The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

The village head opened the door to his room while rubbing his eyes. He looked left. Alex wasn't there. He looked right. Alex was lying in a crumpled pile, covered in blood. Huh? Alex was covered in blood?

The village head quickly realised there was an intruder and rushed to his daughter's room.

When he burst in and saw his daughter 'sleeping', he breathed a sigh of relief, not knowing she'd been consigned to eternal slumber.

He picked up the file left on her chest and flipped through it. When he saw the plans to move the village, he realised this was a warning from the sect. They held his and his daughter's lives in their palm. He shook his head and sighed internally, thanking the gods no harm had come to his precious daughter. It would be for the best not to antagonize the sect in the future.

However, as he was thinking all this, something began to feel... off. Something just wasn't right. Maybe his daughter seemed a little too still. Her chest didn't rise and fall as it should when breathing.

The village head started to worry. He placed 2 fingers beneath her nose, hoping to feel her soft breath on them. But there was nothing. In a panic, he grabbed his daughter by the shoulders and gently shook her, but her eyelids didn't even twitch. Even when he shouted at her to wake up, there was no response.

He struggled to accept it – no, he couldn't accept it – but deep down, the village head knew she was dead.

He knelt beside her bed and cried. He remained there, unmoving, for quite some time. The perfectly still spectacle looked somewhat like a tragic painting: a pale girl lying covered in bedsheets as her grieving father knelt beside her, head in his hands. The windows were wide open, revealing a brilliantly black sky and myriad of stars in the background.

Eventually, the village head looked upwards towards the heavens, still crying.

"Christin – *sob* – who – *sob*

Christin, who did this – *sob* – to you?

*sob* Christin, which dog of the sect do I need to kill!?"

*************************

While the village head was mourning, Isaac had distanced himself from the crime scene. As he ran through the streets, he wondered why the trial hadn't ended yet.

'Either I was wrong about the trial's goal and it doesn't involve their plans to move the village, or the village head still wants to move despite his daughter's death. People are cold-hearted. They value their own lives above anything else, so I doubt the village head will insist on moving when his life is on the line.

'But I don't have any other leads on what the trial could be about. It's probably better to confirm my suspicions before I act on them. I should only start looking for other ways to pass the trial after making sure the village head doesn't plan to move the village.'

Of course, the best way to make sure was the same way he'd made sure Christin wouldn't move.

However, Isaac had to plan properly if he wanted to kill the village head. He couldn't overpower a grown man in a fair fight and he probably couldn't assassinate the village head, who would be on guard after his daughter had been murdered.

Isaac recalled a conversation he'd heard in the tavern – the village head had respiratory issues. He could take advantage of that by fighting him in a dusty, enclosed space. Isaac remembered the dusty alleyway behind the tavern and decided to see if that was suitable.

*************************

The village head was furious. All he could think of was avenging his daughter and he didn't even know where to find the culprit.

As he left his house, he formed some semblance of a plan. His other 2 guards were just returning from helping with the fire so he called out to them.

"Tell me where Niko lives."

The guards were surprised by the village head's rudeness since he'd always treated them in a friendly and polite manner. However, they could sense his awful mood so neither of them corrected him or asked why he wanted to know. The guard on the right answered quite quickly,

"It should be 34 Shawtooth Street... he's invited me for a drink a couple of times."

While he was bedridden, his daughter had been keeping him updated on everything happening in the village. She'd mentioned that a suspicious individual – possibly from the sect – had entered the village and she'd had Niko tail him.

Since he knew where Niko lived, he rushed out of the courtyard and headed towards 34 Shawtooth Street.

Niko's house was on the outskirts of the village so it took the village head a while to run there. He was so out of breath he was panting when he reached his destination. He took a few moments to gather himself before hammering on the door.

"Niko you bastard, get out here!"

Niko opened the door with an angry expression, but he was sensible enough to not say anything rash when he saw who it was. He put on a forced smile and said,

"What do you need, sir?"

"You've been tailing a kid recently. Where is he and why aren't you following him now?"

Niko's expression turned extremely bitter this time. Not only did Isaac stab and utterly embarrass him, but now he had to endure the humiliation of explaining it to the village head.

"He stabbed me and escaped... I don't know where he is."

"Trash." The contempt in the village head's voice was palpable. "How could you lose a prepubescent kid?"

The village head seemed calm, but that just made him scarier. His gaze was cold, unfeeling and ruthless.

"I just –"

"I don't fucking care! Bring me to where he was staying! Now!"

'If you don't care, why did you ask?'

Niko was also furious by now, but he swallowed down his smartass remark when the village head practically exploded with anger, his calm facade disappearing.

He could only grit his teeth and withstand the displeasure as he led the village head back to the tavern.

*************************

The tavern was on the main high street near the village head's residence, so Isaac had arrived at its dusty back-alley far before the village head reached Niko's house. However, Isaac had come up with a great idea during his short journey.

When he reached the back alley, he went straight to the tavern's waste bins. After rummaging through the bins, Isaac had pulled out many empty beer bottles. He took one and broke it in half.

He was left with the bottom half, which was a circular base with glass sides ending in jagged points, and a top half which had the neck of the bottle leading down into similar sharp, jagged edges.

Isaac threw the top half away and continued to break more bottles, keeping only the bottom half. He then took the bases and lined them up on the floor, under the rooftop on one side of the alley.

Next, he covered the flat base of each bottle-half in dirt and dust from the alley floor. Now the bottle-halves were concealed. Looking at them from the side, you could see a circle of sharp glass edges protruding out of the ground.

However, the edges were very thin and sharp. Looking down from the rooftop above, it would be very difficult to spot them unless you already knew they were there.

Just to make avoiding the glass even more difficult, Isaac broke more bottles and created another line of them behind the first.

Now that his trap was ready, all he needed was an unsuspecting victim. It was time to either attack or provoke the village head and lure him to this alleyway.

As such, Isaac immediately headed back to the village head's residence to try and find him.

*************************

Not too long later, Niko and the village head arrived at Seliora's tavern. Just like he had at Niko's, the village head hammered his fist against the pine wood door.

"Open up, it's the village head!"

They had to wait a couple of minutes for Seliora to wake up and come to the door. The pair could even hear her grumbling on the other side of the door.

"Damn kids, impersonating the village head at this time of night. If he catches you, I wonder what he'd do..."

She unlocked the door, obviously ready to shout at whoever might've knocked on it. However, she was dumbfounded when she saw it actually was the village head.

She immediately felt nervous as she realised the village head probably heard what she'd said. However, those nerves were replaced by relief when the village head completely ignored it and spoke about something else.

"You had a kid staying here and helping you for two days. Show me his room."

"O–okay, come in."

Seliora brought them both to the room Isaac had stayed in. A hard stare from the village head told her they wanted to be left alone, so she went to prepare tea, shutting the door behind her.

Niko and the village head were left alone in the room. Niko was taking a look around, inspecting the empty desk and drawers next to the room's bed. Meanwhile, the village head slowly raised his arm until his palm faced the back of Niko's head.

There was a momentary flash of pale blue light, then Niko dropped to the ground.

He was lying flat on his face, evidently dead. Cause of death was quite obviously the icicle embedded halfway into his skull, still sticking out of his head.

Andreas, the village head, looked down at the body in disgust and spat on it.

"Worthless bastard, couldn't even follow a kid. Your incompetence got my daughter killed, so it's fair that you die for it too."