"What? Why the hell would I know?" the prince asked. "Look, you might not be educated and not know much about the empire. You might have just come here and kidnapped me because you thought as the first prince, I am very important to you."
"But I'm not okay? I am just—"
"Ssshhh!" the man put a finger in front of the prince's face and shut him up. "We know who you are, Prince Felix. We know what your place in the royal family is as well."
"In terms of importance, you would be the fourth most important child of the emperor, we do know that. We also know that a father never truly loves his children based on their merits, so he will do anything to save you," the man said.
"Wha— What do you want?" the prince's face got serious.
"Hmm… we came across a special tidbit about the zoo from someone. Do you know what it was?" the man asked.
"Wh-what are you talking about?" the prince asked.
"I would be surprised if you don't know this since this is just simple information that even we learned about it," the man said.
"I know this? What do I know?" the prince impatiently asked. The terrorist wasn't getting to the point fast enough and that was making him angry.
"Don't worry, I am explaining, aren't I?" the terrorist said as he made a hand gesture that said everything was okay.
"You see, apparently, when Aether Beasts die in this place, their Gems are handed to the royal place. You did know that right?" the terrorist asked.
"What? Of course, I knew that. Everyone knows that in our family. What's so important about this information" the prince asked furiously. He wasn't happy that he was being asked such simple stuff.
"Well, do you know what's so important about Aether beast's gem? Why your family collects them?" the terrorist asked with a sinister smile.
The prince looked confused. "They have no point. My family only gathers them because my grandfather hated those beasts and wanted to eradicate their kind. He wanted the deaths of these beasts to be something everyone learned about in the family, so he made sure that after every single beast's death, its gem was sent to the palace in full glory."
"The glory ended after grandfather's death, and the transport of the gem became not important. That's all," the prince said.
The terrorist didn't speak and only smiled at the prince, making him more uncomfortable.
"What?" the prince asked as his face changed from confusion to curiosity. "What? Do you know something about the gems that we do not?"
"Hahaha, good job on trying to get me to answer your questions, but don't worry, I'm not so easily manipulated. But god, you sure do know how to turn every answer into a question, don't you? Is that something that they teach you in the royal palace?" the man asked.
The prince stayed quiet and didn't say anything. "So? Are you not going to answer me?" he asked.
"Unfortunately, I was not asking you to see if you were also aware of something, but rather if you knew something we didn't," the man said. "You see, we were tasked to get the gems by our boss, but we too don't know what's it's all about."
"We are also curious what all of this is all about. Why anyone would need gems of those stupid animals anyway, but… hey, it's our boss so we can't really disobey him. Besides, I hear we are getting paid a hefty sum for this simple job, so we can't complain either," the man said.
"What your boss?" the prince looked surprised. "You are not the head of this operation?"
"Oh no, I am the head of this operation, yes. But our group is a lot bigger than just us few, " the terrorist said. "Haha, don't bother asking any more questions. I am not going to answer any of them after all. You can't make me jeopardize our group's safe from just a couple of questions."
The prince kept quiet and looked angrily at the man with the scar. "Sir, he is looking at you quite disrespectfully. You should teach him a few lessons so he knows to respect you," a man walked up to the scar-faced leader and tried to get on his good side by suggesting some things.
"You idiot. Do you think we will get to leave freely after hitting a prince? Just taking him hostage has already made us public enemy number 1. Not to mention we have taken so many other people hostage as well," the leader said.
"Just sit tight and wait," he ordered. He took another drag of his cigarette and blew out the smoke.
"We have already contacted the royal family, your highness, so you won't have to wait here for long. Anytime now, they will come here with the gems and we will be out of your hair before you know it."
"Until then, if you want to talk about anything, I can accompany you. Just… don't try to be smart and use that Aether of yours."
"Yes, I know you are an Invoker, an Aether Magister at that. But you should know you won't be able to beat all of us, especially since the 3 of us are Enchanters," the leader said.
The other two 'guards' walked forwards and smiled at the prince. "So, just sit tight and wait for until—"
The leader stopped speaking when he saw a human head quickly back away from behind the building it was peeking from.
"It seems someone is here already, prince. Hopefully, it's someone to present to us the Gems… or else, we might have to kill that person."
Ning had focused too much on the conversation between the leader and the prince and forgot that he was hiding at the moment.
'Shit!' He thought. 'I guess I will have to fight now."
He had nothing prepared, but he had no choice.. So, he openly walked out from behind the building and started walking towards the group of terrorists.
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