Chapter 33 : Sidelines[1]

3rd POV

"If I may ask, who might you be?" Zelen asked while giving Hajin a mocking look.

"Who might I be, huh?" Hajin said to himself, mana flunctuating around him a little, which was detected by Rachel as soon as it came.

"... !" Feeling the change in the atmosphere around, she instantly understood that HE was in control.

"Ah, it seems that Father is calling us. Please allow him to introduce himself later..." She broke in as she took Hajin's hands and rushed towards her parents.

Hajin was surprised by the quick turn of events as he, or if it is more correct to say, the creator, had already planned how to deal with this nuisance.

**

"Why did you break in?" Hajin asked. He was not angry, just confused as this was something he least expected.

"*sigh* you know, try to bring in less trouble at the start of the event. You can do everything when enough crowd arrives. Releasing your powers so early will result in a gloomy and scareful atmosphere all the way after."

"..." Hajin kept silent as he gave it a thought, and it actually did make sense.

The audition will continue till late night, and it hasn't even been 6 PM currently, it's just the start of the meeting. So if he releases his aura so early, not only will it alert the Djinns, but also, the pressure would be so much that no one will be able to even more for the rest of the event.

It was also a fact that if the Djinns were alerted, they could inform this to their higher ups which could result in less Djinns coming to the event. After all, currently, not even half of the original amount of Djinns meant to be present were here.

[Hmm, that's a good idea as well. Now that I think about it, it would also have some more minor benifits as well. Let's go with that.]

'Okay then...'

"Hmm, let's go with that." He said to Rachel as he also turned around and walked along with the King and the Queen while Rachel just walked besides him.

For a hours, the audition went smoothly. As the event hadn't truely began, people were still coming in. However, the cube cadet party, Yeonha, Chae Nayun and Jonghak had still not arrived, neither did anyone from their clan. They would probably come just when the main event would be starting.

*

**

***

???'s POV

Nothing was going smoothly for some time. First, it was the incident at the Cube Exams when one, or well, two of the participants turned out to be too much powerful than expected. After that, various other plans had also gone downroad because of the same Cadet. But we had also acquired some extremely useful information in return.

I sat on my chair as I looked towards the documents on my hand.

"Kim Hajin..." This person was the cause of everything. A blackhorse in the Cube's ranking, an individual that seemed to be one of the weakest, but turned out to be the strongest person in Cube.

Chances were, he was possibly even more powerful than some, if not all the people in our organization.

'Someone who is stronger than the Chameleon Troupe, huh... I wonder, how did someone so powerful managed to stay off the world's radars for so long, and how long?' I thought as a smile crept on my face without me knowing.

But that was not the only thing I was curious about. After all, there were many monsters in the world, there were some of those in our troupe even, what was unique about this person, however, was that he potentially had anti-magic properties, and possibly something even more powerful.

The ability to destroy anything.

Yes, that was what we were looking for, Anti-Magic.

The Chameleon Troupe's current biggest goal was to find someone with Anti-Magic, someone who could help us get what we want... Revenge...

It had only been a few years since that day... the day when the former boss of this group, and also my master, had betrayed our group.

Maybe it was boredom? Maybe thrust for even greater power? Who knows, but I don't care anyway...

We were the strongest organization back than, stronger than anyone in the world. We had everything under our control, the government, the celebrities, the rich... everyone.

However, the mistake that we did was to rely on our leader too much...

He was the strongest being in this world, THE STRONGEST

It was not physical strength, it was not magic power, but that he couldn't be harmed. He couldn't be harmed by any means except that of Anti-Magic. But unfortunately for us, he had already killed all the anti-magic users in the past before he betrayed us.

'Why... JUST WHY?!?!?!' I gritted my teeth while trying to stay in control, but it couldn't help my aura from slightly leaking, which started decomposing everything around me.

That was my ability, decomposition. The power to decompose and consume anything. Yet it still had limitations. It was a magic ability, and although it could destroy most magic, there were still some powers who could block it, two of them being our former boss's powers... and anti-magic.

'*sigh* calm down... we can still have our revenge... I just have to bring that person to our side...'

That was our current goal, recruiting Kim Hajin.

As he was the only potential anti-magic user in this era, no, maybe one of the two... after all, from some information we gathered, the current second ranking cadet, Rachel Elizabeth Louise, also had powers related to Kim Hajin's...

'The princess of England... but it's a waste that she is with Hajin all the time, which also puts us at one more disadvantage, that being that we cannot bring Kim Hajin to our side by seducing him with beauty or money.

It was rumored that Kim Hajin and Princess Rachel were currently lovers, and if that was true, I doubt he would lack anything. He already had the power, but now, he had a beauty and all the money a normal person could wish for in his life... it was as if he had no weakness.

"Hmm?" I composed myself as I heard footsteps coming towards the door.

Just as I expected, someone shut the door open and rushed inside the office in ragged breath.

"What is it, Droon?" I asked.

"Hah... Hah...!" He took deep breaths for a few seconds, before abruptly continuing, "Boss! Look!" He handed me a small black box.

It was completely pitch black with a small golden part on the middle.

"What is it...?"

"It... I was doing the usual work when this thing popped out of nothing suddenly. At first I thought it was a bomb or something, but it didn't explode or did anything, but just in case, I brought it here." He said.

"..." This thing... appeared out of nothing? Teleporation? But as far as I remember, there are only a few individuals with powers related to space, and on the advance side, teleportation. In fact, the number could be counted on one hand.

I cautiously inspected the box to find something unusual, but nothing. There was nothing attached to it. Not a device, not a small bomb or anything, it was just a closed box. There wasn't even a button to open it.

As I was inspecting it, my finger accidently slipped to the little golden area. Just than, the box suddenly opened.

"... !" A letter came out of the box, floating in the air. It automatically opened up and floated in the air, as if someone was holding it.

"This...!" I was surprised to see the stamp of the British Royal Family on the top.

I took the letter in hand and read it.

"..." 'Just how? How did HE know about our location? ... But even if he did, it shouldn't be possible to teleport something here as Khalifa has formed a spatial barrier around the base...'

'Wait... no... This only proves our theory right, he DOES have anti-magic, and it's on the level of at least being able to ignore several hundred defense barriers easily... ' Reading the letter, I couldn't help but smile, 'Yes... This means he is at least a little bit interested in the Chameleon troupe, since he went as far as to do this, it's possible that he may even easily agree to our request...'

"What is it, Boss... ?" Droon asked. 'Hmm, it seems that only I can see the content of the message...'

"Droon, call all the seats of the troupe. If they are on a mission, tell them to come back or send Khalifa to bring them back. I want a meeting under 15 minutes."

"...! Yes!"

**

* A few minutes later *

- In the meeting Room -

"Is everyone here?" I asked to get their attention.

"Yes." All of them responded at once.

"Good. Now, I'm about to make an important announcement... You can think of it as our next mission. But the difference is that we must not fail in this mission at any cost." I explained.

"Sure sure, boss. But what's the mission~?" Someone asked.

"Shut your mouth, muscle head. Boss is explaining!" But before I could even respond, Jain shouted towards the man, which left him with an irritated expression.

"..." I looked around and waited until they had sorted their little fight out. They instantly shut up, probably because they felt my gaze on them.

"Good. Now..." I put the black box on the table.

"This is something that was teleported near Droon a few hours ago..." I paused for a second before continuing, "It's an invitation."

"... Did you just say it... teleported?" One of them asked.

"But how?"

"You're right, I have placed several spatial barriers around this place, and the base itself is quite hidden, just how did someone manage to teleport... no, just how did they even managed to find the location?"

"... We don't know. But what we do know is that it is done by the same person that we are searching on..."

"You mean Kim Hajin...? But that's impossible! Wasn't he just a cadet?"

"That can't be true, even if that kid is strong, doing something like this is..."

"You all have a point, but you're forgetting something here..." I said.

"This only proves our theory that he possesses anti-magic. It also helps us figure out the minimum level of his ability..." I continued.

"...!" They all had a shocked expression on their faces.

"That's impossible. Even if it's anti-magic, just how can a cadet-" One of them tried to say something.

"Blue, you're forgetting something." I cut him off, "Did you forget what happened on the Island? And the recent information we got from the astrologists?"

"..." That made him shut up.

"We hav already confirmed that it was caused by him. It was an attack on a scale not known to man kind even before..."

"He destroyed several stars, planets and much more. The atmosphere had a big whole in it where the ozone layer had vanished. Not only that, he is probably also the cause of the atmosphere's restoration. Everything that was destroyed repaired itself, it's theorized and is only logical that he was the cause of that as well."

"..."

"... Leaving that topic." I paused, "This box contains an invitation for all of us. It's an invitation to the Audition at England that we were recently planning on invading. The one where the White Crystal is going to be explained by the so-called CEO of Roton."

"... But can we trust it? It could just be a trap, right?" One of them stated.

"Indeed, that's a possiblity. But the chances are extremely low. After all, from our previous investigation and from the fact that HE knows this location, if he wanted to destroy our organization, he could theoretically do so by himself." I explained.

"Of course, this doesn't completely negate the chances of the prior possiblity that you mentioned..." I said again before anyone could interject in my talk.

"According to the letter, all the seven seats of Chameleon Troupe are invited to the audition. It is also stated that we are free to bring weapons as long as we don't publically show them. The reason for that is that a barrier has been constructed around the whole of Clancey Islet, which has been confirmed by Droon, that blocks any sort of magic or supernatural power without the perosn even knowing that their abilities are blocked. And it's most likely constructed by Kim Hajin as it has similar energy signature to the burst of power back at the Island."

"That sounds... oddly logical..." Jain exclaimed with a shocked face.

"So what are the orders... ?" The seat of green asked.

"They're simple. We will go to the event, and whenever we get the chance, we will try to negotiate with Kim Hajin to help us with our goal. And even if he doesn't agree, we have to at least form a non-aggressive relation with him to avoid future problems at all cost!"

"Now, Chameleon Troupe, finish all the preparations needed for this event. Dissolve all the plans we had about causing an attack during the event. We will be heading out in the late evening!"

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Word Count : 2155