Chapter 72: Devil HuntAfter the princess took me to the hill, I could still feel the pain from the strange shadowy projectile that hit my back, burning me from the inside.

    As I contorted in pain on the ground, Melina deduced that the spell’s effect was to cause me indefinite pain until I died from it, like a torture spell.

    She quickly pulled out a "holy panacea" from her void pocket and poured it on my bloody back. Slowly, the pain dissipated, and my body was freed from the tension of the torture spell.

    I couldn’t see the injury, but from what Melina described, it seemed like it would leave a scar.

    A minute after, Vespera arrived with Yoru to check on me.

    I was lying on the ground with my face down to show the injury to the group while trying to look at their expression from the side of my eye.

    Melina and Yoru seemed worried, but Vespera looked annoyed more than anything.

    "Sorry, I messed up the poncho..." I said to my companion, who clenched her fists tightly.

    "Ichiro... without the poncho, I think the projectile would have gone through you..." she said with a sad tone.

    I knew that the magic poncho Vespera made for us had a protection enchantment that she said would be extremely hard to break.

    "I see. Then I should be thanking you..." I said. The way I saw it, she had saved my life by giving me that poncho.

    Vespera clenched her teeth as she slowly kneeled on the ground before taking the poncho off me.

    "I’ll repair it tonight..." she said while hanging the burned shawl on her shoulder.

    "Guys... What was that thing anyways?" asked Melina.

    We had been so focused on killing the Kraken and surviving that I almost completely forgot about the mysterious shade that shot the projectile at me.

    As Vespera inspected the burns in my cloak, she turned to us with a severe expression.

    "All this residue... It’s demonic energy." Vespera said as she explained that only a devil could be powerful enough to burn through her poncho with a single projectile.

    "Could that be the devil that was infusing their energy into the Kraken?" I asked as I slowly sat up.

    "It’s the only thing that comes to mind. They saw their beast in trouble and tried to give it a hand from the sidelines..." Vespera answered.

    "Sh-should we be letting that thing go, then?" the princess asked.

    "If we fight a devil right now, there is no guarantee that we can all survive. We just fought a powerful S-ranked monster, so our MP is quite depleted. Besides, if Ichiro gets hit with a spell like that without the poncho..." Vespera stopped explaining, as everyone in the group knew what she meant.

    "Let’s discuss it in town," I said, slowly standing up with the help of the princess who held me from under the shoulder.

    __________

    Once we returned, the people in town were celebrating the victory against the Kraken when they saw us arrive from the hill.

    Harvey and his knights ran up to us first, asking about our wellbeings. After, Commander Valentina approached us with the same inquiries.

    I told everyone I felt fine and I just needed to rest. However, I wanted to warn them about the danger lurking in the hills outside of the town.

    As the rest of the city celebrated, our group made their way to the inn, which was empty since everyone was out in the streets.

    Entering the building, I glanced at Commander Garret, who seemed to be the only one in town with a defeated expression as he stared at our group from afar.

    ’He must have noticed the difference between them and my knights...’ I thought.

    The group sat down around a table. Vespera pulled out the burnt poncho and used her "master weaver" skill to repair it while we discussed the events.

    We explained to the commanders that the thing that attacked me was most likely a devil.

    Of course, we weren’t entirely sure about it since we hadn’t faced the thing, but Vespera had found traces of demonic energy, which coincided with the same energy that emanated from the Kraken.

    Harvey stood up, saying he was going to send a letter asking for reinforcements from the 4th, while Valentina said they should put the town in a state of emergency until we got the devil.

    "I don’t think we should put the town in another state of emergency. At least not now..." I said, explaining to the commanders that even if we went out looking for the devil at that moment, we wouldn’t be strong enough to face it.

    "So, what should we wait for!?" Valentina asked while slamming the table with frustration.

    Before I could respond to her, Vespera spoke up. "You have to wait for me to enchant all your armors," she said, glaring at the commander.

    We explained to the knights that the magic the devil used was not something that we could easily protect from.

    Telling them how our ponchos worked, they understood that even as feeble and comfortable as they looked, they gave us more protection against monsters than a knight’s standard armor.

    Harvey and his two other knights already had a few enchantments that Vespera infused before our fight with the Kraken, but now she needed to reinforce them.

    "I’ll add a new protection enchantment. Something that can hold off demonic energy spells..." said Vespera while focused on repairing my poncho.

    Her hand glowed as the fabric strains came out of her fingertips, enchanting the thread as she weaved it.

    "Anyone who is going out to look for the demon with us should leave their armors here for today," I said.

    Valentina stood up, saying she would make a small group from the 7th order and bring their gear in a few minutes.

    Harvey and the other knights complied instantly and took off their gear, leaving it on the table next to us.

    "I’ll send the letter to Commander Thomas to let him know of the situation," Harvey said before leaving the inn and making his way to the barracks.

    That night, the princess and I stayed with Vespera, trying to understand her intricate enchantments to see if we could help her by lowering her workload. However, it proved to be more complicated than we thought.

    Vespera was over 650 years old, so her understanding of magic transcended what we could do. She could feel the difference between magic and the traces of past spells to determine who or where the spell had come from.

    While I was able to detect surges of power, I was not at the level where I could identify all the different types and their sources.

    The enchantments I had done were always somewhat simple, although I had never realized it until I saw what my companion could do.

    The following day, we woke up and found Vespera sleeping on her chair. In front of her, all of the knights’ armor and our ponchos were fully enchanted.

    "She must have gotten exhausted after using all that MP to enchant all this stuff..." I said to Melina as we both inspected the pile of armor.

    A few minutes later, the group of knights that wanted to hunt for the devil came to the inn. Valentina had brought a group of four, and Harvey arrived with his two buddies.

    "Huh, I thought you were going to notify Garret of the devil..." I said.

    "Well, we did..." responded Harvey before telling me that they had explained the situation to Commander Garret, but he had decided not to send any knights to pursue the devil.

    I sighed. "Well, it’s a good thing I wasn’t expecting his help anyways," I muttered before giving the knights their enchanted armor.

    I told Valentina that their team wouldn’t have much use for the gravity enchantment.

    It was meant to make the user levitate so that they could focus on using only air magic to accelerate. However, the knights of the 7th magic proficiency were still at the level where they had to chant an entire ten-second prayer for something to materialize.

    The best Vespera could do for them was give them the protection enchantments so they could have a better chance of surviving an attack from the devil.

    Once everyone was ready, we all left the town to look for any clues we could find.

    The knights of the 7th went through the main gate to check the city’s outskirts, Harvey and his knights flew to the hill where the princess had taken me after the fight, and Melina and I traveled to the hill where we saw the shadowy figure appear the first time.

    We found a burn mark on the ground, clearly visible as the small patch of grass had been vaporized while the surroundings were still green. Sear?h the N??elFirё.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    "This must be the spot where they shot their projectile..." I said as I kneeled to inspect the burnt ground.

    Just as my hand made contact with the ground, an eerie and intimidating pressure fell upon us. A feeling that I could only describe as someone trying to instill fear inside me forcefully.