D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2060 Flower Arrangement Part 3

Chapter 2060: Chapter 2060 Flower Arrangement Part 3

— Kat —

“So Hedera, how involved do you want to be in this?” asked Kat.

“Wait one moment,” cut in Lin. “You’ve just reminded me…” Lin reached behind her and pulled out two small tiles that had flowers engraved on them. “There is a detection barrier around the compound that tracks people coming and going. They keep tabs on everyone who comes in without a marker and warns the people connected to the wards. I have these two… and I have no idea if you can use them to bypass the barrier for all three of you,”

Hedera let out a long sigh but didn’t say anything else. Kat glanced at her, “You alright?”

“I don’t know? I’m normally not too worried about not participating. For all that you seem to have mixed feelings about what you can and cannot do, I’m quite happy to sit on overwatch. I know it’s an important job and as the archer I can be most useful at range. For some reason though? This sort of annoys me,” grumbled Hedera.

Lin shrugged, “Truthfully I suspect that you three can get through with only two tokens… but it this is one the reasons I suggested just breaking your way in. I don’t know how to test it in time without anyone getting caught. The barrier might not detect Kat because she’s a demon. It might not detect Lily because she’s a cat-thing… and Hedera you’d definitely need one if you went inside… but the barrier doesn’t detect arrows if it’s not on war footing.”

“Oh? Interesting,” said Hedera. “That does relieve much of my annoyance. Though I imagine there aren’t too many good spaces to shoot from nearby?”

Lin nodded, “Exactly. The area around the Fleur’s estate is fairly flat. There are a few places, grain silos and water towers that might work… but they don’t exactly have a lot of space on top of them and the roofs in question weren’t really designed to make it easy to stay on top of them.”

“So… we might only need one token? What makes it so hard to tell?” asked Kat.

“I don’t know if the barrier specifically detects certain amounts of mana, something Lily has, or if it’s looking for ’people’. One of those two things is harder then the others, but this is an old well maintained barrier that is likely quite complex. How they use that complexity is harder to determine,” explained Lin.

“How would they be able to tell what is and isn’t a person? And why did you make it sound so strange?” asked Kat.

“Because it’s very hard to program a barrier for sentience. Instead, you just enchant them to mark things that are vaguely humanoid in shape with sufficient variation to allow for things like clothing or equipment to not mess with the results. It would be an awful barrier if a person wearing a backpack was considered a monster,” explained Lin.

Kat sighed, “Alright… and how would the mana detection work?”

“Well that’s just a matter of me not knowing if the barrier was designed more to prevent sentient thieves sneaking in and stealing from the greenhouses, or if it was more designed to keep monsters out. They have other defences for both, but the barrier around the compound is one of the main defences because it’s so wide-reaching. Sorry, I’m getting a little off topic. If it’s based around tracking sufficient mana signatures, its job is more about detecting threats then dealing with them. Likely because without mana the other defences on the greenhouses would be much harder, if not impossible to get through.

“But how does it WORK?” Kat repeated. “Like what mechanism does it use?”

“Ah, in this case it almost certainly just checks for if the thing in question is living, and how much mana it can naturally hold. Which is slightly different to how much mana someone has at any given time,” explained Lin.

“And you’re sure it’s one of those two possibilities?” asked Kat.

Lin nodded, “Yes. While I can’t get the exact details I’ve done enough testing to know for sure that it can detect people, and some monsters. Reports on the monsters are a bit mixed so I can’t be certain if it’s a mana level thing, or a humanoid shape thing because the main set of monsters that registered were human enough. They seem to live in the sewers and like to go after the flowers the Fleurs have. My family as well actually, it’s why I know that they’re failure humanoid if not all that common.”

“Oh, ok that actually makes a bit of sense,” agreed Kat with a nod.

“What happens if two people are holding one token?” asked Hedera.

Lin opened her mouth to answer… and then closed it shortly afterwards. “Hmm… I don’t know if I’ve had that tested or not. I’m trying to think if I know of any children that have had to go inside and if they had a token or not. Especially younger children that can’t be expected to hold a token. Obviously I never did any testing of that sort of thing personally for what I hope are quite clear reasons. But… hmm…”

Lin got up to start working on another pot of tea as she considered the issue. Kat was somewhat curious as to why Steel had tea leaves if he didn’t drink any of it himself. Sure he had a lot of stuff stocked up that they’d barely put a dent in… but it all seemed like something he’d eat at some point. The tea leaves were just around, and didn’t seem to have been touched much at all.

[Maybe his Dad drinks tea?]

Oh that’s actually a pretty good reason. As Kat and Lily were having that revelation Lin finished putting the tea on the hotplate, though it was still boiling. “I think there’s a chance it works. It seems like a simple workaround, BUT in this case, assuming I’m right in how the tokens work, it should be fine.”

Kat and Lily were nodding along but Hedera was more cautious, despite her safety not being at risk. “And why is that?”

“Oh, because I’m quite certain that one of them will be safe. So the token should, theoretically, latch on to whichever one of them isn’t safe. Technically they only need one token, it’s just that we don’t know which one. So I would assume the token will work for whoever needs it if they’re both touching it. I assume there’s some way to prevent two people using the same token, but that would almost certainly rely on mana that Kat doesn’t have so I’m not too worried about it,” explained Lin.

“Isn’t there a risk that the token won’t work for Kat at all? Assuming she needs it?” asked Hedera.

“Well, yes,” agreed Lin. “So we once again go back to, ’maybe you should just loudly break in, or Kat should’ as I said earlier.”

“Maybe it would be easier to agree with you if you’d mentioned it, earlier,” grumbled Kat.

Lin shrugged, “I’m running on minimal sleep, the plan was put together fairly last minute and while I am confident in it I didn’t take the time to properly script out the thing. I’m sure I have reasons for just about anything I’ve said. I do have practice and experience after all… but I am far more scattered then you normally see me,”

Kat didn’t like the fact that everything she said was true… and yet Kat still felt like there was something missing from the explanation. Sadly, Kat knew that ’something’ could be anything from Lin simply not mentioning she had help coming up with the plan to something as large as the fact that the whole plan was really a trap to get them captured. Sure, Kat didn’t really believe the second one, but it was still quite possible, and with Lin it wasn’t quite so remote a possibility.

Kat shook her head as Lin took the teapot off the hotplate and poured herself another cup. Kat sighed again and turn to face Hedera. “So, what do you think? And what would you prefer your job to be? We seem to have a way for you to get in at least.”

Hedera shrugged, “I don’t have all that much faith I can get into the greenhouses, or find whatever secret is hiding underneath. It would take me too long to find them. I’m sure with Lily’s shadow abilities and your own mists ones the pair of you will have the best chance. I think I’ll stay on watch once again… though considering the fact you’ll likely be at LEAST fighting your way out that’s going to be a much busier job then in the past.”

Kat nodded, “If you’re sure. I think Lily and I will try to be at least a little bit stealthy about this. If it doesn’t work out, then it’s nothing to be sad about. Though… yes the exit is probably going to be quite the fight. Are we going to try to keep it non-lethal?”

“I can,” offered Hedera with a shrug.

“Hmm, might be for the best,” agreed Kat. “Though… I suppose we’ll see after finding out what condition Appoline is in.”