Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 73 - 72: Over the two days.

[Two days later]

"Hah, that was tiring.", Cana spat as she collapsed on the bed.

Not taking my eyes off the book I was reading, I coaxed her, "Come on, it shouldn’t have been that bad.", as I patted the back of her hand.

My actions earning me a glare, "Easy words for someone who has been resting the whole day."

But her glare just fueled my amusement as I snapped the book close and smirked, "Well, you were the one who wanted to be more involved in my plans.", causing her to huff, "I didn’t mean it that way..."

"Oh well, its your bad luck then, cause I took it that way."

It happened two days ago. Just as I came back exhausted after an long night, an enraged Cana who was waiting in my room, confronted me.

"Why are we in this city?", was her first question, followed by, "We aren’t here just for the festival, I know that so, don’t try to lie your way out.", which was again followed by a series of her rants and her second and third question, "Why don’t you share your goals? Why don’t you involve us in your plans?"

And all of that was again topped by, "Are we just tools for you to use?", and that was the final nail in the coffin.

I stopped her before she said anything more and lightly coaxed her.

After all the problem wasn’t her, it was in human nature. We needed to know what and why we were doing things. ’Just do as you are told’ approach doesn’t work well with humans, at least not until they are specially trained which Cana was definitely not.

Though, I wasn’t not sharing my plans on purpose. It was just that I had two broad approaches, three if you include calling my super daddy. And until the approach is decided, the plans can’t be concrete so there was no point in sharing them.

Those were my thoughts.

But after seeing the half-disappointed, half-crying face of Cana, I decided otherwise.

The morning next day, I called for a group meeting and told my party members, all I knew. The goal, that was the power behind the Atlas tree. The approaches, the meeting with Mark and possibly the meeting with Baron. The helper in our city Claire, etc., etc.

I told them all and even asked them for their input and thoughts.

And though, they were all very shocked to hear that my goal was the very power that caused the Atlas to become this big, they rapidly adopted.

Accepting the situation and moving on with it.

In this case, I must say villains are much better than heroes, if it was a so-called ’hero’ that I revealed my plan to, I don’t know how many questions I would have to answer, "What will happen to the tree?", "What will happen to people?", "What will happen to city?", and so on...

Honestly, heroes aren’t my cup of tea, definitely not the people I would like to associate with on daily basis.

Thankfully, my party wasn’t like that.

Moving on, the first thing we unanimously decided after the meeting was that we need a information network, a solid, well established information network that was already present in the city.

And while this would be super easy in any city that had a faction base in them, that wasn’t the case in Lueurre. The city was actually a special area that was directly ruled by Empire, and the noble, i.e., the Baron, ruling over it being a part of the empire’s special faction.

Yes, there were many more minor factions in the Empire except the four major ones. The special faction of Empire being one of them, mostly consisting of bootlickers of the Empress.

Anyways, without the faction base there was only one person I could depend upon.

It was the homely fairy of the inn, who was also a part-time assassin.

Yes, I could only depend on Claire.

With that in mind I called her right away. Since it was her night shift yesterday, I figured she would be free now.

And I figured correct.

Donning casual clothes instead of her uniform, Claire entered my room as she bluntly asked, "What is it?"

Something I expected as there was no need to keep up the appearances now. Though I still wonder what she would do if she knew she was talking to the son of co-faction leader.

The thought brought a smile to my face as I also got to point, "Well, I have a deal for you. I want you to lend me your information network in Lueurre for a few months."

"Are you joking?"

"You know how ridiculous that request is? And you are asking me to lend it to you, not share it with you, you know what that means?", The fairy asked, leaning forward with her hands on her hips, almost looking like a gangster.

"Yes, I know what I am asking.", I looked into her eyes. "Though you can still use it whenever you want, you just don’t get to override my commands.", I added.

"You are talking as if I already agreed to your ridiculous deal.", Claire grunted, as she unceremoniously plopped on the couch. "Since you are so confident, go on show me your hand."

"As you wish.", I said, taking out a small bottle out from my bracelet and placing it on the table.

"A potion.", Claire deadpanned.

"Yes, a potion.", I chuckled as I opened the cap of the bottle.

Thick mana leaked out of the bottle, saturating the air in the room with mana the next instant, as a refreshing feeling enveloped everyone present in the room. And it was only noticeable due to my superhuman sight, the air in the room gained a slight blue hue.

After closing the bottle before any more of it’s mana could leak out, I turned my gaze back to Claire, enjoying her wide eyed expression.

"Is this what I think it is?", She quavered, as she pointed her finger at the potion in my hand.

"I don’t know what you thought, but if you were thinking about a [Full Recovery] potion personally made by Count Ellsworth, a ’second-life’ as people call it, then indeed, it is what you think it is.", I grinned, while the fairy just held her head as she groaned in frustration.

In the end, Claire quickly agreed to my deal, which was solidified using a magical contract, thus starting the ’hell’ for Cana.

Non-surprisingly managing a information network was a demanding task. Especially when you had to change the way it worked.

So, from yesterday after our deal, I had Cana and Syrus meet all sorts of informants of Claire’s network, brief them about the situation and give them their new orders.

The orders weren’t that complicated. I just wanted the informants to keep an close eye on the places that I know, are of interest, compared to their previous ’cover the whole city approach’. I also told them to do this over the week, as doing it the next day would be suspicious as fuck.

After all, it wasn’t as if only we had a information network here. Just like we ordered others movements, our movements were also being monitored. So, it was best to be inconspicuous, while we didn’t want any attention.

And till now, on evening of second day since the start, everything was going fine. Most of the informants had already been informed and those who were left would be informed tomorrow.

If there was one thing that wasn’t going according to the plan, then it was the meeting with Baron.

Two whole days had passed and yet there was no news of any development, just silence.

-Sigh.

-Click

The door opened again as a prim-proper Syrus entered the room.

"All good Syrus?", I inquired.

"All good.", he replied before sitting down on the couch.

"Any variables?", I asked just in case.

"None. Also, this is for you.", He said as he passed me a piece of paper.

Cana who had turned to lay on her back sometime ago sighed, muttering, "More work.", under her breath.

Well, she wasn’t wrong, I too thought that.

Cause during the past two days, Claire had been using the same papers to tell us the way to identify and talk with her informants.

I unfolded the piece of paper only to find myself wrong.

On the paper were names of magic users, more specifically, names of C rank magic users, their affiliation and other useful information followed by a small note below:

[It would be better if you at least got acquainted with the big shots of the city. They won’t help you, but atleast they won’t purposefully come into your way.]

’Hmm, okay. As you wish.’, I said in my mind, ’If you want me to visit the C ranks, I will do just that.’

The most uptodate nove𝙡s are published on frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓.

Now, imagine my surprise, as the place where I was supposed to find that C rank, his turf, becomes a battlefield…

***

A/N: Now, all the character introduction of main characters of this arc is done. Now it’s time to actually dive in the story.