D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2098 A Few Needles

Chapter 2098: Chapter 2098 A Few Needles

— Lily —

Hedera could single out three, maybe four or five people that were following the same circular pattern they were, and the question of how many were involved in the attack was hard to answer. The easiest person to rule out was a dwarven man. There were a few reasons for this. The first was that he was occasionally calling out to someone else, presumably a child, and he’d just get a laugh in response. Considering it sounded like a real child, Hedera and Lily were willing to write him off as just playing a game, or at least indulging in their child’s desire to hide in the crowd.

There was also the fact that he wasn’t mimicking the scent trail quite as much as the others. He ended up on the edges of the crowd more than once, and walked around the side stalls trying to see in. Their target, at least from what Lily was smelling, hadn’t once left the area so it was easy to mark him as not the person they were looking for. The same with their kid. Though there was some worry there.

The kid was hard to spot. Being both a dwarf and a child, they were exceptionally small and in a crowd of mostly humans spotting them was a massive pain. The main thing that let the child escape any form of scrutiny as an accomplice was that they’d regularly climb under and around the tables. Most people were willing to allow this, and nobody had cried out at losing inventory… though that might just be because most things here were free.

Still, Hedera was confident that those two could be eliminated from suspicion and didn’t really count them as following the main pattern anyway. It was the other three that were more annoying to puzzle out. Hedera was pretty willing to say that the dwarven woman who was circling with them wasn’t the shooter. She might be involved but she wasn’t the one who fired the shot.

This was mostly due to her height. Hedera could tell that nobody she was watching was Rank 2 at this point. It wasn’t something she could easily tell at a glance or properly spot in a crowd… except when the crowd was made up of mostly unranked and the occasional Rank 1. Nobody in the crowd being Rank 2 except for herself limited the options quite a lot and made picking people out easier, even if it was somewhat hard to see who was what rank exactly. They all MIGHT be Rank 1, though Hedera suspected that wasn’t the case.

Back to the female dwarf. She had a big puffy skirt on that wasn’t holding up well in the crowd. It was being pushed and pulled in all sorts of ways and the backpack she had on to carry produce seemed to be quite full. That limited the possibilities for where she could even hide a bow… and Hedera suspected there was no way she could actually fire it.

The distances involved almost necessitated a larger bow then she’d be capable of wielding as a Rank 1. She was too short to properly make use of a larger one to help mitigate some of the draw weight issues and a smaller bow or crossbow simply didn’t have the space to enchant them properly. Hedera knew that well, having looked into plenty of enchanted weaponry herself.

That wasn’t to say it was impossible, just that it was impossible to be done ’properly’. An enchantment that was far more obvious about its extra power could be done but Hedera had seen no evidence of that when the arrow had flown at them. This all combined meant it was extremely unlikely for the dwarf to be the shooter. Involved perhaps, but not the shooter and she probably didn’t have the bow stored on her at this point.

That just left the other two… and it was harder to say if they were the culprit. Both were human, one man and one that made it hard to tell. They both had expanded bags. Hedera had managed to catch them putting things into the back without it reacting properly for that confirmation… but that didn’t really tell her who had been the attacker. They were both tall enough for the shot to be possible. They could store the bow in their expanded bags…

But with the crowd nearby it was hard to tell if either of them were actually Rank 1, and Hedera was pretty sure without that the shot wasn’t possible. The problem was that while there weren’t many, she could tell at least five people in the crowd were Rank 1 and the two humans were close enough to each other that determining which one was Rank 1, or if both of them were, wasn’t something she could manage.

So Hedera started to look for other signs. She looked at their eyes and reactions. How fast did their focus shift, what were they looking at most of the time. How intense was their gaze… and the most important? How did they react when people ran into them. Not emotionally, though perhaps a bit of that too… but were they moved aside? The pair, if they could be called that as they weren’t right next to each other, seemed to be pretending or actually had no Rank.

Whenever their shoulders collided it looked natural, the occasional push or shove was ’allowed’ go through. They clearly knew what they were doing and Hedera wasn’t sure they would mess up. Luckily, she had a great idea to fix that. Whispering Hedera made a request, “Lily, next corner can you fire a bolt of shadow up and perhaps a bit behind us? Don’t hit anything of course, and don’t make it too slow”

Hedera didn’t get a proper response, but Lily’s meow didn’t really need to convey anything else other than acceptance so that was fine. Hedera kept her gaze forward for a few steps before she turned. She kept her eyes facing forward even as her focus was her peripherals and the shadow bolt was launched. That sealed their watcher’s fate.

The woman, along with many other bystanders glanced at the shot, wondering what was going on and went back to their walk… but the man? His eyes tracked it perfectly despite the speed. The instant he registered what he was doing, his eyes returned to normal. They weren’t even in motion for a full half a second before they returned to normal. A shame for him that Hedera had been watching the whole time.

“The man,” Hedera whispered. “I’ll see if I can catch him, but be ready with your shadows,”

Hedera wasn’t sure if Lily had been able to pinpoint the people she had, but it was fine. It should all be obvious enough anyway. Hedera summoned a dagger into her hand and carefully palmed it to avoid it showing. Waiting, Hedera let the circling continue a few more times. No reason to alert the guy. They’d already been around the loop dozens of times, so a few more wasn’t going to be an issue.

Hedera decided on five more full rotations. As she rounded the corner for the first time of their sixth, she struck. Her dagger flashed out at the archer she was now sure of, and while the attack was too fast for most to notice properly… the man was not one of these people. Giving her confirmation. His arm came up to block it, knowing with the crowd he had no chance to dodge.

The dagger slammed into his arm… and bounced off some sort of defence. He grimaced but Lily was already following up the shot. Two shadow hands reached out from her, going right for him. The crowd obviously noticing something was going down and were trying to book it.

It looked like the man would be caught right then and there… but the woman Hedera had been watching must have been in on it as well. A sword, one glowing with light, slashed through the shadow hands and Lily let out a hiss at the attack… but it was just a Rank 1 wielding an enchanted sword. Flooding the shadows with mana overcame the disruption and slight pain to grab him.

The problem was, they now had another combatant. Worse, another twang went off. Someone had been watching from above… or no. They’d been hiding above and only acted now the crowd was screaming. Hedera scowled as she leapt, getting out of the crowd and avoiding the arrow.

Lily had slightly more altruistic plans as more shadow poured out of her to block the arrow, ensuring it couldn’t hit any of the people still moving around them. Hedera didn’t like that she hadn’t consider it, but the deed was already done and she’d probably do the same thing in the future. Lily also started to reel in the man, bound in shadows. She wanted to disable him properly to ensure that she had more shadow to work with. The swarm of paper sent towards the woman was more a distraction then anything else, lacking power to ensure the crowd didn’t get hurt… but it was a lot of paper.