Under the heat of noon's sun, a gust of wind announced Noah’s landing onto the training grounds, as a pair of black wings folded into himself and disappeared. Walking over to the patio near the training grounds near the Odir estate, he released his grip on the green bag he was holding, watching as a little over three dozen slimes rolled out. He ordered one of the slimes to eat the bag as it spilled out, for he could just make another when he needed to bring the slimes back from another day of espionage. He usually would just carry the slimes on his back, but landing from horizontal flight would always cause the slimes to fall off, and after a couple slimes died from the impact of being unable to open their harpy wings when so close to so many other slimes, Noah had just decided to weave a bag with dryad vines and use that to transport the slimes instead.
Three months had passed.
As per Noah’s initial estimate, the demonic invasion was still on track to be six months from then, and the increase in frequency of skirmishes from the demonic forces to try to occupy more advantageous positions around Maruta Hill only confirmed it. Of course, Haldor had no intention of allowing them to fight from the high ground, and so had tactically retreated to allow them to obtain Maruta Hill as per their wishes, but then also yielded some more ground. The result was that the battle was likely to occur in the Maruta Plains, which lay right next to Maruta Hill, destroying the demons' efforts to gain high ground, all while Haldor did not lose soldiers by fighting in actual skirmishes or even have to reveal their combat strength.
This was important to Noah. The advantage of information, now that Noah had Kvasir, was what he felt to be their greatest advantage, and so he wished to maximize it to its limits. A part of that effort was hiding his and his own allies’ combat strength. Today, Noah made another huge step. So far, from enemy movements, he was able to discern that 4 demon knight commanders spearheaded the invasion but had not been able to determine who the supreme commander was. Noah was certain that there was one but was unable to discern exactly who.
In this last espionage operation, Noah decided to stake himself to determine who this person was. With the invasion right around the corner, not knowing who this was was an informational disadvantage that could ruin everything. So far, Noah’s generals of Haldor surmised that there just wasn’t such a person after months of Noah’s espionage had revealed nothing, but Noah felt that there were just too many hints to simply ‘forget about it’. Even just another demon knight, a power on the level of the false heavenly kings, could ruin everything.
Over the course of a week, he personally left for the Demonic cave system the demonic forces were currently preparing in, and hid in a corner. The Siren’s disguise only cloaked him for so long, and eventually, his only method of concealment was the typical blending in amongst the monsters. Noah was the same person who revealed his identity when Aeloria pranked him in the adventurers guild back when he had just walked into Odir. Such espionage operations were not Noah’s forte, to say the least. One could even say that he was the worst person to choose to go through with such a thing. It was unfortunate that he was the only one who could. Throughout the week, he had his slimes enchanted to be Invisible slimes exploring areas at his command, investigating areas of the caves that felt suspicious, and the like, though he had not absorbed any of the slimes' memories yet.
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As such, he had not really obtained much information. After all, as for himself, even though he was down in the cave systems, he was more focused on trying to blend in with the demons rather than collect information. He left that to the slimes. And now, he was going to do receive the fruit of their efforts.
Noah sat on the patio with his legs crossed and the slimes lined up in front of him, looking at Ariel’s and Seraphina’s sparring that they always seemed to be engaging in. He had notified Ariel and other important personnel of the Odir about leaving for a week, and it seemed they hadn’t noticed his return yet, distracted by the training. Watching Ariel and Seraphina, he let out a small mischievous grin, and transformed just his finger into that of a zombie, then hurled it at Ariel. His vampire body in Kvasir’s Mead form as he was in now had the superior sense not to miss, and the rotting finger struck Ariel on her cheek.
“Finger?...Finger!”
Naoh burst into laughter, and Ariel, hearing his faint laughter from over a hundred meters away, hurled a pebble at him.
-
A short while later, once he had informed important personnel about his return and waved away the archmages that had already sensed his presence and made their way to him, his countenance turned serious, and he looked at the lined-up slimes. Ariel sat beside him, partly curious about the information he had uncovered and partly from the affection from not seeing him for a week.
The slimes melted into Noah one by one. Each slime, which usually took just over a minute or two, this time took over ten minutes, due to the entire week’s worth of information they had gathered.
Noah's expression remained tense throughout.
‘Alright. This is information we know. But I'm not seeing the big guy.’
He was through around ten slimes. Twenty-seven more to go. Every time he was done processing a slime's information, his expression soured a little more as he realized he didn't see what he wanted to.
More time passed.
Noah’s hands clutched the armrests of his chair in a mix of frustration and anxiety.
Four slimes left. Still no worthwhile information.
‘Was my operation in vain? I don't have time to do this again!’
As his anxiety grew and he bit his lips harder, two rugged palms with spear calluses gently enveloped his hands from behind him, in calm reassurance. No words were exchanged to avoid distracting Noah, but he got the message. His shoulders slightly loosened, and he took a deep breath as he calmed himself.
Another slime jumped into Noah. Another ten minutes passed.
Nothing again.
Three slimes left. Noah flipped his palms around, his fingers interlocking with Ariel’s. He took another deep breath, then went again.
‘...damn it. Nothing aga-!’
It wasn't nothing this time. Ariel felt Noah’s pulse drastically spike in her hands. His eyes widened, and his breathing hitched.
“No. I need- I need confirmation, this is too big.”
“Noah? Are you alright? What's wrong?”
“Wha? Y-yeah, I'm fine, j-just need to do this.”
Ariel did not force Noah to elaborate, and patiently waited.
The second-last slime jumped into him.
Ten minutes passed. Nothing.
The last slime.
This time, he saw it again. There was no way he could deny it. That size, those wings. The aura he could sense even through a memory, the instinct of the slime that almost killed itself just from glimpsing its figure. He himself had only read about it back when he was trying to learn about Calysta’s magical beings.
The apex of monsters on the continent, the deity of the skies that ruled with unwavering arrogance. So unrivaled was their might that evolution had robbed flight from non-draconic creatures of the Calysta continent, unless they were capable of extremely high-altitude flight like the gryphon or flew extremely low like the harpy and stood a chance to escape their domain.
A black dragon.