After her first clandestine meeting with Esperanza in the eatery, Alissa kept to her usual schedule for the rest of her stay in town, or at least, that was what it looked like to any outside observers. She continued going to the academy’s library in the morning, and other than an hour or so where she left to have lunch, spent the rest of her day there and only returned to the inn in the evening.
Nadine and Maribel were used to Alissa’s preference for the library by that point, so they never really questioned it. Neither of them expected that Alissa was meeting with Esperanza during those lunch breaks, however, and the two were discussing things that would have incited the temple priests to declare them heretics or worse.
In truth, Alissa and Esperanza met during each of those “lunch breaks” and discussed what they intended to do together.
Esperanza offered Alissa information she was not privy to beforehand due to the temple’s censoring or just because they were unavailable in the kingdom, like some details about the demons people would only know by living amongst them. Those were things Esperanza experienced for herself since the refuges had people from all the races, so she had lived amongst demons and demon descendants while she stayed there.
Part of that knowledge were weaknesses specific to each of the demon races that few know about as it was kept a tightly guarded secret outside of their own communities. Perhaps some of the human warriors who fought the demons in the past had discovered those weaknesses through trial and error, but if so, they either failed to propagate the knowledge or failed to consider the value of such a discovery.
Out of the ones Alissa listed, only the weakness of some demons with good night vision to sudden exposure of bright light during the night was a known one to Alissa. That said, considering the situation, Esperanza did ask Alissa to mostly keep the knowledge to herself and only reveal some she “accidentally” discovered when truly necessary.
When Alissa considered how both the humans and the demons were enemies to Esperanza, she agreed and promised that she would not reveal the information unless it was truly an emergency. Esperanza did also mention that she would prefer the humans to win this war, as the demons were the dominant force in this world and weakening them a good bit would help her endeavors. It was not like the humans would win such a war easily either, so both sides would be weakened even if the human kingdom ended up the victor.
On the other hand, if the demons won, they would take less losses comparatively, since they were already in a position of strength to begin with.
Alissa herself spent some of her time researching in the library to look up topics Esperanza wanted to know more about, like anything related to the old gods as well as a clearer glimpse on the temple’s propaganda campaign – one that was likely endorsed by their gods and had gone on for millennia – so she could better deal with those.
Perhaps it was a betrayal to the mission a [Hero] summoned to Ephemera was supposed to do in letter, but Alissa felt that she was actually adhering to the spirit of what a Hero would have done.
The two of them plotted their future course of action together. Esperanza would stay in the human territory a while more, ranging further as she observed things and searched for weaknesses that she could exploit when the time is right, whereas Alissa would return to the frontlines, keeping their meeting a secret even from Ethan and Joshua, as it was something they were iffy about informing the others on.
It was not easy to accept that someone they know got incarnated as some sort of eldritch abomination by the power of some old gods after all, and Alissa only came to accept that fact after a while herself. There was no telling how Ethan or Joshua would react to the news, and worst case it could mess things up for both of them, so they agreed to keep it their secret for the time being.
One benefit Alissa definitely felt from their meetings was that because Esperanza had been in the city for longer, she was also more familiar with the local eateries and the like, and thus kept showing Alissa the good spots. While the inn Alissa stayed at also served good food, it was nice to be able to change things up with other good stuff as well.
Time flew by, and before long, it was the last day of Alissa’s break. She would need to return to the fort that very evening, and she managed to stay that long in the city because she and her companions would cover the distance to the fort on their own, as they were able to move faster than the wagons that carried the soldiers on break while moving on foot.
“Good luck out there, Allie, and stay safe,” said Esperanza as she gave her old friend a parting hug. The past few days were a bit tense, but she was glad that Alissa seemed to be able to accept her for who she was, not what she became. Alissa probably didn’t take everything Esperanza informed her of at face value, because some bits were ones where Esperanza herself was not completely certain about, but they had arrived at a mutual understanding of sorts.
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The information Alissa provided were mostly things Esperanza and her group would likely find out on their own with time, instead of anything particularly confidential. That said, both of them noticed that the kingdom sure kept their summoned [Heroes] away from quite a bit of confidential information that they probably should know about. The way the temple was particularly tight-lipped outside of the dogma they preached and what’s written in their holy books was suspicious in particular.
Of course, Alissa already had her doubts prior to their meeting, so meeting with Esperanza and listening to her side of the story mostly affirmed her own doubts that there was something wrong that the kingdom was likely hiding from them.
“You too, Zaza… Take care of yourself out there, you hear?” said Alissa as she returned the hug before letting go of her old friend. “And tell your friends I said hi.”
“I will, sure,” replied Esperanza with a chuckle. Her companions knew that she would be trying to contact the [Hero] but probably placed low odds on her succeeding to win them over. The way Alissa chose to cooperate with her, if indirectly, was likely something they would not expect at all. She wondered what sort of faces they would make after she went to gather with them after this. “I guess this is it, huh. Goodbyes said and all. Let’s both try to make sure they aren’t the last ones, bueno?”
“Yeah. See you again, Zaza.”
“Hasta Luego, Allie.”
The two went their separate ways after Alissa paid for their meal, on her insistence. Alissa returned to the inn where she would meet up with Nadine and Maribel after their last day of having fun in the city, while Esperanza discreetly left the city and headed towards the forests north of it, a half day’s travel away from Clearridge itself.
Once she reached the forest – which only took a short couple of hours given the speed Esperanza could travel at when she really went for it – Esperanza headed deeper in. Her companions made their camp in the deepest part of the forest to avoid discovery, so it was easy enough to head to that part and from there seek out their traces.
She caught a whiff of food being cooked not too long after she reached said depths, though the scent was so light that a human wouldn’t be able to even notice it, and followed it to its source. Sure enough, before long she reached a small clearing where the rest of her group were gathered around a small campfire, some local wild beast roasting on a spit over the fire.
None of the people on watch duty noticed Esperanza’s approach, but then again, she made full use of her [Veil of Entropy] to hide her presence to see how well it would work against the rest of her group. The skill was new, after all, and only those who went with her to Clearridge even knew about it. Even then, they mostly knew that her skill evolved and not the details of the evolved skill.
Esperanza held her giggles in while she quietly snuck around the sentries on guards and slipped towards the main group around the roasting meat, which she identified as some sort of deer-like creature once she got closer, just a very large one. She slipped behind where Murad and Mora were seated, unnoticed by everyone, and reassumed her human shape as she turned [Veil of Entropy] off.
The way half of the group almost jumped out of their skins in surprise made her unable to hold it and finally break out in laughter on the spot.
It took a good while before Esperanza stopped gasping and wheezing from laughing too much and too loud, tears flowing from her many eyes as she lost some control over her shapeshifting during the bout of laughter. Half of the gathered group had a relieved look on their faces, while the other half couldn’t help but give her the side eye after surprising them like that.
“Sorry, hahah- Was testing to see how good my evolved skill was when I use it for sneaking on people for real,” said Esperanza after she finally regained control of herself. She seated herself next to Ani as the group opened a gap in their circle for her. “Guess it’s doing a real good job since none of you even noticed me before I dispelled it.”
“You slipped through the sentries, and they are definitely keeping watch,” noted Ani with a nod of her head as she offered Esperanza a slice of roasted meat from the spit. “And they also have more skills meant to detect such intrusions compared to the rest of us, so I would say that your skill should be able to slip by most fourth tiers, Exalted One.”
“It is also good to see that you are safe and sound. I know you sent the rest back while telling the rest of us to wait and not to worry, but we can’t help but be worried for your sake.”
“Oh, I was fine, took me a while longer because I was discussing a lot of things with Allie while she was in the city, honestly,” replied Esperanza nonchalantly before she took a bite from the offered chunk of meat and chewed. “We kinda have a mutual understanding, and she’s looking for the truths in her own way, so there’s no reason to trouble her. As such, we’ll mostly focus our activities on the demons, though there’ll be some things we should clean up while we’re here in the kingdom as well.”
“Certainly, Exalted One. We will follow your directions,” replied Ani with a half-bow of respect as she usually did before she raised her head and looked at Esperanza questioningly. “Uh… pardon the question, but who is this ‘Allie’ you speak of?”
“Oh, right, I never did tell you all her name,” said Esperanza in realization. She had said that she possessed some connection to the summoned [Heroes] before but did not specifically name them, so it wasn’t too strange for Ani to not put things together.
“That would be Alissa, an old friend of mine from my previous world, also one of the summoned [Heroes] of the kingdom,” she said to the surprised looks of many from her group, who likely had not expected for her to successfully contact the [Hero], much less come to an agreement with them. “Or maybe it’d be more accurate to say she’s the [Hero]?” she added nonchalantly. “She’s the one who got that specific class as the starting one after all.”