The Messenger of Death

"If what you say is true then I accused them wrongly." Miriam immediately admitted her mistake.

"Not exactly, everything is pointing towards the Krakion family," Katherine mentioned.

"I think so too." Emma concurred.

The rest of the people present too agreed with what Katherine said, all but Al.

"Hmm, you say that all evidence points at the Krakion family. To you it does, but to me it isn't, I believe that the family behind this is none other than the Kawataro family." Al smiled, he loved the twist and turns the situation gave to his mind.

"How are they connected to this?"

"I don't know. The best way to find out who is behind this at the moment is to send two out of the three clients to their fathers." Al proposed.

"Huh? Why would we do that? If they step out of here then they would be attacked." Neko pointed out.

"True, but if they don't go, then their fathers will have to face what they have been trying to avoid." Al blurted out.

"What do mean by that?" Jayda questioned.

"The person that is behind all of this, to me, seems like a meticulous thinker. When their plan to kidnap the three of you failed what do you think is the next best step to take if you were in their shoes?" Al folded his hands on his chest and crossed his legs.

He imagined himself overseeing and holding strings that were connected to the orchestrator of the so-called rebellion, from above. In his imagination the orchestrator was moving pawns on a chessboard, playing against the government and winning, while the game was being supervised by the criminal syndicate of the exiled soldiers.

Still in his imagination, Al smiled at the government and the orchestrator. Now he was the chessboard that they had their pieces on, in other words, he was in control of what was going to happen next. He can disrupt their decisions by changing the position of the chess pieces whenever he felt like it.

"Why don't we throw the king off his board?" He muttered to himself.

"Huh?" Camron exclaimed, confused by what Al muttered.

"Forget I said anything." Al brushed it off.

"Well, if I was the one that orchestrated this and the kidnapping failed then the next thing I would do is to search for the targets. But if they are in a safe place like this then all I have to do is to keep them in their safe house, as long as I can achieve my goals then it doesn't matter if they are in my hands." Camron replied to his previous question.

Al was a bit surprised, a smile found its way to his lips and mixed in with the stunned expression that was there already. "I knew that we weren't friends for nothing, you, my friend, seems to be smarter than I give you credit for." Al raised his fist and Camron bumped it with his. They flashed a smile at each other.

['Does this mean that you approve of Camron now?'] Alex asked, feeling a bit jealous.

['When did I ever disapprove of him?'] Al asked back.

['Don't be jealous Alex.'] Lex spoke up for the first time since the incident in the hilly district.

['Now you speak?'] Alex uttered.

['I'm sorry,'] Lex muttered timidly and went back to keeping quiet.

['I didn't mean it like that.'] Alex sighed and gave up on explaining.

"Wait, you thought I was dumb?" Camron asked with his eyes wide open.

"It's all in the past now, forget about it." Al chuckled and tapped Camron's shoulder. "Back to the main thing. What Camron said was on spot, I can bet that there are people monitoring the manor now and their objective is to keep the three of you in here." Al stated.

"But why?" Himari asked.

"That's easy. After they had successfully kidnapped the three of you, their next step was to threaten and blackmail your fathers into giving in and voting in their favor. Now that the mansion has been taken to the ground, I take it that news has reached many people that the prime minister's daughters and the mayor's daughter were attacked in their safe house?" He raised one brow and looked at Reginald for confirmation.

"The news has already started to spread, sir," Reginald confirmed.

"I thought so, now all they have to do is lie to your fathers that they have you three in their custody and bam, blackmail them. But if we have two of you head over to where your fathers are, then we can prevent them from being used." Al picked the cup that was in front of him and sipped a little tea. He looked like he was confident that they were going to take that step next.

Rather than disturbing, this was interesting to Al and he couldn't help but smile and enjoy himself.

After listening to his explanations, the clients now understood why he wanted them to go out.

"When do we leave?" Jayda asked after she had made her determination.

"If we can arrive there after your fathers have already been briefed about what happened to the mansion that you were staying then that would be best. That way we can find out which family is behind this, directly. Or we can find out on the way there, depends on the sequence of events." Al sipped more tea.

Another butler came into the dining and whispered some words into Reginald's ears. When he was done Reginald bobbed his head at him and dismissed him.

"It is as you said Sir Alexander, there are people watching the manor as we speak." Reginald relayed what the other butler whispered in his ears.

After hearing what Reginald said, their respect for Alex intensified. They never knew that he could think this deep.

"All these while, people have been blaming the government for what happened, when the real culprits were the ones demanding for a reform of the government rules. How did we miss vital information like this when it has been right in front of us?" Jayda wondered why they only thought of some things after Al had said it. She was frustrated and angry at herself.

"Don't be too hard on yourself, sometimes it is what's in front of us that is the hardest to see." Al finished his tea and stood up.

"Here's the plan, first I will kill those mosquitos outside the manor. After that, we would have some people escort two of the clients to where their fathers are. One of the clients will be left here to reduce the pressure."

"Are you going outside the manor now?" Lawrence asked.

"No, I don't need to go outside to kill them. I can just shoot them down from within the mansion, given that there is a high ground where I can see the outsides of the manor from." Al mentioned.

"There are," Reginald answered.

"Then please get me arrows." Al started to fold the sleeves of his shirt.

"Before you leave, you have to wait for my go-ahead. You guys can decide on who gets to go and who gets to stay. Camron, take me to the high grounds." Al directed and left for the exit of the dining…

Camron took Al to an empty treehouse in the forest. The treehouse was camouflaged perfectly in the tree. He opened the windows and looked around.

"System, X-ray mode." He whispered gently.

Al was expecting a response from the skin crawler but after waiting for a while he didn't get any.

['The system shut down when Xander was using his new AOE attack'] Alex pointed out after a while.

['Oh, my bad.'] Al said and double-tapped his temple and the system came on.

"System, X-ray mode." He repeated.

*Activating X-ray mode. Activated.

His view changed and from where he was, he could spot the people that were keeping an eye on the manor from outside. Some were laying down in thick bushes, others on top of trees that were outside the mansion.

"System, mark the positions of the suspicious individuals."

*Marking targets.

A red dot appeared in his sight aimed at every person that was suspicious.

Not long after that Reginald came in with a bow and several arrows.

['Time to snipe some fools.'] Al resisted the urge to cackle.

He collected the arrows that were in Reginald's hands and rejected the bow he had brought alongside the arrows.

"I have my own bow," Al mentioned and brought out the Bow that he got from the Dragnel's ring.

Al placed an arrow on the string and drew it back. He aimed at one of the People hiding in the bush.

-Twang!

-Boom!!

Within a second, after Al released the arrow in his hand, it flew at a speed that none of their eyes could keep up with. The next thing they saw, the arrow broke into dust before it could cross a few meters.

Al stepped back and looked at the bow in his hands with a shocked expression on his face.

"What the f*ck?" He blurted out.