Gathering Intel

"My heavens, how did you get all this!" Nissor asked with shock, this paper so comprehensive that he would have sworn Minos was cheating.

"Secret." Minos replied with a smile, naturally not willing to mention his Aptus.

Fortunately, no one dared to actually ask much, much more interested in reading what Minos had written.

Giving them a few minutes to process everything, he cleared his throat before speaking, drawing everyone's attention back to him.

"So, what does everyone think?"

"What do I think? I think the game is as good as won with this much intel!" Koha said with a rare laugh.

"Don't be so early to celebrate. As comprehensive as this intel is, it still has its flaws, and there's still a few characters who have managed to slip through the net, the sixteenth princess being chief amongst them." Minos replied, not wanting his men to become too arrogant.

"You're right, forgive me." Koha said, quickly steadying himself.

"Still, with this information, our job will be a hundred times easier." Yosh added, trying to bring the mood back up.

"That's right! While we shouldn't be arrogant, there's no denying that this info will give us a massive edge. So what do we do now?" Ko asked.

"What else is there to do, eliminate the targets!" Masi replied hawkishly.

"Eliminate? That would be wasting their value, instead, let's turn enemies into allies." Minos smiled, everyone looking towards him curiously, not quite understanding what he meant.

…

"Have you got him?" Minos asked as he looked over Iso, who was currently stitched together with Jiro.

"Got him."

"Well done, keep going." Minos smiled, glad to see his plan working out so well.

With Iso's Mark Touch Aptus combined with Jiro's Limb Tattoo Aptus, the two could discreetly tag the opposing soldiers, leaving behind marks that Iso could track easily.

While it seemed Limb Tattoo could do the same thing, if not better, it wasn't nearly as discreet and its usage would be obvious to anyone it was used against, unlike Mark Touch that could tag a person without their knowledge.

Hence Minos once again sent out Jiro and the others to create more Limb Tattoos in a few areas that the enemies traveled through, though this time they made arm one's.

As long as they stepped on the Limb Tattoo left behind by Jiro, he didn't even need to activate it, and Iso could still mark them.

Of course such a process required a lot of patience, fortunately if they had one thing in abundance at the moment, it was time.

So slowly but surely, they steadily tagged most of the people that Minos had noted down, allowing them to track them perfectly at all times.

With that done, Minos once again had Husos use his Stitch ability, but this time he had him stitch Jiro and Lyko together.

Combining the two, Lyko was capable of creating an extremely intricate map of pretty much the entire Kingdom, which Minos had him recreate by hand immediately.

While the map was being created, Minos used the leisure time to hand craft some figurines, which represented the opposing enemies.

Once the map was finished, everything was finally in place, Minos having the entire team gather around the table as he placed down the figurines according to their current locations.

"Opinions?" Minos asked with a smile as he looked down at the result of his and his team's labor.

"Amazing…" Husos exclaimed.

"It's like we've created a real-time war map! Our advantage was already big enough before, but now… I don't even know what to say." Koha replied, barely holding back a laugh.

"I'll tell you what to say, say 'thank heavens' for being placed in this team." Ko answered, laughing in Koha's stead.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Like Sir explained before, this is an advantage, but let it not blind us." Nissor couldn't help but add.

"So what should we do n-"

"Wait a second! Sir, someone removed their mark!" Iso suddenly exclaimed, having felt the disconnect instantly.

"Interesting… It looks like we aren't the only teams with useful Aptus's." Minos laughed, seemingly not concerned.

"What should we do?"

"Isn't it simple? Expose their location and have the others do our dirty work for us. We can't have someone with such a useful Aptus running around." Masi immediately replied.

"No, we can't do that." Minos instantly answered.

"Why not?" Ko asked on Masi's behalf.

"Iso, do you think anyone recognized you when you joined my team?" Minos asked, ignoring Ko's question.

"It's not likely Sir, after all, with our heavy armor that covers every part of our bodies, making us pretty much indistinguishable from one another." Iso answered.

"Not necessarily, you've forgotten about Divine Sense, which could have been used before the competition officially began to discover your true appearance." Nissor quickly added.

"That's true…"

"So there's a possibility that our enemy knows how you look, and more than that, knows you're on my team?" Minos kept asking.

"Yes, Sir."

"Then we're going to have to handle this problem ourselves." Minos said, scratching his chin slightly at his new conundrum.

"How come? Can't we still send others at them? Save ourselves the trouble!" Masi kept pushing.

"Haven't you already gotten it by now? In the case they do know, what would happen if they exposed the information before being eliminated completely?" Taji explained it to him.

"I see… That is a problem!" Masi responded, understanding Taji's point instantly.

"Then we have to act fast! Since the mark has already been removed, it's only a matter of time before the soldier reveals it to the rest of their team and they change locations." Koha said.

"You're right. Nissor, Koha, Taji, Yosh, come with me. As for the rest of you, stay behind and keep us updated."

"As commanded!"

…

"Sir, Sir, big problem!" One Forbidden Soldier shouted at the young man ahead of him.

"What's going on?" The young man asked anxiously, though he managed to look calm.

"Someone used their Aptus against me, and it's only due to my own Aptus that I noticed."

"They used their Aptus against you? Isn't that against the rules?"

"This was only an auxiliary Aptus, and while I'm not 100% sure of its purpose, I'm guessing it's some sort of tracking ability."

"Tracking? Can you check the others for it as well?"

"Yes, but you've sent most of the others to scout the nearby area. I only ran back after I noticed, how are we meant to get the others back here?"

"Dammit, stupid, stupid! Quick, have the others run after their routes and gather everyone as quickly as possible! We can't have other people snooping on us!"

"Right away, Sir!"

…

"Sir, another mark vanished, whereas two more are heading back to what seems to be their safehouse." Jiro said through a mouth-shaped tattoo next to Minos's ear.

"We're on our way." Minos replied, his words traveling through the ear-shaped tattoo next to his mouth.

After a bit more sneaking around, Minos and the others finally arrived at the supposed safehouse.

At the same time, Minos once again received another report from Jiro, explaining what he had already expected.

"Sir, the last two marks have vanished, but the good news is that they both arrived at the same place before it happened, confirming that it is almost certainly their safehouse!"

"Then leave the rest to us." Minos said, nodding towards Nissor and the others.

Returning the nod, the others immediately went completely silent while Minos snuck up behind the house and discreetly looked through one of the windows.

Unfortunately for him, all the windows were boarded up, making it impossible to see inside without breaking in.

But that wouldn't stop Minos, so with a flick of his finger, he unsheathed one of his razor-sharp claws and slowly cut out a pupil-sized hole in the wood.