Chapter 14 - Watching the Party's Antics.
The doppelgängers used to try to avoid the demon girl's surveillance were dolls that were made to be able to move and think on their own with the power of an artificial soul. They were created by the chief alchemist of the empire who has lived for nearly over 100 years himself.
It is said that he was the chief alchemist even from the current emperor's grandfather's era.
Thus his skills with alchemy have reached an unknown height in this time.
Because of the surveillance danger that Felicia provides, the emperor wanted to use this opportunity to let the hero get rid of this potential danger, but in the end it did not work out well. When the hero party later came back together with the demon girl with them, he knew that this plan was foiled.
Although Felicia herself did not mind this as she thought of it like a fun game for her, it was the final ultimate plan that the emperor and the Chief Alchemist could come up with to evade this powerful surveillance.
Since they were worried that this method of testing could upset her, the emperor asked if there was anything that the demon girl wanted as an apology.
"Not really anything." The demon girl responded.
Although she said that, the emperor still spent several days sweating and thinking of ways to soothe her theoretical anger to no avail. It was only when the hero party departed and no signs of her presence appeared in the castle that the emperor lay exhausted in his room.
While he was over there fighting his own inner demons, the Hero party had just set off on their adventure and started by taking a carriage to the closest town to the Warcraft mountains.
Although there would not normally be a direct carriage there, the support of the empire made it possible. In order to keep up, the demon clone went and used one of the many tools hidden in the cluttered Mirror dimension where Alice kept tossing her creations into.
Due to the knowledge from the Akashic Records, her crafting ability could be said to have reached the divine since she created several weapons that could compete with even the exclusive weapons of the Hero and Demon King.
This was because she had been in the Demon King Castle for so long she had the time to analyze the Demon King's personal weapon and reverse engineer it and change it freely with her forging craft.
Of course she reverted it afterwards, but this knowledge came in handy as she was then able to craft quite monstrous creations.
Unfortunately, as she had already reached the pinnacle of level ten in space magic at the time, she found no use for many of her creations that were sadly too weak to increase her combat strength too much.
So she tossed all of them to rot in her Mirror dimension.
Although she found no use for them, they were just the right thing for her clone to use since Felicia chose not to absorb a lot of strength at once and only slowly grow it if need be. this meant that many of these items were still of plenty use to her even now.
Like this flying carpet she was currently on. It was a creation that Alice made based on a certain story she did not tell to Felicia. the carpet not only the ability to fly, but it could also turn invisible and expand and retract as easily as taking a sip of water.
It even developed a spirit of its own because it stayed in the high mana intensity Mirror Dimension for so long. In fact, most of the tools she developed had gained intelligence which is another reason she left the warehouse to rot.
Of course, this kind of place would be interesting for the young minded Felicia who took the opportunity to explore the warehouse whenever the hero party decided to rest.
That was how she found out about the flying carpet after all.
Now, she was resting on the carpet while soothing its mood for not using it for a while.
Watching the hero path go ahead on their basic path, she started to think about her 'mother' who was currently still in a coma. The other clones had gradually absorbed the other knowledge that the others were studying over a period of time and Alice decided it would be fine to absorb it all in one go.
When she wakes up, she will most certainly become truly unstoppable, but this vulnerable period is also quite a danger as well.
Thankfully with a new series of magic formations built to last months and hide her presence should be enough to deal with most threats. Once there is a big threat though, the other clones will likely step up and protect the main body.
How many of them were there? Well, it doesn't matter much since each one is most certainly stronger than the demon king and there are at least ten who would be able to drop everything and guard the main body if anything happens. To be honest, I might be in more danger more than the main body is.
With a small chuckle to myself, I watched as the heroes went on to the first town on the way there.
From above, I could sense that something was a bit wrong as there were trampled crops on the farmland ahead. I guess we will be taking a quick detour to slay the wild creature that did such a thing.
Just as she expected, when the carriage stopped, the hero went and asked around before finding out the situation at hand for the village here.
Then the rest of the party simply sighed in exhaustion. This has been a rather familiar occurrence as the hero has always sought out the various issues that people had and solved them on his adventures.
"Are you there?" The hero suddenly shouted into the air.
Is he calling me over? Since he has something to say, I decided to appear over there. Floating the flying carpet over at waist height, I then removed the illusory invisibility effect.
The others were surprised at my sudden appearance, let alone the poor village chief who was startled by my sudden appearance. Though he quickly calmed down on his own.
"Need anything?" I asked.
"You are here to watch me beat the Demon King, right? Well if I was delayed by small matters like this, would your main body be pleased? Can you help us search for the creature that caused this?" The hero asked me.
Is he threatening me with waiting. With slightly puffed cheeks, the demon girl then began to think about it seriously. From how the Demon King has acted so far, if he knew that one of his general's location was leaked he might simply leave the fortress with minimal defense and set up a trap in the fortress to catch the hero party off guard.
So I guess I can do this now, but don't make this a regular occurrence! With a low humph, I nodded and rose up while still visible and began to quickly skim from above the tree tops.
Going through it all, she was attacked by various magical beasts in the air which only served to anger her more. Then using them as vents, she quickly eliminated all of them in a short time.
Soon, she was able to find a large boar in a cave with a clearing around full of collapsed trees.
Then she quickly headed back to tell them the approximate location before going back to hiding once more.
After thanking her, they then headed to the location described by her. Walking along the closest path there and seeing all the bird corpses strung along the path made the hero let out a soft chuckle. For him, it seems that the Felicia is quite human in terms of emotions.
This was a great thing because even if it might not represent the main body's feelings, it means that she could be reasoned with.
After nearing the clearing that she spoke of, the group all became more careful in their movements. Even if they were most certainly stronger than this target, does not mean that they should be careless about it. After all, many people have fallen for similar traps in the past.
While they were carefully searching the area and checking whatever the beast was, Felicia was in the air pondering something. Just in case, she decided to search just in case.
Going into the cave of the boar quietly, she then took out another tool that had night vision to see in the dark and sense things like mana traps and the like and saw something rather suspicious in the cave. There was a magic trap in the back of the cave.
Being careful to search around, she also saw a magic tool for surveillance.
Thankfully, it was blocked with her invisibility, but this helped prove to her that this situation was not natural and instead artificial. With a sigh, she knew that she was gonna be unlucky and that the hero party might have to stay here a while in order to investigate.
Just in case, she decided to explore further on her own and see if it really was a big problem to worry about.
Thankfully, the powerful cloaking ability of the flying carpet was enough to have her completely evade all of the traps and surveillance throughout the entire cave and she ended up near the end of the cave where she found a dead skeleton and a notebook.
Now obviously this was a trap. Using her goggles, she could see there was a mana thread connected to the notebook that would activate upon opening.
Since there was nowhere to look else, she decided to head back where she came from to observe the hero party once more.
When she did, the group had already slain the boar and were now checking the cave as expected. Seeing that the cave could stretch far, they decided to head back to inform the village head of the boar and see if they knew anything of the deep cavern.
So they all headed back without knowing that the girl floating far above their heads had secretly explored the entire cavern ahead of them.
When they returned back bringing the large boar back, they were celebrated by the whole village who decided to throw a party as thanks. During that party, the hero took the opportunity to talk about their discovery.
"A cave deep in the boar's lair? Hmm... Let me ask around, maybe someone has seen it before." The village chief said. Then he went and asked some of the others before someone knew what they were talking of.
"You mean that deep cave? I used to travel all the way over there when I was young. It was a sort of secret base of mine. Since then, I have not returned for a decade though so what is there now might not be familiar for me." Was said by one of the hunters in the village. Then he was smacked in the head with a wooden spoon by an older lady.
"So that was where you brat always kept hiding! No wonder we could never find you!"
After some laughs and giggles, the Hero then thanked the man before telling him that he would explore the place to see if there was any potential dangers there.
Then the rest of the day was spent partying. While the hero attempted to call the demon girl down to celebrate with them, she did not respond. But, the hero still noticed some snacks suddenly disappearing when he turned around so he knew she was also there as well.
After a day to relax, the group then prepared to head over and potentially stay at the cave for a day of exploration. This meant that the carriage driver had an extra day to rest so he and the horses agreed. Then the hero party began to explore the cave.
From a distance, the demon girl kept watch while invisible as the hero party constantly fell in trap after trap and faced various old mechanisms to face intruders. When the sun began to set, they finally reached the location of the skeleton and opened the notebook that was connected to a magic trap.
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