Out of all my years as a mercenary, he's the first one to surprise me so. The client himself didn't seem anything out of the ordinary when he was first brought into my office. He was of an average central-eastern build, slightly taller than most of my men and paler as well. He spoke in a sophisticated way and his speech lacked error, every sound was vocalized in perfect accordance with the Old Imperial Lingua Franca. At first glance, his fair skin and cultured speech may give the impression of a learned man. Perhaps a scholar or a teacher of some sort. But the tired expression he wore, the heaviness in his eyes showed another side of him. One much less pleasant and foul. If he ever was a man of a more erudite stock, those days are long past. His clothing has assimilated itself with the average peasantry, the only possession that may be of any worth would be his glasses. But glasses are only useful to the man they're made for, thus unlikely to be even glanced at by petty thieves. Therefore, all I expected was to be hired as some caravan guard or hired guns in a gang war.
The client was forthright and frank with me, shattering all the de facto rules of commissioning a mercenary. No gifts or pleasantries were gifted. None of the usual, imported cigarettes or wild game meat. He ignored all usual conventions and immediately requested that my company kill a warlord.
Now, it's pretty common to be commissioned to assassinate a local warlord in the South. Though the chance of success for such requests is dubious, it's still a common thing to ask for. People will make these requests for the pettiest reasons. Many make them just to see if it will actually be successful, even if it means giving away their entire life savings for the job.
Warlord so and so is a scoundrel, he slept with my wife. My pride as a man has been shattered. I can not live under such a tyrant anymore. You must rid this land of him. I do not care about the pricing for such a job. I have already sold the house and farm, you may take all of my profits from the sales. Just kill him.
However, it's not every day when you get paid to kill the most powerful Warlord of the North.
In fact, I'm pretty sure my squad and I are the first people to ever be tasked with such a request.
Although, I wasn't surprised that our client chose us. It's only natural that when requesting such an insane task, that he came to us. Killing Warlords has become my company's forte. We've taken out more Southern Warlords than you can count on your two hands. And that's me excluding the tribal chieftain turned warlords of the South-West. No, we've killed dozens of fully-fledged warlords in the South. Each of them had carved up reasonable swaths of land and had their own personal retinues. What separated them from the South-Western warlords was their legitimacy. Many of those we killed were loved by their people, adored by their troops, and seen as rightful heirs to the dead Republican dream.
However, at the end of the day, they were still just another warlord. There was no way any ruler from the South could be on par with the monoliths of the North. Especially when we're talking about Feng Yingxiang, the so-called Great Pacifier of the North.
Of course, I couldn't turn away a chance to personally welcome the illustrious Northern Monolith himself. With such a large bounty on his head, my company and I were more than happy to provide Mr Feng with the famous southern hospitality.
The client offered such a large payout for the job that my lieutenant choked when he heard the sum. Granted lieutenant Kao was likely unable to grasp the number after the first five zeroes. All he knew was that it was enough for every man in the company to survive off for ten lifetimes.
For the first time in my career, I ignored a mercenaries code of conduct and pried for more information about this elusive figure. Sadly I was unable to even learn of the man's name, much less his affiliation or motives.
"No matter. As long as the payment has been received and the assignment is clear, the Azure Leopards will always fulfill a commission!"
With that, the meeting concluded. The client and I both stood and bowed to one another. I had wrapped my left palm over my right fist, in the style of the central-eastern folk, to show my respect and commitment, but the client had his left palm open. After that, the client left without another word.
"So the Vermillion Creed is still alive..."