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–––Luvias’ viewpoint

We succeeded in getting inside the palace. Now we had to figure out who the demons were, so that when the time came we could instantly kill them. Master had entrusted this task to us, so I could not let her down. I was trying my best thinking that, but Diaria chastised me.

“Luvias, I get what you’re thinking, but if you glare like that anyone will get afraid and not just the demons.”
“…I thought I was behaving naturally.”

Somehow my eyes had gotten so sharp that anyone got scared just looking at me. Until then I had tried to greet anyone we passed by, including the maids, but they all would twitch a bit hearing me and then walk backwards away from me. I had not realized my own look was the cause of that.

But in my defense, I had been raised as royalty for most of my life, so I had little experience talking with others in a normal way. Because of my position I had always gotten a response when I needed it. I had no experience trying to talk normally with someone and casually ask some questions to obtain information. I was fully aware that in my party I had the worst communication skills. Master was leagues ahead of me, considering she worked daily as a receptionist.

I tried suggesting we swap roles this once then, and have Diaria ask all the questions, but she insisted it was my job.

“I’ve lived like a commoner for most of my life, so I have no need to learn this. But there’s still a lot you could learn, so if you keep trying here I’m sure it’ll become a valuable experience. Lapis also expects you to do better.”
“Are…are you sure? Are you really sure?”
“Yup yup, I’m certain of it.”
“…are you really though?”

While I felt uncomfortable, even after being told all of that, I had no choice but to keep trying. In the end I managed to accomplish nothing except terrorizing most of the maids, but somehow that still produced unexpected results.

“You managed to figure out which ones were demons?”
“Yup. All thanks to you.”

Diaria acted like it was nothing special, but I still could only stay with my mouth agape. When had she done that? Had she somehow spoken to the maids without me noticing? But that was impossible, she had been by my side the entire time, and we were staying in the same room too. I thought maybe she had investigated at night while I was asleep, but most of the maids would also be sleeping then. If we had a month or two to investigate I could see her doing that, but not in three days. Or did she have some skills I did not know about? She forced a smile seeing how hard I was thinking about it, and then revealed her big secret.

“It was really easy. I just marked those who weren’t trembling when talking to you.”
“…Huh?”

I felt like my brain froze. Trembling? There were maids who were scared of me?

“Normally the maids reacted by trembling when you approached them, so those who acted normally or smiled looked out of place, right? And one of them looked exactly like the one Lapis described, so I know who they are.”
“…I see.”

I still was not fully convinced, but I felt like I would just hurt myself emotionally if I pried too much, so I decided to stop thinking about it.

–––Diaria’s viewpoint

I barely had any time to rest after entering the palace. I was always paranoid of things slipped into my food, or wondering if I would get attacked while I slept. I really found it hard to trust the people around us. Every night we had dinner with the king, and I felt like he was getting less tactful with each passing night. Last night he went from asking us to go into the Haunted Lands to pretty much ordering us to do it.

At first I felt bad for him knowing he was being manipulated by demons, but seeing his change in attitude was starting to piss me off and I wanted to say a thing or two back. But Luvias was in charge of dealing with the king, and if I said something without thinking I could make things worse. To avoid messing things up, I only focused on stuffing my stomach while around him. Everyone has their strong and weak points, and food was definitely not one of mine, and I certainly was not trying to escape my responsibilities.

Luvias danced around the king’s desires, constantly giving non-committal answers, until the night of the third day, so a few moments ago. Now things would change since it was the time we agreed on with Lapis. Eight o’clock on the third night.

I saw what looked like columns of light rising from all parts of the city, which grew taller and began converging atop the center of the city, quickly creating a dome of light covering everything. Seeing that from the window, I turned around towards Luvias.

“Luvias!”
“Yeah, it’s finally time. Let’s proceed as planned.”
“Alright, good luck on your side!”
“You too! Don’t push yourself too hard!”

There were two demons inside the palace, and we were two too. We decided each of us would take care of one demon. We had planned our every move beforehand, first taking out the two knights keeping watch in front of our door with a surprise attack, then running on separate ways to find our targets. We had to hurry to do it in time!

“Are we going to be fine though? Fighting one on one against demons…”

I had trained and become much stronger lately, but I was still the best when fighting from afar with my bow, so fighting directly in a closed space against a demon made me feel unsure. Still, it was too late to go back so I moved ahead.

–––Bandit’s viewpoint

“It’s finally time. The holy magic spell was cast successfully it seems.”
“We’re ready too, Bandit.”
“Alright! Let’s go wild then!”

Our party left the inn and we jumped on the roof, running towards a tall bell tower of a temple nearby. We had been unable to find any traces of demons during the three days, so we decided we would go there to have a better vantage point and spot any places of unrest when the time came. From that tall tower we could see almost the entire city at a glance, so we would know if anything happened, and from the looks of it, there were multiple fights happening already all over the city.

“The most violent ones are probably Lapis and Annero’s fight, which means…”
“We take care of the rest.”
“Let’s make sure the priests and spies are safe.”

My sisters followed me. The other heroes’ parties were all strong enough to fend for themselves, so my sisters and I would protect the weaker ones. We had to get rid of all the demons before any of them got hurt.

“Let’s go!”
“Yeah!”
“We can do this!”

We jumped off the bell tower and rushed to the nearest fight.

–––Annero’s viewpoint

A bit before it was time we went to the place where most of the suspected demon attacks had happened. The place did seem to be a popular one, devoid of homeless people or even stray animals, but I could feel multiple blood thirsty stares focusing on us. Whoever was there clearly saw us as enemies.

“I can feel around…ten of them?”
“It appears so. They’re keeping themselves hidden pretty well, so keep your guard up, they’re probably strong.”

After my comment while looking around, Sweelen also concurred. I could feel the murderous stares getting more intense, moving to surround us. Once I gripped my weapon ready, it became even clearer, I knew they were about to attack. And then…holy light covered the entire city. I could tell it had an effect on the enemies surrounding us, disturbing them, so we charged towards them using that opening. It was time to fight.