“Happy birthday.”
Astraea stared at the cake with the number 17 sitting atop of it, she had officially been doing assassin work for the last 2 years now.
This made it a total of 7 years since she had first arrived at this mansion as well.
However, for some reason, she had a bad feeling this time, unlike her previous birthdays, Evelyn was currently present.
And to add to that fact, she was the only one.
Usually, there were some maids and other servants, sometimes even Jared swung by to wish her a happy birthday.
But this time, the moment she woke up, Evelyn sent the maids to come get her.
And that’s where she currently was, in Evelyn’s office, with a small cake in front of her.
“What’s the occasion?” Astraea asked while eyeing the cake, it had a small and barely noticeable layer of mana inside of it.
‘Is she trying to poison me? Is this some sort of a prank?’
“I want you to complete a special mission for me, you think you can do that?” Evelyn said while maintaining her smile.
The mood looked pretty warm to an outsider, however, to Astraea, something felt wrong.
“What is it?” She went straight to the point, holding herself back from eating the cake, she loved sweets after all.
But, putting that aside, the cake contained something she definitely did not want to put in her body.
Evelyn smirked and passed her a document, it contained some kind of a seal she had never seen before.
Astraea suspiciously picked it up and read through it, her frown deepening as she read on.
“You do remember what kind of missions I take right? This is not for me” She passed the document back, as the years went by, her moral compass hadn’t cracked for even a moment.
She would brutally kill the scumbags and murderers, it was not that she enjoyed it, Astraea just hoped that by doing so, she could send a message.
A message stating that she was always watching them.
But even after this, there were bound to be helpless idiots who slipped through the cracks and did continued on with their bad deeds.
But it never went unnoticed, she came around and killed them just like the rest.
Evelyn frowned as she looked at the document in front of her “Do you not understand that you are nothing more than a hired gun? All you have to do is accept the request and go through with it.”
“No, I already told you multiple times that I would never accept any requests like that, and I am going to hold true to my word” Astraea shot back and turned around, heading for the door.
However, a sudden chill ran down her spine as she felt an intense cold creep up her neck.
“Is that really your answer?” Evelyn’s emotionless voice came from right behind her, she managed to stand up and appear without her even noticing.
‘This woman..’ Astraea sighed, she remembered a fair share of unreasonable people her older self had encountered.
She finally snapped “Listen… You want me to slaughter an orphanage, and for what? So some rich kid’s funding goes away? Are you taking me for some kind of monster?”
The mission requestee was some VIP according to the document, and from what Astraea could tell, that person had some kind of relationship with Evelyn.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t be acting like this, even though Evelyn was not the softest tool in the shed, she protected her own.
Astraea was one of her own, yet she was currently being forced to accept this ridiculous mission.
Evelyn had remained quiet during her outburst, however, the pressure she emitted kept increasing, before it suddenly dispersed.
“Astraea… the client personally requested you, the power they wield over our organization is too great for either of us to refuse…” She said in a grave tone before continuing.
“So I will give you two choices. The first, accept the mission and complete it to the best of your abilities.”
Astraea immediately shook her head at those words, not even waiting to hear the second choice.
However, Evelyn ignored her “The second choice is for you to leave the organization and be hunted down. With my power, I could stall for at most a day.. That is all.”
‘Oh..’ Astraea’s eyes widened at her words. Even though she knew there wouldn’t be a good outcome, she certainly did not expect to be hunted down.
“Can’t Jared accept the mission.. or anyone else from the group..?” Astraea asked with a tinge of hope, after all, she had grown attached to this little deviant assassin family of hers.
On the outside, they were an organization, on the inside, however, they were a small group of 10 people in total.
And she considered all of them family, Evelyn included.
“Astraea… please make your choice.”
‘…Damn it’ She wished there was some kind of situation inside of her mind, one that could get her out of his predicament.
However, ever since a few years ago, she stopped regaining memories, even looking up at the sun barely worked, it would take her a whole month to recall just a simple fragment.
‘Michael… where are you?’
As she was lost in her thoughts, the expression on Evelyn’s face shifted to one of surprise and she quickly instructed Astraea.
“Run! Don’t think of coming back here or I will kill you myself!” She shouted, and suddenly, the building began shaking.
Evelyn used her mana to make a massive hole in the wall and grasped Astraea, using her full force to throw her as hard as she could, not saying any other final words.
“Wai-” The surroundings began shifting around Astraea, she still had not grasped how strong Evelyn was, however, for her to use this much strength so precisely, she had to be very strong.
She flew for a solid 30 seconds before eventually crashing into a mountain, in the distance she could still see the city where she had stayed all of these years.
And suddenly, a few small fiery mushroom clouds began towering into the sky, they were spread out across the entire city.
Or so it seemed anyway, but they were all coming from the fake assassin branches Evelyn had set up.
Astraea’s eyes began hurting from the amount of mana she had infused into them, zooming in tens of kilometers was quite taxing, even for her.
‘Why… who? Who did this?’ She was shocked to the core, it all happened so fast, one moment she was ‘celebrating’ her birthday, and the next, she was watching everything burn before her.
“Evelyn…” Astraea called out, she was on the verge of tears, however, a sudden wave of mana startled her out of her thoughts.
It came from the city and it was definitely not friendly, she could clearly feel the malice.
Her instincts immediately kicked in, using her threads and the mountain as a slingshot, she blasted away, moving even further from the city.
The presence she felt had begun disappearing the further away she got, and eventually, it was fully gone.
Astraea made the threads around herself turn into a little glider, making her able to fly for a short distance.
Below her was a grassy plain, but she didn’t exactly know where she was going, after all, she was not a massive fan of learning.
It was a pain learning to read and write, the other lessons besides math hadn’t really stuck with her either.
But now she was starting to regret not even trying to learn, some knowledge was better than none.
Astraea took one last glance behind her, the mountain was now very far away, she could barely see it.
‘I will come back…’ She said resolutely before returning to flight, she could use her mana to propel herself upwards.
However, the expenditure was a bit too high for her liking, she would only do it a few more times, she was not sure where she was going after all.
But as she thought that, an idea popped inside of her mind as Astraea suddenly positioned herself towards the sun, flying in its direction.
She put one of her hands into her pocket and grasped a single wooden figurine, one that she pestered Evelyn for over a year to make.
‘Guide me.. Michael…’
