Chapter 129 – Infiltrating

The village ended up being a few days away. Giving Nakuma plenty of chances to annoy Victoria with her perverted desires. Or at least I thought it would annoy her. Instead, Victoria just encourages Nakuma to keep doing it.

Nakuma at least knows her place at night. Getting on all fours and asking me what she should do. While I worked in a brothel, I'm not a degenerate, so I wasn't fucking her on the road. We just cuddled.

She may have been naked. Warmth travels better with skin-to-skin contact, and it is getting a bit cold out. Her skin is smooth.

I don't think that will work for Alzi, but that would be the job of maids and concubines.

But, the more important thing is the mission.

They told me near a village, but this is more like between two villages. Not even that, really. The three form more of a triangle. These monsters are trying to make their own village, copying the Queendoms' style. They just need to pay taxes and not attack any woman who wanders near the town. Small details if you don't think too hard about them.

Being farther away from the other villages does mean we don't need to talk with the mayor or chief or whatever they want to call themselves. We can stay just inside the forest beyond the edge of their fields and handle everything there.

A lot better than hearing the chief kiss our ass all day long so we solve more of their problems for free.

The makeshift village is half a day's hike from our camp. Little ways up a small mountain. The map the guild gave Nakuma shows it flattening out enough for a small camp, and then add in a few caves, and you have plenty of room for monsters and a pretty good hiding place inside the forest. Plenty of room to hunt and even snag a few villagers that roam too far.

"Ok, so do we just scout it out today and do the attack tomorrow?" I ask as we all finish up the mana rations.

"No, I ain't risking sneaking into that shithole twice," Victoria says. "You two help me into my armor. We have a sound mage now, so we can have some clinking metal. We go in and find the big bad bitch of a boss. Off them and then get the fuck out, taking any head we can get. You got a free ring for them, right?"

"Yes, and why do we have to get you in your armor?" I say.

"Want to wait three hours for me to do it myself? Cause I sure as fuck don't," she curses back.

"Shouldn't you have some maids or servants or squires or something to do that work?" I ask her.

"I'm not some rich fuck here, Princess. You can pay for that shit if you don't want to do it yourself. But for now, you two get to help," Victoria demands, standing up and stripping down to her undergarments. A simple cloth base layer to build off of.

"Come on, Yuki. It isn't great, but there is a reason she was willing to join us," Nakuma says, moving behind the large warrior.

I give out a sigh before joining them. At least the attack will be shorter than I expected. But I would like to be part of these planning sessions in the future.

It takes us about half an hour to finish tying up all the straps so the armor stays in place. Once it's all done, Victoria does a final check while Nakuma and I clean up the campsite.

"This feels fine," Victoria calls out to us. "Ready to kill the damn beasts?"

"Yes," I respond. Nakuma, do you want me to create the illusion or just handle the sound?"

"Umm, do both, I guess. Make it easier for me to handle attacks. Just be blunt with your calls," Nakuma says as Victoria starts up the mountain. "I think you understand this isn't a fancy group."

"Ok," I say, starting up the masking skill. "We're all set. We should be silent and basically invisible now."

We start up the hill, me in the middle so I can focus on the skills while they handle watching for threats. I follow the warrior's steps the best I can through the thick forest. The elevation change breaks up the canopy, letting plenty of shrubs grow on the ground.

The sun is at its peak when we near the monster camp. We dodged more than one group of monsters patrolling the area. Even had a few coming back with fresh kills of enemy monsters and animals.

The patrols are more frequent now, likely a mix of hunting parts and guards, slowing our progress. We may be silent and invisible, but they can still see the shifting fauna as we move around. But Victoria leads on, slowly but surely making it to the camp.

"How good is the smell being masked?" Victoria whispers to me.

"Should be complete," I say.

"Manticore complete?" she asks.

"Yes," I assure her. "If they could smell us, we would've been detected by the first patrol."

"It's all our asses if you're wrong," Victoria warns. "I've found the way in, and it has a shit ton of guards around it."

"Lead the way," I tell her.

We move out of the underbrush and into the flat land the guild map showed. In the middle is a village surrounded by a wooden wall. Victoria leads us to the open gate; two manticores are stationed on either side. Goblins sit in the watch towers. A few trolls are sitting off to the side, making the manticores look small.

Our little group walks right past the guards, Victoria slapping down a speck of something on the gate.

"What did you place down?" I ask.

"Firestone. I'm sure as shit not counting on us being able to fucking kill our way out. Fires and explosions will make it easy to squirm our way out of this mess," she says, tossing more of it around.

The buildings inside the camp are crude, to put it nicely. Well, calling them buildings is already giving them too much credit. Tents at best. Not that the stupid beasts care. Most of the occupants are some deep forest horror. Most likely, some hag brought them here under her spell. The more common monsters then fell in line with the power the deep forest beasts wield.

Bastardized animals are what they look like. Jet black fur and orange-tinted eyes. Highly resistant to everything. Nature's great defenses are what Nature's Goddess's priestess calls them. Everyone else just calls them beasts that need to be put down when they get too far from their home.

Most should run back home when their leader is killed, but I hope the guild was kind enough to bring over some members to defend the villages. Some will likely get confused and run in the wrong direction, and these small specks of firestone won't be killing anything. I think we'll be too busy running to make sure they all get routed back into the forest.

The far side of the village does have an actual building or at least it is made of wood. The roof likely leaks, and I don't think the walls stop the wind, but it looks better than the sad tents everyone else gets.

Victoria takes a winding path to get us there, careful to avoid any area with many monsters. A constant stream of dust is sprinkled out.

I'm not really sure what our path out of here will look like, but it sure isn't going to be the path we took to the wood structure. Maybe Nakuma teleports us over the wall? Nakuma hasn't voiced any worries, so it should all work out.

Coming up to the side of the building, I hear a faint voice chanting out. "Chanting," I whisper out. "I'm not sure if it is a spell or a potion. I'll filter it out, and we can find out when we get inside."

"No need to figure it out," Victoria says, pulling out her Great sword. "How many shits are inside?"

"Four," Nakuma says, peeking through one of the gaps in the wall.

"Sounds like all the fuckers we need to kill. Count of three, I break the damn wall down. You two kill three, and I slash the hag," Victoria instructs.

I give her a nod, pulling out my short sword and a knife.

"Just kill the three monsters," Victoria says. "Don't fuck with the hag."

"I understand," I snap back. "I'm not stupid."

"Ok then. Three. Two. One."

A loud crash rings out as the wall gets shredded in front of us.

The hag is boiling a potion while three monsters watch. I take the closest, letting Nakuma's space magic take the last two.

An Arachne. Jet black, like all deep forest monsters. Just her terrible claws and pincers for weapons. Her chitin shell will protect her spider body, and mana to protect her humanoid parts.

The crash of the wall has everyone looking in our direction, but my skills are still in effect, leaving them looking at an empty space.

A loud POP comes on the far side of the structure, most likely a balloon from Nakuma. It doesn't do much to take their attention, but we strike out anyway. My skills finally fall as I strike for the Arachne's neck. The enchanted sword gets a cut in. It's not enough to take her head, but it does cause her to recoil, letting me get a second strike in as I throw my knife at her abdomen.

She doesn't bother with the knife, instead moving to block the next swing of my sword. Her arms receive the slash instead of her neck. The dagger bounces off her and falls to the ground, useless.

I start to look for a third swing when the hag screeches out. A moment later, it gets cut off as the hag dies. Whatever the hag did to the beast sends my opponent into a state of confusion, allowing me to lop her head off on my third strike.

I look for the last two and find Nakuma already has their heads. Their mangled bodies bleeding on the ground.

"Now what?" I ask.

"Slash anything and everything you see. If you get a kill, pull the head into your ring," Nakuma says with a wild smile. "And we run like hell."