The organization was the biggest one in the empire, and they only dealt with the empire, they had no dealings with the outside kingdoms or empires, at least not officially.
The truth was, the organization had branches in all the neighboring kingdoms and empires, but the branches were small and they were just one of many organizations there.
They mostly dealt with dealing with some lower-ranged nobles, never touching the higher-ups.
They never took on any missions that would be detrimental to the empire, but sometimes they would act like they would do one, before giving the information to the headquarters and thwarting the mission or killing the person that had given them the mission.
The biggest reason why those branches existed was because of information gathering. The organization used the branches in order to get information about the other kingdoms and empires, which would then be given to the royal family.
The organization also didn't only take on missions that only included assassinating someone. They would take espionage missions, assassinations, bodyguard missions, assassinations of horde leaders, and more.
The horde leader assassination missions belonged to one of the most dangerous ones and there was a special branch of the organization that dealt with that.
Sometimes, a monster that was either incredibly powerful or intelligent would appear. Those monsters would then force the others into submission before conquering different areas.
The hordes were a great threat to any kingdom or empire, and the fastest and easiest way to deal with them was to kill the horde leader. Once the leader was dead, all the monsters would go back to killing each other and taking up territories for themselves.
Most of the time, it would be the adventurers guild that would attempt to take down the horde leader, sometimes it would be the royal knights, and in rare cases, when the horde leader was well-defended and almost impossible to get to without killing tens of thousands of monsters, an assassin would be called.
Assassins could sneak in and kill the horde leader without being noticed by other monsters, of course, most assassins were unable to do something like that.
Sneaking around a city or town was very different from a forest or plains. Even though Lyle could sneak into such areas with quite good results, he was no match for those that belonged in the monster control branch of the organization.
They were led by one of the 4 'Shadows' of the organization, the only one amongst them that specialized in killing monsters. That is not to say that the 'Shadow' wouldn't take on missions to kill humans, he was actually quite proficient at it, but killing monsters was what he was best at.
The assassins that were a part of the branch were more often called 'hunters' and not assassins. They were rarely called over to assassinate monsters, so in the meantime, they would usually work as adventurers or they would take on assassination contracts. The number of hunters inside the organization was quite low as only those that showed great talent when it came to fighting monsters would be chosen, and thanks to the very low occurrence of monster hordes, there was no need to have a lot of them either.
Of the other three 'Shadows', one led the spies, while the other two were the ones in charge of the assassins, the old man who was backing Lyle was one of the two.
Lyle had simulated training sessions about defeating horde monsters as horde monsters could appear anywhere.
There were those in areas that had monsters below Tier I, Tier I monsters, Tier II, and more.
Ultimately, Lyle was chosen to be a normal assassin as his skills truly shined there.
As for killing adventurers, even Lyle did such missions a couple of times.
Going inside a dungeon to deal with adventurers was nothing easy.
Usually, a dungeon would send an adventurer or a team of adventurers to one special dungeon where others weren't present.
A dungeon was actually made up of many dungeons, each looking different compared to others, but having the same monsters.
The way someone got transported inside was by the core of the dungeon scanning their mana signature in sending them off.
It was only thanks to the adventurers guild that teams could go together.
The adventurers guild was not only present in one empire or one area of the world, it was actually present pretty much everywhere on Corleon, except for some areas that were deemed forbidden to be entered or unexplored.
The guild was created a long time ago, even before the Golden Lion Empire was.
Its history was long, and it was created by three people. The three founders of the guild were powerful, incredibly powerful and it is said that they might have been the first to have entered the realm they were at.
It was almost impossible to find out just what realm the three founders were in the empire since it was not a powerful one, nor did the leader of the guild here have any such information, so Lyle was unable to confirm if the three were at the same realm that the empress of the night was, or lower.
But he sincerely doubted they were.
The empress, just like the other four other powerhouses of the world, was centuries old and nobody had ever heard of any being possessing such immense power as them before. The founders of the adventurers guild were probably what the system would call Tier VI, a high realm that nobody in the empire or the surrounding area had ever reached.
The adventurer badge could be bound to one adventurer, but teams could synchronize their badges, which would pretty much make their mana signatures the same. That way, teams could enter dungeons together.
An assassin would need to use a special tool in order to follow after the adventurers if he was to assassinate them inside a dungeon.
The tools were not cheap and it was hard to get them, but then the job would become easy.
The assassin merely needed to stay near an adventurer and use the small tool that would scan the badge and mask his mana signature to match the adventurer's, which would in turn allow the user to go into the dungeon after the adventurer, or even before them, and try to assassinate them.
It was the cleanest way to kill and hide the act as the monsters would eat the dead bodies, as for the outside world, they would simply think that the adventurers were killed by the monsters of the dungeon.
An almost perfect crime where evidence was almost impossible to be found.
As Lyle and Adam had finished their battles and were talking to one another, the team of adventurers came close to them.
"Hi, umm, thanks for the help, we would have been in trouble if not for the two of you." Neil, the leader of the small group of adventurers said as he scratched the back of his head.
"It's no problem, monsters coming out of the dungeon is a big issue, anyone would have done the same if they had the ability," Lyle said before turning around and leaving with Adam. They were going inside the dungeon.
Even though there were some 'complications' and three ogres had come out of the dungeon, that didn't change the fact that the two were still planning on entering the dungeon and fighting against more ogres.
If the number of ogres that were present in the dungeon had increased, then Lyle and Adam would leave the dungeon.
They were both faster than the ogres and could reach the entrance of the dungeon and use it to escape if there was a need to do so. That was why neither one was really nervous about entering the dungeon and fighting, well, Adam was a bit nervous since he still had no idea just how many ogres he would need to fight.
Adam and Lyle stepped inside the dungeon as the adventurers stared at their backs.
"Hey, those two, are they crazy?" Gron, the dual-wielding swordsman of the group asked as the others shrugged their shoulders.
"No idea, but they're strong, they managed to take down an ogre each while the four of us took the same time as they did, I'm sure they'll be fine inside the dungeon, we should head back and report this to the guild," Cobolt said as the others nodded at him.
The four glanced at the entrance of the dungeon one more time, but left the area since none of them could be certain if the dungeon had changed inside or not. They weren't willing to find out by entering it, they would leave that to Lyle and Adam who had already entered it.
As for Lyle and Adam, upon entering the dungeon, they were immediately met with an ogre that roared at them before attacking them.
"The monsters are usually deeper inside the dungeon, for this ogre to be here, it seems the inside of the dungeon has indeed changed," Lyle said as he ran with Adam.
Adam simply nodded at Lyle before staring at the ogre. This time, he would need to face an ogre by himself, and Lyle would not help him out in any way.
The organization was the biggest one in the empire, and they only dealt with the empire, they had no dealings with the outside kingdoms or empires, at least not officially.
The truth was, the organization had branches in all the neighboring kingdoms and empires, but the branches were small and they were just one of many organizations there.
They mostly dealt with dealing with some lower-ranged nobles, never touching the higher-ups.
They never took on any missions that would be detrimental to the empire, but sometimes they would act like they would do one, before giving the information to the headquarters and thwarting the mission or killing the person that had given them the mission.
The biggest reason why those branches existed was because of information gathering. The organization used the branches in order to get information about the other kingdoms and empires, which would then be given to the royal family.
The organization also didn't only take on missions that only included assassinating someone. They would take espionage missions, assassinations, bodyguard missions, assassinations of horde leaders, and more.
The horde leader assassination missions belonged to one of the most dangerous ones and there was a special branch of the organization that dealt with that.
Sometimes, a monster that was either incredibly powerful or intelligent would appear. Those monsters would then force the others into submission before conquering different areas.
The hordes were a great threat to any kingdom or empire, and the fastest and easiest way to deal with them was to kill the horde leader. Once the leader was dead, all the monsters would go back to killing each other and taking up territories for themselves.
Most of the time, it would be the adventurers guild that would attempt to take down the horde leader, sometimes it would be the royal knights, and in rare cases, when the horde leader was well-defended and almost impossible to get to without killing tens of thousands of monsters, an assassin would be called.
Assassins could sneak in and kill the horde leader without being noticed by other monsters, of course, most assassins were unable to do something like that.
Sneaking around a city or town was very different from a forest or plains. Even though Lyle could sneak into such areas with quite good results, he was no match for those that belonged in the monster control branch of the organization.
They were led by one of the 4 'Shadows' of the organization, the only one amongst them that specialized in killing monsters. That is not to say that the 'Shadow' wouldn't take on missions to kill humans, he was actually quite proficient at it, but killing monsters was what he was best at.
The assassins that were a part of the branch were more often called 'hunters' and not assassins. They were rarely called over to assassinate monsters, so in the meantime, they would usually work as adventurers or they would take on assassination contracts. The number of hunters inside the organization was quite low as only those that showed great talent when it came to fighting monsters would be chosen, and thanks to the very low occurrence of monster hordes, there was no need to have a lot of them either.
Of the other three 'Shadows', one led the spies, while the other two were the ones in charge of the assassins, the old man who was backing Lyle was one of the two.
Lyle had simulated training sessions about defeating horde monsters as horde monsters could appear anywhere.
There were those in areas that had monsters below Tier I, Tier I monsters, Tier II, and more.
Ultimately, Lyle was chosen to be a normal assassin as his skills truly shined there.
As for killing adventurers, even Lyle did such missions a couple of times.
Going inside a dungeon to deal with adventurers was nothing easy.
Usually, a dungeon would send an adventurer or a team of adventurers to one special dungeon where others weren't present.
A dungeon was actually made up of many dungeons, each looking different compared to others, but having the same monsters.
The way someone got transported inside was by the core of the dungeon scanning their mana signature in sending them off.
It was only thanks to the adventurers guild that teams could go together.
The adventurers guild was not only present in one empire or one area of the world, it was actually present pretty much everywhere on Corleon, except for some areas that were deemed forbidden to be entered or unexplored.
The guild was created a long time ago, even before the Golden Lion Empire was.
Its history was long, and it was created by three people. The three founders of the guild were powerful, incredibly powerful and it is said that they might have been the first to have entered the realm they were at.
It was almost impossible to find out just what realm the three founders were in the empire since it was not a powerful one, nor did the leader of the guild here have any such information, so Lyle was unable to confirm if the three were at the same realm that the empress of the night was, or lower.
But he sincerely doubted they were.
The empress, just like the other four other powerhouses of the world, was centuries old and nobody had ever heard of any being possessing such immense power as them before. The founders of the adventurers guild were probably what the system would call Tier VI, a high realm that nobody in the empire or the surrounding area had ever reached.
The adventurer badge could be bound to one adventurer, but teams could synchronize their badges, which would pretty much make their mana signatures the same. That way, teams could enter dungeons together.
An assassin would need to use a special tool in order to follow after the adventurers if he was to assassinate them inside a dungeon.
The tools were not cheap and it was hard to get them, but then the job would become easy.
The assassin merely needed to stay near an adventurer and use the small tool that would scan the badge and mask his mana signature to match the adventurer's, which would in turn allow the user to go into the dungeon after the adventurer, or even before them, and try to assassinate them.
It was the cleanest way to kill and hide the act as the monsters would eat the dead bodies, as for the outside world, they would simply think that the adventurers were killed by the monsters of the dungeon.
An almost perfect crime where evidence was almost impossible to be found.
As Lyle and Adam had finished their battles and were talking to one another, the team of adventurers came close to them.
"Hi, umm, thanks for the help, we would have been in trouble if not for the two of you." Neil, the leader of the small group of adventurers said as he scratched the back of his head.
"It's no problem, monsters coming out of the dungeon is a big issue, anyone would have done the same if they had the ability," Lyle said before turning around and leaving with Adam. They were going inside the dungeon.
Even though there were some 'complications' and three ogres had come out of the dungeon, that didn't change the fact that the two were still planning on entering the dungeon and fighting against more ogres.
If the number of ogres that were present in the dungeon had increased, then Lyle and Adam would leave the dungeon.
They were both faster than the ogres and could reach the entrance of the dungeon and use it to escape if there was a need to do so. That was why neither one was really nervous about entering the dungeon and fighting, well, Adam was a bit nervous since he still had no idea just how many ogres he would need to fight.
Adam and Lyle stepped inside the dungeon as the adventurers stared at their backs.
"Hey, those two, are they crazy?" Gron, the dual-wielding swordsman of the group asked as the others shrugged their shoulders.
"No idea, but they're strong, they managed to take down an ogre each while the four of us took the same time as they did, I'm sure they'll be fine inside the dungeon, we should head back and report this to the guild," Cobolt said as the others nodded at him.
The four glanced at the entrance of the dungeon one more time, but left the area since none of them could be certain if the dungeon had changed inside or not. They weren't willing to find out by entering it, they would leave that to Lyle and Adam who had already entered it.
As for Lyle and Adam, upon entering the dungeon, they were immediately met with an ogre that roared at them before attacking them.
"The monsters are usually deeper inside the dungeon, for this ogre to be here, it seems the inside of the dungeon has indeed changed," Lyle said as he ran with Adam.
Adam simply nodded at Lyle before staring at the ogre. This time, he would need to face an ogre by himself, and Lyle would not help him out in any way.
