Luke could still scarcely believe that Grace would do something so foolish without letting him know as soon as possible. She should have let him know about this earlier, and he would have done his best to make the best of it before things got to this point, but it was too late now. He could only see one way forward, and that meant reevaluating his plans.
"I say we stay," said Luke.
"What?" said Bobby.
"I know it's not ideal, but we don't want to risk Grace receiving a punishment. We don't know when she will receive it or what kind of punishment it will be. It'll be bad if she is unconscious while we are trying to leave the town," he said, reminding them of their previous ordeal.
Everyone except for Jon grimaced at the reminder. None of them wanted to go through that experience again. It was the reason Grace had gotten
Chris made it sound like it was that easy when everyone knew the contrary. There were so many things to consider that it wasn't even funny. How exactly were they going to track her down? She had managed to avoid being noticed for this long. If Boyd hadn't survived long enough to tell them about her presence, none of them would have known she was there.All they would have known was that there was a troll roaming around. In fact, things might have turned out worse as Luke didn't think to tell them about her ability to use illusions. Then no one would have been able to actively look for the illusion hiding them and spot the troll in order to tell Santiago and Clayton's groups where to go.Also, if she was strong enough to control a troll, who could say they would be able to take her on even if they did find her? It was more likely that many people would die in the attempt, and they didn't
As expected, it wasn't easy trying to track the woman down. They had scanned the area where she was last heard from, but there wasn't a single trace of her. The heroes did find the corpse of the troll as well as the bodies of their fallen allies. They were able to safely bring the corpses back to the camp so they could be given a proper burial.Surprisingly, Clayton and Santiago weren't dead, but it might have been more merciful if they had died. Clayton's face had been so badly mauled that no one could recognize him if not for the armor he was wearing. The poor man couldn't see, breathing was difficult with a missing nose, and he couldn't talk with a missing tongue. It was an ugly sight.Santiago's fate wasn't any better. The bones in his legs had been broken as his legs had been twisted beyond recognition. With how messed up they were, they had to come to the painful decision to cut th
Luke was soon rewarded with the sound of clapping as a familiar voice said, "You really have sharp senses. I'm impressed. Should I reward you for your efforts?"He watched as the woman stepped out of hiding. She was exactly as Boyd had described her. With long black hair and black eyes, she really didn't look any different from a regular human. In fact, she might have been able to get away with pretending to be his sister if he really squinted. Of course, if he had a sister, he wouldn't let her get away with going out nearly naked.As he thought, the woman was a succubus, given how poorly she was dressed. What she wore barely covered anything, and if he were a young, hot blooded male, he might have been distracted by the sight. Obviously, the sight didn't bother him in the slightest. However, there was something about the demon that niggled at the back of his mind. She seemed familiar. H
That's when Luke noticed something strange. "Where's Cedric?"Luke heard Bobby's voice clearly through the stone as he said, "Cedric is catching up. He's lagging behind a little.""He couldn't catch up since he was the farthest away and was the last to start heading in your direction," Chris added.That was more in line with what he had expected of the others. They should all still be making their way to his location instead of already being there to support him. It wasn't that he was ungrateful. He was simply being realistic about the situation, which brought up another question. Why was Cedric lagging behind if this was an illusion? They should have all caught up at the same time."You damn humans. Get off of me," demanded the demon.Theodore just stepped on her head even harder as
The demon kept her mouth shut as Bobby whispered for everyone to hear, "Did you see that?""Yes," Chris whispered back at the same volume that everyone could hear.Luke didn't know why they bothered whispering, but this was something they would do, so he chose not to comment on the fact. Instead, he chose to focus his attention on Zona, who looked so offended by what was happening but was unable to do a single thing about it. He wasn't sure how he felt about being able to capture her so soon with such minimal effort. It made all their efforts in the other life a joke."So who's going to interrogate her?" asked Bobby as his eyes scanned the group.That was a good question with no easy answer. Luke immediately disregarded Bobby and Chris, since they were the ones most likely unable to carry out any torture. Technically, the group could let either one interrogate her. It's not like they had to use violence to try to make her talk. There were other ways to make someone talk, but Luke didn
The trio waited patiently as Theodore and Cedric continued to interrogate the demon. Even though they had distanced themselves, they could still sort of hear what was being said, especially when she started screaming. Bobby and Chris flinched every time it happened, and Luke chose to pretend he was also affected so they wouldn't think he was heartless.Eventually, it got quiet as Theodore and Cedric returned empty handed. There were blood stains all over the front of their clothes. Bobby and Chris grimaced at the sight, but at least they didn't have a violent reaction to the sight. It was probably because they were used to seeing blood and how they didn't actually see how the interrogation went."So what did she say?" asked Bobby."More importantly, where is she?" asked Chris."It took a bit of effort, but we got her to talk," said Cedric. "It seems that we have a bit of a problem."Luke didn't like the sound of that. "What is it? Is she not the leader?""There isn't one," said Theodo
Luke's eyes continued to scan the vicinity until they landed on a certain spot. He walked towards it and stopped right in front of the empty spot. Even though he had no proof as he was unable to see through illusions or had a way to dispel them, he was confident that she was currently in front of him hiding with her illusion magic. It wasn't far from the pool of blood, and it was going in the opposite direction of the others."Where do you think you're going?" he asked. When there was no response, he added, "Stop trying to pretend. Even though you've hidden yourself with your illusions, I know you're there. If you don't reveal yourself, I'll force you to."When nothing happened, he raised his sword over his head and brought it down. There was no resistance as the sword dug into the ground, nor was there any blood to show he had hit a living thing. However, he was certain that he had struck true and that she was in pain. He was impressed that she hadn't dropped the illusion. Her pride
"Luke, there you are. We thought we lost you," said Bobby as he jogged up to him."Sorry, I thought there was a chance that she might have tricked us with her illusions, and I was right," Luke said as he turned his attention back to the unconscious bleeding demon."I can't believe she almost fooled us," said Chris as he stopped at Bobby's side.Theodore and Cedric glared at the demon once they finally caught up. They looked like they wanted to kick her while she was down for causing them so much trouble. If she hadn't agreed to his deal, then he would have been more open to letting them do that. However, it would be bad if she got even more injured. It would make her later escape difficult. Fortunately, she wasn't awake to put her foot in her mouth."Since she's unconscious, who's carrying her back?" asked Luke.