Operation Surprise Party was a plan concocted to deceive White Night and wrest information from her.
The operation involved seven members.
First and foremost, Ash.
His role was to engage White Night, the enemy commander, and lead her into the trap as per the plan.
He had to entertain her, escort her, and if necessary, seduce her.
This might have been seen as the most dangerous and difficult role, but Ash, who devised the plan, stepped into this peril himself. Without him taking on this role, the operation wouldn't have been feasible in the first place.
Then, the five members of the Gambler's Club.
The Mind Reader, Orange.
The Clairvoyant, Lime.
The Puppeteer, Cobalt.
The Illusionist, Violet.
And the Gambler, Scarlet.
They were positioned in the banquet hall as waiters. Each was assigned a role suitable to their abilities and were deployed as needed to use their means to target White Night.
Lastly, Serenade.
Since Ash had to directly engage White Night, she couldn't command the overall situation. Therefore, Serenade assisted with operation commands from the control room.
She understood the structure of the banquet hall better than anyone, was accustomed to handling multiple people simultaneously, and was adept at quick thinking.
Moreover, she fully grasped the objective of this operation.
***
The moment White Night entered the banquet hall, the operation commenced.
Mind Reader Orange was the first to naturally serve drinks.
Her innate ability allowed her to read someone's thoughts by making them drink her specially brewed orange tea.
Upon reaching level 50 and awakening, her ability evolved... Now, any beverage she touched, not just her brewed tea, could have the same effect without leaving any magical trace.
In combat situations, it's an utterly trivial effect, hardly of any use. But its triviality made it undetectable by enemies.
In intelligence operations, however, such a skill is incredibly rare. Ash felt a deep satisfaction in having painstakingly awakened the Gambler's Club.
Thus, Orange served the drinks calmly - Ash, taking two glasses, offered one to White Night. White Night drank it without sensing anything amiss.
In the control room.
As soon as White Night's lips touched the drink, Serenade manipulated her communication artifact.
"Orange. Report the situation."
「She drank it refreshingly... It's done. I can start reading her inner thoughts.」
"Communicate with the commander on a private channel from now on. Report everything about White Night's thoughts to him."
Thus, from the very beginning of the party, White Night's innermost thoughts were laid bare to Ash.
After securing this insurance, Serenade contacted the next member.
"Lime. What's the situation?"
Clairvoyant Lime was circling around Ash and White Night from a distance, stealing glances at White Night.
「I've started the search.」
"Is everything clear?"
「Yes. No issues with visibility. However, it might take some time to find the hidden location...」
"The commander will buy us time. Lime, take your time to find it."
Serenade mentioned the core target of this operation.
"The location of the 'talisman'."
All Jiangshi, being corpses, need a sort of programming directive, a talisman, to move their bodies.
Therefore, in combat situations with Jiangshi, the top priority is to destroy this talisman.
White Night, a practitioner of Jiangshi sorcery, was relatively free from this restriction. However, as long as her body was a Jiangshi, a talisman had to be somewhere on her.
Ash instructed with certainty, and Lime, with his clairvoyant abilities, began to thoroughly search White Night's clothed body.
Originally, his clairvoyant ability was limited to reading the back of a card. After awakening and evolving, he could easily peer inside the clothing of someone from a distance.
But nothing was visible. Time passed in vain, and Serenade had to take measures to enable clairvoyance from various angles.
"...Instruct the band to play a waltz."
Although Serenade didn't like the idea of Ash dancing with another woman, this operation was more important. She gave the order.
"Let's make them dance. Spinning around in a waltz might give a better view."
Thus, music played, and Ash danced the waltz with White Night, spinning around.
As the tense moments passed, finally, Lime made contact.
「...I've found it. But the location is a bit... problematic.」
"Where is it?"
Serenade asked urgently.
They had prepared simulations for all possible locations of White Night's talisman.
But the actual location was far more challenging than anticipated.
「The roof of her mouth. I caught a glimpse during a conversation and focused on it, and there it was, attached in such a place. And it's very small.」
"...Good heavens."
Rubbing her aching forehead, Serenade switched communication to the third member.
"Scarlet."
「Listening.」
The waitress girl with a red scarf around her neck, the Gambler Scarlet, responded.
Serenade sighed and said,
"The talisman is located on the roof of the mouth."
「...Wow.」
"Can you show off your skills, somehow?"
If it were any other part of the body, perhaps something could be done. But inside the mouth?
How could one touch a talisman placed in such a location? Scarlet shook her head in disbelief.
「It's impossible. Besides, I'm a gambler, not a pickpocket...」
"It's roughly the same principle, isn't it? Deft hands, undetected."
「...」
"So, can you do it or not?"
Scarlet was an N-grade hero.
Almost devoid of magic power, she was essentially no different from an ordinary person.
Forced into a state of awakening that should have been unreachable with her specs, she achieved an extraordinary result.
In terms of sleight of hand... she could deceive even a deity.
「How can I back out now that we've come this far? I'll see it through to the end.」
Scarlet sighed softly, then, while serving, quickly threw off her apron and muttered,
「Set the stage. I'll give it a try.」
"Alright."
Serenade was in a quandary. How to set the stage?
"...We need to physically make her open her mouth. And towards Scarlet."
Lost in thought with a sharp glint in her eye, Serenade suddenly snapped her fingers.
"Let's pretend to perform the Blood Oath ritual. It involves sharing flesh and blood. And it's customary for the initiate to feed the flesh. Let's seize this moment. Scarlet, can you do it?"
Scarlet's voice revealed panic.
「...Not just a simple switch, but to switch using utensils? And remove the talisman stuck on the roof of that monster's mouth?」
"Scarlet."
Serenade asked softly but firmly again.
"Just tell me if you can do it or not."
「...Please inform the commander.」
Adjusting her scarf, Scarlet approached White Night and Ash.
「If I pull off this impossible feat, ask for a double salary bonus this year.」
"I'll give you five times. Go."
「Now that's an amount worth risking my life for...」
As Scarlet approached energetically, Serenade also contacted Ash.
"Commander. Use the pretext of performing the Blood Oath ritual to lead White Night to the inner private room."
After explaining the plan, Serenade apologized.
"...I'm sorry for presuming to use your flesh and blood."
To Serenade's apology, Ash, who was spinning around with White Night, glanced towards the control room for a moment and winked.
"...!"
Struggling to smile, Serenade continued her instructions.
"Set up a bottle of wine, glasses, and a knife in the private room, and Violet! Wait in the room next to the private room."
Then, the Blood Oath ritual was performed.
Sharing wine mixed with blood, and eating the flesh that was torn off.
Scarlet successfully swapped the talisman attached to White Night's palate with another one prepared in advance - at a speed invisible to the eye.
Such was her exquisite skill that White Night didn't notice at all, not even as her body began to stiffen...
Ash and White Night continued to drink, and before long.
Thud!
White Night collapsed as if she had fainted.
"Lady Lilly!"
Serenade commanded Lilly, who was waiting nearby.
"Activate the Magic Amplifier!"
"Got it! Activating the Magic Amplifier!"
A one-time-use artifact that amplifies the magical power of its target, the Magic Amplifier.
Its target was none other than... the Illusionist, Violet, who had been waiting in the room next to the private room.
"Violet, now!"
「Waaah-!」
Violet rushed into the private room, grabbed White Night's head, and deployed her illusionary domain with all her might.
「Huff! Huff! Single-target illusionary domain, deployment complete! It worked!」
After awakening, Violet's ultimate skill was the ability to immerse a single target in a perfect illusion.
While she couldn't cast wide-area illusions like her basic skill, she could now create much more intricate illusions for a single target. Relieved at the success, Violet let out a sigh.
「From now on, I will show illusions as directed by the commander.」
"Orange, go to the scene right now and read the dreams of the enemy commander. We need to extract as much information as possible."
After sending Orange to the private room, Serenade quickly continued her instructions.
"Scarlet, come out as we need to proceed to the next operation. Lime! Cobalt! Get ready."
While Ash, Violet, and Orange were showing illusions and extracting information from White Night.
Lime had identified the locations of talismans on the bodies of the remaining Jiangshi Liches, Scarlet had swapped them with other talismans prepared in advance, and the last member, the Puppeteer Cobalt, successfully seized control of the collapsed 10 Liches.
After awakening, Cobalt gained the ability to arbitrarily seize control of summoned creatures and artificial life forms, making them his puppets. It was an application of this power.
All operations had successfully concluded. Letting out a sigh of relief and wiping the cold sweat from her forehead, Serenade announced,
"Operation successful. The party is over."
Serenade shouted over the broadcast throughout the banquet hall.
"Alright! Those of you having fun, start getting your heads together, and prepare for Plan B!"
After the illusion shown to White Night ended and she regained consciousness, a situation requiring direct force could arise.
As a result, the heroes enjoying the party all turned suddenly serious.
Stopping their dances and exchanging greetings, the heroes uniformly moved to various warehouses and rooms around the banquet hall.
Their equipment was hidden all over the place.
Heroes, shedding their suits and dresses to don armor, began to regroup in the banquet hall, weapons in hand.
Seeing their steadfast appearance, Serenade couldn't help but smile.
***
"The moment you accepted the invitation to this party... you were played, fool."
In the banquet hall's private room.
Ash coldly uttered towards a bewildered White Night.
"You've always betrayed us in the game like this."
"..."
"And after accepting you as an ally, by the latter half of the third year, your power grows too large... By then, it becomes too difficult to eliminate you."
"..."
"So, the best time to remove you would be now, just before forming an alliance."
Although White Night did not fully understand everything Ash was saying, she intuitively realized the truth.
This was checkmate.
There was no escape.
What she couldn't understand, above all, was how she had fallen into such a trap. There were too many prerequisites that needed to be fulfilled for her to be ensnared like this.
From not noticing the minor magical workings cast upon her, a powerful sorceress, everything was riddled with questions.
"...The talisman."
But the most incomprehensible part was this.
"The formula and principles used in my talisman... only sorcerers from the East should know them. You swapped it? And stopped my body with it? Impossible, how did you know the formula to create the talisman..."
She stopped mid-sentence, dumbfounded.
"Huh?"
Ash chuckled.
"You're slow to catch on."
"You mean...?"
"Yes. The formula for this talisman was given to us by the other version of you."
White Night let out an almost screaming voice.
"Impossible! She's alive?! But the tower, it definitely..."
"Collapsed. By itself."
"What nonsense...? Are you saying that even the destruction of the tower was all part of a scheme?!"
Ash shrugged nonchalantly.
White Night shook her head in disbelief.
"No way! She gained eternal life in the digital world! And that digital world was built inside the tower's system!"
"..."
"To kill me, she would give up eternal life and kill herself?! No, it can't be! The other me wouldn't join such a mad plan!"
Above all, self-preservation was paramount.
That was the guiding principle of White Night, the undead Lich who craved eternal life. Therefore, she couldn't believe Ash's words.
"Well, maybe..."
But Ash, smiling broadly,
"Why not ask her yourself?"
stretched out his hand towards the inner part of the private room.
Then,
Click-clack. Click-clack.
Clear sounds of high heels echoed as someone emerged from the darkness of a corner of the room.
"...?!"
And upon seeing who it was, White Night's face was painted with vivid shock and fear.
--TL Notes--
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