Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 68 - 67: Night Scouring.

[Midnight, Lueurre, Sunfish’s pond]

Faint moonlight glittered through the window, entering the room as I slowly gulped down the last of sip of the wine remaining in my glass.

-Huuuu

’Been a while since I had some.’ I nostalgically thought, as I looked at my drinking partners. Syrus and Cana, both in their mercenary persona of Signor and Camila respectively.

"Hmm...", After savoring the aftertaste of the wine, I smacked my lips before asking,

"Ready to explore the new city?"

Instead of a yes or no answer though, what I got in reply was a quip, "Not like you gave us any other choices apart from being ready."

But such silly quips didn’t work on me anymore. In the past month of traveling with her, I had by far got used to Cana and her quips.

Thus, I shamelessly answered, "Well, no need to praise me so much.", before standing up.

My atmosphere changing completely as I did. A serious atmosphere suddenly engulfed the room, the atmosphere keeping Cana from saying anything.

’Yes!’, I inwardly cheered, no change in my facial expressions as I did.

Then before she got suspicious, I started speaking. Briefing them about some ins and outs of the city.

"...that’s about it. If you get in some trouble leagues above your paygrade though, don’t hesitate to call me."

"Uhm." Nodding, Cana cocked her head to the side and asked. "And why are we supposed to get in such a great trouble?"

"A just in case warning." I cheerily replied, walking towards the door and opening it for them, "Now, off you go..."

"There he goes again, acting all suspicious...", Cana mumbled under her breath as she huffed out of the room.

Followed by Syrus, to whom I whispered, ’Take care of her and keep your eyes open.’

With a subtle but reassuring nod the silent guy gave his affirmation and followed behind his lead.

’Hmm, I should get going too...’

But before that.

-Click

I opened the door to Allen’s bedroom, stepping in with quiet, silent steps.

The kid was sleeping, as I expected him to be.

Walking deeper into the room. I stood beside his bed watching his facial expression and body language to ascertain his state.

And after a while I concluded, ’He’s getting better. Just for insurance though...’

I took out an almond shaped brooch from my bracelet and placed it on the nightstand bedside the bed.

Then pressing on the emerald green gem on top of it, that contrasted well with its full golden body, I activated the artefact. Adjusting its output to the lowest level.

The artefact shimmered a mild golden, its golden glow mild enough to not wake the sleeping Allen up. Then slowly a thin golden green film expanded out of the dimly shimmering artefact enveloping the bed and then most of the room.

Standing still for a while, I watched the artefact working as Allen’s scrunched up expression relaxed along with his mind, indicating that he dived even deeper into sleep.

"Get well soon..."

I mumbled lightly as I saw his peacefully sleeping face and left the room.

Closing the door behind me, I activated all the inbuilt protective enchantments the room had followed by all the protections I had brought with me.

The enchantments in my hand disappeared in a flash of light as blue runes coursed through the walls of the room, before they interlocked and sealed the room shut.

Reassured with Allen’s safety, I unconsciously nodded lightly, and headed out of our suite moving downstairs.

***

In the silent hallways of Sunfish’s Pond, my footsteps resounded like booming thunder. Waking up the small glowing creature who was drooling carelessly on the luxurious inn’s reception book. Using its pages as a mattress and a blanket simultaneously, the creature slept.

The creature was small and cute, glowing with an ethereal glow that seemed to be changing colors with each passing second.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the creature also had two sets of membranous wings growing out from her upper back that made its race obvious enough.

Small + Glowing + Wings = Fairy

It was just that simple.

The fairy’s ears twitched as they took in the voice of my footsteps, before slowly the sleeping fairy rose to sitting position. Apparently, still drowsy as she slowly rubbed her eyes, with her small hands.

Taking in the sight with leisure, I stood in front of the reception, watching as the drowsy fairy finally came to her senses.

"Wahhh!"

With a cute shout, the fairy woke up startled.

And then she turned around and jumped.

The ethereal glow around her intensifying and...

–Puff

...with a puff of smoke, a normal sized lady with pinkish blue hair stood in her place.

Amused by the scene before me, I said with a smirk, "That was quite a performance Claire."

The lady, no, the girl who was about to become a lady looked at me from the corner of her eyes. "I don’t know what the respected guest is talking about.", she said, emphasizing ’respected’ more than she should have.

Not minding that, instead I pointed to the reception book and said, "Shouldn’t you clean that up first?", the smirk on my face refusing to leave.

Looking down to the book that had its contents smudged up due to her drool, Claire, the polymorphed fairy flushed up, before quickly cleaning it up.

Extending her forefinger which now held the same silvery ethereal glow as her unmorphed form did, she swiped it along the book’s spine and as soon as she was done the smudges the marks and the drool all of it was gone...

’How can someone with such masterful control of water can’t control their own bodily fluids...’

I thought as I marveled the simple but difficult display of magic.

Done with fixing things, the fairy lifted her head and looked at me with a gaze that said, ’Don’t dare to tell anyone.’

To her I responded, "Just make sure the kid in my room is safe and I will keep my mouth shut."

"Tch, you planned this." The fairy huffed but then said, "Okay, I will do so."

"Thanks, and it was your fault for sleeping during your shift~"

"And whose fault was it that I couldn’t sleep for a week??"

"I dunno~", I shrugged as I walked out of the inn, but I actually did.

The faction assassin who helped me killing Travis. And one of the very few associates of the faction in the city of Lueurre, Claire the Fairy Assassin.

She wasn’t actually in the novel so I don’t know much about her backstory and all. But with her being in the faction I can at least say that she is ally.

An ally that I desperately needed.

Nodding to myself again, I picked up the pace and activated [Peekaboo], disappearing into the night.

***

[Western Edge of the Upper City, Lueurre]

Moonlight permeated through the dense canopy of the Atlas, litting up the sleeping city in a mysterious silvery glow.

Not exactly sleeping though. The high end pubs, casinos and brothels were all open even now, their flashy displays and unceasing chatter breaking the calm semblance of night...

But that was only the case for center of the upper city.

Even though the upper city was half the size of the lower city, cause not all the branches of the Atlas could support a city atop them, it still had its bleak sides.

This western region for example. As if it was necessary to differentiate even between nobles, the [City Administration] or simply the [Council of the Rich] had ran various schemes that pushed all the relatively poor nobles to live in the western region.

Reminding them that their worth was just a bit more that the ’ants’ living below them.

’So much oppression. No wonder they joined hands with a sketchy church.’

This chapter is updated by freēwēbnovel.com.

Such a thought entered my head as I made my way through the western part of the city.

It wasn’t easy, but with the various stealth artefacts I had with me, I was able to get by undetected.

After all no matter how poor they may be, they were still nobles.

And all nobles in Rowen are powerful without fail.

I couldn’t risk getting caught by them.

So, after treading carefully for half an hour or so, I reached the edge of the city.

And mind you, the edge didn’t mean the canopy just stopped there.

No, it just meant that the branches ahead couldn’t support the infrastructure anymore.

Not that it mattered much to magic users.

With a silent motion, I jumped across the five-meter-tall fencing that marked as the city border and landed on a thick tree branch.

And no, it wasn’t guarded or had a security ID or something.

Had it been some other edge of the city, things would have been different. But the western edge was actually a free pass from both sides.

And those twerps of Church of Light were taking advantage of just that.

Standing on the meter thick branch, I could see the whole city below me.

The numerous lights, the chattering crowd, or the breathtaking landscape, I could see it all.

And unlike the last time where I couldn’t appreciate the view, this time I had a lot of time in my hands.

In fact, you can even say that my purpose to come here was to just see things.

The statement was, quite literally, true.

So, without further ado, I began.

Jumping from branch to branch, as I saw, saw and kept seeing.

Over and over, again and again, I kept seeing, I kept scouring...

My eyes taking note of the tiniest details, tricolored petals blooming in my pupils from time to time, as even the state of ambient mana was recorded in my memory.

What was I doing?

Well, I was just surveying the area.

According the plot, the Church of Light and the nobles of the western district had joined hands. And for both the parties what better place of rendezvous they could have found other than the desolate canopy of the Atlas?

So, with that thought in mind I was planning on scanning the whole western edge of the Atlas.

Of course, not manually.

But for now, I decided to hold off activating the scanning artefact.

The artefact wasn’t exactly stealthy enough to hide its presence so before activating it, I’d rather see for myself what trouble I could get into by activating it.

And not long after I finished surveying the area the aforementioned trouble showed itself.

But in a different way than I expected...