“Yeap, not your ordinary assassin.” Risti’s eyes, which were shrouded with mana and other foggy clouds, cleared up as she looked at Dia and the others. “As we speak, our target is sleeping against the ceiling. I have no idea how that is possible, so don’t ask me.”

“Sleeping? She sure is relaxed,” Count Nightfall murmured. “Wait, against the what? I thought you said ‘sleeping against the ceiling’. I did not catch that, sorry. Do repeat it again.”

“No, no. You heard me right. Your assassin is indeed sleeping against the ceiling. There’s a pillow under her head and everything…sorry, above her head.” Risti had an odd look on her face. “It’s a bit confusing.”

“It’s an artefact of hers at play, if she’s sleeping in such a manner.” Caroline drummed her fingers on the table in front of her. “Now that I think about it, it’s quite the ingenious method. You use the house, but sleep and rest in the conventional blind spots. No one would have looked up at the ceiling, after all.”

“How should we deal with her, then?” Risti asked.

“We blast the entire roof off,” Nightfall replied. “Done. It’s a quick and easy method. We just need to cordon off the area and then blast the roof to smithereens. As for compensation…I’m rich. I’ll pay anyone affected double the market price.”

“…You’re rich, do whatever you like,” Dia forced out.

“You should raise your own surveillance and observation expert, Aran.” Caroline looked at the torn skillslip on the table. “Otherwise, we’ll have to keep asking the Moon Lords…err, Seekers of Life for help. We keep getting them to do odd jobs for us.”

Oh, so you guys do know that much, huh? Dia rolled her eyes, but she didn’t vocalise her inner thoughts. They were rude, after all, and it wasn’t like the duo didn’t compensate them well for their time. The latest batch of resources, according to Schwarz, was enough for everyone to become a tri-folder…well, assuming they didn’t screw up enough times.

“That’s a good idea, but how do we start? Should I put out a notice looking for people with observation skills?” Nightfall wondered. “Not many people have the kinds of proclivities that Risti has. We’ll need to look for professional stalkers, spies and soldiers.”

“I’m none of those things, alright?” Risti replied, a hint of indignation in her words. “I’m just a fan of a certain princess.”

“Who apparently spies on her all day. I’d categorise that as a stalker’s behaviour,” Nightfall replied. “That said, the fact that she’s eluded you despite your prowess at the stalker arts is really impressive. I wouldn’t have expected a sheltered princess who hasn’t been to the battlefield to do that.”

“Right?” Risti complained, annoyed. “I suppose it’s a good thing, though. I’m sure I’m the person who understands her the best. If I can’t find her, no one can! She’s safe and sound, and that’s what matters.”

Nero sidled over to Dia. “Is she always like that?”

“Uh, sometimes?” Dia replied. “Well, I suppose she was weaning off that particular habit of hers when you joined us, so you never really noticed. After all, Princess Dia fled Lustre nearly a year ago and vanished.”

“Ohh…well, that does explain her many skills that are used to observe people covertly.” Nero shook his head, and then turned back to the ongoing conversation between Risti and the lovebird couple.

The three of them were currently talking about the kinds of people that would have multiple observation skills. It was probably the best way to start, after all; most skills could be picked up through sheer repetition of a certain activity. Still, was Risti fine with teaching the count how to raise a replacement for her? Doing something like that felt really odd, if nothing else.

Nero cleared his throat. “I think we need to shelve this conversation first, everyone. There’s an assassin we need to handle now, right? She is asleep, and it’s in the middle of the day now. The number of people that might be affected by our attack is probably at its lowest.”

“True.” Count Nightfall got up. “Let’s settle this decisively. You three must be tired too…”

“Very tired, yes.” Nero yawned. “Let’s go.”

“Alright, whatever the tetra-folder says,” Caroline replied, placing her hand on Nightfall’s shoulder.

Dia took a long look at Nero’s back as they left. It was sometimes hard to remember, but Nero was indeed the Black God’s Holy Son and a tetra-folder to boot. His attitude towards things, however, didn’t particularly reflect that status of his, which was a bit intriguing. Was it because of his young age?

Of course, one could also argue that Nero should show more respect to the lovebirds who were more than three centuries old, but protocols regarding respect and pleasantries were very complicated. Dia could even remember her etiquette teachers telling her that the only way to play the politeness game was to be polite to everyone, no matter who they represented.

After all, who knew if the random old man they passed by on the street happened to be a tri-folder or a trained assassin with taboo skills like Damning Gesture or Mind Crush? Being polite was the usual way to go, so to see Nero being this carefree when addressing Count Nightfall spoke volumes to his fatigue.

Nero yawned a few more times as they made their way to the house, and Dia found herself yawning along too, with the others not spared either.

“Urgh. Now I’m sleepy too,” Count Nightfall muttered, before letting out a deep breath. “Best get this over and done with.”

He took out two chakrams, which began to glow with light.

“That’s our target,” Nightfall noted, pointing at an innocuous house. “We’ll surround it from all directions, launch our strongest attacks and try to annihilate everything inside. Aim to leave no debris behind. Normally, I wouldn’t do such a thing, but it’s the middle of the day, and Risti...”

“No one other than the target nearby. We’re lucky this is a residential district,” Risti murmured. “I’ll continue to keep an eye on the target and the area around her, though.”

“Good. We’ll use you as our signal to attack,” said Count Nightfall. “We’ll attack after you.”

“Got it.”

Picking a random direction, Dia hopped onto a roof and looked through her skills. Most of her skills were either too destructive or needed her to be in melee range, so the next best option she had was using her mana as a means of attack. It was a standard emanation of concentrated mana in a single direction, which would then blow up upon contact.

Unsheathing her sword, she coated its blade with mana. It was something she rarely did, but with her mana control, sending an arc of light wasn’t beyond her means. Besides, the others definitely had their own ways of attacking too; even if her ranged attack turned out to be a bit too subpar, they could make up for it.

Shaking her head, Dia cleared her mind.

She had been waiting for an entire minute when a small blob of light flew outwards in a parabola, and her arm stiffened. With a single smooth motion, she slashed outwards, releasing the mana that she had been gathering around the blade and sending it outwards. At the same time, a beam of pure, dense energy tore through the house’s roof, while two huge discs of light fell from the skies.

Dia’s eyes closed on their own, blocking out the blinding light that followed from the combined attack. Oddly enough, however, she couldn’t hear anything…except for the sound of whirling air.

She opened her eyes gingerly to see a middle-aged man floating at the spot where the house used to be. A bubble of red light covered his body, as well as the woman behind him, and Dia narrowed her eyes.

“This mana...” Dia found the power emanating from the newcomer inexplicably familiar, and her mind returned to the events that occurred more than a week ago. “It’s that person…”

The dust cleared as the bubble popped, revealing the man that Dia had taken a few extra glances at a day ago. That black headdress — a top hat, according to Nero — quivered as its owner looked around the place, before fixing his eyes onto a particular person.

“You look familiar! I’ve seen you before, somewhere!” The suited man laughed, before raising his gloved right hand and pointing it at Caroline. “Ah, well. I nearly killed you, didn’t I, woman? But you’re here, aren’t you? Maybe you want to be a martyr after all? I don’t know, but we’ll find out!”

The world seemed to spin around Dia in that moment as the hand hidden by the glove was revealed. Slimy maggots that were glued together by dollops of sticky fluid formed his right hand. Despite the distance between the two of them, Dia could hear his words and see the sickening maggots in excruciating detail — there was some supernatural force that seemed to eat away at her just by looking at it.

Fortunately, the Holy Son of the Red God slipped on the glove a few seconds later, but her head was already spinning.

“Maggots…” Count Nightfall took a few steps forward. “Why did you try to kill her?”

“Be honoured.” He turned to Caroline. “You were going to be a blood sacrifice, along with the rest of this prosperous county. It’s a shame that you just refused to be a martyr. I have to do it for you. Don’t you feel ashamed?”

“Don’t flatter your maggot-ridden self,” Caroline snapped back. “And I think I know who you are now, Holy Son of the Red God.”

Count Nightfall shook his head, a grand, exaggerated gesture that nabbed the hostile Bearer of Destiny’s attention. “What are you doing here? Weren’t you busy being chased by a bunch of soldiers from the Moons?”

“How did you know that?”

As Caroline and Nightfall continued to taunt the Holy Son of the Red God, who clearly hadn’t realised that the same people who had foiled his plans a few days ago were here, Dia took a deep breath and focused her attention onto the enemy, fixing it with her mind. There was a huge gap in terms of power, and the enemy also had Absolute Entrapment, Familiar Spirit Descent and Spirit Clone Descent, plus two more skills of the Red God Himself. All of them were trump cards of extremely destructive proportions; a fight here would devastate the city.

They needed to get him out of the place.

As that thought flashed through her mind, she saw Nero from the corner of her eyes, who was now casting a long, drawn-out gaze at the Holy Son of the Red God. For some reason, the Red God’s Holy Son seemed half-crazy, his focus completely on Count Nightfall.

Would he chase if Nightfall fled?