After the man from earlier studied his environment, he turned right and grinned at us. "Looks like those guys are searching for the princess," he declared as he followed after us. "This will be so much fun."

He chuckled a bit and had his eyes searched for any incoming guards. He was lucky none of them showed up yet, nor had we noticed him.

He now searched half of the kingdom while making sure not to be detected by the guards, and he hasn't found the missing princess with us as of yet. He noticed we grew tired by walking a bit slower than usual.

"Hmm…this is about to become disappointing, isn't it?" The black cloaked man said to himself in an annoyed, low voice.

Gideon placed his hand on my shoulder to prevent me from moving any further. The same man from earlier hid himself in the shadows and leaned against the wall to prevent us from detecting him.

"Okay, Mike. Let's go back home and rest up. We're too tired to search for her the whole night. We'll find her," Gideon said.

I immediately turned to Gideon. "What?! Right now?! Never!"

"But Gideon-"

"Like I said before…if you don't help me find the princess tonight, you get no gold. Do you understand?"

Gideon sighed and frowned all at the same time. "Alright, you win. Let's keep searching for her then."

I grinned at Gideon. "Good." I turned back to my destination. "Let's go!"

"Okay." Gideon said as he continued to search for the missing princess all over Basilia.

The black hooded man also wanted to keep following us, yet a banging sound on the ground echoed his ears. He stopped moving and turned to the right. "Hmm?"

There he saw a fat person holding onto a holey cloak with a couple guards with torches standing that person. The hoodie protected that person's identity and was reading something from the paper.

That person was a bit far away from them and pointed at the destination who wanted to lead the guards to. The blue luster reflected from the moonlight and that person and the guards walked past the rock on their path.

"The princess went in this direction there," the holey cloaked person said, whose voice was feminine. "I'm sure of it. She left her map on her table in her room. Forty golden coins here I come!"

The guards were silent and simply followed her lead.

"Oh? What's this now? Someone's also looking for a princess as well? And she got a map?" The black hooded man grinned viciously. "Excellent. The princess isn't as smart as I thought she is, isn't she? Well, that doesn't really matter. I'm just going to take out the guards and have her lead me to the princess instead. Such a brilliant, brilliant plan."

The black hooded man turned to me and Gideon, seeing us walk further distances away from him. Then he turned to the person in the holey cloak and the guards.

He followed them without the guards being spotted and waited for the group to stop moving to strike the guards. As soon as they arrived, they made it to the abandoned tavern.

It was pretty small for a tavern. In fact, it was too small. The black hooded man made sure to hide in the shadows from any incoming guards and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms.

The woman in a holey cloak examined the map, then the tavern back and forth a couple times. "Here it is," she declared, "She's in there. Let's go find her."

The guards shook their heads and one of them opened the tavern door. All of them headed inside to investigate.

"Excellent," the black hooded man whispered to himself, smiling viciously, "My perfect opportunity to take out the guards and get that woman to take me to the princess. I shall have that royal necklace and the princess…for the dark lord."

The black hooded man grinned as soon as he got out of the shadows and headed inside. The guards and that woman studied their surroundings, then turned to one another.

While the woman looked down at her map, the dark smoke put out the fires from the torches and cooled them off. "Huh?!" All three of them looked up at those torches from the moonlight.

They noticed the fires were gone. Not even the smoke ascended towards the ceiling.

"What the hell? Somebody put out the fires and I don't see any smoke," one guard said as he touched the torch and it felt cold. "It's not even hot anymore."

Another guard also touched his torch and it also felt cold, "Well, that's strange."

Then the door was shut behind them, causing the group to turn around. "What the hell?!"

"Looks like your little search party's over," the black hooded man said when he summoned his black, smokey claws upon his right hand and smiled. "Time to end it. The princess is all mine!"