Chapter 8 - A Foolproof Plan
There are two weeks remaining until the princess arrives. Not only did Alex have to plan to kidnap the princess but also strengthen himself. He starts on his workout guide provided by the warrior guild for the D rank members. The workout helped him gain strength quickly. The workout favoured the persons who had mana. It made him a lot stronger in a small span of time. One week has passed since he started the workout.
For the next week instead of joining the Sorcerer Guild, He joined the Assassins Guild. He gets a newbie rank in that guild. He hasn't learnt any magic to hide himself. With the newbie rank he could join as a support on a mission or learn the craft of the assassin through the guild. He couldn't do stand-alone missions. He starts his learning of assassins technique.
During this time, he had moved out of the establishment he was staying at. The Madame had provided him with a guest house at a cheap rate. He had gone on a D rank mission from the Warrior Guild as well. The party he is a part of is very strong and managed to complete the mission easily. It is compulsory for a D rank to do at least one mission in a month.
He travels with The Madame a few days before the princess' arrival. He ditches The Madame for a few hours in a day to gather intel separately about the details of the visit. He tries to cover everything that can help him in this situation. He goes over the rules of the world and intelligence of the world. How can he make use of these things to make a perfect plan and not get caught. He knows that his power level is very low. All the classes and missions with various guilds, he's part of. He realised that he is at the bottom of the food chain. He constantly is striving to improve in this situation and progress in forward for the mission provided by the Goddess.
He is also rewarded by the Earl for killing a wanted criminal, now that he is part of a guild. He earned quite a lot of money from that kill. He wonders how he gets rewarded by killing the scum of the world on this planet. A lot different from the situation in his original world. The reward and money was not much. Earl also rewarded him with money and a badge of valour from the city. The badge was not worth anything or any recognition. One time, Earl saw a dog rescue a pigeon from a pond and gave him this badge; the dog ate the pigeon after.
Alex has most of the details about the arrival of the princess. He has input of external factors that might happen during the princesses visit. He knows most of the timing of the event. He has all the details of guests and where they are staying. He is prepared but there could be an unfortunate incident which could make the kidnapping go haywire.
There are only 2 days remaining until the day of arrival. All the decorations and planning is supposed to end by tonight and then tomorrow will be a rest day for everyone before the actual work begins. Alex helped out as much as he could. He then went to sleep early. He didn't join any drinking group and focused himself to be prepared for kidnapping. He trained himself with assassin art. The art came naturally to him as he was very focused on stealth even in his previous life.
The next day came and the streets were as usual. People went about their business. Everyone was excited for tomorrow for the princesses visit. He woke up early and went on about his daily routine and helped The Madame a little with preparation. There were still some fixes to be done with preparation even though the decorations were finished. The Madame excused herself with some important work. He managed to finish his few small assigned tasks and retired from the working scene. He felt he had made a lot of effort in preparation that would bear no fruit. But it made him recognised and has good people backing his behaviour. No one will ever suspect him if the future plans went accordingly.
It's night time, the streets have gone quiet. Only the moonlight is keeping the lights in between the streets. There is a loud bang and people start appearing in the streets. There is a huge fight between some face covered bandit looking people and some tough looking people wearing chainmails and swords and spears. The chainmails have very few people and are getting overpowered by the bandit force. It seems they are protecting someone. There is a girl with a brown cloak hiding behind the strong force. She makes a run for her life while her protectors protect her. She runs quite far away from the main force. She is out of breath from all the running and realises, she is in an abandoned alley with a dead end. She sits by the wall and removes her hood.
A beautiful face shining under the moonlight is revealed. She looks like a young beauty having the capacity of bewitching any country she wishes to. She tries to catch her breath, hoping for her knights to come victorious and pick her up. There is a splashing sound heard and it draws near her. She panics, a figure of a man draws near. She doesn't know if it's a foe or a friend. The silhouette of the man says from afar in a deep toned distorted voice, "I have wasted my entire remaining fortune to ruin you!"
The figure is unveiled, revealing the fat man who had hired the individual-the same person whom Alex had killed. He walks toward the princess with a menacing smile on his face. The princess steps back slowly. The fat man says, "There is nowhere to run. This is the end for you. You have to die for the sins of your father."
The fat man takes out a dagger from his back sheath. He swings a few violent strikes which she manages to dodge. She says while shaking in horror, "You scum, do you think it's easy to kill me. My knights will be here soon. THen you won't have any choice but to die. YOu have a good chance to run away right now. I say, you run away now and never show your face. And I'll forget you ever did this."
He says, "Very courageous words from a dying sheep. I've spent a lot of fortune. Your knights won't come. But don't blame me for all of this. Your father, The King made me like this. That's why I must kill you."
She says, "Stop spouting bullshit. It's not the King's fault you are here. It's your own."
He gets in a frenzy and starts chasing after her. But she seems to be trained in dodging the simple slashes. He is in sweat with those few moves. He tries to catch his breath. The Princess is still trapped in a corner with nowhere to run. Then suddenly the fat man falls to the ground, face forward. And a majestic figure is revealed behind him in an all black assassin outfit. It's Alex.
She feels relief without knowing if Alex is a foe or a friend. She tries to stay cautious. Alex approaches her and says, "Hi, I was just passing by. I saw something unjust and helped. You are safe now. No need to worry. Here, drink this stamina recovery potion."
He hands her a potion which she drinks without any questions. He asks, "Which ornament of yours is the tracking equipment?"
She unhesitantly points to her left earrings and then falls asleep while uttering, "Not a stamina recovery potion…" and sees the smirk of his right before closing her eyes.
It had all gone according to one of his plans. He had to make some changes to it. He was not completely sure whether the fat man from before would show up or not. So, he kept this plan as plan B. He had found out secretly that the princess would show up tonight instead of tomorrow morning. The princess' plan was to come to the city tonight and make an appearance for the parade in the morning. This was to increase security and less people would be aware.
The fat man had already hired a guy before. Which Alex had killed. That's why Alex left out about the involvement of the fat man before. Alex didn't have much time today to act on his intel. He had retired himself to his room and sneaked out and waited for the princess to arrive. He used stealth to hide and follow the princess troops from a safe distance. His initial plan was to kidnap the princess after the lodging and everyone goes to sleep. But the fat man interrupted and he had to use plan B. Plan B was a full proof plan as well.
The knights would close in on him quickly, so he has to do the cleanup urgently. He took out the left earring with tracking engraving on it. He put it in the pocket of the fat man. He put the dagger in the fat man's back sheath as well. Before he sliced the princesses arm with it lightly to have a little blood trace on it. He then used a healing potion by pouring it on the damaged area. He was surprised by the usability of it. He came to like this world a little bit more.
He hid the princess on a roof of a building and quickly took the fat man to a goods trader shop. The shop has some bustling business. It was night time but they were still working to fulfil a dawn transport. He saw one of the carts which was done with filling. He loaded the fat man on it sneakily. Without gaining any attention on him, he withdrew from the shop and went to get the princess.
He got the princess, he hurriedly went to his place. He was very quick on his foot for the last few minutes, hoping to garner no attention. He reached home, then the first thing he did was to tie the princess down and put her in the wardrobe. Then he went to bed to enjoy a few hours of sleep before the tiring work of tomorrow.