Dark King

After an hour.

Dudian followed the smell left by the shadow from the carriage. He had come to a nearby town where the streets were more dirty and rats were roaming free in the dark alleys. There were few pedestrians checking out the shops.

Dudan traced the smell and came to the front of a huge manor. He saw the previous carriage parked in a corner streets by the manor. Moreover, there were seven or eight carriages that were parked by. He checked the exterior design of the carriage. Most of them were not made by professional companies but were privately build carriages. The fabrics used to cover them and the sizes of carriages varied.

Dudian stood by the corner and monitored the manor. The lawn in front of the manor was wel kept. There were four guards by the door. There were smells floating from the others sides which moved in a fixed route. They should be the guards who protected the manor from the other sides.

Dudian carefully check the smell: “It turned out to be her!” He went back to the town and strolled around until he found a tailor shop. He went into the shop: “Give me a set of robes. I need them now!”

The tailor was a curly and beautiful woman. She warmly invited Dudian to the shop: “Please sit while I make it. The robes are very convenient and couldn’t be finished immediately.”

Dudian nodded.

He was looking around the store when he felt a touch of smell. He looked towards the direction where the smell was hailing from. It was a very subtly smell that was emitted from behind the main wall. Moreover, same smell happened to be emitted from woman’s body.

The woman turned around and asked: “What color do you prefer?”

Dudian’s eyes twitched: “Black.”

“Good!” Woman turned and picked out black fabric. She used scissors to cut it according to Dudian’s size. As there was not electricity or industrial revolution has not happened the seweing machine naturally wasn’t invented yet.

Dudian was quietly observing the woman. He found that her nails were colored pink. There were some residues in the crevice of her nails. Although there was a distance of few meters between them but his eyesight was good enough for him to detect dregs of meat pieces in those crevices.

“A murderer? Or an alchemist from life faction?” Dudian was shocked as he would never expect to encounter such a situation in the tailor shop. As he thought about the number of carriages parked behind the manor he faintly felt that he had entered a town which was an alchemist stronghold.

The woman did a good job with the black robe. She handed it to Dudian: “Please put it on so we can check how it fits.”

Dudian didn’t wear as he just looked at it: “How much?” He paid the money, picked the robe and left the shop. As for the mask, although the shop had masks but he didn’t want to purchase it from the same shop. If the other side was alchemist the she would have guessed his identity. He didn’t want to anyone know about his real face.

Dudian went to the other shops in the town as he bought ink, quills, pens, plush dolls, masks, flowers and other objects.

Later on he rented a room in a small hotel. He threw aside the plush doll as he dipped the pen in the ink. He depicted the alchemy tattoo on his chest. Moments later the tattoo was again branded. Moreover, he crushed flowers and took out their juice. He mixed them with coal as he once more went over the tattoo. As he finished with the current issue, he took one of the masks and a robe as he left the hotel.

Dudian went to the corner to change wear black robe and white mask as there was no one around. Afterwards he went to enter the manor from the main entrance.

“Who are you?!”.The guards stopped Dudian as they noticed him.

Dudian replied.: “Step aside.”

The guards looked at the man with the white cat mask. They glanced at each other after they heard his commanding tone. One of them asked: “Do you have an invitation?”

Dudian’s brows wrinkled. However he replied instantly.: “I did not bring.”

“No invitation?” The guards were alerted, “Please leave. This is a private property. You aren’t allowed to enter if you don’t have an invitation!”

“I came over with a friend. I would like to bother you to inform her that I have come. She should be inside. She is called Nightingale. She had an invitation and she could prove my identity.”

As if they were one, all the guards shook their heads. One of them replied: “We are guards not messengers.”

Dudian lightly shouted in a cold tone: “If I’m delayed into today’s event you won’t be able to shoulder this responsibility!”

The guard sneered: “Stop speaking nonsense. It is a private party held by house owner only open to friends. There is no big event happening. You are quite the talkative one! Don’t force us to use strength to make you leave!”

Dudian didn’t think that the guard will be difficult to handle: “Ohh. How many stars the house owner has so that even the guards don’t give face to guests?” He spoke in an angry tone.

The guards were perplexed. The previous man looked carefully at Dudian: “You said you are looking for Nightingale, right? I’m going to check if there is someone called Nightingale in the house. If not, you are going to get it!”

Dudian said: “Tell her that its an old friend from three years ago called Dog.”

“Dog?” The guards eased a bit as they heard Dudian’s nickname. They were aware that most of the guests used nickname. The previous guard turned and entered the manor.

In about ten minutes the guard returned. His attitude had become polite as he modestly said: “Please wait. She shall be here soon.”

Dudian quietly waited.

The manor’s door was opened. A tall figure wearing skirt came out. She was wearing an owl mask. She was dressed brightly. If a normal person checked her dressing, they would think that she was attending an masked party.

Nightingale came to the door. She looked at the person wearing a white cat mask: “Are you dog?”

Dudian heard her voice. Although it had slightly changed in comparison to three years ago but it had become more clean and mature. However, it was still that familiar sound. He knew that his nose wasn’t mistaken: “Mouse, Snake, Nightingale, Hound!” He consecutively named the code-names.

Nightingale pondered for a moment: “Let me look at your tattoo!”

Dudian nodded.

The guard opened the door as they entered the manor. Dudian lifted the black robe and revealed the black cross tattoo on his chest.

Nightingale was relieved: “I didn’t expect to see you after so long. How did you find me?”

The guards were relieved as they saw Dudian’s identity was confirmed.

“I’ve been in this little town for sometime. I saw you today! ” replied Dudian.

The bright eyes behind the owl mask looked at Dudian with interest.: “Its been three years and you could recognize me so easily. How are you going to explain that?”

Dudian heard the ridicule in her tone. He brainstormed quickly and scratched his head as he anwered: “Well! Actually, I heard from a friend that you are going to be here. I wasn’t sure the nightingale he had mentioned was you so I took the risk to test out. It happened that it was really you.”

Nightingale said in interested tone: “Friend? Which friend? Tell me, maybe I will recognize him.”

Dudian slightly smiled: “For fear of provoking trouble my friend doesn’t want other to know his name. So I hope you can forgive me.”

Nightingale glanced at him as she smiled and said: “Anyway, I’m convinced about your identity. Moreover, no knight of light would be stupid enough to come to this town for an investigation. Let’s go, I have lots of questions to you.”