Chapter 141: Rumble Pt.2
Tiff was right and she had no problems following the scouts outside right past the guards she was sure would have tried to stop her if they were able to see her. Now that she was outside she planned to go find somewhere to hide right away but stopped when she heard one of the scouts say something.
"Do you know why they're having us go in the direction the giant came from?" This question didn't seem to be that important but Tiff wanted to know because she thought it would give her an idea how long this fight might be because the scouts were clearly being sent to try and find any hidden forces that might join after the fight had already started.
"I'm not sure I was told to send back runners whenever I saw anyone approaching the city." All the temple really knew was that there was a giant coming but that didn't mean it wasn't going to bring anything else with it. They were expecting the army that retreated a few days ago to come back as well but no one had been able to confirm if this was the case yet.
This was probably what these scouts were being sent out to do and if that was the case it made her kind of want to follow them. Scouting missions always put an emphasis on safety because the scouts needed to be able to return to be of any use and they were usually pretty stealthy so there was a really small chance it would be any more dangerous than hiding in some building that could get struck by a stray attack; it would also make her feel better about doing nothing while some of the others were out fighting.
Making up her mind without overthinking what she was doing, Tiff started to follow the scouts. It wasn't too long before she finally saw the giant. It was hard to tell at a distance but Tiff wouldn't be surprised if it was 50 feet tall but that was the only detail she could see because it had a black robe that completely covered it from head to toe.
It was steadily making its way towards the city at a good speed which she was sure was just a fraction of how fast it could actually move and she saw this as the first sign it had brought an army with it even if she couldn't see them because she thought maybe it was giving whatever army that was following it a chance at keeping up with it.
They weren't tasked with dealing with the giant though so the group of scouts moved to go around the giant at a good distance. It would probably take them a long time for them to get behind it and start scouting but there wasn't really anything they could do about that; if they got too close they would all instantly die.
...
Seeing the giant Lake was trying to tell if it was the same one he had seen that day in the forest and after he remembered he had never had the mind to mark Domare or the one he had seen created Domana he just went ahead and marked the giant that was coming towards the city but as soon as he did he realized all he had done was mark its robe because he was unable to see its skin with it being completely covered.
This meant if the giant ever changed its clothes its mark would lose effectiveness and there was no way for him to know so this was a waste of time. Whatever, he didn't see how knowing where what he had heard referred to as a demigod could ever be valuable information. Seeing the giant was going to take a while to actually get here, Lake thought he might as well see where Tiffany was.
He knew she worked for the Temple so he wanted to see what she was doing now that the giant was here. Seeing a mark appear in the city, Lake watched it as it moved towards the giant, well not straight towards it as he watched it he could tell she was going around it. Lake wondered if this was her running away like she had said she wanted to but he doubted that was the case because he was sure she would be going in the opposite direction.
That meant she was probably using her ability to turn invisible to gather information for the temple. Or at least that was what he would expect the temple to do with someone like her. It would be stupid to send someone with such a good skill for spying into a direct fight and risk it killing them.
After watching the mark for a while Lake finally saw some movement from where it said she was. It seemed she was in a small group that was doing its best to not be noticed because he had only seen them for a split second as they passed over a road. They were doing a good job and he was sure they would have no trouble staying unnoticed once they got into the farmland that surrounded the capital.
The fields had been abandoned and so their contents were more overgrown than normal and it would provide perfect cover to them as they ran. Hearing a knock that he had been expecting, Lake turned and said. "I'll get it." And when to let Millie in. He had been waiting for her to come over ever since the giant had been spotted and the fight hadn't started yet so he wasn't afraid of missing anything while he let her in.
After he let her in they both rushed back onto the balcony and he told her everything he had seen so far. He had noticed that not everyone could see the fights as well as he could and Millie was definitely one of those people. She probably didn't have the highest Perception and he was pretty sure it was kind of dark at the moment even though he could see perfectly well with his night vision one of his skills gave him.
After he showed her exactly where the giant was currently by pointing it out, Lake asked. "Were you able to get any new students while the fighting wasn't happening?" He knew Millie wasn't exactly happy with her current students so he wondered if she had been able to find any that wanted to come work for her and if so where they came from because the town was completely empty of normal people at the moment with them all either hiding underground or in the wilderness.
"No, I asked Lucas but he said the carts were busy and he had already gotten the best that were in the guild. You know that's really all that's available at the moment." Lake was sure Millie had told Lucas that she wanted chefs this time and had still been told to deal with what she already had.
It was a bad time to be recruiting new people at the moment anyway and he was sure Lucas thought that as well with them needing to worry about finding them and if they were actually going to be loyal. "Well maybe we'll have more time after this battle to look." Lake didn't believe what he had just said; he was sure it would be the exact opposite in reality.
The last two days would probably be the last peaceful days the city would see for a long time and like him thinking this was the que Lake saw barriers around the city flare to life. This was the first time he had seen any other building use a barrier and from the locations he knew most of them were either owned by the king or one of the guilds.
It seemed they understood they would lose anything that wasn't protected now that the actual fighting was going to start. From what Lake understood about this world Demigods were the strongest fighters and therefore the most destructive and to become any stronger you had to ascend to become a god and at that point you weren't really allowed to be down here with the mortals anymore.
From what he had heard demigods varied in power though so it wasn't like he was about to see the limit or anything. He was pretty sure the giants just barely made the cut to be called a Demigod because the Temple was just going to use normal people that had special weapons to fight them.
Lake really didn't know though he was just assuming the Demon Lord wasn't giving every giant a massive amount of divinity because from what he had heard it was rare and Lake was sure the Demon Lord didn't have that much to spare even if he did have a reputation of stealing divinity from a bunch of Demigods.
Seeing something happen around the giant Lake said. "The giant's getting ready to cast a spell I think." In the time it had taken him to say this a massive cloud of mana had already gathered and Lake was sure he knew what was about to happen because he had been subjected to it before and when he saw the mana start to spread towards the city he knew he was right.
The giant was using the same blinding spell that had been used on the forest that day. It didn't seem like it was going to reach all the way up here though but that didn't mean he could see into the city anymore it now looked like the guild was floating above an abyss. "That sucks. I wanted to be able to see what was happening."
Lake was sure everyone else was thinking the same thing he had just said but Millie said. "The Holy Mage won't just let that happen the whole time I'm sure it won't be long until they dispel it." Lake nodded she was probably right, he had forgotten not everyone would be as useless as he was when it had happened to him at that time he would have died if he hadn't gotten lucky and got his hands on that weird disrupter thing that had let him see in a small space around him.
...
Looking Back at the city Tiff didn't know what had just happened. Almost as soon as they had made it out of the city a huge black cloud had engulfed it. She knew it had been the giant that had done it but she didn't know why it would do something like that. It didn't seem to be an attack and would soon be destroyed by one of the 23 so it was just a huge waste of mana as far as she could tell.
Seeing the other scouts start to move again Tiff got over what she was seeing and went back to what she had come to do. As she ran all she could think was she had made the right choice in following the scouts because if she had stayed she would probably be panicking at the moment.
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