Chapter 18 | The Assassin Smokes Out the Enemy
We continued through the town, searching for the demon. It, too, was likely scouring the area for the people who’d burned its carnivorous forest.
To remain undetected, I was using a wind spell to send the carbon dioxide we exhaled into the sky, which kept the plants from noticing us. The demon likely shared the monsters’ senses, so it was probably usually aware of everything happening in this settlement.
This gave us the upper hand. Regular humans wouldn’t have been able to evade being attacked by the trees. Hopefully, this demon was convinced we weren’t near the vegetation.
Creating a false sense of security was common for assassination work. If a camera, guards, or an attack dog gave a target enough peace of mind that they felt safe, it only made the killer’s job that much easier.
“Lord Lugh, how are we going to find the demon?” Tarte asked.
“I’m probing the entire town using a wind spell. If I prove unable to find it, then I’ll smoke it out using something a little less elegant.”
The three of us continued to weave around the plants, remaining vigilant of our surroundings as we explored the town. As we went along, I dropped some things here and there.
It took about two hours to pace around the entire settlement. Whether fortunate or not, we didn’t so much as catch a glimpse of a demon.
“We’re back to where we started. Guess that means it’s time for the dirtier method,” I stated.
“Does it have something to do with those things you kept dropping?” Dia asked.
“Yes. Those are special Fahr Stones.”
I’d scattered them throughout the town as we walked around it. The twenty-two pieces were all specialized for combustion, and I’d positioned them as effectively as possible.
Tarte turned to me with her head cocked to one side. “Um, Lord Lugh. Fahr Stones only blow up if you fill them with mana to their critical point, so just leaving them on the ground wouldn’t do anything, right?”
“Typically, yes. These ones are ready for detonation, however. I cast a spell on them that Dia and I developed. It causes the stones to absorb natural mana in the atmosphere. By adjusting the strength of that intake, I control when they reach their maximum capacity. Functionally, they are time bombs. Those twenty-two Fahr Stones are set to explode simultaneously.”
“But every one of them has incredible power. How bad is it going to be if that many go off at the same time?” Tarte asked.
“It will burn the entire town to the ground. That’s my plan.”
Had there been any survivors, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. Yet, given how overrun the settlement was, there was no way anyone was still alive. I’d also received permission from the government to take whatever measures I needed to kill the demon. Razing an entire town was fine.
“Lugh, what are you doing this for? Killing demons is pointless if you don’t use Demonkiller. Those tree monsters are definitely irritating and dangerous, but this feels like a waste of Fahr Stones,” Dia said.
“It’s for harassment. You saw how those plant monsters eat people, convert them into mana, and store it. The demon seized the entire town because it needs a large amount of magical power for something. It’s also possible its goal is simply to produce more tree monsters and build up an army. The demon won’t take kindly to all its hard work being destroyed. Since we couldn’t find it, I’m going to force it out by pissing it off.”
As I explained, the three of us ventured back out beyond the limits of the settlement. We’d perish if we were caught in the blast. What’s more, it’d be easier to spot the demon from a distant point.
I dug a relatively deep makeshift trench dozens of meters from the nearest carnivorous tree, and we hid within it. Then I pulled out a special telescope that enabled me to see the town even from inside the ditch.
“By my calculation, it will start in one minute,” I stated.
While there was some room for error depending on the thickness of the natural ambient mana, the most I’d be off was ten seconds. The Fahr Stones were likely already beginning to crack.
I was destroying an entire town simply to eradicate the army of vegetation and store of mana the demon had built up. Even the most mild-mannered creature in the world would get angry at such a development. A furious target was less likely to make intelligent decisions, so enraging your opponent gave you the upper hand.
“Here we go.”
Despite our distance, I could feel the overwhelming and powerful rise in mana.
“Do not lift your heads out of this trench. I’ve placed a wind barrier over it to keep out the heat and fire, but if you poke beyond it even slightly, you will die,” I cautioned.
Even disregarding the flames, this was liable to be a massive explosion, depleting all the oxygen in the area. One breath of that kind of air would spell our demise.
“Y-yes, my lord.”
“Got it.”
Tarte clung to me out of fear. Upon seeing that, Dia did the same.
A few seconds later, the world became a torrent of swirling crimson. Fire coursed over the trench like water.
An explosion wrought from twenty-two Fahr Stones, the mana of six thousand and six hundred regular mages, painted the world itself red.
The flames spared nothing, consuming as they grew, causing everything in their wake to vanish as if it never existed in the first place.
I’d filled the Fahr Stones with wind mana to supply oxygen, but even that was burned up in an instant. The next moment, the lack of air in the town created a vacuum with waves of such overwhelming force that even the stone buildings crumbled.
It was like a scene out of a nightmare. We would have been blasted away if we hadn’t been in the ditch.
Once it all ended, I took a peek outside using my telescope. The girls both still seemed scared of poking their heads out.
“The town is gone,” I said.
“…I’ve never heard of a single mage doing anything like this. You didn’t just destroy an entire town; you made it disappear completely,” Dia marveled.
An entire town had been wiped off the map entirely. All that remained now was vacant land. This was what could be accomplished with the efficient use of twenty-two Fahr Stones.
“So, Lugh. If you felt like it, could you do the same thing to the royal capital?” asked Dia.
“Yes. All I would have to do is sneak into the capital, place Fahr Stones in the proper locations, and escape before they blew up. It wouldn’t even be hard. So don’t tell anyone I am capable of this. I’ll be considered a dangerous person.”
I intended to pin this devastation on the demon. The government did tell me I could do whatever I wanted, but I couldn’t be sure how they’d react to knowing I had caused this.
“Yeah, you’d probably be scarier than a demon to those in charge. It’s good there was no lookout assigned this time,” Dia remarked.
“If there had been, I would have used a different method.”
From a politician’s perspective, a human who could make an entire town disappear in a matter of hours was only to be feared. So long as the threat of demons remained, I’d be allowed to live, but once they were gone, those in control would want me dead. Should I ever lose my mind, get bought out by a foreign power, or desire to rule the kingdom myself, then Alvan was finished.
Obviously, I wasn’t planning on destroying the country, but the mere fact that I could was dangerous. Removing a threat like me before anything happened was just proactive thinking.
The same could be said of Epona once she killed the Demon King, too. If I really wanted to save the world without killing her, then I had to find a way to remove her power. I had discovered a method that allowed other people to kill demons, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
“I wonder if the demon is still alive,” mused Dia.
“It probably did die, but it will revive. All right, let’s see how the demon reacts. I’m not sure what to do if it stays in hiding. Perhaps it will go on to try the same thing with the trees in another town. If so, we’ll need to keep blowing them up until it loses patience. I’d prefer not to do that, though.”
Carefully, I sneaked a glance at things outside the ditch, looking for movement in what used to be the settlement. The game now was finding the enemy before it discovered us. Patience was key.
I only had to wait two or three minutes.
Another blast roared from the center of the former town. Even as far away as we were, Dia, Tarte, and I felt the tremor.
“GAAAAAAAHHHHH, HUMAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS! YOU DESTROYED IT! YOU DESTROYED THE FOREST I WORKED SO HARD ONNNNNNNN! I ONLY NEEDED A LITTLE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! I’LL KILL YOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!”
The demon was furious, screaming and thrashing about.
He was humanoid in shape but sported a black horn and green carapace reminiscent of a rhinoceros beetle. The massive and sharp carapace on the upper half of his body made him look incredibly aggressive.
I’d expected the demon to resemble a plant because of his connection to the carnivorous forest, but he looked more like a cross between a man and an insect.
He possessed massive defense, strength, and speed. Fighting this creature was going to be annoying.
However, I’d won the first battle already. I found him, and he still had no idea where we were. That made things simpler—all we had to do was kill him.
“Dia, Tarte. On my signal, approach the demon from the front. I’m going to circle around him,” I instructed.
“So we’re going with that plan.”
“I will protect Lady Dia!”
Dia would spread the field needed to kill the demon while Tarte protected her. I was to deliver the killing blow from out of sight. Working as a team gave us the best chance of success.
This was going to be the demon-killing field’s first real test. That went for the spell I was going to use to slay him, too. Still, I wasn’t worried at all. There was no one the three of us couldn’t assassinate. That was how deeply I trusted Tarte and Dia.
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