6/17/25

The first air strike on American Soil by Americans. The first missile strike on American Soil by Americans. The first nuke on American Soil by Americans? That was effectively the thrust of an article in the news that I had to read.

Was the ‘alien invasion’ going to get bad enough that things would escalate to that final point, given that the writer seemed to distinguish between air strikes (which I was given to believe involved shooting missiles at targets) and missile strikes in a way that I wasn’t sure about. They seemed to believe that the escalation was inevitable despite the wording used at points.

Or at least I read it that way. I’m going to get to hear more answers later on, but it’s interesting to see the outside perspective that I’ve been trying to avoid so as to better keep my perspective. No need to get over-confidant because of the praise of people with no true idea of how this fight is going.

Surprisingly, despite the increased activity of the demons, the sheer surveillance and militarization of the world has kept things in check. Not so much that I’d call it a lucky victory for this world given the sheer willingness to throw away demons that the leader of this invasion has shown, but enough to make the demon’s win pyrrhicly costly if the demon is willing to throw away centuries of owed oaths and debts to get its final victory.

Of course, I don’t share this to the shadowy overlords of the defense or the obvious overlords of the defense. The first should already have some kind of plan/be unknowing dupes that master and I have escape plans for. The second don’t need the demoralization of knowing it isn’t their fight to win.

There was a demon battle today, but we weren’t involved. It was all air power because of how the demons forgot (or at least the previous ones didn’t share) the secrets of explosions and human air power.

Their attempt at base building was annihilated with no human losses for now. I will not take wagers on the likelyhood of losses when investigating and cleaning up the base. I should, however, have taken bets on the demons being less effective than the last free demon was.

6/18/25

New attack. Or at least new attempts at using this world’s technology. Unfortunately, the jet-like demons crashed into the ground with their attacks or weapons wholly unused. It seems that the warp-jumping does not favor fast moving creatures. It could still prove damaging to the world and morale, but only because a few dozen demons have spread themselves over a mile or so of ground.

And not all of the new demons’ form was soft and fleshy, though at those speeds even soft and fleshy could damage buildings. Just not as well as rigid, tough wings could. Well, at least I have some new nightmare to suffer under, should the demons make a good base. Demon jets. What new horror will they think of.

Well, at least I can rest knowing that I should probably be dead before seeing demon nukes or demon jets. (This is sarcasm, master. You’d be more convincing about not reading my writing or having this read to you, if you didn’t respond to my words verbatim.)

I wish I had time to get a camera in place inside either of the knight armors. The faces we made upon seeing the demons almost literally crash and burn would have been a delight to try and describe. Just feeling it settle on my face was interesting, as was the audio log.

Attempted audio log. I refuse to accept that any of the things I saw on the page were actual words or close to what I said. Not that I’m sure how to put the mix of “What the fuck,” “What was that,” laughter, and “What happened” that I made to page.

Just that the mix of sounds and vulgarity that was on the page is wrong.

6/19/25

My sneaking around had an unexpected bit of success. I got to see one of, perhaps even the, heads of this group, which is quickly getting a name promotion to the Earth Defense Force. I don’t think it’ll be a major upgrade in anything else, but I could be wrong. Certainly that old man isn’t going to let go of his position of secret control.

Unfortunately, I had to waste large amounts of folded shadow mana to hide in a tiny, tiny shadow. Since master is trying to get around on technicalities, for whoever reads this to her, this is a short comparison of things more pleasant than hiding in that.

Testicular torsion. Having nails cutting into your back. I am trying to think of an alliterative bit of pain involving female parts and failing, but if you, reading this, are female, come up with one. The point is that it’s quite painful, but not dangerous as long as things don’t get any closer.

Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize the old man, nor did his underling refer to him as anything more identifiable than Mister Boss. I suppose there are blander, less information filled ways of -

No. Not going to spend time bitching about how this isn’t going to be easy before I even wake master and tell her about this find.

We can do that together and work on finding him later. Of course, we’ll keep those records elsewhere. Somewhere that we’re going to have to make.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

If our planning ends soon enough, I’ll write more. Can’t get too distracted.

It ended, but I ended up tired thanks to our guest. No more serious writing tonight.

/6/20/25

Too tired to correct mistake at top. Too tired to bitch about demon fight. Somebody, though, wants those demon jets to succeed. Even though they mostly won the fight for us. I just couldn’t manage to get to sleep inside the knight armor so I think this has been 30 something hours without sleep so far.

So happy that the fight was mostly ended by the jets. I just had to do some fighting and then get held in place again by demon bombs.

I want to sleep. My arms hurt.

6/21/25

I finally got to sleep. Not in the knight armor, because the rush of its heart wasn’t going to let me sleep. But in a medical cot. Apparently there was something interesting that showed up during the fight and I wasn’t awake enough to know and right now all the information is off being crunched so nobody else knows but the completely unavailable doctor.

I have my suspicions, but also see no need to share them. Master, you’re going to have heard them by the time you have the lady Madorra read this to you. She will have heard them. So why I am going to put them here when you’re going to know?

Why are you going to look for them when you’re going to know?

Okay, enough bitching. I have to go out and get materials. Master you will know.

Surprisingly, Master went and read directly this time. I don’t think she believed that I have nothing on this as security. There’s only three people that can read this that I know of, the language is the security.

The place’s security from theft was the actual security against being taken, and my studies into what kind of crime happens locally was my defense against the secretive old man or his equals taking the thing to study.

In short, they’d have to take too much to get this and thus it would have stood out too much. Plus I do have ways of tracking it that Master Alissa graciously shared with me early on in my learning with her.

From there, a shadow thing could be made to retrieve it or its shreds and impede the study. I mean, no way that this is getting digital copies made that will then end up stored at any place but secure ones.

Possibly even not anywhere else but there on site. The secrecy of the hidden masters is also a weakness.

6/22/25

Copying from the new journal that is all the damned post-it notes I had to write on during the warm-up to the attack today. Well, no, on second thought. Most of that writing was off the cuff curses that I don’t want to do just yet and want to drain of any magic I had moved into them while I was in the Chevalier. But I did use the long-ass wait to have information relayed to me, so I want to spend time congratulating the EU and Canada defenders.

From the sounds of what to relayed to me, you guys got to have most of the enemies bounced your way as this side of the triangle was used as a secondary launching point. I think this is the first time they got to see the jet demons in ‘action’ as this new method is only slightly better than the one before. The demons don’t crash into the ground, they climb until they stall and splat to ground, or end up escaping the surly bonds of the Earth never to bother humanity again.

Unless one is unlucky enough to hit an important satellite. Then they’re going to bother humanity just once more.

So a very good job at not being distracted by the hilarious failure and meeting the invaders head-on as soon as ones that you actually needed to care about showed up. We had two, ostensibly made to counter the Chevalier and Natal as I piloted them. Master does much better in the magical gun having Natal, so that light barrier did nothing. (Also I think she just wanted to try out the normal guns and used those ones. Either way, the light barrier was useless.)

Two on one, we gutted the other easily enough with shot and sword. Bullet and blade. Next time there will even be a new knight armor for me to try out.

Well, probably not given the rapidity of the strikes, but soon. Or at least we’re going to get a new partner in on the secret.

Either will be good. We can stop having a few army deaths because a demon decided to get cute and show off their ability to cause death and suffering at a distance.

Now if only I could find the thing’s name. It’s very lean, and basically supposed to be some kind of kicking-cannonball kind of thing since the demons have started showing up just a bit outside of the respective US, EU, and Canada towns and here it just so happens that nothing they weren’t already ruining by dying there was out where the demons were appearing.

So spiked cannon-ball into them, knight armor whose name I couldn’t find. And if they are too low or look like they can catch, kick them with your bladed shins.

It is a hilarious idea and I so hope it works with somebody else. I want to witness this live, not experience it and see it through replay.

6/23/25

I found out that, through wordplay, the new knight armor’s name is Nameless. I feel this verges on sacrilege, despite the creation being a purely secular thing. Even with as silly a way of fighting as this one was given, you don’t make something this impressive and then call it Nameless. That’s just asking for bad luck with it breaking down.

Well, still, I’m hoping for it to come on in with a new pilot. That is either going to be a literal last second choice, or is going to happen after the thing has had a few rounds under its non-existent belt. Either way, fewer deaths is always going to be good and we can do a small blessing for a team of three that’s better than what I did before.

Same ‘ritual’ because I’ve done enough work in establishing that pretext that I’m going to keep it because I’m supposed to keep it, but Alissa’s help can work more in, as will the folded and seached mana.

Forgot to mention last time, but master managed a much better work because of the cash I was able to bring and her own charming personality when she feels like it. You can’t really argue that you prefer to be blunt unless you really need to otherwise.

And this setup was a wonderful, wonderful case of otherwise. Make no mistake, it’s just wonderful. You’re just being drunk and loud now, and I need to remind you of something to be quiet. So hopefully you’re going to get up and read this once I leave to relieve myself in the bathroom. Possibly a few times or ways if drunken mastery is dangerous.

So far, still good, and the celebration has wound down. I’m going to rest now, and hope to wake up early to just about anything but a new demon attack.