Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 72 - 71: The Duo’s side.

[Lueurre, Cana’s POV.]

"Hmm, its unnecessarily boisterous.", Cana hummed while observing the atmosphere.

"...Yes."

It was past midnight and most of the crowd had already dispersed, but it was still boisterous.

Not all shops were open, but those that were, still had customers. Groups of cheerful people that wanted to have a late night snack were still roaming the streets, looking for a place to satisfy their cravings. So, were the merry hookers who were looking for their next customer. And coupling those with the people who were having their post drinking madness...all in all, an interesting crowd was wandering through the streets.

And during this ’interesting’ period of time she had to find out if something was going-on in the city.

Honestly, if she was just some other girl, she would have directly said that nothing was wrong, but as someone from the shadows she could feel it, the tense air that was lingering in the city despite the boisterous atmosphere.

Just that, she couldn’t put her finger on it, on what was wrong.

Of course, that was just one of her troubles...

"A lot of people still haven’t gone home."

"Right."

"A lot of shops are still open."

"Yes."

"That restaurant still has a lot of crowd; it must be famous."

"Right."

"That shops looks shady."

"Yes."

’Ugrh!! This guy, he is driving me mad!!’

’I know you are a quiet guy!; I know you don’t like to talk much! But…, but, try to read the room a little!!’

She wanted to scream that right in his ear now, but of course, she didn’t.

No use in making a scene here, even if the only reply she got from him for the past half an hour was only ’right’ and ’yes’ to the point where she wondered if ’right’ and ’yes’ were the only words his vocabulary…

’If you don’t want to talk, no one will force you to.’, she huffed in her mind before she too joined in the festive atmosphere.

And she got some info doing just that.

Apparently, a festival called [Blessing of the Atlas] was going to happen in a month and half in city. A festival where the great Atlas bestows it’s blessing to all people in the city.

And ’coincidently’ they came right on time for the festival that happens only once in four years.

’Coincidently, my ass.’, Cana thought knowing the cunning boy all too well to believe that it was a coincidence.

But still, we are here too early, and considering the way he dragged us during the last part of the journey as if to not be late...something was wrong.

’We aren’t here just to get the so-called Blessing of Atlas, but there’s something else too.’, that much she could say with confidence.

’But what? Is it related to this lingering feeling? Or is it something else?’, just as the gears in Cana’s head were turning, she heard a voice right in her head causing her to flinch.

{We have tails.}

Tails?

She knew what that meant, she definitely knew cause once, she herself, worked as a tail.

But the question was, why?

Why were they being tailed when they haven’t even spent a day here?

It was then that she recalled the boy’s words, ’A just in case warning.’

’Just in case, my ass!’, She cursed for the second time tonight as she acted as naturally as she could.

This chapt𝙚r is updated by freeωebnovēl.c૦m.

{How many people? And how do you know they are tailing us?}, she asked cause as an ex-tail, she should have been the first to notice the signs.

{Four groups of two or three, I just noticed them. They keep rotating the groups in a while, but two people are keeping an eye on us for all times.}, he calmly reported.

{Are they magic users?}

{Some of them. But don’t worry, they aren’t a threat to us.}, he said reassuringly.

{Okay.}, she answered half-heartedly as she went into her ’alert-mode’. With magic users and their tricks, she needed to focus with her all to at least spot them.

And that was supposed to take a while.

Was supposed.

Cause with the resources, or should she simply say, with the artifacts she had with her, along with her experience as a tail, finding them was a matter of seconds. The only problem was being inconspicuous.

Taking out a lot of magical artefacts and scanning for every magic user in the vicinity won’t just attract the attention of their pursuers but also of the guards.

’Troublesome.’, Cana thought before calling out to Syrus.

{Do you have a plan? If not, want me to lead this time?}

Honestly, she wasn’t all that keen on using her powers in front of her ’leader’ or ’party-members’, then why did she ask this?

Cause after the incident in the forest she felt a need to reassure myself.

Between Rayne’s changed mood, Allen’s nightmares and her own weakness, she felt a strong need to reassure herself.

And while she was powerless in front of mad controlled beasts, she wasn’t so fragile when facing humans. After all, she was surviving on her own before this...

Not to mention she was the perfect person for the job.

So, after grabbing a trinket from the adjacent shop, she turned around and shook it as she asked, "So, how about it?"

Adding telepathically, {I have a plan.}

"It’s okay...I guess...", Syrus hesitantly conceded, not sure about her plan but just decided to play along. Inwardly of course he was thinking something else, ’Whatever her plan may be it’s better than killing them, Rayne wouldn’t like it.’

Not knowing that she just saved the lives of several people, Cana got started with her plan.

Taking Syrus by the hand, Cana walked ahead whispering, ’Just follow me’ in his mind.

***

The duo walked for a bit, heading toward the shopping area having the priciest shops, while exchanging information about their tails.

Of course, they knew about the different areas cause their ’leader’ almost forced them to remember the layout of the city.

’Never thought all that would come in handy on the first day.’, Cana brooded idly, while Syrus noticed that there was a natural shift in the crowd, going from a mixed crowd to a more luxurious one.

And in order to blend in that crowd their tails obviously had to change their style, making them much easier to spot and identify.

{That one, the one in black, 10 meters 7 o’clock, he’s moving out of the crowd slowly.}, she spoke as she identified another one of the tails.

{Noted.}

{That makes it eight.}

{Yes. Good job. Now, what?}

{How many of them can you catch if you ambushed them now?}, Cana thoughtfully replied with a question of her own.

{At least four.}, Syrus notified like a good secretary, his answers still short but sufficient.

{Hmm, then lets end this with a last move.}, she said as they dwelled deeper into the pricy area.

Now in, the duo strolled a bit more, going into pricy shops, buying a few overpriced products before finding themselves in a similarly overpriced restaurant nearby.

And just as Cana expected, two minutes later three people, two male, one female entered the restaurant.

The female being a beast-woman. A black-haired, blue-eyed girl with cat ears and a tail. Her features were sharp and gloomy creating quite a contrast with the surrounding bright faces.

The two men with her weren’t much better. One of them, another beast-men, having matching features as that of the girl while the last one was much younger. A plain looking boy with brownish blonde hair and eyes, probably the same age as a high-schooler.

The restaurant was almost empty, due to it being past midnight, meaning the service was extraordinarily fast.

A steward approached the trio as soon as the trio got seated, handing them each a menu. The trio’s faces got darker as soon as they read the menu, struggling to cope up the overpriced dishes as they ordered the cheapest thing available, much to Cana’s amusement.

Having seen enough, Cana stopped sipping at her drink before lightly calling out to Syrus, "I’ll be back."

{I’m sure the gal would follow me; I’ll handle her, you just keep the boys in check.}

{Got it.}

With that she got up and went into the restroom, the female of the trio following her in a bit.

Actually, her plan was quite simple, she just wanted to get alone with any member of the group, everything else would be easy.

And with the strings she pulled she was just going to get just that, though the tails must have gotten suspicious, but that was also a part of her plan, to get them suspicious.

’Now all that’s left is to get her.’, Cana sighed to herself as she drank a ’strengthening’ potion and hid behind the restroom’s door, a dagger materializing in her hand.

-Click

The door opened with a click, a slender leg stepping past it, followed by another, and as soon as she saw the pair of black ears – she went for the kill.

With the dagger in her hand, she lunged forward, going for a stab.

-Clang..!!

The dagger struck the cat girl’s forearm, ripping her dress as she shook it off, revealing the metallic protector that blocked Cana’s dagger.

"What are you doing!!?", the cat-girl asked enraged.

’Yes, I was tailing her, but we never got the order to attack!! And that was my only fancy dress!!’

With her words being ignored, as Cana just attacked her again, the cat girl who was also a E- ranked magic user backed off hurriedly, her cat lineage helping her with that.

Of course, Cana followed her but the cat girl just got on top of a stall’s door before jumping to the other side.

’She has power but her technique is amateurish at best.’, catty thought, as she jumped around two more times before kicking the ceiling during her third jump, going vertically downwards.

The sudden attack caught Cana off guard, but still she managed to swing her arm.

Unfortunately, the cat girl easily dodged that clumsy attack, following with a leg sweep that caused Cana to fall and before she could get up, the cat girl was on top of her, her body locked on spot.

With a little struggle the dagger was stolen from Cana’s grasp, instead touching her neck as the cat girl hissed, "Should I kill you now? Just like you tried to kill me?"

In the situation that seemed dire, Cana just shook her head and blabbered to herself, "Sigh, physical combat really isn’t for me... I don’t even know why I tried this."

And catty didn’t like that.

"Huh? What did you say!!? You bitch!!", She growled, raising her hand as tried to hit her on the face.

Tried to.

Cause as soon as she lifted Cana’s face, her gaze met with a pair of galactic eyes. Galactic eyes that shone rose pink, as they spun rapidly, seemingly peering into her whole self as she heard a voice.

[STOP]

**

[Unique Skill: Authoritative Empress]

When the Empress of ancient past descends into the future, all her power, all her strength, everything is stripped bare of her. The only thing that she retains is the regal authority that is a part of herself.

The higher the mental energy difference between the target and the user the lower the effect of the authority, the power of the soul also affects the effectiveness of the skill.

Passive: The skill passively imbues the user’s speech with authority which can be controlled by the user to a certain extent.

Active: Each word spoken is a command to be followed. The target cannot follow commands that it originally doesn’t know.

**

This was her skill. Her very own power that she was born with.

A blessing and also a curse...

[Get off me.]

"Ouch! That hurt.", Cana muttered as she got up. "Never gonna do that again. Physical fights just aren’t for me..."

[Now cat-bitch, let’s have a talk...]

And just like that, with her powers and a magical equivalent of a tracker, the leader of the people tailing them was caught...

[Say that we got suspicious and go find your team leader.]

...along with their whole team, of course.

[Hey leader, call all of your team members here.]

Scarily enough, none of them remember being caught.

[You will forget everything that happened in last two minutes.]

Just having a fleeting memory as if it was day-dream.

"Huh? What was that? Maybe I am getting sleepy?"

…

..

.

"Hah! That was fun! Now, let’s head back."

’Having fun while manipulating people, that’s problematic, I should tell this to Rayne.’

"I’m sleepy."

’I’m sleepy too.’

One was sighing, one was mumbling, but their day(night?) ended in the same way.