The thieves

For the first few days after, nothing had happened. I was remained on the meeting table in those days. But after a week later, a group of men wearing masks, dressed and covered in black clothings entered into the hall at dusk. At first I thought they were going to take me away from the monument but then they carried me back into my room. Apart from replacing my red cushion with a black one, they left me unscatched.

They then left the from my monument building. A few hours later, I saw another group of men who dressed in dark blue heading to the entrance of my building from the window. I could hear the sounds of tables and chairs moving, sounding like they were searching something. I wondered who could that be? A moment later, they entered my room and when they found me, one of them tried to grab me.

"Hold on!"

The man who said it stopped his hand.

"What's the matter?"

"This is not right. Something was off..."

"Is this because it was back in its place?"

"Remember that his majesty said the artifact is on the red cushion..."

"Yeah, now I realized its not."

"There is only one thing possible with this kind of suspicion... Someone has already stolen the nameless necklace. And they must have replace it with a fake one."

These morons... they were overthinking.

"Who could that be... any idea?"

"Between the six kings, do you realize that each of the monarchs had their own unique color?"

"True, blue is the color of our king Kial. Green is for king Aslar. Yellow is for king Kashin. Brown is for king Qibah. White is for king Sagier. And grey is for king Samuth."

"That's right... now if we and them think were to think alike, we are now wearing dark blue, are we not?"

"But there is no king who has black themed."

"That's the thing. They must also be wearing the same darker shade of color like us. Which mean the lighter shade of black could be..."

"Grey?"

"Correct. Now let's go back and report our majesty that the necklace has already been stolen by land of Samuth!"

They were quite sharp. Too bad they got it all wrong. It was also strange that they didn't see any attractive aura on me. A few minutes later, the men in black cloaks returned, put me in a chest and took me away. There was a hole in the chest and I could see the outside through it.

"I cannot believe this worked. I thought the men of Kial would just be dumb brutes ignoring the sign. They were quite experienced and smart after all."

"Yes... and that would also be their first step of downfall."

"Let's not celebrate so soon yet. Remember that our plan is only just partial beginning."

"Folks...I don't want to make you all mad. But I might have forgotten the full plan."

"What we are supposed to do is to take the nameless necklace, hide somewhere else and then wait until Kial's men stormed into the region. And then the region will be prepared with the traps and explosives in advance when they entered."

"Don't you all worried about other 4 regions attacking beside them."

"The main goal is to not for protecting our territory. As long as we keep this safe, that's all that matter."

"Plus, we are not the one that will be fighting there. We even divided the region into two groups with one groups for defense and another like us that will be guarding the chest..."

"You idiots... are you forgetting something?"

The men in black clothes stopped for a moment. Then they took off the black cloaks. To my surprise black wasn't their color.

"We were never men of Samuth, remember?"

The men were wearing yellow uniform with yellow hoods and robes. They were men of the king Kashin.

"So we just casually forced two countries to fight...eh?"

"That's right, only two more country to go..."

"But then why are we still setting up traps."

"To fight the other two, dumbass..!" 

"By the way, are you guys sure this is the right direction to hideout."

"That's the thing I was supposed to tell you from the start. The hideout is not built yet."

"Just dig a hole somewhere else and make a subtle mark for indication. Done, it's not that hard..."

"You fool... you want to be decapitated?"

"For what... for making brilliant solution?"

"If our majesty has heard of it... we will all be executed under his command. When talking about his precious necklace, he was looking like he was dying to get it. He wouldn't let any dirt to be on this necklace. If he were to see his precious in this state...oh boy... we would have become dogfood."

"I cannot believe this ugly bastard could be this greedy..."

"Hey watch your mouth!.. The only reason your fatass is bloating is because you live in his land. Don't you dare disrespect him while eating what he feeds you."

"Oh yeah...? What about the time where he taxed the region twice each months just because he accidently looked at himself in the mirror huh...?"

"Enough! His majesty is arriving here soon... then we can discuss what the hideout would look like..."

The man who looked like the leader spoked up. He then ordered his men to open the chest and check me for second time, maybe to see some stains or whatever. The leader grabbed me and carefully inspected every part. He kept inspecting and inspecting but still hadn't stopped."

"When do you think our king would be here..."

"I was guessing maybe in about 30 minutes...?"

"I think I might have a better plan..."

"For what...?"

"Hey there, you... the one who defended the king a while ago..."

"Yes sir..."

"How much do you love him...?"

"Pardon?"

"How much benevolent do you think our king is?"

"Well, during his reign, we may have to pay taxes double...but we have a thriving society with lots of incomes more than his ancestors. I think he might be the best king we ever had in history. So yeah, I'm really loyal and will do anything for him."

"Does any of you also have strong opinion on him."

The crowd stayed silent.

"Well, look like they were just being ungrateful... now, would you mind move over there. I have something to give you from afar."

The loyal man moved to a few far away distance. He looked back and said...

"What are you gonna gi-"

An arrow flied through his skull. He fell down and bleeded to death.

"What are you doing sir..."

"Me...? I'm betraying the king. Who's with me?"