It took them fifteen minutes to find me today.
“Hey, Julius! Come over here!” Lily yelled from across the breakfast hall, making every person in the room stare at me. Oh well, guess [Stealth] practice is over.
I’d been arriving at breakfast early and training [Stealth] by picking one person and always staying out of their line of sight. Once the other heroes arrived, I’d switch to hiding from them. It wasn’t much XP, but it was all I’d get.
I sat down between Lily and Gyeong, wearing the smile of a kid who’d been caught red-handed. “Oops, I didn’t see you again.”
Lily sighed. “This is why we should just pick a single table and stay there.”
“But that’d be boring,” I whined. I was intentionally playing the part of a careless idiot. While it might reduce my buffer time before people got suspicious of my skill, I desperately needed to convince people I wasn’t a threat after my library stunt.
“Why do we have to enable this loser,” Princess Adriana complained.
“Yeah, Julius. Stop being a dork,” Vijay sneered.
Ever since I’d used Adriana’s name to get into the library, she’d been antagonistic. The worst part was how she turned Vijay against me as well. The Indian boy had long become smitten with her, and all it took was a few compliments and skin contact every day.
“Let us eat so we can go to class,” Gyeong interjected, and I sent him a smile as thanks. Surprisingly, Gyeong had been speaking up on my behalf recently. The Japanese boy was more familiar with English now, his words less choppy and his demeanor more confident.
It’s a good thing Gyeong is as romantically inclined as a rock, I thought as I glanced at the noble girl sitting next to him and trying to get his attention.
Recently, two more nobles had started sitting with us at breakfast. First, a daughter of a duke, whose name I could care less about. I called her ‘Goldilocks’ after her blonde hair. Second, more importantly, was the crown prince sitting next to Lily.
He was, quite frankly, insanely handsome. Rodrigo Castelo was his name, and he somehow ate cereal with uber elite class. Every day he wore a different mind boggling outfit, and today he had a purple collared shirt with gold chains, diamond wrist cuffs, and black slacks with dragon-themed embroidery.
Lily looked at him with hearts in her eyes. I was a little peeved, even if I didn’t have a romantic interest in her, and wouldn’t allow myself to develop one.
It was still frustrating to see such a positive and outgoing girl like her develop a crush on a man that was too good to be true. He was the crown prince after all, son of the guy who’d used some sort of mind magic on us. Rodrigo wasn’t a tenth as clean as he looked.
I put the crown prince out of my mind. He didn’t usually join our conversations anyway, like our current one discussing the boringness of our morning classes.
“If I have to listen to another lecture about Isabel Castelo, I’m going to scream,” Lily declared.
“Me too,” Vijay smoldered.
“Call the legendary hero by one of her proper titles, you two,” Goldilocks interjected.
“I agree. She saved the world from the Demon Overlord after all, restoring civilization after countless years of ruin- she deserves some respect,” Adriana said, and instantly her loyal follower changed tunes.
“She’s right, Lily. Castelo only exists because of the White Mage Hero sacrificing her life. Give her some respect,” Vijay said.
That moment, when everyone at the table was focused on Vijay, I noticed a small detail. [Situational Awareness Lv. 3], a skill I’d secretly trained, allowed me to spot what the other heroes couldn’t.
Rodrigo had stopped eating, instead glancing at a servant carrying refreshments. It was timed perfectly when Adriana and the duke’s daughter were looking away.
You’d think that wouldn’t mean anything. People glance at other people all the time. Even I would think this way normally. However, [Situational Awareness] had an ability to catalogue many small details that normally went beneath notice, forming an intuition that went beyond logic. Right now, it was telling me that Rodrigo was up to something.
I followed his gaze in my peripheral vision. The synergy skill [Danger Sense] I had wasn’t picking up anything, but I didn’t trust the skill anyway. [Danger Sense] wasn’t a true skill, instead classified as a synergy subskill. It was [Situational Awareness] acting through my aura sense, somehow picking up intentions normally hidden from my senses. Right now, however, it was too finnicky to be reliable.
I didn’t need it, thankfully. [Situational Awareness] saw the small vial she poured in one of the glasses as clear as day.
Who does he want to kill? Adriana? Me?
My next action would depend on who Rodrigo was trying to kill. If his target was one of the two noble girls, I would do nothing. Heartless, but the best choice.
While [Danger Sense] didn’t think his target was me, it was still an option. The lack of any noble girl vying for my intentions implied the empire had written me off long term, perhaps primed to assassinate me right after the demon king was slain. Rodrigo might just be pushing that time table forward.
The maid arrived at the table and started handing out drinks. Nobody paid the common occurrence any attention. I watched the poisoned drink intently, and was surprised at where it ended up, although on second thought I shouldn’t have been.
Vijay was his target. He was clearly the most smitten hero out of all of us, wrapped up in Adriana’s little fingers. Once the demon threat was over, he’d marry her, solidifying Adriana’s claim for the throne and threatening Rodrigo’s current status as crown prince.
I couldn’t allow this assassination to happen. The world was already down one hero because of my dead-beat self, and if Vijay died the demon king’s chances of winning would skyrocket. However, I couldn’t simply announce what I’d saw, or I’d reveal my cards and make an enemy out of the prince.
Instead, I formed a plan and enacted it.
“Gah!” Adriana screamed, her blouse soaking wet.
“I’m so sorry!” I flustered, grabbing my napkin and trying to wipe her down. “I was trying to reach for a glass and I fumbled it!”
Vijay snatched my hand before I could reach her. “Don’t touch her,” he snarled. He took the napkin out of my hand and wiped her down himself.
“You had a glass right there!” Adriana screamed hysterically, drawing attention from the other nobles nearby, which only made her more distressed.
“I thought that was Lily’s!” I whined. This was why my idiot routine was useful, so I had more leeway with excuses.
“I know! To make up for this, you can have my drink,” I offered- a drink with a noticeably lower liquid level, because I’d already taken a gulp.
“Don’t give that to her! You’re disgusting,” Vijay stopped me, but the idea had already been planted in his head. “Here, Adriana, take my glass instead,” he said, pushing his poisoned drink into her hand.
Vijay was vulnerable to assassination because he wasn’t taught [Danger Sense]. Adriana had the skill, which is why I exploited its loopholes with my plan. The skill detected malicious intentions, but what if the assassin made an innocent fellow carry out the plan for him?
I closed my eyes and meditated, mentally separating myself from what was about to happen.
Rodrigo saw where things were going and tried to intervene. “Now, now, Vijay, she just got liquid spilled over her. Let’s let her go clean herself up.”
Adriana glared at him. “Don’t make light of me,” she declared, boldly taking a sip.
Rodrigo’s face turned white just as Adriana’s face turned blue.
“Guards!” he screamed, summoning the escorts that had been constantly nearby. Knights crashed through the breakfast hall, causing a cacophony of fearful screams. They pushed forward, uncaring of the broken tables and displaced nobles in their wake. Their only goal was the safety of the emperor’s children.
One of the guards grabbed my collar and threw me backwards, sending me tumbling to the floor. The other heroes experienced the same treatment, the duke’s daughter as well. Only Rodrigo and Adriana were treated with urgent care, quickly ferried off to who knows where.
Two more knights entered the fray, quickly subduing the fleeing maid and forcing Vijay’s arms behind his back.
“Adriana!” Vijay cried, before being dragged out of the room in a different direction. I mentally apologized for what he was about to go through. Scoundrel that he was, he didn’t deserve interrogation.
Chaos reigned after the knights disappeared with the two royals. Privileged noble scions yelled for their personal guards, children wept in fear, and our remaining group of three was no different.
“Was… was that an assassination attempt!” Lily screamed, hyperventilating. Her idyllic, naïve picture of the world was shattered as things suddenly became real.
Gyeong helped pick me off the floor. “They took Vijay,” I said.
“They will be fine. Believe,” Gyeong comforted.
We sat there in the remains of the breakfast hall for a while, whispering speculation and conspiracy theories, before an escort showed up and dragged us to class. Internally, I grinned.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
***
Things worked out almost perfectly. Adriana ended up surviving the poisoning, perhaps through a hidden [Poison Resistance] skill and the divine healing of the priests. Somehow, she figured out that Rodrigo was to blame for the poison, although she told only told the heroes that it was a rebel spy, and their dynamic changed irrevocably. When the two royals rejoined us for breakfast, they fought like cats and dogs beneath a veneer of civility.
Afterwards, I noticed a sudden drop in the number of plainclothes watching me throughout the day. It was almost a shame, since I’d turned spotting them into [Situational Awareness] training.
In addition, my maid was swapped out yet again, which had worrying implications. The reduced number of watchers could be the royals pulling back resources for use in a political struggle, but what use would replacing a maid be? That is, if she were ever just a maid.
No, it was likely that my ‘maid’ had been a spy, or even assassin. If she hadn’t been recalled to aid Adriana, perhaps the princess would’ve had me silenced. I berated myself for using her name to slip into the library; it seems the princess took greater insult than I thought.
Or maybe I was reading too much into a simple change of servant.
The new girl was thankfully easier to push around. I hadn’t forgotten what happened to Patty, but I had no choice but to do it again.
She didn’t think much of my request for a simple hand mirror, likely a common item for nobles to check their appearance. That was her mistake: now I had all the tools necessary to acquire [Illusion Magic].
My room already contained a person-height mirror, contained in a gold-coated frame. I laid that mirror flat on the ground, where it showed a reflection of the ceiling. Then, I held the hand mirror above it, facing down. The two facing mirrors created a pattern of recursive reflection, light from the magical lightbulb bouncing a thousand times on the mirrors before reaching my eye.
You could say the mirror showed a warped version of reality. That was the domain of [Illusion Magic].
I infused my mana into the mirrors and the space in-between them, trying my hardest to feel the light passing through my mana. There was a concept of optical illusion contained in the mirrors, and I tuned my mana in hopes of resonating with it, like a singer finding the right pitch to shatter a wine glass.
It took time, much longer than the two hours it would take in the Mage Consortium’s specialized skill chambers, where Mrs. Casteliano had taught me [Summoning Magic]. Still, four hours later I acquired the skill.
Illusion Magic Lv. 1 The art of using mana to bend perceptions and even reality. Multiplies illusion strength by 1.1.
I grinned, finally feeling that there was hope for my survival. Laughter escaped my lips and then I smothered it ruthlessly, berating myself. No matter how happy I was, I couldn’t show it. I couldn’t afford a watcher investigating to see what made me laugh. After the way the library incident ended, I no longer felt safe even in my own room.
I moved the mirrors back to their normal locations, my hands shaking from a mix of excitement and fear. In this palace, safety was an illusion. Thankfully, the solution was simple. I’d just need the power to turn illusions into reality.
***
My careful façade warded off trouble for a while. Six months passed, practically an eternity. On the surface, things stayed the same. I joked around with Lily and shared moments of silent contemplation with Gyeong, pretending to dutifully listen to instructors while practicing secret skills of my own.
I made significant strides. My highest skills reached level seven, taking 128 hours each to train. First was [Physical Conditioning Lv. 7], so I had the stamina to outlast pursuers. Next were [Mental Focus Lv. 7] and [Illusion Magic Lv. 7]. [Illusion Magic] needed to be at level seven to learn aura and mana masking, and [Mental Focus] would give me a higher blitz potential.
At level six were [Mana Control Lv. 6], [Mental Affinity Lv. 6], and [Mental Palace Lv. 6]. I’d needed the mana control to learn the masking techniques and the mana pool to use them, while [Mental Palace] was a very special skill.
[Mental Palace] allowed me to form a mental structure out of my memories. Currently, I formed a literal castle, in hopes of defending my mind, which I wasn’t sure it would do. At the current low level, I needed to manually place memories in specific parts of the castle, which required meditation. I’d used the morning classes as time to train the skill, placing the most important information in the castle’s library.
At level five, the skill had let me access the skill with my eyes still open, but before then I’d had to join Lily in blatantly sleeping while the teacher lectured. Peter was not amused.
While I’d learned a lot, the empire was still limiting my access to crucial survival information such as plant identification encyclopedias. They clearly didn’t want me to be able to survive on my own. Even with a powerful memorization skill, I couldn’t memorize information I didn’t have.
The rest of my skills were level five and below. I’d tried to get [Deception Lv. 4] and [Stealth Lv. 4] higher, but there just wasn’t enough opportunities to get experience. The problem was compounded by Leonardo’s Principle, which set a max XP per hour of 1 XP.
I didn’t only train skills, however. Techniques took up half of my training time. In public, I’d trained the first cycle of [Aura Punch] and [Summon Wisp]:
Aura Punch Prof. 50% Coat a body part in aura to enhance destruction. Damage rating of (aura) consumed.
Summon Wisp Prof. 50% Consume 100 mana to summon a wisp. Summoning is twice as mentally taxing. Requires small mana drain to keep wisp active, with no focus required.
The power and efficiency would go up as proficiency increased. These were just the very basic techniques for aura and summoning magic, and so they were weak. Wisps manifested as glowing spheres that couldn’t cast spells or possess constructs, only able to ram enemies with weak physical force.
There was a reason most mages chose [Elemental Magic] after all… it had larger offensive capabilities at the early levels. Crowd control was more valuable for me, however.
I didn’t let it get to me, as my focus had always been [Illusion Magic]. I’d stayed up many sleepless nights trying to learn some of the techniques from The Intricacies of Illusion Magic, and after an entire 500 hours I’d acquired a first cycle mastery of three techniques:
Light Illusion Prof. 50% Alter light in your surroundings. Proficiency greatly increases the ability to form complicated structures for the same mana and mental focus expense.
Aura Masking Prof. 50% Hide aura from [Aura Sense]. Consumes (aura) mana per hour. Effectiveness of the masking determined by proficiency and skill levels.
Mana Masking Prof. 50% Hide mana from [Mana Sense]. Consumes (mana) mana per hour. Effectiveness of the masking determined by proficiency and skill levels.
To be frank, I was betting everything on them. They were my trump cards, and I’d rather have them than leveling a few skills to level eight.
I’d been forced to tell the empire most of my skill levels. They had set a minimum requirement of training, and if the skills I reported didn’t match then Instructor Griff would beat me up. While I hid the skills I’d kept secret, like [Deception Lv. 4] or [Illusion Magic Lv. 7], I didn’t have the leeway to hide levels from my already public skills.
I could tell my buffer was diminishing quickly. More often, our morning teacher Peter would ask me pointed questions about my skill. It was getting to the point where I had to give pseudo-truths and hope my [Deception Lv. 4] held up.
Once, he’d asked me what my exact skill description was. I’d replied, “My skill description tells me that I am unlimited,” which wasn’t an answer, so I quickly deflected the conversation. Thankfully, he didn’t push further.
What was more concerning were the tests of skill they put upon me. Sometimes I’d spar with our instructors, and I’d do my best to seem stronger than I was by pretending I hadn’t used up all my energy pools at the end of them. I didn’t think it worked. Luckily, they seemed to believe my skill simply had more abilities that would reveal themselves over time. I don’t think the emperor even considered that I was lying; he likely had powerful [Charm] and [Lie Detection] skills, after all.
Still, they were getting fed up with my weakness and requests for more time. That led to my current situation.
One day, Aura Instructor Griff had gathered all of us heroes for a talk. “I’ve been training you for half a year. You heroes are now ready to put it to use,” he said in his rough voice. I instantly went into denial. Not now, not yet, I’m not ready, I pleaded.
“I still want a few more levels, though,” Vijay frowned. “I don’t have enough mana to maximize my potential yet.”
“You’ll have to learn on the field. Me and that Casteliano prude will be right there with you chicks. With an aura master and master mage to protect you, there’s nothing you have to worry about.”
An aura user or mage was only given the designation ‘master’ once they had a level sixteen skill in their field. A level sixteen skill took 66,000 hours- our instructors were monsters, approaching the limit of human strength. It gave me some comfort, but there was a reason heroes needed to be summoned.
“Did something happen?” I asked.
A shadow crossed over Griff’s face. “Our first defensive line has been breached by the demon king.” He quickly put on a smile. “It’s okay, though. As long as we help a little bit the army will recover.”
That was bad. Like, really bad. While there were technically three defensive lines, the first was the main defense. It consisted of the strongest soldiers and veterans, taking advantage of natural formations like rivers and hills to stop any demons from crossing.
The second defensive line only had younger soldiers and some conscripts who’d finished a year of rapid training. Behind the first line, it had to cover a longer distance, resulting in a much flimsier defense. Its main purpose was to send support to the first line, as well as deal with the few demons that slipped past the first defense. It was not going to hold up to a proper demon army.
The third defensive line barely needed mention. It was just a scattered line of training camps where farmer conscripts were desperately being trained in mass.
The Castelo empire currently had the history of four demon kings. The first century demon king, the Demon Overlord, had wiped out most of civilization and destroyed all prior historical records. Four demon kings had been seen since, and they followed a general pattern.
First, they would build up a small army from corrupting demons. Then, they’d send that army to delay the marshalling human forces while the demon king itself attacked nearby towns. The demon king would corrupt the humans living there, turning them into devils. Devils had the ability to assist the demon king in creating demons, quickly bolstering the size of the demon forces.
Once the demon king had built up enough devils and demons, it’d launch an offensive. While the demon king sometimes had the mobility to break through defensive lines alone, that would separate them from their demon army, something they were reluctant to do.
Heroes existed, after all.
Therefore, the first defensive line usually only fought demons and a few devils attempting to get behind enemy lines. Once the demon king attacked… that meant everything was about to crumble.
If Lily, Gyeong, and Vijay didn’t reinforce the second defensive line, the demon army would gather unstoppable momentum, overtaking huge swathes of land that would be used to create more demons.
Everyone else understood this, having been taught during classes. Even Lily put on a serious face.
“Of course we’ll go,” she declared righteously.
“Should’ve just led with that,” Vijay grumbled.
“Un,” Gyeong nodded.
I was faced with a dilemma. The demon king fight was approaching, and to be held back I’d need to convince the empire that I was better held back. My best bet would be claiming that my [Unlimited] skill that would make stronger as time passed, so if the demon king was way too strong and killed the heroes I’d be able to guarantee the demon king didn’t control the world for decades like the Demon Overlord Praetrix.
However, I’d already implied my hero skill did that, and the empire still wanted me to go. I’d likely have to give more concrete evidence that letting me stay would be the best decision. If lie detection skills really existed, that might spell my ruin.
The other options were to try and flee or to simply accompany the heroes. I’d pilfered preserved food, coins, and clothing over the past six months, and perhaps I could find an opportunity tonight or on the road to escape.
Or, I could just stay with the heroes. They all had overpowered skills, so despite being thrown against strong demons they might be able to keep me safe.
“We leave tomorrow,” Griff said with an air of finality.