Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 98 - 93: Rescuing Elista I

’This could actually work.’, was Cana’s evaluation of the plan Mark proposed.

But the feasibility of the plan was never the deciding factor here, the most important deciding factor was trust.

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And Cana was, in a single word, a very distrustful person.

She already had her hands full trusting her leader, not knowing what went through the boy’s mind. And now, she had to trust a person she just met?

That was impossible for Cana, and that was precisely the reason she chose to agree with the plan.

To ’prove’ herself, to ’change’ herself. ’Things that were impossible for me once, I will do them now.’, she had resolved herself.

Of course, having a load of expensive artefacts that made escape possible in almost any situation played a big factor in her agreement.

So, when the man walking ahead of her abruptly stopped, as if constricted by something, before being mummified the next second, her little distrustful heart finally calmed down, ’This gamble, paid off.’

***

[A few minutes earlier]

[Mark’s Side]

Whooshing in the air with his stealth skill active, Mark was moving busily around the dilapidated church, which was an odd plot of land surrounded by other buildings.

Since the church was in the grey area between the slums and the shopping district, a proper layout of properties wasn’t followed. Meaning, the front gate of the church that should have been opened to a big road, due to years of neglect and land acquisition, opened into a small alley-like road that could barely fit a vehicle.

The church had a modest courtyard, beyond which was the dilapidated main building and two small wings on both sides, offering anyone on lookout a clear view of entering and exiting patrons.

The inside of the building was obscured though, if one wanted to peep in, then the broken glass scriptures of the right wing’s windows offered a small view of the situation inside and that was it.

There were no other ways of knowing what was happening in the church, unless one had special eye skills. Unfortunately, eye skills were not something lower-ranked chumps could have, far too costly for them to afford.

Thus, knowing the layout lessened the work for Mark, as he hastily weaved his strings around the lookout spots. And sure enough, the lookouts were already in place.

Two people disguised as an old couple hanging out on the roof of a building surrounding the church, and another two disguised as slum teens doing the basic scenario of a big guy extorting the small one.

Of course, Mark wasn’t going to be fooled by their act. The building the old couple were on was in fact a pseudo bar/brothel, not an old couple’s cozy home. As for the extorting teens, they were far too out of slums for him to buy their act, not to mention their acting was downright trash, making it easy for Mark to spot them.

Seeing them like that, Mark really wanted to hang them to death, but he held back. Instead, he used his strings to creep up to them, to eavesdrop on them.

Yes, he was superhuman and could hear them babbling, but that wasn’t the thing he was interested in, rather he was interested in the imperceptible whisper that they uttered from time to time.

And that’s where his strings came into play.

Sound was nothing but vibration in the end. So, just like in the concept of wired phone, his strings picked up the vibration in the air, amplified them and sent them to Mark.

It was a tried and tested technique that Mark used very often to spy on people.

Spreading his threads all over the church and beyond, Mark just made an area where nothing could be hidden from him. Done setting up the area, Mark took a moment to catch his breath and analyze everything he heard, to check if anything that seemed off.

And when he found nothing wrong, he took another moment to catch his breath and watch his brother’s acting as it wasn’t the time yet.

"Day? How many days are we talking about?", Mark, who was sitting on the top of the church, face-palmed as he heard Jack speaking.

’I’ll teach this fool at least the basics of dialog after all this is over.’, Mark grimaced as he listened on to conversation which soon came to an end.

Then, his brother left the church, he was heading to a spot they decided in advance. Following after him, after a slight delay, were Camilla and Signor. Both chained and led by a man walking ahead of them.

One step, two steps, three steps…

Exactly at the fourth step, Mark heard three voices, stating the same thing.

-The hostages have started moving. All clear, for now.

And with that Mark was stumped.

Three voices.

He had two in the bag, but he had to find the third, not-so-clear, faint voice, that his strings barely caught, that too quickly.

If Camilla and Signor left the church compound, then things would get trickier.

Assuming half a minute as a safe time, Mark hurried to find the last voice.

In a rush, Mark tried the first method that came to his mind. He traced the string that brought the third voice and mentally marked the area it covered, reducing the area he had to look for to one third.

This took him about 10 seconds, as each string was interconnected with many others, but he had to limit the area more based on the clarity of sound, the little microseconds of delay between sounds, and the areas that could be used for hiding.

In another 5 seconds, Mark further narrowed down the area. Then, with quiet, sneaky moments, Mark entered the right wing of the church, through the broken windows.

With monkey-like moments, he held the ceiling, using only physical strength to minimize the mana fluctuations and blow up his stealth. Steadily, he moved towards the main room of the church, which was the only area within the narrowed out area where someone could hide.

All this took another 10 seconds, leaving Mark with only 5 to spare.

But those were enough.

Within a second, Mark activated his priced, C-rank eye skill, [Depriving Deception]. Just as the name suggested, it deprived all the ’deception’ in front of Mark’s eyes, revealing the truth, unless the technique or skill is B+ ranked or above, with a few limitations of course.

Since, eye skills were rare yet essential, they were priced the highest.

In fact, it had taken Mark an attack skill, that he found by chance, along with a third of his savings to buy this skill.

So, he valued his skill very much, and for a reason.

If not for this skill, then he wouldn’t be able to spot the relaxedly standing guy in the middle of the church hallway. Confident in his stealth artifact, the guy didn’t even try to hide. Surrounding him in a circular area, around half a metre wide, was the aura of stealth released by the artifact, hiding whatever happened within the sphere from outside.

Unfortunately for him though, Mark’s net of strings was much denser, with two strings passing through the spherical aura, they could catch every word the man spoke.

Things would be different if his artifact had been more advanced and stuck to his skin, but since it wasn’t, the guy was in Mark’s hand.

With no reason to stop or hesitate, Mark’s strings moved at dizzying speed, covering the lookout’s mouths first.

"Mmph-!"

"Mmpf-!"

Letting out stifled voices, the lookouts reacted quickly and tried to cut off the threads, the one with the stealth artefact even took out his amulet, maybe to sound an alert, but Mark was way faster.

Before they could squeak another word, the strings moved like spiderwebs and covered them from all sides, mummifying them in the next second.

"Huu", slightly relieved, Mark exhaled heavily and jumped down.

Now standing on the floor, the four-armed man made a small gesture with one of his hands, bringing the mummified people together, in the hallway of the church.

"Huff, not bad.", Camilla slightly panted as she hurried back into the church with Signor.

’Yeah, for all that effort, not bad.’, Mark thought sarcastically, but just nodded as he broke their restraints, and instructed, "Step back a little."

Both complied, so Mark finally did his final part, or rather he activated his bloodline ability that his race usually suppressed. Wait, that isn’t correct either.

It was more like, the ability that he always kept active to keep it suppressed was finally used for something other than suppression.

**

[Enlightened Primate: Bloodline Ability]

[Trance]

**

A small tranquil lake.

Mark’s mental energy was just like that, or was, a second ago. Right now, though, it was a raging, stormy sea that completely adhered to Mark’s will.

And that sea surged, raged and was ready to explode.

But Mark reigned it in a little, for he didn’t want to destroy the lookouts’ mind completely.

So, a gentle yet persistent wave of mental energy shot towards the mummified lookouts, which tore their mental defenses bit by bit.

"Done.", Mark declared, as the glow of his unique mental energy receded from his eyes. Then feeling the need to elaborate from Camilla’s and Signor’s surprised faces, he explained succinctly, "I have weakened their mental defenses to minimum using a skill. Don’t worry too much about it and do your thing, we are still on the clock."

Camilla nodded hearing his remark, and stepped forward, thinking, ’That must be the skill leader told us to be careful of. It is indeed powerful.’

Her eyes slowly glittered with rose colored light as she looked into the lookout’s eyes.

’Would I be able to resist him?’, she thought out of habit, before she slightly shook her head and smiled, her voice sweet as she said, "Now, be good boys tell me where is your leader?"

To lookouts and even Mark, she sounded surprisingly ominous.

***

(A/N: Thought it would be better to add skill descriptions used in the chapter at the like this.)

[Skill: Depriving Deception]

Rank: C

Active: When used, all illusions, stealth techniques or any magical interference that alters the truth or prevents the truth from showing as it is, are forcibly removed.

Limitations: Uses 5% of user’s mana with each use.

Cannot show truths above B+ rank.

Strains the spirit body after three consecutive uses, may cause a severe headache.

**

[Enlightened Primate: Bloodline Ability]

[Trance]

Active: Allows the user to channel ’Enlightened’ mental energy that is twice as effective as normal mental energy for various purposes.

Passive: Creates an invisible sphere of ’Enlightened’ mental energy. Whomever enters the sphere will be confused or put into a mental trance according to their mental strength.

Note: Does not work on members of the same species.

***