The operation was planned to take place on the 3rd of the Larcus month that means two days after the banquet. It would have been fine if Elena just punished them on her own or if she just ordered the margrave who was now just like her slave, to arrest them.

That would have been fine but that would be kinda illegal for this country. Again that didn't matter at all to Elena but she still wanted to punish them with regular laws. One could think of this as her whim.

That was why she decided to catch them red handed when they were executing the crime. If that could harm the children or the workers of the orphanage she would obviously not do it but she had confidence in herself that she could protect all of them in any situation. That was why she was going to kinda use the children as baits. She was even going to use the margrave as a witness.

...

Two masked individuals were hiding at a shadowy corner of the orphanage. They were a cautious duo and were waiting for quite a long time to get a chance to enter the orphanage by climbing the wall. They were not the only ones who were there to abduct the children. There were at least 3 more groups like them.

Because of the future Count Renov Batista, the security of the streets were very loose tonight. But as there were still the private security guards of the orphanage who were specially employed by the Margrave himself, they still need to be a bit careful.

But the number of guards inside the orphanage was only two so it was not a big deal. The assailants were trying to be as discreet as possible that was why they were so careful. They didn't want to leave behind any proofs.

As they used the sense presence skill to see that their path was clear, they climbed up the wall and jumped into the field inside the orphanage. There they used a bush to hide themselves quickly. The sleeping quarter of the workers and the children were at the same place and it was only 100 m in front from where they were hiding. But there was a guard standing just in front of the entrance to the building. Even tho it was almost midnight he didn't look sleepy.

The two assailants communicated with each other instantly using eye signals and then they made their move. They were both about level 160 so they were as strong as an C rank adventurer which was actually quite impressive. While the guard was barely level 100. They had already investigated all the details about this orphanage before starting this operation.

This was not their first offence and they were also quite proficient in doing those crimes flawlessly. They were a professional group who specialised in doing the dirty work for someone in exchange for a decent amount of money.

So, one of them with a very slim physique used a technique which could increase his speed and quickly dashed toward the unaware guard. His plan was to incapacitated him in one blow without making much noise. But this didn't go as he planned.

When he was very close to the guard he suddenly moved. He was actually even faster than the assailant. The guard quickly chopped the back of his head and made him unconscious. The second one, who was a female tried to run away seeing her partner getting knocked out so easily also got suddenly hit in the head and fell unconscious.

"Fiww, this should be the last group, right? They were way too cautious and didn't enter the compound for a long time."

"Yes, you are right. All the groups who tried to infiltrate had been dealt with. Good work, Margrave Canvisiny."

"Young miss, you can just call me by my name. I'm almost like your servant now."

"I don't need a servant like you tho."

"Putting that aside, I will interrogate these infiltrators and try to find out more info about the mastermind. I had already sent some scouts to keep an eye on both the corrupt merchant and the new heir of Count Batista."

"Umm, I think they will have some special place in mind to hand over the kidnapped children tomorrow morning. Just find out about that and you will have no trouble catching the masterminds. Now I will go but I do hope to see some results soon."

"Yes, please rest assured. And once again thank you very much for your kind assistance. Only because of that we were able to save all those children."

"That was just something I wanted to do. Don't worry about it."

Saying so Elena waved her hand and went back to the new house she created.

...

Yes, Elena had already visited all the listed places and also along with the first flower shop she found two more place to her liking and she brought all of them.

She renovated the flower shop and hired the old woman as a stuff. She also found one more girl from the neighborhood who was interested in working in the flower shop for her and she also hired her.

The second place she choose was a luxury inn which had fallen because of mismanagement. The owner of that inn was a gambler and drunkard, so to pay the debts he had made, his family was forced to sale the inn. This guy's wife was the chef for the inn and her cooking skills were quite good too so Elena kept her as a cook. She also hired some other employees for room cleaning, cloth washing, serving, security etc. Finally as the manager, she chose Alessia's younger sister Milia.

She was quite an intelligent girl even tho she was only 16 years old. She was very fond of Elena and Elena also liked her cheerful, energetic and optimistic personality a lot. So she just left the management of the inn to her as she believed that she will be able to do a very good work.

The last place was a very good spot not very far from the adventurer guild. The position was such that the market, the adventurer guild and the noble district; all were quite close to this place. The owner of this plot of land was a rich merchant who was leaving the city to move to the royal capital. That was why he was selling this plot.

The price of this place was also quite a lot higher than the other plots she had seen. But Elena was very satisfied with this location so she bought this place without doing much bargaining.

After that she used a concealment barrier and a illusion barrier to hide the place and then she created completely new house from scratch which was to her taste. She still maintained the illusion barrier that was changing bit by bit to the current form of her mansion. It was a clever use of mental interference magic that doesn't do any harm at all to anyone's psyche.

After returning to her house Elena went to sleep, waiting to get the good news tomorrow morning.

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