Chapter 106: Now’s Not the Time to be Competitive

The day went past with the migrants starting to get out of Heimdall due to the ongoing purge, the spies sent by other Kingdoms didn't have a choice but to hide deeper and give up the post that they had painstakingly cultivated, of course, that doesn't count the devils and vampires as they were not ordered to. This resulted in the city's citizens growing uneasy as they formulated possible gossip and made their own "logical" conclusions. Despite that, the day went on as the sun slowly hid in the curtains of the night, allowing the moon to take center stage.

And in the blanket of the night, Hebi Tsukaiza, in her true appearance is phasing through the shadow created by the walls and pillars of the palace, it seems like she is not even bothered by the fact that Sophia and Roselle easily discovered her. But if Hebi is to be honest, her pride has taken quite a blow, after all, she felt like Sophia did not even do anything to confirm her identity, it was like the moment Hebi came out of the room, she was already exposed.

The only thing that is stopping Hebi from doing anything against Sophia or the King of Gjallarhorn is her mission and the fact that her two monarchs are currently unable to lead an army, if the serpent bearer so desires, she can easily take out the King, but that will mean that Valentine will have to invade Gjallarhorn unprepared and with the presence of Urduja and her army of adopted children as well as Sophia's newly found nation, that is not something worth the risk as of the moment.

_For now, I should focus on the mission._

As Hebi thought of that, in her tight vest appeared a magic circle embedded on the shoulder part of the long sleeve, this is the magic circle that will crack the seal of the crown chamber, it is more condensed and more potent than the previous one for the seal embedded by the subordinates of Sophia is also condensed, the originally AOE type of seal brought by the magic circle is now concentrated to a single point, so it is only natural that the potency of the said spell will increase too.

_This will make it so that the people inside the crown chamber will not forget the existence of the crown chambers, but at the same time the chamber itself will be very hard to find..._

For this, Hebi already used her unique skill to create a pair of glasses that ignores restrictions in vision of any kind, making her search much easier.

Hebi continued her pursuit of the coveted chambers as she went back and forth from corridor to corridor and floor to floor in the palace, her masterful concealment abilities made it so that the patrolling servants could not even notice her existence, even the spies of Gjallarhorn situated in the royal palace did not notice her shadow even though they were alerted by the King about the matter regarding Hebi.

Whilst doing her mission, Hebi suddenly felt the back of her palm itch, her heart silently stirred as she knew what such an occurrence meant, she looked at the left back of her palm and saw a letter materialize on it, in the letter was a big name written "Flou", Hebi frowned as she immediately grabbed the letter and opened it, her eyes went wide as Hebi stood rotted on the spot, for the first time in her long life, she was almost caught by a patroller as she stared at the letter for 5 straight seconds, it has only one sentence, but the font of the letter is abnormally big, the quill is not even properly held while Flou is writing as the ink started to be smudged.

"THE OTHER VICE CAPTAINS ARE ATTACKING ME!"

After Hebi's stupor, anger seeped through her whole being that she struggled to suppress, but in the end, she could just exclaim in her mind.

_AT THIS DAMN TIME!?_

Hebi ignited the letter using her unique skill as she grimaced at the stupidity of her students, even though she did allow the 4 of them to be competitive (even borderline hostile) against each other, given the fact that she already informed them of the operation that is happening at this very moment, she thought that they will not cause any kind of trouble.

_Who would have thought that they would dare to go against my order... But then again, it's my fault._

This kind of upbringing is something Hebi adopted from her master, and as she as a living example, it was quite successful even his students can testify to this, all of them are prominent figures in the Valentine Military and are indispensable soldiers of the royal siblings, that is also the reason that even though Loki already gave Hebi a warning about the risk of that kind of rearing strategy, she ignored it citing the achievement of her students.

_I should delay the punishment for now, this matter can be taken advantage of by the enemies._

Hebi latched into the walls and conjured a paper and a quill in her hand, she made ink flow out continuously inside the quill and wrote a letter, in matters that concern serious attention to detail, the spies are instructed to use letters to communicate, this is a precaution against natural loss of memory regarding some part of the said instruction as well as man-made and deliberate hypnotism.

_The use of this method is very limited to reduce the risk of leaks, it can only be used in emergencies, it seems like Flou lost his com. crystal... I have to hurry._

Hebi said so as she replicated the papers with her orders, she also created another paper to send to Flou, she then pressed them to her palm, and after a little while, all of her core subordinates received a letter, ordering them to enter the palace and find the Crown chambers through their combined efforts. However, one part of the letter left them baffled.

"What did we do to be punished?"

Of course, Hebi didn't have any idea of such a question nor did his students dare to question her orders, all of them just instructed their unit before going out of their hiding area and rushing towards the palace whilst Hebi rushed to the forest where she positioned Flou.

[Sophia's POV]

Deep the night, I and the King looked at the armory's doors, in them were workers who were unloading wooden crates with daggers in front of us. Well, who would have thought that I would take a lot of time to cheer up Eleanor (and I still wonder if it was effective) so I failed to do things as I had intended to do in schedule.

[Don't act like you did not enjoy "cheering her up" if you are not a hero, this level of procrastination will cost you your life and the relic of your father.]

Yes, I know, I am sorry okay? How many times do I have to tell you that I got carried away, in any case, this is also fine because I am delaying this matter as much as possible, remember? This doesn't affect the operation whatsoever.

[Stop making excuses.]

I did not engage with [Guide] further as I looked at the daggers being presented to me one by one, the body of the blade has an engraving of a horn and some other crests, these daggers are obviously for arms deals, so they have this kind of design.

"These are all the daggers commissioned to us by various Kingdoms, I swear in my name and testify to their quality, as a way of compensation for the delay of the delivery, we can only throw in extra amounts of daggers or a discount."

I then nodded in satisfaction.

"Such quality weapons will surely help me later."

As I was saying such a thing, the King was looking at me, after a while, he finally could not help himself and asked.

"Why do you need such large quantities of them?"

Upon hearing such a question, I cannot help but silently grimace, I wouldn't need this amount if not for the fact that the things created by space magic are just filler in space and will disappear after some time and cannot do the thing it was supposed to do (in this case, a space magic conjured dagger cannot stab people), this is the greatest weakness of Space Magic besides it's "complexity" for the people of this world, it is also the reason why it's main use is for auxiliary things and not a main firepower upgrade. Because of that, I don't have a choice but to swindl- I mean convince Roselle that it was all part of my plan, of course, I will pay for it, it is not like I am a bad person. Just as I was about to answer I snapped my head towards my back, I almost snapped it 360 degrees, but I forced myself not to. I have become weird since coming to this world.

Hebi finally received the letter and moved according to the first step of my plan,

[See, this is what you get from procrastinating.]

I ignored the annoying man inside my head as I immediately revealed a frown, causing The King to also look behind him, I then replied to his question, my tone was that of urgency.

"I have no time to explain, please don't forget your end of the plan, you have to take care of your brother okay?"

As I was saying that, I was making the daggers that were still in their crates sink into the fourth dimension, the King watched on as his ever so stoic face did not even change or frown a bit. It seems like he is also angry towards his brother, which is good. Though I wonder if he can take care of him.

I was thinking such things as the only reply I received was a nod. I entered the 4th dimension too without even saying goodbye, my destination is the forest, in a patch of trees previously guarded by Flou.

[3rd Person POV]

The workers of the Armory looked at the space between them and their King, Roselle did not say anything for a long while, he then turned at his back, his look that of indiscernible sadness and helplessness.

"I cannot even sense them appearing and disappearing, if Sophia did not enter a portal in front of me, I would not even know where she is."."

King Roselle, though fully aware on a subconscious level, finally realizes that his land is nothing but a battlefield in the fight between the serpent bearer and the fallen hero.

______

Hebi, just like Sophia noticed her counterpart's disappearance, she had never expected Sophia to have a good level of mastery of Space magic, allowing her to do long-distance travel, it is yet another ridiculousness of Sophia, though all Heroes can be described as such, what concerned Hebi of the situation is the fact that Sophia went and disappeared the moment Hebi decided to help Flou, this made her feel like she made an error in her judgment, but because she has already went on her way, she decided to use force to fix her mistake.

However, she somehow felt like she also made the right call, after all, if Sophia already touched Flou, Flou would not be able to send that letter, though Flou being coerced by one of Sophia's subordinates or Sophia herself cannot be ruled out. As she was thinking of such things, she sped up, and maybe because she knows the attitude of Sophia towards the matter of the god of the undead's relic, the serpent bearer instinctively thought that she still had a lot of time to complete her mission.

______

As the two heroes went towards the forest to intercept one another's plans, the Prince of Gjallarhorn, Noir Gjallarhorn who was not aware of the plan of the King and the Queen of Kamatayan, continued to look for migrants that were in the criteria for suspicion, due to the living of migrants, it made their job more hectic because they would surely not let a potential devil or vampire escape and they cannot bank into the inference that because their targets are stealing something, then they will not go away.

Surely the pride of these human spies was destroyed when a large bulk of their counterparts successfully sneaked in without them noticing it, they vowed to capture all of them.

_But still, we just entered the double digits even though we are searching for them day in and day out._

As Noir shuttled through the roofs of the buildings, he could not help but frown, also, besides that, he was instructed to stop any attempts to destroy the diplomatic friendship between Sophia and Roselle, and what is more puzzling is that he is yet to achieve any tangible result, and yet all communications initiated by the person "helping" him to conquer Khearsenbelle's heart has been severed.

Just as the the prince of Gjallarhorn was pondering over that, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, at the same time, a spy under him emerged from a dark spot, the spy then knelt in front of him and stated the reason for his appearance in front of his captain.

"His Majesty, the king is summoning you to the throne room."