How To Become A King

Morning

I awoke with a blanket draped over me, and Merry staring at me. "Good morning, Boss." On the left of her neck sat an Incisors tattoo, the clock stabber. "Good morning, Merry. I see you accepted me as your Boss with that tattoo." "Indeed." She kneels. "I swear that if you say go south, I will never dare go north. If you tell me you want the world destroyed, I will destroy it for you. If you tell me to jump, I will jump. I swear upon my life, your burden, and my regret, to arm you with my loyalty." 

Merry simply waits while I process what she said. She will arm me with her loyalty? Is she offering to be my weapon? Why so suddenly? I have so many questions, however I'm pretty sure I don't want to know the answer. So I let it fly, and thank her. I'm not sure what else to say. "Thank you, Merry. Shall we go?" "Yes, Boss." 

I decide her devotion was wasted as a merchant. I needed her to be my ninja. As a fire attribute, she had control over fire, light, and time. I would teach her how to use it to it's fullest. "Alf, I need you to withdraw your application to the adventurers guild and join the merchants guild instead. Sorry about this." Alf is conflicted, however he nods. "If you say so..." Alf withdrew his form, and the rest of us got accepted to the guild as F rank adventurers. 

I sent Nick and Lukas on gathering missions, as well as a few subjugation missions. For the next three weeks, they did the work to raise their rank in their respective guilds. Alf sold the monster cores from their missions, and other useful monster parts. He did swell in the merchants guild, he was a like a fish who started swimming downstream. I taught Merry basic magic, my version. I told her Fire magic was underestimated, it was the most powerful magic there is, especially for the job I wanted to give her.

If you decrease the light around you when you are in the shadows, you will practically vanish. If needed, you can condense light into a single spot to blind your opponents. With time, if you sped up time around you, you could move much faster in comparison to the world around you.

Depending on your mastery, you could spend hours in another persons minute. If used all together, you could be hidden until needed. I taught her what ninjas were like, how they dressed to assist their ability to hide, how they appeared as if they teleported when they were called for, appearing behind their master, and how their main weapons were small throwing knives called shuriken, and they always struck their target. They were also adept at using smoke bombs, hand to hand combat, and redirecting people's perception. 

She immediately began training, traveling to the blacksmith to get shuriken-like daggers, hiding within shadows and speeding up time. She could not hold it long, according to what she said on her return. However she understood what I meant when I called it the strongest.

"If one became very good at this... They would be the world's best assasin." "Quite terrifying, is it not?" I asked. "Humans have a tendency to fear what they don't understand, and refuse to look any further after labeling it. If one does not fall for this trap, they will find there is much to learn, and therefore much to gain." I tell her, and she nods.