After searching, Stanley managed to find a group of four monsters through the system map.

The map didn’t show the inside of buildings, which forced Stanley to approximate their location in comparison to his.

Calculating the direction, Stanley poked his head down a hallway that led to the dots. Looking down it, Stanley immediately noticed this hallway was slightly different than the rest.

While other hallways in the mansion used natural light from windows and cold stone floors, this hallway had crystals embedded into the walls serving as lighting with a warm carpet and a wooden floor.

Heading in the general direction of the dots, Stanley began to hear voices from inside the room.

[Hear the voices inside the room, Stanley poked his ear to the door without making any loud noises as he wondered what they were talking about.]

Stanley sighed after hearing the Narrator.

Now I’m eavesdropping on people?

Despite his complaints, he followed the Narrator’s instructions. Obviously, the Narrator wanted him to hear whatever these people had to say.

Inside the room four nobles were talking amongst themselves. Fancy tapestries and decorative furniture were scattered throughout the room.

In the center of the room sat a table decorated with food and drink. Three of the nobles sat beside each other at one end of a table while the fourth sat directly opposite them.

“Hmph, I cannot believe her. After being betrayed by Zorian, she’s going to spend a massive amount of money to retrieve him alive.” Criticized Helus, a female doppelganger sitting on the far left-hand side of the table, as she stirred some type of black drink.

“Bah. Stop pretending like you actually care. What she wastes her money on is none of our business.” Starios voice interrupted her. His entire being projected laziness and he sat without much care on a chair beside her.

“If she’d chosen to put him on the wanted list, you’d have complained that she was heartless and ungrateful.” Teneim stated without putting emotion into the statement.

“Her position is currently unstable. After inviting in a human and being betrayed by several members of her own faction, her influence over her fraction has fractured.” Said Hisaki, who sat across the table and was part of another noble house, “If we wait for the situation to cooldown, the majority of her political influence will have vanished.

Helus sneered, putting down the spoon that stirred the black liquid, “Her orders are already a worthless joke. It’s already a favor that we haven’t involved ourselves in this ploy. She’s a joke, an orphan playing as a princess.”

“Shut it, Helus. I don’t want to be on the receiving end of Elisabeth’s wrath because of your idiocy.” Starios ordered while lying back into his chair.

“What did you say?!” Helus slammed onto the table causing a loud clattering sound while turning toward him.

“Quiet down!” Teneim stood up and interrupting them before the argument could continue further, “Starios is right; the actions taken this time were too drastic and could’ve easily backfired in all our faces. This isn’t the time to be tempting fate.”

“Please, her guardian died fifty years ago and her Uncle’s retired. Only her personal power remains and even that’s declined.” Helus rolled her eyes and sat back down, picking up the cup and drinking the black liquid.

Teneim stepped away from the table and began pacing around the room. “Do not confuse disappearance with death. There has never been any confirmation of death and I’m not about to risk my life over an unconfirmed hypothesis.”

Helus grumbled, aggravated by his dismissal of what she believed to be fact, “Tsk… She is playing you like fools. She obviously covered up his death.”

“Can we get back on topic?” Hisaki sighed, took off his glasses and pinched his nose while trying to refocus the conversation. “I’m here to discuss an alliance to prevent undue actions against us, not conspiracy theories.”

“Your entire idea is a sham. An alliance isn’t necessary, we’re both neutral parties.” Teneim stopped pacing and casually dismissed his statement.

“Elisabeth’s not exactly in a position to be making more enemies. An alliance between us would be a waste of time.” Starios nodded in agreement from the chair with Teneim’s statement.

Hisaki put the glasses back on and stated, “That’s only your opinion. I’d rather waste my time than be caught unaware.”

“What would be the point? If she planned on dealing with us, any alliance would dissolve immediately. Neither side would be willing to reveal their hidden cards for each other.” Teneim stated plainly.

“He cares about the perception of power instead of actual influence. He’s trying to discourage her from choosing him as a scapegoats.” Starios explained with a bored expression.

“In other words, you don’t care about whether we’re actually chosen as a scapegoat.” Teneim summarized, tapping on the wine glass in front of him, “You’re only trying to make it more problematic to choose yourself. By making an alliance amongst ourselves, we become a tougher target. In turn that makes her more likely to choose another group to make an example of.”

“Exactly.” Hisaki confirmed, moving his head slightly causing his glasses to flash.

Teneim frowned at the blunt confirmation of his motive, “You’ve forgotten one crucial part. Why should we form an alliance with you, an upstart without a proper background? If we could choose anyone to be her scapegoat, it would be you.”

Starios joined in afterward, “Plus, if we publicly abandon you after engaging in such an alliance, our own reputation would suffer a loss.”

Hisaki pushed up his glasses and smirked, “You’ll agree because I have evidence your people helped in the conspiracy against her.”

“Nonsense. Do we look retarded to you? Who would help with such an obviously stupid ploy? The risks are too high for minimal rewards.” Starios responded sounding rather bored.

“We’ve always kept a neutral stance. At the very least, I can confirm that none of my people were involved in this treachery.” Teneim asserted, confident absolutely no evidence existed.

“That might be what you believe… but the evidence begs to differ.” Hisaki said with a smirk, standing up and letting a disk sliding down the corner of his sleeve into his hand.

Hisaki pressed the top of the disk in his hand, before throwing the holograph projection disk onto the table.

A short scene play out above the holographic disk, which showcased several clips of various people helping others escapes the mansion.

“You…” Teneim's confident expression faltered from recognizing the people in the projection as their people. They were helping traitors escape from the mansion. “We had nothing to do with that. They acted entirely on their own.”

Doppelgangers could effortlessly tell the difference between various members of their own species, even in holographic format; Regardless of any physical alterations or transformations that would normally perplex and confuse other species.

“Regardless of whether that’s true, they’re still your people, which makes you personally responsible for any actions they take.” Hisaki laughed in response to his vehement denial, “And this... this is more than enough evidence to knowledge to deflect the blame if I'm targeted, which means you might want to prevent that.”

“This is blackmail!” Helus shouted in anger and slammed her fist onto the table.

“I prefer to think of it as insurance.” Hisaki shrugged in response and began standing up to leave. “Anyway, keep the video. I have many copies. Consider your options carefully before we meet again.”

They glared at him in silence as Hisaki stepped toward the door.

Stanley, who was standing outside the door eavesdropping, realized he’d vastly overstayed his welcome as their conversion had ended. Turning around, he searched for a place to hide.

Except, there was nowhere to hide in the vicinity and he could hear footsteps swiftly approaching the door.

Without further options, he hid behind the door and prayed to his luck that a miracle happened. If the door opened outward and the person leaving wasn’t paying attention, he might be able to hide behind the door unnoticed.

As Stanley watched the door swing inward instead outward like he hoped, he immediately knew, a miracle wasn’t going to happen.

Changing his strategy, he pretended to be looking at his system map without paying attention to his surrounding.

Hisaki stepped out and looked in both directions, immediately spotting Stanley. Without his expression changing, he shut the door behind him.

Once the door was closed, Hisaki's expression darkened and he felt his eyes twitch. “Who are you… No, this isn’t the place to make a fuss.”

Making a decision to move further away before interrogating Stanley, he swiftly moved in Stanley direction.

“Stay quiet.” Hisaki ordered Stanley, before grabbing his arm and drag him along beside him as he walked away.

“Ummm…can you let me go?” Stanley asked.

“I said quiet!” Hisaki quietly hissed toward Stanley, turning the corner with him.

The grip wasn’t particularly strong, Stanley felt he could break out of it and briefly considered doing exactly that. In the end, he dismissed the idea. The Narrator should help him escape if this person plans to harm him.

Once Hisaki had dragged Stanley a decent distance, he released Stanley’s arm and looked to confirm there wasn’t anyone else around.

Hisaki immediately demanded, “Alright, talk. How much did you hear?”

“Nothing!” Stanley lied, rather poorly at that. His lying skills were nonexistent. “I heard voices when searching for someone to guide me back to my room. You all seemed… busy so I was going to find someone else.”

“I said, what did you hear!” Hisaki growled out, clearly he hadn’t bought Stanley’s terrible lie.

“Nothing important! Just some stuff about an alliance and a scapegoat.” Stanley admitted, he was rather ashamed at having eavesdropped at all but quickly reassured himself.

If they weren’t doing something wrong, they wouldn’t be afraid of eavesdropping.

“You heard everything… didn’t you?” Hisaki sighed without expecting an actual response, removing his glasses and pinched his nose again in frustration, “Wonderful, this isn’t what I need right now.”

“Right, well… actually, if you could point me in the direction of Elisabeth’s room, I’ll be on my way.” Stanley tried to change the subject.

“Do you actually expect me to believe you’re lost?” Hisaki rolled his eyes at his statement and dismissively waved his hands in Stanley’s direction. “Buzz off, I need to change my plans around now.”

“Right…” Stanley said slightly relieved he didn’t have to fight anyone. Quietly, he turned around and looked in both directions trying to figure out where to head.

Stanley quickly came up with a below average plan.

If he headed back in the direction he came from, he might eventually recognize the surroundings.

There was a reason this plan was below average. A glaring problem that existed within it.

Stanley had absolutely no clue which direction he came from.

He’d been wandering around aimless while lost in thought earlier and absolutely nothing about this place looked even slightly familiar to him.

Hisaki watched Stanley with his disoriented expression and cursed to himself. Tapping on Stanley’s shoulder, he pointed down a hallway, “That direction, take the second left and third right.”

“Thank you.” Stanley said as he turned around to properly face him.

However, Hisaki had already walked off in the opposite direction without waiting for his response and was mumbling to himself, “How do you even get lost in this place? A retarded toddler could find their way around it.”

“Or not.” Stanley muttered, watching the man walk off, before turning around and walking in the direction he’d been instructed to.

As Stanley walked, he attempted to memorize the instructions by continuously repeating them. “Second left, third right…”

Fortunately, with the help of instructions, Stanley managed to swiftly find his way back to Elisabeth’s room.

Which in turn, means he knew the way back to his own room.

…However, Stanley’s feet didn’t end up moving in the direction of his room.

Instead his mind thought back to the conversation between the nobles in that room and he sighed to himself.

He couldn’t exactly leave with the situation the way it.

He had no idea what to do, though.

Despite eavesdropping on that entire conversation, the information he had learned would be of negligible help to Elisabeth.

What was he supposed to say? Someone might be plotting something? If you don’t do something, you could lose your influence?

Point out the obvious isn’t exactly useful information. Although it was new information to him, Stanley was reasonable assured Elisabeth already understood her own situation.

Maybe he could help her in capturing the traitorous nobles that escaped, but… he didn’t even know who to capture.

Using the system map would be useless. How was he supposed to tell the difference between a traitor and another doppelganger walking about?

Stanley reached out to knock on Elisabeth’s door, yet he paused... sighing, he turned around and backed away. Walking back toward his room, he apologized in his heart.

Sorry for being a coward, Elisabeth.