20. Obstacles and Infiltration
Edmund stared at the document, and felt like smashing something. The aides cowered, and they took a few steps back. But he wasn’t going to lash out at them. If anything, he should’ve figured that the goddesses were meddling.
After the adventurer group that contained Melanie, an entry level mage character was redirected to another mission, the goddesses had somehow replaced the group with another adventurer group containing a better mage character!
A 5-star female dragonoid wizard named Wynn, which as far as he could remember, would normally be acquired via a mid-late game quest chain. The goddesses allowed the hero Aman to meet the Wynn, and that meant he could now start Wynn’s quest chain a lot earlier!
The aides were afraid, but they were human, and none of them present knew he was a demon. So they were not sure why he was angry and upset.
“Milord, is there anything wrong with this adventurer group? Should we send a word of warning and dissuade the hero from engaging with them?”
“No. Don’t do that.” If they did two things in a row, that will surely trigger the hero’s notice, and that would be bad. One time is a coincidence, two times could be seen as deliberate. “Show me the map again, where are they now, and where are they going?”
The aides quickly got to work, and the map showed the hero would attempt the wraith-dungeons soon.
He seethed, frustrated that the gods made things easy for the hero, and thought back to the fragments. He needed more fragments, so that meant he needed to quickly corrupt more heroines.
“Dismissed. I need to think about what to do next.”
Everyone retreated.
***
“You look annoyed, my dearest Count.” Aida smiled sweetly, and she wore a silky dress with a deep V neck. The necklace shone on her fair skin, and drew his eyes to her cleavage.
“Of course. Things are not going so well.” Edmund sighed, and Aida sat next to him.
“Is it something I can help with? My magic seems to have stabilised a bit more, and I would love to make use of my abilities to repay you.”
Edmund made another long sigh, and the healer adjusted her chair to sit a little closer. He decided to focus on the woman next to him, and smiled. “Well, tell me about your magic.”
Aida’s magical healing abilities has improved, and she gained some dispel abilities. Edmund was briefly afraid whether her dispel would interfere with his magic, but so far, it had not done so.
Edmund then thought about it, and decided to ask her opinion. “What would you do, if you know someone’s going to kill you, and there’s no way you can defeat him?”
The healer paused and laughed. “Can I find someone else who can?”
“No such person exists.”
“Not even the hero?”
“Especially the hero.”
Aida laughed. “That’s a very difficult problem! But I would run. I would run, or hide, or find a way to negotiate!”
“What if you can’t do that?”
“Hmmmm... Is that person a guy?”
“Let’s say yes.”
“Then I would seduce him.” Aida laughed cheekily before realising it was probably a bad thing to say to the Count. “Oh we’re talking about imaginary scenarios, right? I wouldn’t actually seduce him, he’s probably ugly.”
Edmund strangely had an ah-ha moment. “What if I asked you to seduce him?”
“Uhmmm...” Aida blushed and struggled to reply. “I uh... I prefer to seduce uh... uhm.”
Edmund laughed at how blunt the healer was. “Guess you’re not the type for it, eh?”
“Yeah. I think maybe Lady Erenia would be better at that.”
Somehow that really made Edmund laugh out loud, so much that he almost choked on his food. “Indeed, a younger lady Erenia would be incredible.”
“What kind of person wants to kill you, my dearest Count?” Then Aida leaned in to whisper. “Is it the King?”
Count Edmund was amused that Aida assumed it was a political power struggle. “No. Not the King. It’s just a situation I thought about.”
“Oh. I’m really surprised it made you so upset. But maybe those around that bad person could counsel him out of it?”
He nodded. “Indeed.” Rather than playing it defensive, could he send someone to infiltrate the hero’s party, and use that person to create disharmony? Who could he trust to do that?
Or could he do it himself?