Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 86 - 81: The Mission Accomplished in Secrecy

[Upper City of Lueurre]

’The plan failed.’, Lekas thought. ’The fatty was too cunning to be tricked.’

The girl who was supposed to be his weakness was actually a trap.

Cursing the Baron for his smarts, Lekas decided to move alone.

Both of his subordinates were buying time and attracting the attention of the enemy, but they could only do that for so long. He needed to finish the task he had been given before they were defeated.

And for that, he needed to infiltrate into the heart of the mansion.

That was going to be difficult, but it wasn’t impossible.

Especially, not for him. After all, while his attribute was a strengthening one, he was a vessel. A vessel of [Varkain], a demon of stealth who could even hide himself from a dragon’s gaze.

Of course, the power he borrowed didn’t reach that extent, but he could still hide from a C rank’s vision unless he got too close. As for B-ranks…he couldn’t hide from them, maybe if they were hundreds of meters apart, but of course, that wasn’t going to be the case.

So, borrowing the power of [Varkain], he hid himself after his first clash with the fire girl and disappeared. And even though he disappeared right after their clash, the girl didn’t seem to notice, as if he was erased from her subconsciousness.

But even that effect was temporary. It was the limitation of his power, and the reason they decided to get a hostage, instead of him charging alone into the mansion.

Even though he could vanish right in front of people, they would sooner or later notice the discrepancies and remember him.

So, with no time to waste, Lekas moved forward, as fast as he could without getting caught.

Entering the mansion through the basement, Lekas walked through the guarded hallways of Baron’s mansion. Even with knights patrolling the hallways, he was unnoticed.

As he walked ahead, a team of knights went rushing past him the hallway, entering the basement through the same door that he used.

’Those must be the reinforcements.’, Lekas thought as he started moving faster.

The Baron’s mansion was four storied one. The ground floor and the first floor were mostly facilities used by Baron’s personal knights and were easy to move through, but the second floor was the executive’s or C ranks’ office rooms, where he had to be careful.

The fourth floor was where the Baron and his family actually lived, a floor he had no intention to venture into.

Rather, he was far more interested in the third floor, which held Baron’s office and the meeting rooms, in case the nobles had to have a meeting...the Baron’s office was Lekas’s target.

And after a lot of close calls which included almost running into several C ranks, Lekas reached the Baron’s office.

And unimpressively, the office was unguarded. With every executive protecting Baron’s family a floor above, or commanding the knights, the Baron’s office was guarded by a pair of measly knights.

Appearing out of thin air, Lekas held both the knights by neck and squeezed them, choking them unconscious. Then, taking out a small red crystal and a cylindrical device from his dimensional ring, Lekas placed the crystal in the device and attached the device to the doorknob.

-Schwing…!

With a mechanical sound the device attacked itself into the doorknob.

The next second both the door and the device glowed with power, magical lines appearing on them, and two seconds later, the door opened with a click.

Retrieving the device, Lekas dragged the unconscious knights into the Baron’s office, closed the door behind him, and headed straight for his desk.

Not many people knew this, but a noble’s desk was the most precious thing in his office. Though it may not contain treasures, but it held documents, information, clan secrets and even state secrets that only nobles of state can know.

Of course, as a member of Imperial Faction the Baron didn’t have any clan secrets to speak of and Lekas didn’t come here for the state secrets.

Cause as a former noble, as a former head of a city, he knew how their desks differed from that of the ’normal’ nobles.

They held one more thing, a single very valuable thing.

They were the control center of all the arrays in the city. Specifically speaking, they were a control center of all the arrays laid by the Empire in the city.

And if one had the control center under their command, then they had half the city under their command.

Taking out another much larger crystal from his ring, he placed it in the same device and...

-Schwing…!

…with the same mechanical sound, the device stabbed into the desk. This time not just the desk, the whole room lit up. Large amount of magical circuitry appearing out of thin air, followed by red circuitry that squeezed its way into the original circuitry.

And soon, whatever it was that was happening, it was done.

The glow faded, the crystal disappeared, leaving only the cylindrical device that had heated up too much and cracked.

What had the device done?

Lekas didn’t actually know, all he knew was that task given to him by the higher ups was done. Now the city was all his to rampage.

Storing the cracked device back, Lekas was about escape when the mansion slightly trembled. Through the glass window in the Baron’s office, Lekas could see a pillar of fire bursting out of the mansion’s backyard.

’The fire girl finally lost it.’, he thought, before he opened his communication amulet and said, "Everyone escape."

If everything thing went according to the original plan, then he would have indeed fought with the Baron, but now, ’Today isn’t the day.’, Lekas thought.

After all, he couldn’t just have his subordinates killed for his personal agenda. He wouldn’t mind if they were killed, but the Cult would. Not to mention, just killing the Baron wasn’t enough.

He wouldn’t be satisfied with just that.

Updated from freewёbnoνel.com.

Marek Lekin Dena, Lekas wanted him to suffer, just like he did, before he finally killed him.

Lekas’s face distorted violently at the thought, before he finally took a deep breath to calm down.

Then, he collected a few treasures from the Baron’s office, just to give the officials the excuse that he came here to steal these things, after which using his stealth, he too escaped.

At the same time, Rifa finally got the chance to inform the Baron about the intruders.

***

[A few minutes later]

By the time the Baron arrived at the Upper City, it was already over.

The preparators had already escaped, disappearing into who knows where...he couldn’t sense them.

’It’s a mess.’, Baron Marek thought, as he overviewed the state of the city he ruled.

The soldiers were in a disarray, citizens were afraid and so were the nobles who ruled them.

Then taking a fleeting glance at the hole in this backyard, Baron sighed.

He could already imagine his wife’s terrifying face as he explained, how her precious garden now had a huge hole in it.

Not to mention all the paperwork and power-shows he would have to do after this to stabilize his authority.

The rich faction was definitely going to gang up against the poor faction. Condemning everything that happened on them.

And this time he couldn’t save them, for he himself didn’t think that they were innocent this time.

Just as his mind started thinking about more complex issues, something happened.

The Atlas, the great tree, suddenly started glowing.

’Wha- What the hell is happening now!!?’, the Baron just screamed out loud.

But to his surprise, nothing bad happened.

Sure, the Atlas started glowing, giving off an air of majesty that made him feel like a speck of dust, as it leaked out a holy aura of life and light…but apart from that and the tree healing him, nothing happened.

’This…it’s the Atlas’s blessing!?’, the Baron thought bewildered. ’But why? Why is something that was supposed to happen in around two months is happening now?’

After thinking for a second, and finding no other plausible answer besides something in today’s incident triggering the blessing, the Baron stopped.

Because while he didn’t know why this was happening but he can surely use it in his favor.

So, flying back into his house, the baron entered his office, only to find two of his knights collapsed on the office floor.

’The terrorists came into my office!?’, the Baron thought. Suddenly terrified at the notion of all the state secrets being leaked from him.

’The Empress taking away my noble rank would be the least of my problems then.’, he gulped.

Hurriedly, he opened the invisible console of his desk. His fingers gliding over the console that only he could see as he checked each and every record of anyone accessing the files.

And only when he found nothing…did he sigh in relief.

’Did they really come to stole steal my treasure…they weren’t even much, just a few pieces of work I like.’, he thought as he eyed his disparaged office that obviously pointed that someone broke in to steal his goodies.

’Let’s stop thinking, and do what I came here to do.’, he finally thought and opened the console on his desk again.

Then, plugging into the array that transmitted his voice to the whole city, he started, "My dear citizens, as you would have noticed the forces of evil tried to sabotage our city today...many people died and many got injured. But fear not my citizens, as long as I, Marek Lekin Dena am alive, I will protect you with my life! If you do not believe me then believe the Divine tree who blessed us with its blessing. Cause try as they may, I and the Divine Tree will purify them!"

With that he ended, one of the cringiest speech he had ever given in his life, he made it on the fly anyways.

Just as his speech ended, his communication amulet beeped.

"What happened Mark?"

-I captured one of them.

"You captured who?", Baron asked, but didn’t get the answer he wanted.

-Hey! What do you mean by ’I’? Hey, back off! I’m talking with Baron here.

Instead he heard Mark arguing with someone.

"Mark, answer me first.", the Baron asked again, already very annoyed.

-Yes, Baron. I said, we captured one of the terrorists.

"Really!?", The Baron asked, disbelieving.

-Yes, sir.

"Oh! nice. Good job! Bring the terrorist back quickly. We have to interrogate it.", Baron said before cutting the call as he felt a little better.

But then, ’That voice, it was Ray...yet another headache.’, the realization came to him as he sighed again.

-Sigh.

Somehow feeling more exhausted than ever, the Baron decided to face the biggest hurdle first.

’First, I will face my wife.’