Haruki and his companions knew that their journey to Aria would be anything but pleasant, but what they'd not expected was to be ambushed by a group of strongmen mercenaries. Barred inside the carriage, all Haruki could see through the windows was Kane bickering with the hooligans trying to take Snow's head before he was even presented in the king's court.
"This is my final warning, we're not doing this," reaching for his blade, Kane let the obstructive group know that he wasn't in the mood for chatter.
"And we're not letting that demon set a single foot in our land," brushing his lush giver beard, the dwarfish man refused to move aside.
'How long will this go on?' Tired of the exchange, Haruki sneaked a demonic spy through the window grills to check up on the Arian gates in the distance.
Flying high up, the small creature saw that the walls encompassing the Arian land were not far away from where they were standing stagnant. Upon seeing through the creature's eye, Haruki turned to Riley and gestured for her to break free through the door and handle the situation.
Nodding back, she stood up by the door and kicked it right off its hinges. As the door went flying through the forested path, the mercenaries as well as Kane turned around to the thrashing sound. Walking out of the carriage while flipping her blades in her hands, Riley turned her head sideways to get a proper look at the mercenaries.
"Get in," Kane mumbled, quickly taking out his sword and turning.
The mercenaries, shocked by the display of strength by the frail-looking lady, were all frozen in place as their minds couldn't reason the events that were happening.
"I'm still the Duke's guard, Mister Kane, and if these idiots continue to threaten the Duke or don't move out of the way, I would very much be in the right to gouge their eyes out so they couldn't try something like this again," Riley's threat was met with concern from Kane, but the mercenaries on the other hand, having broken from their astonished state, began laughing at the absurd proposition by the girl.
Without a second's delay, Riley used her swiftwind ability to move behind the group. And the only reason anyone realized that she'd moved at all was because of the aggressive gust of wind that followed her movement.
"Still gonna laugh?" She asked, taking their leader hostage with a knife to his throat.
Noticing the girl behind him, the ginger beard guy tried to reach around and grab her, but as the knife dug deeper he was forced to cease all movement. The other two from his group, sidestepped away when they realized exactly what was happening.
"Ray, let go of those men!" Using fortress, Kane sprouted a collection of spikes on his body. "None of them are going to hurt you or your master, I'll make sure of it, but if you don't let go then it won't take long for the Arian forces to chase you down and punish your master without even a hearing!"
Walking out of the carriage himself, Haruki gestured to Riley with his fingers to stand down. And so putting the knife away, she let go of the man and slowly made her way back towards her master.
"I hope you've realized how stupid your idea of ambushing us was, and you won't make the same mistake again," saying those words, Haruki climbed back into the carriage.
"That's the duke for you morons, if it was so easy, I would've killed him myself," turning his back to the mercenaries Kane headed back into his carriage to lead the charge once more.
Despite being threatened beyond reason the group of mercenaries were still pissed off by the whole thing. Yet given the massive gap in their skills they couldn't risk attacking the duke while his guards were still around him. By the time the carriages passed them by, all of them were fuming in rage.
Not too long after the altercation, the carriages arrived at Aria's city gates. There after being apprehended in cuffs made from the same jade as the anti-teleportation necklace, Haruki and his guards were taken to a temporary housing facility. Given his social status, there was no way the guards could simply throw him off into the dungeons like the other criminal. Leaving him off in a room filled with all the same luxuries as his room back in the castle, the guards left the three alone until it was time for the court hearings.
"Clone: Snow Frost," creating a clone of himself, Haruki turned to the other two but then remembered something. "I can't create a clone of anyone who've not drained levels from, so Riley, you're gonna have to stay behind, and Margarette, I can't create a clone of Belladona either since it's not a real person and just a mask for hiding your true identity."
Having expected such hiccups the two didn't seem all that bothered, and that relieved Haruki a little.
"I'll sneak out and see what I can find to use for our plan, meanwhile, you two stay here and make sure the guards don't get all too suspicious about the clones and such," keeping in mind that Kane knew about Haruki's clone ability, it wasn't too farfetched to think that the guards were prepared to spot any clones he created.
'Hopefully, the guard or at least the common populace doesn't know about my skills,' Shaking his head, he quickly drove away all distracting thoughts.
"It's gonna work though, right?" Now that they were finally in Aria, Margarette had gotten a bit more nervous than before. "Those skills I mean."
"We'll have to see, won't we?" popping out his screen of stats, he began scrolling down on it until he reached the skills in question.
'Plague demon, and crimson tongue curse, if I can successfully manipulate the population with these skills then…' Trying not to get too ahead of himself, Haruki turned his attention back to his servants.
"I'll sneak out now, but make sure if anyone figures out that the clone isn't the real me then-"
"I'll use my charm," said Margarette.
"And I'll use my blade," Riley added.
Confident in them both, Haruki walked over to the tightly shut door and peeked out from the gap underneath it. Noticing a guard stationed outside, he knew exactly what he had to do to escape the cuff as well as the room.
"Shadow sneak," melting into a shadow, he attached himself to the guard's feet.
Meanwhile, as the cuff fell to the ground, Margarette picked them back up and put them on the clone.
'Hopefully, he finds a way to execute the plan before it's too long.' Still a bit worried about her master, a random thought appeared in her mind. 'I still haven't used my tail to suck on him either…dammit, maybe after this is all over.'
While her stepmom was busy pondering about sucking Haruki dry, Riley was itching to see the carnage that would soon ensue through the duchy.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om