Encirclement

"It's the intruder!" "Chase him!" New soldiers appeared in front of him, detecting Allen's whereabouts without leaving any room for him to hide, forcing him to escape without rest.

'It's the fifth group' Allen thought while quickly changing direction, escaping from their view 'They had me completely surrounded.'

"It's here!" As Allen stopped to take a mere breath, he was again found.

'How can they find me so easily?' Allen cursed as he started running again 'Are they so well organized or...' Allen frowned 'This smells fishy. Something is not wrong. It could be? Let's try it out!'

Suddenly, Allen stopped still from his run turning over the two soldiers chasing him. The chasing soldiers halted their charge seeing Allen stopping, their angry faces changing to a confused and nervous ones.

'Luckily, I was right' Allen kicked the ground, shooting forwards to the soldiers that were unable to properly answer to his attack, barely swinging their spears.

"Too weak" Allen easily avoided the spears turning his body to the left and passed between both soldiers, hitting them at the back of his neck, swiftly making them fall conscious.

Allen thought of two reasons for them being able to chase after him like that.

The first one was that they had some way to observe his movements and communicate between them, making the soldiers organize and center their forces toward Allen. This could be explained by a Vision owner with that capability, either seeing things from the sky or being able to detect his whereabouts.

The second would be that they had so many troops everywhere around the zone that they had all of it covered.

Once he cold his head a little, Allen chose to believe the second reason as the first one was more complicated to escape from it, needing more planning and if it was truly that one, their actions would have been more swiftly, already being cornered as they would be used to move under the orders of someone so capable. However, the second option was impossible.

He had investigated Watatsumi's strength and while they had some soldiers, it was far from enough for this campaign. Even supposing that they had hidden forces, this would be improbable. So what was the answer?

It was simple, they were not troops. They were a simply improvised militia of unprepared combatants. That was why they never entered combat and it was possible to escape them individually by simply running without needing to create distractions with his Vision.

"They are no trained soldiers, only simple inhabitants with weapons" Allen inspected the fallen soldier "It's not even true armor. It doesn't have any defense capabilities making it more of a costume. I've been tricked." Allen sighed and frowned when he found a bundle of papers in possession of one of the fallen 'soldiers'.

Reading the papers, Allen hummed 'Of course. They were simply guiding me to a trap' Allen started running again, this time in the same direction from where the soldiers had come.

...

At an open area, near the Sangonomiya Shrine, Kokomi was waiting while armed soldiers where stationed in her surroundings.

"Your Excellency." One new soldier came over to the formation "The encirclement has been broken, the intruder had escaped."

"It wasn't enough" Kokomi whispered "Is anyone injured?" Kokomi asked worriedly.

"Some members of the militia had been knocked out, but all of them were clean hits, they will be perfectly fine once the wake-up." The soldier informed.

"Thanks god" Kokomi sighed relieved.

"We apologize, your Excellency." The soldiers bowed "If we were more capable, we could have followed your orders better."

"You do not need to worry. The intruder might have escaped, but it is not a complete loss" Kokomi tried to cheer the troops. "He was forced to escape without taking anything and we have learned what we lack and what we need to improve for the future, making ourselves stronger. Next time would be completely different."

"Yes, your Excellency!" The soldiers shouted, adoration for their new Divine Priestess showing in their eyes. Yes, their Divine Priestess was a genius, they were simply too weak, but not for forever, They put up their minds to become stronger.

...

Sometime later, a hooded figure could be seen moving hidden in the shadows of the night over the south of Watatsumi Island, near Bourou Village.

The hooded person walked until it reached a cave hidden between some brushes, entering it. The cave was quite small and almost empty with only a desk with a chair, a little lantern and a shell with no more than 20 books.

The hooded person quickly sat on the chair and collapsed her body on the desk, her hood falling from her head, freeing her pale salmon hair and showing her face. Such a cute and peculiar girl it could only be one person, the new Divine Priestess Kokomi.

"I can't anymore" Kokomi sighed exhaustedly "I'm not fit to be a ruler. Why have I been chosen as the Divine Priestess?" Kokomi lamented.

"The training over Enkanomiya was one thing, but I can't really cope with people., that's the most exhausting. I don't think I can keep doing it. Presenting myself, need to do a speech to everyone, saluting them, encouraging the soldiers after the plan failed..."

"Now that I think about the plan, it was bound to fail" Kokomi sighed "Encircling the intruder with untrained men, controlling his direction and guiding him to my trap... It would only have worked if the intruder was weak enough to be stopped by normal people or too cautious and an idiot."

"At least there were no deaths. Luckily, I ordered them to not enter combat and stop any charge if they heard pained cries. If the intruder was a good fighter, it could have provoked a massacre." Kokomi thought.

"I shouldn't have prepared that contingency. The plan started bad when the intruder didn't go to the library. Wait a moment..." Kokomi suddenly frowned "His first direction was over the third corridor, it's no way over the library. The most probable important place in that direction would be" Kokomi's eyes went wide in realization "The D-"

"Divine Priestess's room. Correct" A voice from outside cut Kokomi's thoughts, Allen with his uniform entered the cave while clapping "Meaning that my objective was you."

Kokomi combated his exhaustion, glancing at the intruder with anger.

Allen grinned "And you have handed yourself to me on a plate."