It was late at night in the Kingdom of Bernia.
At three in the morning, all was silent. Thick clouds obscured the moonlight, leaving only faint starlight to outline the Earl's Estate Residence and the buildings of the Royal Capital.
Wind swept through the streets and alleys, stirring fallen leaves and dust, occasionally carrying the hollow hooting of owls from the distant woods.
Under cover of that silent night, an extremely faint rustle of wings, almost indistinguishable from the wind, quietly rose from among the eaves of the distant commoners' district.
It was a palm-sized bat with soft, fluffy fur, its appearance even possessing a somewhat incongruous cuteness.
Only the intricately constructed miniature camera hanging beneath its neck, barely the size of a fingernail, betrayed that it was no natural creature.
Riding the shifting air currents with a clear destination, it glided silently toward Aaron Ball's Earl's Estate, as though drawn by an invisible thread.
Ten minutes earlier, twenty kilometers away, in Bernia's port district.
An abandoned warehouse, Number Three, reeked of sour rot and the sea. Dask, a trusted subordinate of Cipher Pol 9's current chief, Spandine, paced anxiously inside.
He was tall and thin, with sunken eyes and the gaze of a hyena lurking in the shadows.
Standing in the shadows nearby was the key to this operation-Miriam.
She was around seventeen or eighteen, her short blond hair tucked neatly behind her ears. Years of harsh training had shaped a slender body filled with the explosive power of a cheetah. Her face was expressionless, like an exquisite ice sculpture. Only when her gaze occasionally passed over the Speedboat already waiting in the warehouse corner did an almost imperceptible flicker cross the depths of her eyes.
That was their escape route, and also the escape hatch Dask had