“The boss guy is in that tent dead in the centre of the encampment. We’ll work our way in from the outside. Do not engage without my go ahead. Everyone clear?”

“Clear,” We all said in harmony to Saki’s words.

She beckoned us to follow, and we stalked around the outside of the encampment. I had dispelled cloak, deciding it was better to save it for when we were closer to the more active areas, so we were sneaking in slowly and quietly.

After a little while, Saki held up her hand to stop us. She was looking at a ragged tent near the outskirts of the camp.

“This place is secluded from the others. By its sized they can be no more than five or six imps inside. On my mark, we move in and take them out. Quick and clean.”

We all gathered at Saki’s back, waiting patiently for her signal. She listened for sound coming from the tent, and upon confirming that there were low muffled voices inside she put down her hand and moved in.

We all followed suit, moving quickly until we had all entered the tent. Inside were five imps, and before they even had a chance to react Saki had skewered one’s head with her spear.

An arrow wizzed past me, Nao’s pinpoint accuracy with her bow finding the head of her target with ease. One tried to squawk, but I sliced it across the neck to shut it up. Mai cut the fourth across the eyes, before stabbing its throat when it began to yelp. The last imp fell victim to Suzume, who froze its head solid before kicking it to the ground.

We all froze and waited, dead silent as we held our breaths in anticipation. No noise from outside. We were safe.

“That was decent, but we still made a bit of noise. We’ll have to be quieter about it next time.” Though it seemed harsh to critique a mostly solid attempt, Saki was right: any mistake could cost us all our lives.

We quietly moved out and scouted out our next location. If we spent too long deliberating, the bodies would likely be found and the alarm raised, so we had to pick quickly.

Our second attempt went a little smoother than our first, all of us seemingly getting better at executing enemies in a single strike. It’s a skill I detested having to use, but I bit the bullet and continued to learn how to become the ruthless assassin I would need to be to survive this world.

In less than twenty minutes, we had managed to wipe out every squad on the outskirts of the encampment. The camp itself was large enough that we had managed to stay out of view of the centre area as much as possible, allowing us to kill every imp we came across without alerting the whole horde.

“By my count, that made 67. About half the imps in the camp.” The gruelling first phase of the mission came to an end with those words from Saki. We had been incredibly fortunate to encounter practically no resistance thus far, but the plan to that point had been little more than a warmup. The difficult part was just on the horizon.

Chatter began to emanate from the camp, in a tongue unfamiliar to us. It was a vile language to hear, grating to the ears and unpleasant in the mind. The seven of us observed silently from behind the ruins of an old building, trying to figure out what was happening.

“I think… the boss is ordering them to come to the outskirts?” Said Mai, somewhat confusedly.

“You mean they’ve figured us out?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think that’s the case. They don’t seem to be acting urgent enough for that. It’s more likely a shift change of sorts. Sending our new patrollers?”

I breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short lived. If new troops were being sent out for patrol, the old patrollers would be expected to return. In other words, we had a very small window before the boss demon would realise something was awry.

“We have to silence those patrollers pronto. After that, follow my lead. Things might be getting loud soon.” Clearly Saki had drawn the same conclusion.

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The seven of us fanned out to head off the patrollers, this time having no window to wait for Saki’s call. We would have to put them down quickly and with extreme prejudice.

Mai and I once again went together, quietly running toward a position the nearest squad would soon reach. They were five strong, meaning the two of us would have to take out multiple targets in an extremely small window of time.

“Mai, take right. I’ll get both on the left, then we’ll skewer the one in the middle.” I whispered

“Got it.”

Careful to make as little noise as possible, we correctly predicted when the small squad of imps would turn the next corner, leaping at them with speed too great to react to. I took off one head with my left axe, followed by that of the man behind him with my right. Mai judged the distance between herself and her target perfectly, thrusting her rapier through the throats of two imps together like a kebab.

The fifth, who had been at the centre of their odd square formation, made a high yelp, but was silenced by the both of us cutting at his head together.

We anxiously awaited the sound of reinforcements called by the short cry, but once again sighed in relief as no foes came. Several times now, we had been incredibly lucky.

“The rest of us managed to take out 18 between us. You and Mai?”

“Five. That brings us to ninety overall, right?”

“Yeah. We’re gonna fall in on your position. Things might get messy very quickly, but we’ve no other choice.”

I had a feeling I knew what Saki’s idea was, and I didn’t like it, but I could also think of no alternative.

***

“I can’t say I’m a fan of this plan.” Suzume seemed the least on board of us all.

“You think I am? It sucks. But we have no time for anything else. Slow and methodical will get us killed here.” Saki rebutted.

“I’ve got issues too, honestly,” said Hikari. “You’ve explained your idea for getting rid of the imps, but that still leaves the ogres. We can’t fight a humanoid and two ogres head on, that’s suicide.”

“We’ll deal with the ogres after we get rid of the imps. They may be strong, but they’re slow and seemingly pretty stupid. A fast invisible attack should be enough to kick them down. Not to mention, they’re practically playing bodyguard for the humanoid. We kill them, we alert him immediately.”

The plan was risky. No, that doesn’t quite do it justice. It was hardly a plan, and it was downright life or death. But I saw no alternative to Saki’s suggestion.

“Honestly, I can see this working out well if done correctly. The element of surprise is an underrated tool in warfare. Taking out some 30 or 40 imps with it shouldn’t be too hard.” Mai concurred with Saki’s idea too.

“I-I think Saki is right. I-it may be dangerous, but it’s our best chance.” Nao also took Saki’s side. Y’know, for a change.

The only one to voice neither dissent nor assent was Kyouma, onto whom all eyes turned.

“A daring group of heroes using their skill and wits to isolate and defeat a villain? A chance to martyr oneself in a blaze of glory? How could I possibly decline?”

“Then it’s settled. Shin, cloak us. Everyone else, get to your positions. We move on my command.”

I did as she asked, being left with little magic power left as I once again concealed the seven of us. I remained in place with the other six spread out in roughly even spacing in a wide circle. We were given just a single minute to quietly scope out our section, before Saki’s call came.

“Now!”

Swallowing the awful feeling in my throat, I got to work. I cleanly decapitated the imp nearest to me, before slashing it’s partner across the chest with my axe. In my section, I counted five enemies, so three more were still lurking about.

One I found almost immediately, kicking it to the ground and stabbing into its heart with my left axe. It’s partner was nearby too, and in it’s confusion as to what had killed it’s comrades, it threw a knife near where its friend had just died. I simply moved my head slightly and watched the knife brush past me, before using both axes to split the imps head in half.

One remained in my section, though it was one that I had ignored deliberately. It scrambled to blow its horn, to which it was very shortly met with six more around the encampment. Saki’s idea wasn’t to avoid detection, but to raise the alarm in several different places at once to confuse our surviving enemies.

I killed the horn blower in my section and silently moved towards the centre of the camp where the humanoid and its ogre guards were in a state of frenzy.

“Engage ogre enemies at full force. Take them out before they can fight back.”

As she finished her order, Saki threw her spear at the knee of one of the ogres. It fell to the ground in pain, only to have its pain quickly silenced by Mai using the spear lodged in its knee as a vault to dive over its head and pierce its brain with her rapier.

I moved in on the other, sliding between its legs and cutting both calves with my axes, causing it to stumble backwards. A hail of arrows from above confused it further, as Nao and Kyouma flew over its head and rained upon it with bows.

Finally, it was put to rest as Suzume froze its cut up legs in place and Hikari burned a hole through it’s abdomen.

Both ogres slumped over dead, the last remnants of the garrison dealt with.

“Did we just wipe out a whole army of demons?” Asked Mai.

“I’m afraid not. Just 132.” The voice came from the one enemy had yet neglected. The humanoid demon whose body was now cloaked in a suffocating amount of magical power. “And that is where your count will end. In the name of my master, Baal Zebul, I hereby sentence you all to die at my hand.”