Ben's backstory was sad.
He was not a filthy assassin like the rest in the assassin's alliance, but was more of a victim of destiny.
If life had played out differently for him, maybe he would've been a reputed Virex Operative like his father and have a family in the capital.
But because he killed the royal prince, his legacy was forever tarnished in the eyes of the masses as his crime could simply never be forgiven.
It was a story where Julien D Evanus was one of the obvious villains, however, more than him, it was the Assassin Alliance which bothered Leo.
The Assassin Alliance did not have an Assassin of the caliber of Ben Faulkner and although they evolved into a massive organization after the death of the prince, as various nobles and businessmen approached them with missions.
It was an empire that was made on the reputation of Ben Faulkner, a man who refused to kill innocents.
Even after Ben stopped his assassin work, taking up the job of a humble doorman, whenever difficult assassination missions were brought to the Night Guild, they were accepted with the promise that Ben Faulkner would be leading them, which was simply not true.
On one hand, Dem Paltrow had done an amazing job to turn the opportunity that Ben's reputation brought into a series of successful missions.
However, because of the missions being successful and being successful under Ben Faulkners name for the client, the night guild only dug themselves deeper and deeper into the vicious cycle of using his name to get more missions.
This was the reason behind why Ben could never be allowed to leave the guild, this was the reason behind why Dem Paltrow sent the assassin to kill Leo but not Ben, as they needed Ben.
Ben Faulkner was 90% of the Assassin Alliance's reputation, without him the survival of the alliance would be difficult as competition for employment would increase amongst the various guilds.
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( Meanwhile Dem Paltrow )
" Guildmaster, our assassin's and trackers have tried to find the whereabouts of Ben and the Mu clan boy for over 4 months now.
There is no trace left to uncover, I'm afraid they have vanished into thin air-" Sunny, one of Dem's most trusted underlings reported as Dem Paltrow grit his teeth in anger.
So far the news that Ben Faulkner had left the alliance was known to only a select few and since Ben was not actually involved in performing any missions, the working of the guild remained unaffected.
However, his absence was like a ticking time bomb as if it were not handled as soon as possible and the news broke out that Ben Faulkner had quit the assassin alliance, then the roof was bound to fall over the alliances heads.
" DAMN IT-" Dem cursed, as he wondered if he should have personally killed the Mu clan boy when he had the chance?
He only wanted Ben to taste despair, to warn him against making such stupid decisions again, however, his decision seems to have backfired.
The cat was out of the bag and into the woods, catching it again was going to be difficult.
Massaging his forehead, Dem thought long and hard about what he could do to salvage this situation, but after thinking a lot he realized that there was really not much that they could do if there was no credible trail to be traced.
" If you can't find him, it's okay. We need to focus on a contingency-" Dem said, as his eyes sparkled with interest as he thought about something amazing.
" Ben Faulkner made his reputation by first winning the Grand Tournament right? Let's prepare one of our finest talents to enter that tournament.
Once he wins it, we will label him as the next Ben Faulkner, making him the face of our organization and sending him on a challenging mission to gain reputation" Dem said, as he thought about repeating history and creating a new icon for their organization.
Ben was getting old anyways, so it was about time to make this shift.
Perhaps his disappearance was a blessing in disguise as now the night guild could finally build their reputation separate from his, working on their own legacy.
"Winning the Grand tournament? That will surely not be an easy task guildmaster, over the last 25 years, only two candidates have won it independently, while the other 23 winners were from the academies" Sunny said as Dem shook his head and emphasized the importance of this event.
" I don't care sunny, we have to win this anyhow.
Train them with the best resources.
Give them the best techniques we have.
Buy drugs to artificially boost their performance
But potions if it helps.
Cheat if necessary in the tournament. I don't care, we must win this at any cost-" Dem said as he decided to put all his chips on creating the next Ben Faulkner, someone who could be the new face of the assassin world and the first stop was for this individual to win the grand tournament.
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( Meanwhile Cervantez )
Cervantez was inside a hidden five man dungeon clearing which would not only help him level up faster, but also obtain a rare skill scroll that was not available anywhere else.
A [ Semi- Legendary ] level skill worth over 5,000,000 gold coins was possible to obtain by clearing this dungeon. However, since he was taking on the 5 man dungeon alone, the risk of failure was pretty high as well.
At this stage, where 'TheBoss' already had a big lead over him to the race the level100, Cervantez knew that if he failed the dungeon run even once and lost his life, it would undoubtedly spell the end of his race to 100.
Dying would mean he would lose levels and gear, plus he would need to restart the dungeon run from scratch, which would waste even more time which he did not have.
"I can't afford to fail here…. I simply can't" Cervantez told himself as he adopted a very cautious approach to clearing the dungeon.