Their Tale

Chapter 8

'...How did I ended up here again?'

Right at the moment, Keith was running for his life in the midst of a forest. His whole body was aching so badly that he could not bring himself to care as for right now he need to run and hide from a scary assassin who was currently chasing after him.

He even rolled around in the mud, crawling on his four as a desperate attempt to avoid the assassin's sharp blades. Keith did not care about his appearance—clothes filled with dirt and mud. Because he wanted to live. And a certain someone seemed to have the most happiest time in throwing daggers at him. 

Keith had no idea why he thought learning dagger arts is a good idea. He even began to question his sanity—he wondered where he had the guts and courage to learn under the guidance of the vicious assassin. Because of his lack of consideration to learn, Ron was very eager to teach him not only dagger arts but assassination as well. 

Since then, Keith had to endure the hellish training from Ron and Beacrox, the cook who recently joined the training five days ago. (He still vividly remembered how he managed to narrowly avoid the huge knife thrown to him—only to turned around and saw the approving nod of the cook)

This evening, the assassin who taught Keith the dagger arts and assassination wanted to test his stamina, stealth, endurance and mind as well. With a wide benign smile that looked extremely vicious filled with amusement, Ron announced that they will play 'a simple hide and seek' in the forest late at night. He even brewed the dreadful lemon tea for Keith to drink before they started the game.

To put it simply, Keith need to hide in the forest and if the assassin found him, he need to do his utmost best to run away from the assassin.

The main point of this event is to not let the scary assassin catch him.

And that brought Keith to the current situation where his life was at stake.

A simple hide and seek? 

Keith wanted to scoffed out loud at that unbelievable nonsense.

'A simple hide and seek, my ass.'

If it is indeed true that it was merely a simple a game, then why would the daggers were involved in this particular hide and seek?

This is not hide and seek.

This is a hunt.

Where Keith is the pitiful prey running desperately while Ron is the predator who was hunting for his life with sharp blades. The so-called simple hide and seek will end once the predator catch the prey.

Keith thought he did a great job in picking a good spot to hide. The spot was inconspicuous and located far away from the assassin. 

Imagine how shocked he was when he saw a few daggers flying out of nowhere to him. And thanks to his quick reflex and sharp senses, he managed to avoid the daggers and survived, he even uttered a few curse to himself before gaining his composure to run. 

Keith gritted his teeth.

He remembered that he had completely erase his tracks and footprints on his way of finding a spot to hide. He even created some fake tracks that lead to another path in order to confuse the assassin. He knew that he could not fool the assassin completely, just harbored a small hope that it could buy enough time.

He thought his way of wiping out his own tracks and creating fake tracks was excellent.

So, what gave him away?

"No one would believe such a deliberate fake tracks, young master Keith. But, I must say it was a wonderful attempt and I am impressed."

Keith could hear Ron's voice of delight echoed from behind. He frowned deeply at that, not knowing whether he should accept it as a compliment or not. He was sure Ron was saying those words with his signature benign yet vicious smile.