"What the hell do you mean the queen and king are still alive? This is not possible. They had public executions, right?"
"I know, I saw the queen's execution myself, but this is the only thing written on this paper. Something is very wrong. Is there anything besides that paper in that chest?"
The two closely looked at the chest by bringing it near the lamp. There was nothing inside the chest except an upper mechanism.
"What is this now?"
"This is from the lock's attachment. It contains a bottle of some sort. I think it will destroy this paper if we tried to open it by other means."
"Such security and yet the key in the open for people to find? What was the person behind this thinking?"
Things went more and more mysterious with each passing second. A note is locked with such a complex mechanism, but the key is wide open.
It was someone who wanted them to know about this. Someone had known people would find it successfully. So, that person hid something in plain sight, but what was the purpose?
"Was this the mystery behind the king's daughter's ghost or something else? If the king and queen are alive, where are they now? How did they survive?"
Nothing could be explained, not a single thing about these questions. All this was far more than what Arthur would ever think to obtain. He was lost in his own world of questions.
"So, what do we do with this one? I am not sure about telling others about this."
Suddenly, Rage's voice brought him out of his daze, and he began to focus on the situation.
"I don't know. I think it's best to tell them nothing currently. We need to know more. There is something far greater than, any of us know going on. We need to go back and search that area."
Arthur immediately put the paper back in its place. He closed the chest with his key while Rage was confused at looking at Arthur's curiosity. He had never seen this ever before.
They both walked out of the Rendezvous room and walked into the hallway again, looking around the rooms. Checking every wall and looking for anything remotely suspicious.
During this entire work, Rage kept strangely looking at Arthur. He could not understand his action's reason or rationality. So, he planned to ask Arthur himself,
"Arthur, why did become an Assassin? Tell me your reason."
"Huh..."
While searching the room, Arthur was surprised when suddenly struck with a profound question.
"Well, that's a good one but why have you remembered it here?"
"Answer my question."
"Tell me yours, Then maybe I'll tell you mine."
Arthur smirked at Rage, who didn't understand the reason for the smile but wanted the answer to his question, so he answered Arthur's question.
"I became one because I wanted to kill the man who executed my father and ruined my family's name. We didn't support the rebellion or opposed it but we were the ones who were punished the most. They executed my father and other adults, and spread rumours about us being Traitors from foreign nations and us being Drug suppliers."
Arthur was amused to hear such a reason but not surprised to hear such sense, only something hard enough like losing someone they loved, could assassins bear their harsh training.
"So, after that, you took revenge on every one of them. Right?"
"NO, I gave up on that."
"What?"
"Well, The most of people who killed my family were already dead till I was ready to be an assassin. The ones who were left had changed their way of life and I didn't want to kill their loved ones and ruin anyone's life."
"Yet, here you are fighting and killing mercilessly in a war."
"' In a war' check your words before telling me and also tell your reason for becoming one."
Arthur had a stiffened expression on his face, he fell into thought, like a small kid thinking about what he would do when he grew up.
"I was just bored."
"Bored?!"
"Ya, bored. My life always has been uneventful. I was an orphan who saw the fun in nothing. My happiness was never in front of me, it always drifted away. It was all bland and colourless until Master came into my life."
"..."
"The idea of throwing myself into Death's mouth, knowing thing's no one in the world knew, killing those who thought too big of themselves and whatnot. This job has brought me a happy and colourful life."
Arthur's face, as he spoke, got worse and worse and so did Rage's expression. He saw something truly evil.
So evil that he didn't know if he should see or understand it or just kill the person in front of him? He saw the darkness and Malice inside a human heart for the first time.
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Fun fact - Arthur's favourite drink is Café au lait.