Her eyes were wide open the moment she heard about the human village. She said:"Okay. Meet me in the throne room within half an hour with rest of the commanders. I will make an official statement once everyone is there." which Celestine responded with a nod before leaving her room. Well, she had gained around half an hour to think what she could do. The thing that came to the top of her head was to send someone to be an emissary but all of the NPC's were created as soldiers and since there were no humans in the fortress they could treat humans badly which could cause an attack or something similar.
A direct attack was an even worse idea. Regardless of success, it would end up as a war in a world they had no clue about. After twenty minutes of thinking, she had been left between two ideas, Going in disguise in order to learn more or having the soldiers pretend they were carnival workers and put on a show. While the second idea was rather fun to imagine the first idea was probably going to work much better. Taking a deep breath she got off of her bed and walked to the throne room where all six of her commanders were waiting.
Sitting on her throne she said:"I will be going to the human village along with Hitomi with both of us being disguised as humans. If things go as planned I may stay there for a few days. Should something occur during my absence use a message spell. While I am gone Celestine is in charge."
As soon as she was done speaking Celestine said:"With all due respect it is extremely risky to go to the human village without a certain amount of bodyguards. Please reconsider." and for a second she did reconsider but going with several bodyguards would result in a huge commotion so she shook her head and said:"My decision is made. Hitomi while we are travelling there brief me regarding what the scouts found. Do not skip any details." which Hitomi responded by giving a nod. She was obviously trying to seem professional however her tail was giving away her happiness. Finally, she said:"That is all. You may scatter." which caused everyone except Hitomi and Celestine to leave the throne room.
With a sigh, she turned to Celestine and said:"I will be fine. I am more than capable of defending myself." before pausing for a second. Was she capable of defending herself?Well whether her powers worked or not would be revealed the moment she tried to disguise herself and Hitomi using magic. Not noticing her pause Celestine simply nodded and walked out of the room. Maybe she should have chosen Celestine as the guard through, to be honest, she felt like if something happened in her absence Celestine would handle it far better than anyone else herself included.
After there was no one left except her and Hitomi she placed her hand on Hitomi and said:"Disguise Other" which immediately made Hitomi's ears and tail disappear replacing them with human ones as well as turning her clothes to average brown villager clothes. She then used the same spell on herself causing her white hair to turn black and causing her skin to get a bit tanned as well as transforming her clothes. This spell would be invalidated if someone in the village had true sight or a similar spell, however, this spell was the only thing that could hide the fact that they were not human. As they walked through the fortress Hitomi gave her the report she had gotten from the scouts.
According to the scouts, there was a certain military presence in the village and there were several slaves working in the fields. They had also spotted a few people with high levels of health and mana levels near the village through they couldn't approach in fear of being discovered. These news were alarming, to say the least however this was still the best course of action. As the pair walked through the gates most of the guards watched behind them and they continued to do so until they disappeared from sight looking like they were debating whether to follow them or not.
As they got closer to the village she noticed that it was less of a village and more of a slave camp with guards waiting over farmers. Her first instinct was to immediately designed these people as evil criminals and decide whether to attack them or avoid them but then she thought that maybe she was approaching the situation in the wrong way. Maybe this place was held by a lord or something similar. Through there didn't seem to be any settlements in the nearby vicinity so this place was their best bet to learn more about the place they were in and they were highly likely to just collar two passersby or so she hoped. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side she used a message spell to tell Celestine:"Send a scout group near the village and have them prepare to strike if we don't return in two hours."
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Also to make sure her offensive magic was still working properly in case things turned sour. She pointed her palm at a nearby rock and said:"Triple Maximize Magic Ice Shard" an instantly three ice shards flew towards the rock stabbing through it. She very soon realized she did a horrible mistake. Due to diving deep into thought she had forgotten about Hitomi's existence and now Hitomi was staring at her trying to tell what was wrong. Trying to play it off she said:"Just checked something. Let's keep moving."
As the pair got closer to the slaver camp three armed man started approaching them. She instantly started regretting her decision as this had been far less scary in her mind but fleeing was the worst thing she could do at the moment so she forced herself to keep walking until she met the three armed guys. The largest one that seemed to be their leader checked them out in a rather obvious way before saying:"I wonder if the boss will let me keep these two cuties?" and with that Hitomi punched the man's head downwards causing cracking sounds to be heard through she wasn't sure whether the sounds came from the man's head or the ground. Considering Hitomi's strength stat chances were it was both.
Hitomi then said:"Nobody disrespect my lady." and as the two man tried to draw their weapons both of them found their heads on the ground as well. As this happened several fires that were probably used to send signals were lit in the camp while workers were rushed into the buildings and with that any hope of diplomacy was lost through, to be honest, she wasn't particularly regretful about this. The man also showed no sign of getting up so considering they were downed in one hit they were probably around level 15 at most. Before she could decide on a course of action the fields were lit on fire and for a second she thought she saw someone jump into the camp.
Well at the moment there were two choices. Either use the fire as a distraction and just leave while pretending this never happened or try to help out those who set the fire and hope these guys were the criminals and then she decided to do the former. The latter was not only risky but it could end up in a fight with those that set the fields on fire which would remove the chance of them having chosen the right side. To be on the safe side she said:"Anti-Information Magic Wall." and within a minute she felt something trying to break through her defense which was a weird feeling considering normally the defense warning was just a small warning screen.
As they were walking back she said:"You can't react to people like that. This time we got a distraction for unknown reasons but next time we might not be so lucky." which caused Hitomi to lower her head and nod. As the pair walked together they encountered the scouting squad and she said:"We are returning to the fortress." and the woman who seemed to be the leader of the squad gave a nod and they walked back in silence as she processed what happened.
Hopefully she had used Anti-Information Magic Wall on time, however, there was no way to make sure. The only option they had now was to send scouts further away in hopes of finding a town or a city that is hopefully not inhabited by slavers. She also made a mental note to not to take Hitomi along with her through at the same time anyone whom she took with her would have the same reaction to a man acting like that.
Upon arriving to the gates she turned to Hitomi and said:"Send scouts further and report to me should they find anything. Also, make sure they all have a caster that can cast Anti-Information Magic Wall." which Hitomi responded with a nod. Through now she didn't have much to do other than to sit down and wait for scouting reports to arrive. Was it too late to reconsider her decision regarding not having romantic relations with NPC's she had created? She could really use some companionship after that disaster. The moment she thought of that she shook her head. That was a line she shouldn't cross no matter what happened.
Upon reaching the throne room she saw Celestine waiting for her and she said:"Celestine. Make sure the entire area is blocked against information magic and that no attempts are made to breach the shields." which Celestine responded by giving her a nod and leaving her to wallow while sitting on her throne trying to figure out what to do in case they were spotted. Was it too much to ask to be able to make the whole fortress just float away towards somewhere where nobody could find it?