Chapter 103: Battle at the Forest

As the prince continues to obey the orders of his brother while also plotting the destruction of the King's "hard-earned" relations with his neighbor, a man in a mask is transversing the forest adjacent to the City of Heimdal, the man has a grey colored skin as his mask has six holes in the eye area that cannot even reflect a sliver of the moon's shimmer, evidently, the man phasing through the shadows created by the dim light is already not alive.

Kabuto, with his usual stern look, did not bother to stop or do anything in passing, his mission was very clear, it was to look for the place that Prince Noir frequents every other day and break the spell that muddles the senses in that certain patch of trees, after which, dispatch the one who created such illusion. Of course, such orders are simple and seemingly not very strange, after all, he is a subordinate and needs to ease up the small things his Queen need not to bother herself to do.

But still, Kabuto cannot help but think of such a mission as strange, after all, Kabuto might be the least proficient soldier in the Queendom that wields magic, however despite that, his Queen Sophia still gave the command to him and not Eleanor or Bakunawa that has a better understanding in the ways of a mage than him.

_This mission feels like it can fail and be moved to another day with how I was assigned to this. Also, My Lady stopped me from doing anything nor did she do something after I discovered the patch of trees, how strange..._

Kabuto frowned as he continued to slowly phase around, not wanting to think such defiant conjectures, however, he still could not help but look at the paper given to him by Sophia. Upon doing so, he continued to venture deeper into the forest in the veil of the night.

_____

Deep North in the Forest of Heimdall, in a certain large patch of trees, a man seemingly in his late 20s was sitting on a tree branch, his face wearing a rather carefree smile, strangely enough, such expression complements the swallowtail tuxedo he is wearing. No one knew why is the man wearing a tuxedo in the middle of a forest nor would anyone have any opportunity to talk to him, after all, he was one of the handpicked subordinates of Hebi, a centerpiece to her plans for the theft she is attempting.

The man named Flou swung his feet up and down, not afraid of falling from the tree as he fixed his black silky hair that was constantly being ruined by the wind created by the ruffling leaves, he fixed it the first time, the second, the third and after that, he gave up like always with a click of his tongue.

_The operation is going smoothly, but Sophia's motives remain unknown and the only thing master Hebi knows is that Sophia is delaying her investigation for some reason._

Flou remembered the conversation between him and his master over the communication crystal, at that time, he reported his progress over their arrangement towards the only prince of Gjallarhorn, Noire Gjallarhorn, all in all, because of the prince's natural cowardice that stems from being in the shadow of his splendid brother, he was easily controlled and already started to create a crack by attacking the other Queen of Kamatayan, Eleanor, of course this matter was instigated by Flou but was concealed by him when he gave a letter to the prince.

In short, everything is going according to plan, if not for the fact that the Queen of the great forest of the god of the undead is moving at a pace that is slower than how she should (and could) move, of course they did not dare underestimate the fallen hero and just intended to sweep the gem faster that she can, but they never thought that the person they were instructed to be wary the most will purposely restrain herself from stopping her opponent's plans.

_It's hard to fight a person who can stop us in our tracks without even getting out of her bed._

Just as he was thinking of that, he suddenly felt his eyes sting, the sting just lasted for a moment, however, in his eyes surfaced an indiscernible shock as he looked upwards, if the pink bats use their voice to cast illusions, Flou, the one designated to brainwash the prince uses his eyes to do so, it was just like how the eyes of Noire is the source of his powers. Illusory and ethereal-looking shard of glass started to fall slowly from the sky, it was as if the shrapnels from a cannonball made out of glass exploded in front of him, and as he witnessed such a scene, the "master of illusion" of Hebi's core subordinates eyes shook, as he immediately stood up in the branch he is standing from and readied himself for a scape.

_Did Sophia finally make her move!? Or is the master got deceived!?_

He was never good at confrontation and just got some pretty average (for a devil) skill in terms of martial arts, thus he immediately pushed the retreat button and did not dare to even face someone who had a "Hero" attached to her first name, that will not be called futile struggle, but stupidity, it was something that is just so ridiculous for him to full off as someone trained to be left behind the scenes.

However, to his surprise, no "little girl" came out of the vicinity even after a second, 5 seconds, or a minute, this left the decisive decision of Flou to stop for that period of contemplation, and in that moment, he suddenly felt a hand grab his shoulder from his back, he instinctively looked back and saw a grey-skinned man with a very plain mask, his mask is so plain that it feels like the mask was the man's face itself but without nose and mouth, in the mask was three set of holes used for the eyes.

Flou stared at the mask and went into a daze for a few seconds, he suddenly smirked as he put weight on himself and broke the tree branch the two of them were previously standing, it made the two of them fall from a relatively high place, but more importantly, the dagger that is aimed at the nape of Flou completely missed its mark, however, the masked man will not let his target easily go, for as if the air on his feet suddenly hardened, the masked man pounced towards the direction of Flou and immediately topped him as he started a struggle in mid-air, or at least that is what the masked man was thinking for just as he was about to attempt stabbing Flou in the eye, Flou suddenly grabbed the head of the masked man using both of his hand as he whispered.

"Sleep."

All 6 eyes of the masked man widened at the same time as he heard such a seemingly whisper, an irresistible feeling of sleepiness then immediately invaded his whole body.

_Huh? I am an undead... I am unable to feel..._

The masked man could not even finish the sentence on his mind for he had already fallen into a deep slumber, at the same time, the two fighters landed on the ground with a loud thud, the smirking Flou grunted a little as he threw the undead that is on top of his body away, he then with a contented sigh, stood up and then patted his back and the entirety of his swallowtail tuxedo.

When all of that was done by him, he finally had the time to look at the undead.

"Hmm... did Sophia make a misjudgment in selecting a subordinate to deal with me?"

Flou looked relaxed once again, knowing that the undead would "die" as he started to overload his brain with information and random scenes, he focused on reconstructing the illusion encasing the patch of trees that is muddling the senses in that patch of trees.

"But still, if the masked man is not careless and confident because of my lack of physical ability, I would have already failed my mission to protect "the grave"."

Just as he finished the reconstruction of the illusion magic, he heard voices resound, their direction unknown, seemingly all over the vicinity, this made Flou turn alarmed once again, afraid of any other sneak attack towards him.

"How do I deactivate this, I am not very good at magic..."

"Oh, a snap of a finger with some mana on them? Are you sure?"

"Eh... okay, I will try it."

The once again high-strung Flou was confused about the content of the voice, it was as if a man was conversing with someone, however, the man only talked to himself and did not receive any kind of reply.

_What in the world is this..._

He warily surveyed his surrounding and as he was just about to do so, he suddenly heard a snap, the snap reverberated to Flou's ears and seemingly the entire world as the whole forest shook and at the same time the sky cracked, the crack quickly spread throughout the whole vicinity and as if the world finally cannot endure the power of the "snap", Flou's whole vision exploded into the illusory sound of mirror breaking and when he recovered from the blinding light and sound, he felt immense pain in his head, as if it got stabbed by a dagger.

_What happened...?_

Flou suddenly realized that he was currently kneeling and some crimson blood could be seen in his peripheral vision, like before, he instinctively looked up and saw the masked man looking back at him, Flou's eyes widened as he felt a short sharp pain in his head once more, the man in front of him then suddenly flicked the dagger around as it splashed away the blood.

"...When did I..."

That was Flou's last words as he silently slumped to the ground, Kabuto sighed, he never thought that the mask would be more potent than a real organ, however, as always, he had trusted the judgment of his lady, he could not help but feel a sense of piousness as he remembered the words of Sophia.

_If the patch of trees was sealed by an illusion that means the person inside is an Illusion Magic wielder, also according to Eleanor, eye-based illusion magic is the only magic that is capable of creating a large-scale illusion to such an effective and potent degree, so given the fact that the subordinates of Hebi were trained as a whole unit, we can assume that the person inside will be proficient in large scale illusions, you can use the targeted style illusions of your mask to get the upper hand._

Kabuto's smile disappeared as he reported the completion of the mission to his Queen, at the same time, he could not help but grimace.

_I need to study magic more, I don't know how to deactivate an illusion._

Though he ultimately received positive results because of the more potent item of his that he got after he evolved into a full-blown undead, such blunders were still unacceptable, just as Kabuto was thinking of such matters, a blue light suddenly appeared beside him and in that light is his Queen, Sophia Demiurge.

[Sophia's POV]

_Man, Weapon Familiars are so cool.._

I looked at the dead man in front of me, looking as serious as ever, but my childish self could not help but feel like I had to be the first one to have a weapon familiar, I mean, I am the master and all of that, so this kind of thing is justifiable, but anyway, weapon familiar is something that comes with you as a reward of some kind when you evolve, it happens pretty rarely, because if it's not, it would be boring, or at least that's what I think Siri thinks when he gives these kind of things.

Also, even though it was called a weapon, it can be anything like a robe, a tiara a quill, or a mask in Kabuto's case. At this point, while I was thinking of such things, I started to turn the devil into an undead, as usual, I felt wretched, I wonder if I was racist.

The man soon went back to life as a grey-skinned version of himself, his name was Flou, and Flou (like other creatures I turned into undead) kneeled in front of me and gave me the most pious greeting they could muster, I did not waste any time and interrogated him of all the details of this operation.

[3rd Person POV]

After the interrogation was over, the new undead Flou did not meet the fate of the head resurrected by Sophia from before, instead, he was made to reconstruct the illusory seal at the patch of trees designated by his former master Hebi to avoid suspicion, at the same time he has instructed another very bizarre order from Sophia.

_Murder the devils spread out in the integrity of Heimdall? Wouldn't that incur suspicion? After My Lady left the palace, devils suddenly started dying. Wouldn't that make Hebi get out of her hiding place faster than she wanted to?_

Like Kabuto, Flou felt like this order was somehow wrong, but as a newly instated undead, he had the great compulsion to prove himself to Sophia, thus he did not hesitate for a moment despite his doubts as he left the forest and entered the city, with only the orders of his lady filling his mind.