Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Operation No Pleasures Pt. 4 – Tag

Watcher; an organisation that serves the Kingdom of Narla from the shadows. They are otherwise known as the Shadow Order of the Kingdom, where the purpose of their existence is basically to eliminate any threats who would bring harm to Narla, using any means necessary, no matter how inhumane that may be.

A necessary evil for the sake of eliminating other evils. That's the core value of Watcher and its agents who exist to serve for that purpose.

Which is why there are only a few in the world who know of the organisation's existence. I, being one of them. My father, the King, being another, as it is with his approval that this secret order was able to be created in the first place. Whom, the founder of Watcher, is none other than my uncle, the Archduke, Zeke Aragon Silvacaster.

In other words... Although the goal of Watcher is to serve the kingdom from the shadows, its agents aren't loyal to Narla itself, but to my uncle, the Archduke, instead.

Hence, it was impossible to believe that an agent of Watcher would be here right now in this hidden and illegal underground area without receiving orders to be here from my uncle himself. Meaning that the man knows of this place and not only that, but the criminals working here as well.

Therefore, no matter what, I must apprehend this foe before me to get my evidence of my uncle's involvement in this Pleasure business.

The problem, however, is how in the world am I to do that!?

My opponent is a walking human hazard with electricity coursing through their entire body. One touch and I'd be knocked unconscious at the very least. So, all I can do to face them is dodge their attacks while I think of a way to take them down without killing them.

"Sayyyy... I'm curious. Why aren't you blasting any lightning at me?" I began chatting up my opponent as I evade. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to avoid it, if you'd just shoot lightning at me. After all, it's lightning."

My aim right now is to simply agitate my opponent. So while keeping a calm and cheerful smile on my face, I continued talking.

"Could it be because you're afraid of accidentally killing me, if you were to do that? My oh my~ How nice of you. And here I thought you simply couldn't do that, despite being Watcher. Oh how embarrassing that would be, if that was the case."

My opponent continues to try and touch with their shocking hands, to which I evade each time they do.

They throw a flurry of palm strikes at me. And I dodged, moving my body left and right like I'm belly dancing.

They then delivery a high kick at me. And I dodged that as well by jumping back.

Following up with leap forward to grab me, I dodged them again by stepping to the side.

They may be fast. But that's all there is to it. It may be different, however, if they were allowed to kill me.

But in any case, it was clear even without saying a thing that they are getting more desperate to catch me quickly and to shut me up.

Signs of their agitation were already showing when I had figured them out to be an agent of Watcher. And that agitation was steadily increasing as I kept provoking them nonchalantly in the middle of battle.

"Fufufu~ So, mind answering my question as to what you're doing here, my dear~? I can't imagine you to be acting on your own, without your master's permission."

In that moment, I evaded one more attack from them and moved closer to their face while transforming the Perfect Copy into a glove. Holding them in an awkward position where they could fall with one wrong move.

The masked foe tried to paralyze me when they noticed me touching them. But alas, it was no use as Divine Artifact can't conduct electricity. Therefore, giving me an opportunity to ask them, "How's the Archduke doing?"

From that question, I planted the thought in their mind that I know everything; that I expected everything; that I planned everything. Even though that was not the case at all. However, it seemed to have worked as shown by their next action when they tried to kick me despite the unbalanced position they were in.

"Whoa!" I let out my voice as the both of us trip and fell to the ground.

I landed on my opponent. And as I got up...

"Oh?"

...My other hand was touching their chest.

Although small, I most certainly felt a bit of a budding where my hand is at.

1.. 2... 3... 4... 5...

My opponent was still stunned by the sudden turn of events as I looked at them and said, "So you're a girl, huh?" bringing them back to their senses.

"Unhand me!"

For the first time, I heard my opponent's voice. She swept her arm at me, attempting to smack me away, but I dodged.

"My my~ What a cute voice you have, my dear." I commented with a glee, as I have acquired new intel on my opponent.

It's not just their gender and how their voice sounds like. But I have a good read on her character now, as shown by her biggest blunder earlier.

You should have stunned me with your electricity when I was on you, my dear. Instead, you tried to smack me away. Thanks to that, I can throw my initial assessment of you into the sewers.

The only scary thing about her is her lightning magic. Other than that, she's not that much of a problem to me. However, that doesn't mean I shouldn't have called Jonah back to me.

If I am to apprehend her, I need strength. Unfortunately, as a woman now, I don't have that. Even if my opponent if smaller than me.

Eobard is still playing around with his opponents and I don't want to let her know that I have a Divine Artifact, despite already using it once to touch her for a brief second. So Jonah is the only one I can rely on for that task.

My opponent and I continue our dance, as she frantically attempts to touch me in this game of tag.

"My my~ You're getting more predictable by the second, my dear." I provoked her again and continued to dodge.

"Why the rush? I'm not going anywhere just yet, you know."

"Shut... UP!"

A right hook, a left hook, double spinning kick, followed by another right. From the way she is acting, I'm guessing she doesn't have that much time left.

The same goes for us though. Since it be around this time when the Third Prince's knights are beginning their raid on this place. So before that, all of us must get out of here.

Eobard and I have significantly weakened the security here. All that's left is for the big man to take down those former mercs he is facing. For Jonah, however, I'm not sure if he has found where the drugs are being kept at. It's possible they are in the room beyond where we are and not where he was at. But if he's taking this long to come to me, it mat be possible that he has found something else.

As the game of tag goes on for the next two minutes, I hear swift footsteps coming our way.

From the rhythm of their movement and the distinct quietness of each step, I smiled knowing who it was approaching our location.

"Lightning magic user! Black clothing! Apprehend!" I suddenly shouted, making my foe confused.

Then, I dodged her next attack once more, looked at her and said, "Sorry. Looks like the game is over."

Realising what I meant, my opponent turned around but reacted too late. Jonah, who arrived to the scene, quickly entangled my opponent with some wires as he then trips her over and pins her down with his foot.

"Khh!"

Lightning began discharging from her body as she tries to electrocute Jonah who is on her. However, the man simply tanked her shock, surprising the girl whose most reliable weapon was her own magic.

"Ouch. That's hurts." Jonah remarked with a monotonous voice, mocking the poor girl as he looks down on her.

Being a formal assassin, Jonah has through quite the training in his past. Becoming resistant to electricity was apparently the result of one of them as he can withstand any form of shock without flinching an eye.

Although, according to him, it still hurts a lot. He's just able to bear with it.

"Don't resist. Or I will break your leg."

"Oh wow. That's kind of cold, man. Go easy on the girl. She's just a kid, you know."

"Even a child can kill when given a knife. You shouldn't show mercy to this kind of enemy, Princess."

"Yeah yeah... I know. Don't worry, Jonah. I just don't want to scare her too much, that's all. After all, we are going to know a lot about each other in the basement. Won't we, my dear?"

I stared down at the young Watcher agent as she looked back at me. Although I cannot see the expression on her face, I can tell she is feeling fear right now.

I plan to torture her after all. So it's only natural. However, there's a very good chance that she may not talk in the end. So...

I might need to call him here.

But in any case, my fight was done.

I turned around to check on how Eobard's doing with his and was kind of surprise to see him still playing with his food.

"That jerk. I told him to hurry up with his fight, so he can help with me out with mine."

"Well, it's Eobard after all. What did you expect?"

"Yeah... you're right. Shouldn't have relied on him for battle assistance."

I took a deep breath in, about to call out to him. But just before I could shout, Jonah suddenly raised his voice.

"Watch out!" he said, pushing me out of whatever danger I was in, as I quickly turned around to see some shadowy spikes protruding from my opponent's shadows.

Was it her doing? No, that's not it.

"There's another enemy in her shadow." I concluded.

The spikes withdrew back. As a masked man then emerged from his comrade's shadow. Holding her up on his shoulder.

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"You've lost, Adele. Seems like you need more training."

The man spoke with a deep voice, making a short remark to the girl he called, Adele.

"I'm sorry... Shade." Adele quietly apologised, which I picked up with my ear and kept my eyes on the man she called, Shade.

This man... he's strong. From the way he manipulated the shadows, it's safe to say that he is a magician as well, whose nature is Shadow.

He was also hiding in his comrade's shadow. Which was probably why I didn't detect him when I used Field Hypnosis in the area. That's another weakness of that spell, it seems. What a pain...

"Not to worry, my junior." the man comforts the girl on his shoulder. "Your defeat here has allowed us to learn of some crucial info." he said, turning his head to Jonah.

Ah crap.

"The Fifth Prince's personal attendant, Jonah. Formally known as the once infamous assassin, Crow. To think that someone like you would working with the Midnight Lady."

As expected, he knows who Jonah is.

"Jonah!" I shouted, prompting Jonah to pull out his twin daggers and go for the kill.

However, a wall of shadow blocked his path and stopped his blade from reaching the man's throat.

"So you're not attacking then?" the man, Shade, then said to me.

He and Adele began sinking down into the shadow, making their escape from this place as the shadow then dispersed into multiple pieces, making it difficult for us to determine which one they were in.

Their presences are gone completely. None of their footsteps can be heard since they are in the shadows. The enemy have successfully escaped from us, knowing that Jonah is on my side; on the Midnight Lady's side.

"Princess, should I chase them?"

"No. Don't. They're probably gone anyways." I replied in a calm manner.

Sure, they now know that Jonah is with the Midnight Lady. But as long as I, the Fifth Prince, remain ignorant to that fact, there's nothing my uncle can do to me, asides from keeping an eye on me.

Besides, rather than them escaping from us, it would be better to say that I'm letting them go. Even though I want the opposite of that.

Ordering Jonah to kill earlier was just a deception. It was to make the enemy think that I was panicking upon them learning about Jonah's presence. By doing so, I gave them the idea that it is a secret I do not want them to know, and that it is something worth reporting to my uncle.

Meaning, once they have escaped, the first place they would go is where my uncle is. Allowing me to track them down through the mark I had placed on the girl named Adele, when I was fondling her flat chest before.

Once I have placed a mark on someone, not only can I manipulate their senses with Remote Hypnosis, but I can also discern their current location whenever I want. Because of that, I know where those two agents are, who are already in a location quite far from here.

Above ground. In a room of the Dazzling Luxury inn. There is where my uncle is now; there is where the Archduke is now.

He IS in the Capital. Ok. That's enough to know for now. I can ask the "why" later. But first, there is something I must deal with above ground.

"By the way, Jonah. Did you find anything?"

"Yes, Princess. The drugs are in a room to the left of the path where we spilt."

"The left? Not the right where you went first?"

"No. The right is where they keep some shady documents at. Here is one of them."

Jonah passed me a rolled up piece of paper, and I opened it to read for a moment. Ignoring the fact that there is a fight going on behind me and many enemies just watching, the paper I'm reading in my hands details the transaction between this place and the Gold Enterprise.

If the rest of the documents are like this, we will have more solid evidence to arrest Gulliver Gold, since it is in his name that was signed on this document.

Minerva is sure to pleased. But...

"Was there no documents on the Archduke."

"Unfortunately, no."

"I see." I handed Jonah back the paper. "Hold onto this. We'll need it for later."

"Understood. And one more thing, Princess."

"What is it?"

"The knights are here."

"Huh?"

Already!? Crap.

"Where are they now?"

"I last heard them outside of the entrance. So they should be here any moment now."

"Are you kidding me!?"

I quickly focused my hearing on the path they were coming from. Sure enough, multiple footsteps were making their way here as we speak.

Crap. I really don't want to be found here.

"There's no choice then..."

I turned around to the Eobard who was still "fighting". His opponent were breathing heavily. Clearly tired, whereas Eobard hadn't even broke a sweat.

"Hey hey! What's wrong? Where did all of that spirit go?"

"Shut it, you monster!"

While Eobard was taunting his opponents, I called out to him.

"Eobard!"

"Hm?" he turns around. "Oh hey, little princess. I see that you're done with your fight. And Jonah's here too."

"Yeah! You were supposed to help me out once you were done with yours, you doofus!"

"Hahahaha! Welp, sorry, my lady. I spent too much fun playing here."

And you're still playing around. You aren't even looking at your opponents while evading their attacks.

"Well, enough playing. The knights are almost here. So, Jonah and I will be going off first. There's something I must still do, so you deal with the rest here."

The moment I mentioned the knights, the enemies goons began to panic. So were their superiors as they stopped attacking Eobard for a second.

"Okie dokie. Have fun, little princess. You can leave the rest here to me." Eobard waved us goodbye nonchalantly, as I cast Field Hynopsis and erase Jonah and my presence from the enemies' senses.

Jonah then princess carries me in his arms, as we are ready to leave the area.

"All right. Let's go."

We took off. Going through the path where the knights are coming from.

With Jonah's speed and my magic, we bypassed every single one of the knights without getting noticed. Even Sir Gerald who was leading the raid, did not noticed us because of my spell.

Although it seemed easy, it was a really difficult thing to do since I had to manipulate the senses of every single knight there the moment they were in range. And there were a lot of them.

But in the end, we made it out of the underground lair and back into the sewers, where the exit to above ground is.

Although not exactly as planned, the mission was still somewhat successful.

Now there is something else I must do.

"Jonah. Carry me to the Second Street of the Noble District and stopped on a roof."

"Understood, Princess."

Marquis Anderson is currently there, running from my brother and his knights.

They are about to apprehend him. But before that, I plan to do something first.

Since capturing a Watcher agent was a failure in the end, my only hope now is to get the proof of my uncle's involvement from Marquis Anderson's mouth. Since he knows who the mastermind is, I must get the information from him or any sure traces of the Archduke's involvement will be gone.

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