The Best Assassin 69 – The assassin investigates
A demon had appeared. This would be my first job as a holy knight.
I was headed to the incident site with Tarte and Dia.
…And I was right, horse-drawn carriages were too slow.
I should make an archaic automobile or something for next time.
I was capable of building a vehicle like that.
The only problem was how to drive on rough roads.
I’d have to think about it later.
[This will be our first mission. I am determined to make it a success.] (Tarte)
[I feel the same. Just keep in mind that if the demon-slaying barrier fails, it will immediately be our loss. If that happens, we make a run for it.] (Lugh)
Only a hero could kill demons.
That was the kind of creatures they were.
I created a magic spell that would alter that providence.
It was our only chance to win. If those odds were overturned, we’d be doomed.
If that time ever came, we’d retreat right away.
Of course, I wouldn’t just run back home empty-handed. I would at least investigate and bring back information about why it didn’t work.
[Ah, right! About that, I’ve become able to put up that barrier for thirty seconds.] (Dia)
[You mean it?] (Lugh)
[Aw come on, I can’t believe you’re doubting me. I’ll show you how I do it later.] (Dia)
Even if it was only for thirty seconds, the fact that someone other than me could use the demon-slaying technique was big news.
After all, when you used the demon-slaying barrier, the mana consumption was too intense, and your fighting power was greatly reduced.
If I could leave that task to Dia, then I could focus on attacking.
Besides, if I could entrust the role of deploying the demon-slaying field to her, then I could assassinate the demon instead of fighting them.
[You are amazing. I could not do it at all.] (Tarte)
[Tarte, you’ll be in charge of melee combat, and I’ll be in charge of magic. We all have our own specialties. I’m not gifted at everything like Lugh is. No matter how many push-ups I do, my arms are still so skinny.] (Dia)
Like she said, Dia did train her biceps, but her arms were far too thin. Also, both her arms looked soft and squishy.
She did work out, but she just couldn’t seem to build up strength in her arms.
[And you know, I’ve thoroughly read your demon-slaying formula, and I think we can make this demon-slaying barrier fly!] (Dia)
[Fly?] (Lugh)
Dia shaped her hands like a gun and shouted ‘Bang!’. That was cute.
[Yup. Right now, what your magic does is deploy a field around the spell caster, right? Well, we could send the compressed field flying like shooting a bullet, then in response to the impact, the field would expand itself. We could use it like that. Though the only drawback is that the duration of the effect would get shorter as a result. Maybe two seconds if I use it. Even for you, Lugh, I think the time limit would be ten seconds or so if you use it.] (Dia)
…I couldn’t even begin to imagine what sorts of modifications would be required to create such a formula.
But if Dia said she could figure this out, then she most likely could.
The reason why the duration of the effect would drop from thirty to two seconds was that unlike when you continuously emitted it from yourself, as long as it was released as a bullet, it was dependent on the amount of mana instantly released.
[I’ll leave it to you, then. There could be many ways to use this. Please complete it by the time we get there.] (Lugh)
[I’ll see what I can do. But don’t get your hopes up.] (Dia)
As soon as she said, that, Dia unfolded her documents and started some calculations.
Even though she told me not to get my hopes up, I still did.
In the meantime, I would think of a way to eliminate the demon in two seconds.
…Assassination had a much higher success rate.
However, the only problem was that there was too little information on the demon that appeared this time. The information provided by the government was too uncertain.
I couldn’t make any plan with this. We would have to compensate for the lack of information with what we could find on the scene.
Our carriage proceeded for a few days, then we reached our destination.
It was located on the border of the kingdom, close to the neighboring country, and it was a relatively large town among the provincial cities.
Thanks to the quality of its location, it had prospered as a trading center.
It was also known for its stone quarries, and its beautiful stone-built streets and buildings served as their famous tourist attraction.
That was the kind of city it was, but now…
[This feels like we are in a jungle.] (Tarte)
[There isn’t a single soul in sight.] (Dia)
The city was covered in greenery.
Ivy was entwined around the stone houses, and trees were standing in the middle of the road in a disorderly fashion.
And yet, there was no sign of life.
There were no animals either, not even a single insect.
We were gazing at this strangeness from the entrance of the city.
I reviewed the documents detailing what occurred here.
Apparently, there was only a single tree at first, then vegetation spread at a tremendous pace before engulfing everything.
Those who fled before the city was completely eroded by the green were saved.
But after the city was struck by the green erosion, none of those who were still here managed to leave. The army did come to rescue them, but even they never returned.
Then, I heard that they tried to burn down all the parasitic plants in the city together, but that failed too.
Those trees couldn’t be burned with average firepower, and even if they caught fire, they had strong regenerative abilities, making fire pretty much ineffective.
Their operation failed, and it was said that every soldier engaged in it was “eaten by the green”.
And when the incineration failed, I received the request stating that it was most likely the work of a demon.
[Say, Lugh. Are we really going in? If what they said about being eaten by the green is true, then the enemy will be everywhere around us.] (Dia)
[There’s something I must do before we enter the city. Tarte, Dia, stay behind me.] (Lugh)
…I made sure of one thing when I accepted that request.
Whether or not I needed to help the people trapped by that green erosion.
The reply I got was that there was no more hope for them, and that they didn’t care one bit what measures I took.
Which meant that I could be a little rough about it.
Of course, I wanted to help those I could help, and as many of them as possible.
However, I didn’t feel like rushing headfirst into this forest without even knowing its special characteristics, even if I knew that no one made it out of this place.
Therefore, I needed to conduct an experiment form the outside before we set foot in here.
[Dia, you can see it too, right? That these plants are one single being.] (Lugh)
[Yeah, they have mana in them, and it’s unsettling how they all have the same. This isn’t possible unless they’re all one entity.] (Dia)
[I’m of the same opinion. So I’m going to try a few things. You keep an eye on the flow of their mana.] (Lugh)
Experiment #1.
First, I threw a piece of meat warmed to human body temperature into the city.
However, there was no response.
Next, I released a livestock pig that I bought on our way here into the city.
When the pig entered the city and approached a tree, it screamed.
[*Squeeeeaaaaal*!] (Pig)
The pig was entangled by a vine that had grown out of nowhere, it was pierced by countless branches and squeezed like a lemon, leaving behind nothing but skin and bones.
[How nasty. Is this how the townsfolk disappeared?] (Lugh)
[I cannot believe those trees feed on living creatures… If there are such dangerous plants in the city, then all the citizens have already been devoured by them!] (Tarte)
Tarte covered her own mouth.
For fear that the trees would eat her.
And as she said, with this many of them in the city, there would be nobody left alive.
In that case, I could proceed to my second experiment without worry.
[Dia, how does it look with your eyes?] (Lugh)
Dia was watching closely, as I told her to.
With the Tuatha Dé eyes that she had acquired through surgery.
[When it ate the meat, its mana swelled up. It did so at a slow pace, probably because it was converting nutrients into mana.] (Dia)
In other words, we should assume that these trees were released by someone to accumulate mana.
[Okay, the first experiment went well. I figured out two things. Next.] (Lugh)
I threw a barrel filled with oil that I had prepared beforehand into the city.
It rolled and hit a tree that was standing there and blocking the street.
There was no response at that point.
Then I fired a flaming arrow at that barrel.
Said barrel cracked, causing the oil to be sprayed and ignited.
This oil was specially compounded for burning. A huge fire pillar was formed.
[I did hear about its strong regenerative powers, but I didn’t think it would be that potent.] (Lugh)
[Still, it’s just normal regeneration. I don’t think it’s the same as that outrageous restoration power that you said was unique to the demons. It uses a lot of mana, so it’s not immortal at all.] (Lugh)
It restored itself from the burning bits.
However, this was an enhancement and extension of the regenerative powers of trees.
After a while, the flames went out and the trees stood there as if nothing had happened.
[That was all I needed to know. For the next one, I’ll do it more flashily and burn it down.] (Lugh)
I took out a Fahr Stone from my pouch.
This Fahr Stone was also something I had prepared for today.
Normally, I filled them with fire mana, wind mana and earth mana in a certain ratio.
As a result, a large amount of wind was blown into flames, increasing the explosive power, and operating it as an extremely powerful bomb that scattered iron scraps.
This time, however, I only used fire mana and wind mana. It emphasized deflagration instead of explosion, and it was specialized in burning only.
This thing could create a purgatory that spread an ultra-high temperature over a wide area, which was incomparable to a mere oil-filled barrel.
After all, it contained mana equivalent to three hundred people’s worth.
I poured mana into the Fahr Stone, made it reach its critical point, then it began to crack.
That was when I threw it.
It exploded inside the city.
The roaring flames spread all at once, engulfing a whole corner of the city, and creating a scenery of purgatory.
[It’s scary, yet beautiful.] (Tarte)
Tarte stared into the flames with a dazed look on her face.
After the flames were extinguished, the trees in the center of the fire were burned to ashes, while the surrounding houses, barely intact thanks to being made of stone, were covered in black shadows.
The shadows were the remnants of the trees that were entwined around them.
[These things weren’t the demon themself, were they?] (Lugh)
[Yeah, it was probably something that was created with their powers.] (Dia)
What I suspected was that all these trees were actually part of the demon responsible for this.
But that wasn’t the case.
It was just a monster tree that possessed highly potent regenerative powers.
It had the property of exponentially growing in number, perhaps by transplanting itself.
Therefore, all of them were flowing with the same mana.
This fact was both a blessing and a hassle.
If the plants had been part of the demon, they would’ve regenerated indefinitely even if I burned them using super firepower, so I wouldn’t have been able to reduce their numbers in any way, but if they were just a monster with powerful regenerative abilities, then I could reduce their numbers.
The hassle was that if they were connected to the demon, I could’ve traced them back to find them, but since they weren’t, I had to look for that demon somewhere in this large city.
[Girls, let’s go into the city. Time to find the demon.] (Lugh)
[Yes, sir! But… isn’t that too dangerous?] (Tarte)
[She’s right. You burned a fairly large area, but the city is still full of dangerous trees.] (Dia)
[You’ll be fine. As long as you stay close to me, that is.] (Lugh)
I fearlessly proceeded, and Tarte and Dia anxiously stuck close to me.
When we entered the city, we weren’t attacked.
This was true even past the section I had burned down.
Even when we were getting close to them, the trees didn’t move a leaf.
[Just what does this mean exactly?] (Tarte)
[Lugh has been using magic for the past while now. Is this why?] (Dia)
[Exactly. I ran some experiments before entering the city, right? First of all, the trees didn’t react when I threw plain old meat at them. But when I sent in a pig next, they reacted. Trees have no eyes, so they didn’t rely on sight to find their prey. So I suspected that it was either vibration, heat, sound or breath. Regarding vibration and sound, I ruled them out because they didn’t notice when the piece of meat fell close to them. I also ruled out heat because I had warmed the meat to human body temperature. So that left only breath. And more specifically, the carbon dioxide we emit. That’s what they detect.] (Lugh)
The purpose of the first experiment was to find out how they located their prey.
And the answer I reached was the carbon dioxide that all living creatures exhaled.
[So that’s why you’ve been gathering the wind around us to send it flying upwards.] (Dia)
[Yeah, that way the trees won’t notice us even when we’re this close to them.] (Lugh)
I thinned my breath and let it fly to the sky.
With this level of magic, the automatic recovery of my mana would catch up without any problem.
If we had to search for a demon in this large city while being attacked by countless trees, we would be exhausted before we even got to fight them.
There was also the possibility that the trees were sharing their senses with the demon.
If we wanted to get a head start, we couldn’t afford to get into a fight with the trees.
First, we needed to find the enemy. The best way to do so was to find them before they noticed us.
That way, we could take the initiative.
We had to move on.
Fortunately, the trump cards I had prepared seemed to be very effective against the target of the hour.
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