Hitman with a Badass System

Michael was about to leave the meeting hall after talking to the twins when Azazel received a call from Sadie.

"My Lord, Lady Sadie has learned something important," Azazel said.

"Put her through then," Michael motioned him to connect Sadie to the mirror before them. Azazel nodded and flicked his wrist as the mirror flickered for a moment before showing Sadie's face.

Sadie was pleasantly surprised to see Michael without his mask or the usual black armor. His current attire reminded Sadie of the time she first met him. At that time, she was far stronger than him. Everything felt like a dream to Sadie. In such a short time, the cocky guy she met at the heavenly gate competition went from Foundation stage warrior to the Dark Lord who was at the Immortal stage. Looking at Michael's charming face, her cherry-red lips curled upwards, radiating a bright smile.

"My Lord," Sadie grabbed her long sky-blue skirt and curtsied Michael.

"How are you, Sadie?" Michael asked with a gentle smile.

"I am perfectly fine, my lord. Thank you for asking,"

"Hmm," Michael nodded.

"Sorry to break the reunion but tell us, what have you learned?" Gaya interjected. It was not like Gaya was jealous or something, but she didn't like wasting time when they had to earn fifty million in five days. Time was of the essence.

"Princess Chanel Forbes was cursed by an elven mage, my lord," Sadie took a deep breath and said. Her words stunned Michael for a moment. The name 'Forbes' rang a bell inside his head. If he was right, the king of Kethen, Noah's homeland, was called Porter Forbes.

"Princess of Kethen?" Gaya asked as Sadie nodded. When Gaya was the princess of Nagaland, she met Chanel at a gala and exchanged a few words. Of course, Gaya paid little to no attention to Chanel or any other nobles. She hated those galas and always found an excuse to escape mid-way. 𝒃𝒆𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝒎

"Go on, tell us everything you know," Gaya gestured at Sadie to continue. The gears inside her head slowly started to turn, formulating a plan to get the fifty million gold coins and maybe more. This felt like a god sent opportunity to Gaya. She knew about Michael's curse-breaking skill. Thus, if Chanel was indeed cursed, she had a way to break the curse and save the day for King Porter.

"King Porter's close friend is a regular customer of one of the dance houses in Rosegate. I have some of my girls working there since it's where the nobles tend to let their tongues loose. A few hours ago, this man had a little too much ale and spurted out that the elves had cursed the princess. Recently, Princess Chanel canceled all her visits and completely went dark. I heard rumors from the maids that they were ordered not to disturb the princess no matter what," Saide paused for a moment and continued.

"I had my doubts for a while because I felt something was amiss. Especially after Hendrix Gardner paid the king an unofficial visit. So I ordered my girls to work on the ministers,"

"Hendrix Gardner," Michael muttered to himself. The last time Michael met this 6-Star alchemist in the alchemy competition, the vampires almost killed him. He would have died if Michael wasn't there. At that time, Michael only wanted Gabriel to die. Michael wondered what the old man thought when he realized the young man sat beside him and judged the competition was the Dark Lord himself.

"Apparently, the princess has only three more days to live,"

"What about Noah and the Guardians? If the princess only had three more days to live, King Porter would have approached Noah and asked for his help, right? After all, Noah is still a citizen of Kethen," said Gaya.

"Plus, she is a princess. I wouldn't be surprised if she were in love with Noah," Michael chuckled.

"The last time I heard from our guy in the guild, Noah and his team were planning to venture into the treacherous ocean to find a way to break the curse,"

"Then we have to beat them to the princess and save her instead…" Gaya leaned back on her throne. Considering Noah took the weapon and the prototype out of her hands, it was only fair that she returned the favor to him by curing the princess before he could.

"For a price," Gaya snickered.

Unlike Noah, Michael didn't need to go to the treacherous ocean to break the curse. Michael could break the curse in a few minutes if he wished, thanks to his Curse breaker skill. On the other hand, Michael laughed inside, thinking Noah would come out of the treacherous ocean empty-handed because he had taken the curse-breaking artifact long ago. So unless there was another similar artifact in the treacherous ocean that even the system didn't know of, Noah would stumble upon nothing but sticks and stones.

"Did you learn anything about why the elves cursed the princess? How she ended up getting cursed by the elves?" Gaya frowned in doubt. The continent Elon had the lowest number of elves in the entire world. Many people in Elon would die without seeing an elf in their entire lives because the elves tended to live in Awor and avoided Elon because they thought Elon continent was a backwater place and beneath their standards. Besides, the elves wouldn't go around cursing people without a valid reason. If they chose to curse her instead of killing her, Gaya knew there must be a reason behind it.

"According to the man, it's the usual cliche, my lady. Long story short, Princess Chanel met an elf when she was visiting Kingdom Thera and fell in love. She wanted to marry him against King Porter's wishes. She tried to run away with the elf, except the King caught them both and ordered his men to beat the crap out of the elf. The next day, the elf's uncle personally paid King Porter a visit and gifted Chanel an evil curse as a reminder of the King's mistake of raising his hand against his kind,"

Michael chuckled as it reminded him of Claire's story. She laughed at Chanel inside for thinking she could be with the elf and live happily ever after. If anything, Chanel was lucky the elves didn't curse all her family. But when Michael thought about it, the elf chose Chanel over her family because he wanted her family to suffer more. Imagine seeing your only daughter dying slowly and painfully while you stand there and do nothing. The elf wanted King Porter to feel helpless and blame himself for the rest of his life.

"That does sound like what an elf would do," said Michael.

"It seems all the princesses are rebels," Michael turned his gaze toward Gaya and winked. Instead of giving Michael a snarky comment, Gaya just rolled her eyes.

Then, Gaya turned her gaze back to Sadie.

"This is indeed good news. You've been doing a marvelous job so far, Sadie," Gaya couldn't help praising Sadie. Everyone, including Michael, knew how hard it was to impress the princess of Nagaland, but Sadie managed to do just that. In a short amount of time, Sadie turned a Guardian into their spy, inserted her girls in almost every part of the world, created a web of spy networks, assisted other subordinates with their tasks, and slowly solidated her place as the next Sect leader of the SilverMoon. It was no simple task, especially when she had to work under Noah's growing influence.

"It's my pleasure to serve you, my lady," Sadie bowed her head and opened her mouth for a moment before closing it. She looked as though she wanted to say something but didn't know how to. Both Michael and Gaya noticed Sadie's change in behavior.

"Is there something else you want to share, Sadie?" Michael asked her.

Sadie looked at Michael and Sadie for a few moments before taking a deep breath.

"Yesterday, I had a meeting with a Guardian. She attended the tea party arranged by Alvaro's aunt, one of the elders in SilverMoon. The questions she asked me and the way she looked at me just left me with a bad feeling," said Sadie with a worried tone.

"Alvaro is our inside man, right?" Michael asked Sadie to see her nodding.

"Lord Saber warned us about her visit. So I was prepared. Still…" Sadie's words trailed off.

"Should I put a hit on her through Aria?" Gaya asked, but Michael shook his head before Sadie could give her answer to Gaya.

"For now, act like nothing happened," Michael said to Sadie, turning his head to look at Azazel.

"Tell Trista to send one of her minions to shadow the guardian who met Sadie,"

"My Lord," Sadie interrupted Michael as he turned his gaze back to Sadie.

"She is going to the treacherous ocean with Noah," Sadie muttered.

Michael rubbed his stubble beard for a moment until he found a way to deal with this annoyance. It was obvious to Michael that this girl was trying to impress Noah, but Michael didn't know how much the girl knew about Sadie and why she took an interest in her. Since Sadie was far too valuable to risk, Michael had to find a way to keep Sadie out of the Guardian Guild's crosshair. As long as Noah was with her, Michael knew he wouldn't be able to take her out. Besides, if he did, Noah would automatically realize Sadie had something to do with the Dark Lord. Therefore, Michael's only viable option was to follow this girl until he knew more about everything.

"Then, when she comes out, tell Trista to shadow the girl. I want to know everything about her. If push comes to shove, I will deal with her personally," Michael's voice turned grave. After becoming the Dark Lord, Michael was rarely involved in problems like this. Instead, he had subordinates to solve them for him. But this felt like something he had to deal with it personally. After hearing Michael's words, Sadie heaved a sigh of relief. With the Dark Lord's reassurance, Sadie could rest easy. The last thing Sadie wanted was a guardian to snoop around. After all, she was just a few months away from getting crowned as the next sect leader.