The Villain Is Destined to Die: But as the Creator, I know All Endings-Chapter 232: Day - 2: Executing it, The Den Cooper Way

"Why? What happened?" Ethan asked. He was still in his original appearance.

Cyan closed the door behind him and joined their conversation.

"Isn’t this sudden? Are we in trouble?"

Surely Leon must have thought this through before saying it. And if he was rushing to leave the land, it meant they were in some kind of trouble.

Ethan guessed it correctly.

"Wait... did you find someone who might recognize us?"

Leon looked at him and gave a nod.

"Yes. Just this afternoon, I encountered Prince Raven."

"Oh right..." Cyan blinked, as if recalling something.

But Leon’s focus wasn’t on him. It was on Ethan.

The moment he heard the Prince’s name, Ethan’s eyes widened, and his face turned icy cold. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Ethan bit down on his tongue.

Leon caught the flicker in his eyes.

Ethan Graves had spent most of his life inside Liora’s palace. Taken in by the King himself, he was never treated like an outsider, nor like someone else’s child either. It was something else entirely.

The King had invested heavily in him.

From high-grade weapons to personal instructors. He even got his teachers summoned from distant kingdoms. The amount of resources poured into Ethan without restraint, to the point where the King hadn’t shown the same attention to his own children.

The Queen knew. Eula knew, everyone in his family saw this happening.

To a select few, the King appeared as a kind soul, merely showing compassion to an orphaned child.

But none of them knew why. Ethan was strictly forbidden to even use his Light Affinity without the king’s approval.

Years of living under the King, carrying out every task without question, had made Ethan one of the very few who understood the truth. That the man ruling over an entire kingdom was a sadistic manipulator, someone who broke people for pleasure and called it guidance.

He remembered the day the King lashed out at Prince Raven. The way he tore him down, piece by piece. How he forged the Prince into what he was now.

Ethan remembered it clearly.

The bloodshot eyes, the tears choking his vision, and how one day he nearly killed the prince.

"You alright?" Leon called out, allowing him to snap out of his own trauma.

"Oh... Uh. Alright," Ethan said at last. He moved toward the table and spread a piece of paper across its surface. "I’ve already found a few ships that departed around midnight."

Leon stepped up to the table.

The paper spread across it was filled with cramped handwriting. Ship names all over the page, each followed by departure dates and time stamps. It was written in a messy way.

However, Leon took it all in with a single glance.

"Are the timestamps accurate?" he asked.

Ethan nodded. "I asked Sailors, dock workers, even a few passengers this morning. Although, I couldn’t get my hands on the passenger lists, though. That kind of information doesn’t come cheap."

He tapped the edge of the paper lightly. "I did find someone willing to sell it to me. But it’ll take time."

Leon hummed in acknowledgment.

His eyes moved across the sheet again, he had already sorted the information in his head. Roughly two hundred ships grouped by passenger vessels, cargo ships, and noble ships were laid visible only to him.

Within a minute, he had filtered them all of which ships would depart in an hour from now and where they were headed to.

He didn’t need Rumi’s help to do something this basic.

Behind them, Cyan frowned.

"Wait, why is the Prince being here a problem for us?" He looked between the two of them. "I mean... he doesn’t know any of us." His gaze landed on Leon. "Well, except you. You’re a noble."

Ethan’s hand froze.

Cyan’s confusion wasn’t unreasonable.

For him, the Crown Prince wouldn’t recognize Ethan or Cyan, even without disguises. They had never met him before. And even if they had, Raven Lunovar wasn’t the type to remember faces that didn’t interest him.

As for Leon...

Leon Valentine was a Duke’s son. He was already Famous. Even more so after the revelation of his Light Affinity.

And yet... With his current appearance, white hair, altered eyes, changed skin tone, even Ethan and Cyan had trouble associating this man with the Leon they once knew.

There was no way the Prince would recognize him.

Ethan slowly lifted his head and looked at Cyan.

"No," he said quietly. "We can’t take that chance."

Cyan blinked. "...Why?"

Ethan’s fingers curled slightly.

"What if we make a mistake? What if, somehow, he does recognize Leon?"

Cyan went silent.

"...That would be a problem," he admitted after a moment.

But Leon wasn’t the real risk here... Ethan was.

Unlike Leon, whose disguise was backed by an actual skill, Ethan relied on an artifact. And unlike Leon’s, his disguise wasn’t perfect.

And Ethan had spent years in Liora’s palace. He had walked and maybe dueled alongside the Lunovar children. If anyone was going to be recognized first—

It would be Ethan.

Cyan didn’t know this story yet.

This was the very fact Leon was using now.

If Ethan stayed in Karnak any longer, the risk would only increase. And once that happened, there would be no clean way out. Leaving during the night was the safest option, and the only sensible one.

Cyan walked up to the table and leaned over it, he scanned the paper Leon and Ethan were looking at.

He had been tasked with gathering information around Karnak. About High-ranking nobles, influential merchants, and pirate activity currently visiting Karnak City. He had done his job thoroughly. He even knew about the Crown Prince staying in the city too.

He had planned to report it to Ethan tonight. Before Leon had even arrived and informed it before him.

"...So we’re really leaving tonight," Cyan muttered.

Leon nodded.

"We have two options right now," Leon said calmly. "Either we take a passenger ship with fewer guards, or a cargo ship with heavy protection."

He pointed at a few entries on the paper.

"A passenger ship leaving around midnight has a higher chance of getting hijacked. Pirates know most people will be asleep, guards included."

Cyan frowned. "And passenger ships are slower too."

"Exactly," Leon replied. "And there’s always the risk of thieves onboard."

They all knew that dealing with a common thief wasn’t a problem. Even a few pirates wouldn’t be an issue.

The problem was everything that came after.

If they fought, word would spread. Passengers from different kingdoms would see them. Stories would travel faster than ships. And attention was the last thing they needed right now.

Ethan nodded slowly, then glanced at Leon.

Leon looked... calm. Way too calm.

That alone told Ethan everything.

"You already decided, didn’t you?" Ethan asked quietly. "What’s the plan?"

Leon lifted his gaze from the paper and looked at both of them.

He smirked, then said without any stutter.

"We are about to hijack a cargo ship."