A Leap of Faith (Part 2)

Chapter 381 - Flashback Part 2

Talia has now been following her father's trail for about 5 days now, and this journey has led them out east, towards China and the Himalayas. They have not yet arrived in the Himalayas as of yet, but the mountain range can be seen in the distance. Or more specifically, the mountain range that connects to the Himalayas at the west of them. Just from looking at how far away the mountains are, Talia knows they will be on them within the next day or so. So far, there really has been nothing of note about this journey, meaning that Talia has not had a chance to actually try and take out one of her father's guards just yet. Talia knows that she will need to find some opportune moments sometime soon, as once they enter the mountains attacking the guards, and trying to take them out, will be a little more difficult, given the terrain, and the likelihood at how close all the Leviathan agents will remain with each other, so not to get lose in any blizzards or anything. However, at the same time, attacking these Leviathan agents on the mountains will also provide an easy opportunity to hide bodies, so that the other Leviathan agents, and especially Talia's father, may just believe that the missing agents have got lost, or accidentally fallen down the mountains. Talia is aware that one of the major things that humanity wishes to conquer, is climbing these tallest mountains, which are all within this same mountain range. Some of these mountains have been successfully climbed, with mountaineers reaching their peaks, but a lot of them haven't, including the tallest mountain, mount Everest. That isn't to say that people haven't tried to climb these mountains, they have, and due to the dangerous terrain, it is reported that a few dead bodies, which have now been frozen over, and partially covered in snow, can be seen on the path up towards the mountain. Therefore, because of this knowledge, Talia knows that taking out Leviathan agents, and just dumping their bodies in the snow, will not raise any eyebrows with any people that later come across the bodies. However, it still will be difficult to actually taken out these Leviathan agents in the middle of climbing up the mountains, so Talia will have to be increasingly careful.

Talia continues trailing her father for the next day, with them all coming very close to the mountain range now. Talia thinks that she really needs to make some sort of move to take, a the very least, one of the Leviathan agents out now. Luckily for her, this evening her father and his men have stopped in a small village, which is likely the last bit of human life that they will see on this journey, other than maybe a few hermits living up in the mountains or something. So, Talia settles herself into accommodation just across the street from where her father and his men are staying, paying the owners of this house a reasonable amount of money to allow her to do this. Talia actually has access to money, as this has been one of the other things she has been doing on her days where she pretends to be hunting, but secretly just meets up with Nyssa. Talia has made sure to do some hunting and then sell the animal carcass to the local town, which thereby has got her a reasonable amount of money which she has always planned to use in situations like this, as her father certainly did not trust her enough to give her any money or anything.

Eventually evening falls in the town, and Talia watches as a few of the Leviathan agents leave their quarters where they will be staying with father, and head down the street, in the direction of a local bar, or tavern. Upon seeing this, Talia thinks that this truly might be perfect, as hopefully the tavern will be full of a lot of people, meaning she is less likely to be seen, and at the same time, she will be given many options to actually take out these Leviathan agents, from casually passing them by and sticking a blade in a precise location in their stomach, to kill them without noise, or perhaps to cause a bar fight, which ultimately gets one of the agents killed, or maybe something much more sublte.

Talia now leaves her accommodation, and makes out after the 4 Leviathan agents who are heading to the tavern. At the same time though, Talia takes a quick look inside the rooftop window of the building that her father is staying in with his men, and she sees that he is sleeping, while coughing in his sleep, and a few of his men are sitting around him, or sleeping themselves. It is still actually rather early in the evening, but Talia knows that as her father's condition has worsened, he likely requires more rest, and he probably knows this is the best rest he is going to get for the next few weeks, seeing as they will be entering the mountains soon.