Chapter 426 - Intel

Once they distanced themselves far enough from the building, Shiro sighed in relief.

"Fuu…. That was pretty successful wasn't it?" Shiro smiled towards her two guards.

"Mn, indeed, second young miss." Nui nodded her head.

"Um… Who are you?" The woman called out in confusion.

"Me? Hmm… My name is Shiro." Shiro replied since she didn't have her mask on right now.

"Thank you, Miss Shiro, for saving my life." The woman bowed slightly.

"Ah don't worry about it, say what's your name?"

"My name is Velri. I no longer have a surname since I've been sold as a slave." Velri replied.

"Hmm…. I see. Well for now, I'll take you back to our place and get you cleaned up. Once that's done, we can talk about what you can do from now on ok?" Shiro smiled as Velri nodded her head.

Arriving back at their inn, the three of them climbed through Kuromi's window.

"Welcome back. Seems like you've brought in an additional person as well." Kuromi raised her eyebrows.

"Well she was there and I couldn't help it you know? If the guards realised that Tau disappeared and she was the only one there, she'd be killed." Shiro replied with a slight smile.

"I know. Nui, take that lady over there and help her get cleaned up. If she's hungry, get her some food and new clothes. Prim, I want you to call for all the female members of the Shadow Guards since I'm sure they'll be happy to torture this guy over here." Kuromi ordered as both of them nodded their heads.

Leading Velri out of the room, Shiro sat down on the bed while Tau was thrown into the corner.

"So how was it? Was your exercise good enough?" Kuromi asked with a smile.

"A little. It was just a shame that I couldn't use any spells. If I could have access to my Celestial Energy, then I would have just completely flattened their estate." Shiro shrugged.

"But if you did that, you might have accidentally killed that woman or any other victims. Collateral damage lil sis, you have to remember that." Kuromi shook her head.

"I suppose so."

Before they could continue to talk, they heard a soft groan as Tau slowly opened his eyes.

Unfortunately for him, before he could even make a sound, Kuromi had walked up to him and instantly kicked him in the crotch.

Stepping down with the same foot, she pushed her entire weight down and roundhouse kicked him in the head, knocking him out once more.

"You should not have thrown him against the wall, it woke him up a little earlier than planned." Kuromi replied while sitting back down on her chair.

"Ouch… I can see a bit of blood you know?"

"And? It's not like he'll be using it anymore once the girls finish torturing him." Kuromi shrugged before taking her shoes off.

Frowning in disgust, she set them aside for now so that she can throw them away later.

"Anyways, don't we need to interrogate him for some information about Teriu? Are you sure destroying his junk is good?" Shiro asked.

"Don't worry about it. Just because he lost his d*ck doesn't mean he can't talk anymore. I'll have the girls get some information from him during the torture so you don't have to worry about it. Of course, if you want to torture him as well, you can follow us." Kuromi suggested.

"Nah it's fine. If I come as well, the other girls won't have as much fun. The more people there are, the less time they each have to punish this guy." Shiro shook her head.

"That's pretty thoughtful in a gruesome way I suppose. In that case then you can just sleep for now and rest up. Since we can't use any Celestial Energy to reinforce our bodies, I'm sure that you've used quite a bit of stamina haven't you?" Kuromi asked with a soft smile.

"A little. But I suppose not having access to the energy is also more productive since I can't just brute force it. It forces me to think more about what I do." Shiro nodded as she laid her body down on the bed.

Stretching a little, she started to unequip all of her items so that she's just left with her clothes. Furrowing her brows, she decided to wait until the guards take Tau away for interrogation before getting undressed for bed.

After waiting a few moments, the female members of the Shadow Guards arrived and took the unconscious Tau away as Shiro relaxed and changed into some pyjamas.  

"You should sleep as well Kuro." Shiro yawned slightly.

"Ah I'll sleep later. I got some more things to write down. Don't worry though, I'll make sure to get enough rest." Kuromi smiled as Shiro nodded.

Closing her eyes, Shiro slowly fell asleep.

As Kuromi continued to write in her notepad, roughly two hours passed before she stopped.

Sighing out softly, Kuromi leaned back on her chair before glancing towards Shiro.

Seeing her sleeping face, Kuromi smiled softly before also getting changed for bed.

Crawling under the sheets and laying next to Shiro, Kuromi thought for a moment before turning towards her and hugging her.

'How long has it been since someone has hugged her- no, hugged me like this…' Kuromi thought to herself while closing her eyes.

Little did she know, Shiro was woken up by this but didn't make a move and only smiled.

###

Waking up early in the morning, Kuromi got changed and made sure that she didn't wake up Shiro since she was sleeping peacefully.

Leaving the room, Kuromi went downstairs to get some food and saw some of the Shadow Guards that had been responsible for torturing Tau last night.

"So did you girls get any good information from that guy?" Kuromi asked with a smile. She was ok with discussing this information here since she had already bought out the inn with her money.The only people in this place were the shadow guards.

"A little. His information was also cut off once the enemies attacked but at least we know everyone who's involved, even those that didn't directly appear in the actual attack." One of the girls replied.

"Is that so? Give me a list of them and what you know about each family." Kuromi said while sitting down with her notebook.

After listening to their reports, Kuromi had a serious expression.

After all, in addition to the families in Teriu, it seems like the royal family was also involved in this as they hold the most power. It was also due to the royal family that all of the information was sealed off the moment the attack happened.

'This is bad… Even if we get the other families to rebel, the royal family can stop it all once they get involved.' Kuromi thought with a frown.

Taking a deep breath, she thought long and hard about some of the things that they could do.

First problem was the royal family's strength. The plan of having the outside families attack Teriu would be foiled the moment the royal family steps up so she needed something to keep the royal family at bay while everything is happening.

The second problem would be manpower. They needed something that can hold back the royal family or else they'll just be killing themselves.

In addition to this, she also doesn't know their full strength so this could be a variable that crushes her plans.

"Hmm… annoying." Kuromi muttered to herself.

'Manpower is lacking, power is lacking, they're not exactly tyrants so staging a coup would be hard. Not only that, but one wrong move and we'll be surrounded at all sides with enemies. We could use Celestial Raiment EX but that can only hold out for so long since we haven't perfected the technique yet. It's still quite inefficient.'

*Yawn~

"What seems to be the problem Kuro?" Shiro called out while walking down the stairs.

"Ah you're awake." Kuromi said while turning towards Shiro.

"Yeah, you seemed distressed, so tell me about it and I might be able to help." Shiro nodded while sitting down next to her.

Listening to the situation, Shiro could see why Kuromi was struggling a little.

"I know this sounds stupid but why don't we just brute force it?" Shiro suggested.

"Ha?"

"Well we have a dragon and a giant in the Teriu Forest don't we? Just piss them off and involve them into our plans. We'll try to lure them towards Teriu city and have the families there try to kill them. After they succeed, we can then spread the news into Yoru and have the families here attack Teriu and boom, it should be done." Shiro explained with a shrug.

"That… could work depending on whether or not we can actually lure the two behemoths. Plus, we don't know if they're the only ones in the forest. There may be more." Kuromi nodded after a short moment.

The two had slipped her mind since she was more focused on what they could control rather than an uncontrollable variable like the two behemoths.

Shaking her head, Kuromi started to piece together a plan that should allow them to pull this off without any casualties.