Aiden's mouth dropped open in an 'O' shape, staring blankly at the dead beastkin, then turning to look at Amelia's tiny figure. All that came to his mind was one question: Is this beastkin pretending to be dead?
"Sir, he's dead."
The soldier's report shattered Aiden's daze. The other old soldiers were also shocked, staring at Amelia with her gray hair.
"You... how did you do that?" Aiden reached up to support his stiff jaw.
"Didn't you see?" Amelia replied coldly, as if she hadn't just killed a person, but simply stepped on a bug.
"This..." Aiden's lips trembled. Of course, he had seen it, but that was exactly what made it so unbelievable. A small, thin girl had just killed a beastkin over 1.8 meters tall. It seemed completely absurd.
"Is it hard to believe?" Amelia tilted her head, looking at Aiden calmly. "I could do this two years ago."
"..." At that moment, Aiden felt like he wanted to slam his head against a tree. Thinking back to when he was ten or so, he was still chasing rabbits with his bare hands.
"How old are you now?" Aiden shook off the stray thoughts, realizing that the little girl in front of him was no ordinary person.
"Thirteen." Amelia said calmly.
"Let me see the cloth on your hand." Aiden extended his hand, looking a bit nervous, afraid that Amelia might do something to him.
"Oh!" Amelia casually tossed the cloth to him.
"Uh..." Aiden caught the cloth in both hands, stunned. She just gave it to him like that? No hesitation? No resistance?
He realized that the stunned look he had just experienced was something only reserved for his time in the castle.
"Huh? Is this made of iron?" After inspecting the cloth, Aiden exclaimed in surprise. "Chain iron? No, this thing can actually move?"
Aiden frowned. The cloth wrapped around something that looked like a chain made of iron—a series of tiny cylindrical links that could slide along the rope inside. One end was tipped with a sharp darthead.
"Hoo... Hoo..."
He swung the cloth a few times and noticed that the iron cylinders inside moved with inertia, transferring the force to the sharp darthead at the front. He threw it at the tree trunk ahead.
"Thud!"
The entire darthead sank into the tree trunk, leaving Aiden gaping in silence. He hadn't used much force, but this strange chain had a surprising amount of power.
"Who gave this to you?" Aiden pulled the darthead out and walked up to Amelia, asking, "Who taught you how to use it?"
"My Sister!" Amelia's green eyes flashed for a moment before she coldly replied, "She taught me."
"Sister? Why would she teach you something so dangerous?"
Aiden was incredulous. Who would teach their young sister such a killing technique? And it seemed she must have started learning it before the age of ten.
"To kill," Amelia said calmly.
"This..." Aiden's eyelid twitches. How could someone speak about killing so casually?
"Killing is my reason for existence, and it is also the price my sister paid for raising me." Amelia said indifferently.
"What does your sister do? How could she teach you this?" Aiden said seriously. If her sister were in front of him, he would definitely beat her up.
"My sister is an assassin." Amelia replied coldly.
"An assassin? A bounty hunter?" Aiden frowned. Assassins were a special kind of bounty hunter—they only took assassination contracts and refused jobs like exploration or finding people.
"Where is your sister? Why did she leave you behind?" Aiden asked, puzzled. He assumed this girl was probably an orphan, adopted and trained as an assassin to be used as a tool to make money.
"My sister took the other sisters to do a mission. I was too weak..." Amelia trailed off, lowering her head. Her mood seemed slightly down.
She remembered that because she was too weak, she had completed the fewest missions, and her sister had abandoned her. She was no longer needed by her.
"Weak?" Aiden's mouth twitched, and he glanced at the beastkin on the ground before looking at the veteran whose face had turned unnatural. He couldn't help but feel a little defeated. What were they? Weaklings?
"Hoo..."
Aiden exhaled deeply, feeling rather disheartened. He quickly asked, "What mission did your sisters go on?"
He was curious about this. To abandon your own sister for a mission? Given her skills, it seemed like she had been trained for years. For her sister to just leave her behind like that made it all the more puzzling.
"My sister went to take on the seventh-ranked bounty hunter mission. She and the others are going to kill a dragon," Amelia replied indifferently, her palm clenched. She knew her sister found her an inconvenience, which was why she wasn't included.
"Kill a dragon???" Aiden widened his eyes, shouting in disbelief. "How could there be a dragon? What kind of joke is this?"
"I have the hunter's mission list," Amelia said as she pulled out a piece of parchment from her pocket and threw it to Aiden.
"Let me see!" Aiden took the list and immediately read the big letters on the parchment:
Hunter Mission #7!
Target: Suspected 'Dragon'!
Abilities: Unknown!
Addendum: Beastkins have reported sightings of a 'dragon' deep within the Black's Mountain Range. It is over 10 meters in length, more than 4 meters tall, with a huge mouth, sharp teeth, and it walks on two legs.
Objective: Hunt the 'dragon,' or capture it alive!
Bounty Reward: Calculated based on completion, between 10,000 to 30,000 gold coins!
"Hoo..." Aiden sighed in relief after reading it. It was only a suspected target, not an actual dragon.
In fact, he didn't even know what a dragon was. The dragons he had heard of were from novels, like the "Knights vs. Dragons" written by Princess Lucy. Two years ago, he had been quite obsessed with it and had even gone on an adventure in the Black's Mountain Range with Tony and Jack. Although, in the end, their father had stopped them and given them a good beating.
"Alright, your price has been paid. You can go eat the wheat porridge now," Aiden handed the parchment and the chain back to Amelia. He decided to leave this troublesome girl to the Young Master to deal with.
"How many days can I eat after killing a beastkin?"
After receiving the two items, Amelia said indifferently, "Once I'm full, I can go kill more beastkins."
"Stop! That's enough. As for the price you owe, I'll take you back to discuss it with the City Lord." Aiden quickly interrupted, realizing there were beastkins among the new soldiers he had brought.
"The City Lord? Will he need me?" Amelia tilted her head, saying coldly, "I only know how to kill people! I don't eat much."
"When we go back, you'll find out." Aiden waved his hand quickly, signaling for someone to take Amelia away.
He couldn't see any other emotions from the girl, and she just answered everything bluntly—she was clearly someone with no home, someone who had yet to discover the meaning of her existence.
Aiden understood that the girl, named Amelia, needed someone, just like her sister, to become her pillar of support.
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