“Damn it!” cursed Alissa as she noticed the sudden commotion to her left. She was watching and harassing the demons trying to climb the fort’s walls as usual at the time, when the incident happened and some soldiers at the top of the wall a short distance to her left suddenly started dying all of a sudden, with injuries that looked like it came from a sword of some kind.
It was already the fourth day of the siege, and the leadership – including Sirs Inolet and Marsten – expected that the demons would likely escalate their assaults around that time. Their prediction proved true, in the end, and although Alissa knew to expect it, when it happened it still caught her off guard for a brief moment.
A brief moment too long for around a dozen soldiers stationed in the vicinity of where the demon hit.
Thanks to her skills, Alissa quickly spotted the reason for the deaths of those soldiers. Between [See no Falsehoods], [A Critical Eye], and her newer skill, [Peer into the Unknown], she could see the slight shimmer in the air that the demon made when it moved, and link the clues together to interpolate its actual form in her mind’s eye despite there being next to nothing to actually see in the real world.
Since [See no Falsehoods] did not allow her to see through whatever it was that gave the demon its invisibility, that meant it was not an illusion of some sort, or was of higher rarity than her skill, which she doubted. According to Sir Inolet Epic skills were already rare even for fourth tiers, much less third tiers, and those who had skills above that rarity were typically [Heroes] and [Champions] or their retainers only.
Illusion or not, though, Alissa had a solution for it either way.
She activated [Truth is a Bitter Pill to Swallow], [Perforate the Stars], and [Unravel the Firmament] all at once as she thrust her spear around where she expected the invisible demon’s center of mass should be. The demon seemed to have seen her attack coming, and tried to parry away her spear, but the effect from [Perforate the Stars] blew its parrying attempt aside with ease.
The demon still managed to dodge backwards at the last moment and prevented the spear from skewering them, but the tip still pierced through their skin and caused a light injury, which was enough to trigger the effects of both [Truth is a Bitter Pill to Swallow] and [Unravel the Firmament]. Before Alissa’s eyes, the demon was revealed as their previous invisibility suddenly vanished.
To her surprise – and the way the demon made a sudden gasp of embarrassment suggested that she had not expected something like this to happen either – the Nevilosk demon was completely naked for some reason, and the “weapon” Alissa mistook to be some kind of sword turned out to be the elongated, sharpened nails on the index and middle fingers of each of her hands.
After an awkward moment of mutual surprise, both Alissa and the demon pressed on their attack at the same time. The demon slashed at her with the nails on her right hand, which Alissa blocked with her shield as she returned a thrust of her own. The nails struck her shield and made a sound that was little different than that of metal hitting metal, while the demon herself leapt back once more from her thrust, clearly feeling greatly threatened by it.
For that matter, the demon clearly looked to be out of breath already, the effect from [Truth is a Bitter Pill to Swallow] likely already making itself known.
Alissa was just about to press the attack once more when the Demon before her seemed to have understood the predicament she was in and chose a different way out. Before her eyes, the demoness leapt away from the battlements and fell towards the throng of demons beneath. She used the nails on one hand to scrape against the wall and slow her fall somehow while her other hand was busy trying to cover her breasts and privates as she escaped that way.
The demoness vanished from sight once more when she was just about to reach the ground, whichever skill of hers allowed the invisibility – Alissa guessed that it probably made the demon completely permeable to light, which wouldn’t count as an illusion as in that case the invisibility would be a natural one – likely having finished its cooldown by then.
Even so Alissa still managed to fire off an [Analysis] at the escaping demon and she frowned at the result it returned.
[Orphan Lvl20/Cutthroat Lvl20/Champion’s Retainer: The Unseen Blade Lvl18]
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
The first two classes were common enough, nothing unusual about them, but the third class and its high level was an unpleasant sight. Fortunately for Alissa, the demoness seemed to be one that’s more about the “unseen” part of her class rather than the “blade” part, considering how quickly she gave up fighting and fled. That and Alissa would likely overpower her anyway, differences between an actual [Hero] or [Champion] and their companions and all that.
After the little episode, she had a soldier send a message for Sir Marsten to report the incident, while she remained on guard where she was stationed. The fourth tiers – or their equivalent like Alissa’s party – were all positioned a distance apart from each other on the wall, each responsible for a region and ideally being able to handle their assigned areas by themselves.
The [Champion’s Retainer] appearing in Alissa’s section of the wall was probably dumb luck on her part. It could have been disastrous if she had gone to a section being anchored by a weaker fourth tier or someone like Osmond who was relatively weak up close. It would probably depend a lot on whether whoever ran into the demoness would be able to see through her invisibility or not, she guessed.
Alissa happened to be a bad matchup for the demoness because she had multiple skills that allowed her to get a very good idea on the location of the demoness, despite her invisibility. She had to admit though, that the sort of invisibility the demoness had – likely one that only affected her own body, given the being completely naked part – was one of the harder ones to counter since most normal ways to see through invisibility would not react with it.
She also noticed how the demoness seemed to have taken care to avoid the splattering blood from her victims or stepping on the blood on the floor. From that it looked like any foreign substance being on her invisible body would remain visible and thus betray her presence. Something to keep in mind for later. She would also need to ask the old knights whether that sort of invisibility was a common one or not.
Another guess Alissa had was that the demoness likely had some method of sensing her surroundings that's not sight-related, since if her guess about how she managed to turn invisible was right, then that would mean she couldn’t see anything while invisible either. That was another thing they could potentially abuse to make fighting the invisible demoness easier.
What really did worry her was the notably higher level the demoness had compared to her group. She did know that the demon [Champions] were far more active in the war compared to her party, but had thought that their levels would be similar, after the fight with the [Mother of Monsters] back then. That the demoness just now had over ten levels above her was a surprise.
It was only later, after her shift was done that Sir Inolet pointed out how the [Mother of Monsters] mostly used her undead like siege engines so she had mostly struck down weaker soldiers or inanimate structures instead of higher-leveled people. That likely contributed to her lower overall level compared to the other demon [Champions].
The other demon [Champions], or at least, the ones they labeled the “brute” and the “buffer”, were known to be very active on the battlefield and the way they fought so often meant that they would likely grow more levels as a result. As for the invisible demoness, it was Sir Marsten who recalled something from a report he had heard before.
“There were indeed some reports from the center area of the frontlines where the buffer [Champion] had been suspected to be present before that mentioned several commanders being killed by an assassin that nobody managed to catch,” said the old knight. “We had set up our defenses so that it would trigger an alarm should a demon cross its threshold during the night, though. I assume the demons had a way to notice that, otherwise we might have caught that demoness you mentioned trying to slit our throats in the night already.”
“The alarm is turned off during the day, I assume?” asked Ethan.
“Indeed. Otherwise it would sound every time a chunk of demon fell on the fort’s wall, which I think you all realized by now isn't an uncommon occurrence especially after the mages let loose,” explained the old knight with a nod. “It would have been far too distracting and noisy so we turned the enchantments off when we’re awake.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” admitted Ethan. “So… I guess we have another of the [Champions] likely around if their retainer is here, no? Unless the demons had them acting independently?” he asked, to which the old knight replied with a shake of his head. “Right, so, a likely [Champion] on the table, likely the buffer one if this one stuck around the same champion since back when the report mentioned those assassinations… probably the [Mother of Monsters] waiting for a revenge match too…”
“The demons had a similar setup as the one the Kingdom uses to groom [Hero’s Companions] and [Hero’s Associates] to get the equivalent for their [Champions],” stated Sir Inolet. “We know this because we had never really recorded a particularly high or low number of those in the last several cycles, always roughly the same amount we ourselves had.”
“That this one had such a big level advantage is a bit worrisome, though fortunately the demoness didn’t seem that adept in an open fight according to Miss O’Connor?” noted Sir Marsten.
“That is correct, Sir,” confirmed Alissa. That one [Champion’s Retainer] was apparently the only one anyone had spotted so far, though it was possible that others had shown themselves and kept their presence discreet by wiping out every human witness who had seen them. “I gave her a slight injury, then we clashed all of once before she leapt off the wall and ran away.”
“Likely a sort that specializes in discreet assassinations rather than direct battles then, which does fit. [Cutthroats] rarely result in classes that were good at direct combat other than a few occasions,” hemmed Sir Inolet at Alissa’s description. “As for the invisibility you mentioned… That reminded me of the sort that certain monsters have. It was a completely mundane form of invisibility, which made most magical methods to see through invisibility falter against it.”
“That was my guess too, Sir,” noted Alissa. “It’d be something to watch out for, but at the same time, it’s also far easier to counter it using mundane means compared to magical invisibility. Just need to use different tools since it’s a different task.”
“I had the same thought, yes,” noted Sir Marsten. “I’ll warn the quartermaster to prepare some counters for this kind of infiltrator and have them installed before we go to sleep tonight. That should make the night watch’s work safer and easier, together with the alarm.”
“That said, Miss O’Connor, the demons probably guessed that you had the chance to identify the demoness and thus would know of her class, and in turn, the implication that meant. They might step up their assault tomorrow as a result. Please tell your party to get a good and proper rest tonight, as tomorrow we might well be in for a fight of our lives.”