who glanced at it and nodded before pointing to the orb.

"Standard core checking orb, no tricks, just place your hand on it and it will confirm the stage of your core."

Kayn felt like something was off about the orb, but still placed his hand onto it. Immediately he felt the mana invade his body just like every other time. Only this time there was also the small trace of a dark element spell hidden within.

Kayn allowed the core scanning mana he was familiar with to pass through, but instantly got rid of the dark spell. He wasn't going to take any chances with it because for all he knew it was some kind of curse.

For the second time, his thoughts were confirmed. "Looks like you weren't lying, 4th stage core, very good, you'll become a great asset in no time. Also, just know that if you reveal anything about the Black Hand Society aside from what is already publicly known, such as where our branches are or how we operate, a curse is residing inside your core that will detonate it."

A grin filled with malice was directed at Kayn as he removed his hand from the orb nonchalantly. The old man was only disappointed that he couldn't see Kayn's face since most of the time people would give him a good reaction once he had them touch the Orb of Oath. Granted, it was an involuntary oath they were making without their consent.

Kayn wasn't worried at all since he had already destroyed the curse, but he still stared at his hands, acting like he was trying to look into himself. "Well, now that I'm bound to the Black Hand Society according to you, I can start right?"

"Not so fast, newbie. You still aren't a part of us yet. You have to complete the entry contracts before you're allowed privileges and given your ID plate." Normally it would only be a single contract, but the old man was still a bit bitter about losing Kayn's blood. Not to mention he left the race part of the information sheet blank. Maybe he really was a vampire? 

Noting this down, he decided to keep track of Kayn's kills for a while to ensure they weren't sucked dry of blood. What they did wasn't exactly lawful, but no one here wanted a cursed race within their ranks. A cursed race would bring troubles just by themself, and if the government of the Empire found out, they might start paying more attention to the society as a whole.

Though, he had come across a few assassins who were like this and very strict about keeping anything related to them under lock and key. Inwardly he hoped Kayn was just an eccentric that closely guarded their secrets.

"I'll give you five contracts, pick three of them and complete them before 10 days pass. Bring whatever the required proof of completion stated on the contract is back to me along with the contract. Then and only then will you earn your acknowledgement. Hurry up and pick, then leave."

Kayn read through each contract. They were all for normal non-mages, which surprised Kayn a little, but it made sense that they would give him the supposedly easy contracts as he was new. The rewards for most of them were abysmal, some not even going above a silver coin. The only one that offered a few gold was one that he definitely wouldn't take.

The people requesting the contracts were always required to put down a reason for the request. In this case, the reason stated was 'business rival'. The Black Hand Society then did their own information gathering and placed that with the request.

This particular contract was to kill the business rival and potentially rob their warehouse. The rival was a father of four and even provided free meals to the slums in the outer ring and also didn't partake in any criminal activities.

Kayn knew there were three traps hidden behind the old man handing him this contract. One was to see if Kayn was in it for the money. Two, to test whether or not he had some moral code behind who he would kill. Lastly, to see if he was loyal to the society, or would he warn the man of his potential death.

Kayn intentionally stepped on to one of those traps though as he placed the contract back in front of the old man, who he still didn't know his name.

The other four contracts all offered less than 5 silver coins as rewards. One of them even only offered 20 copper coins. After reading through the remaining four, he made his choices and placed one more down on the counter.

The first was actually the one offering only 20 copper coins. It was a request asking for revenge on a thug who had repeatedly violated the requestor, her sister, and their mother. Even killing the other two and throwing the requester onto the street.

The requester specifically wrote details about what the man did to her and her twin sister when they were only 18. She asked whoever took the contract to make the man suffer and then tell him that it was payback from Yeria. The proof to be brought back was a ring the man always wore along with the hand it was on.

Kayn had no issues with taking out someone like that, as for torturing the man? He had a few ideas that wouldn't cross his own line, but rapists deserved what they had coming in his opinion.

The second contract was to take out a guard in the outer ring slums that was abusing their authority, beating people half to death if not killing them, and also taking bribes under the table. The proof requested was to kill the man and place his body in the open for authorities with evidence of his misdeeds if possible.

The Black Hand Society's information network noted that the man should have a ledger keeping track of his money either on his person or where he lived.

The requester was one of the victims that the guard had beaten in the name of "keeping peace" on multiple occasions as well as trashing his stall where he sold random wares, confiscating them for being "illegal". The guard would later sell them to his own fence.

The third and final contract Kayn chose asked for the murder of a of a demon race woman that was supposedly cutting drugs she was selling in the outer ring with poisons that would manifest in various forms.

The society confirmed the poison inside of the drugs by buying some and testing it themselves. They even provided more information that a few of the drug addicts that took the poisons would go crazy and assault those around them.

The requester was actually one of the woman's competitors who was mad that they were losing clients because they kept getting either arrested or died. The proof requested was the woman's head.

None of these three was innocent and had probably caused several people suffering, so Kayn didn't have any moral objections to killing them. Without another word, he placed the contracts into his spatial sash and exited the hidden area.

It was time to hunt.