D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Hunter 23HX443—

Hunter 23HX443 waited for Kat and Kamiko to look elsewhere then sucked in as much air as she could before activating her stealth technique. The world shimmered for a moment before colour returned, yet even still everything seemed dull. As if she was looking at the world through a large glass of water instead of straight on. Hunter 23HX443 was glad she even had that much.

Hunter 23HX443 remembered the gruelling training sessions where she learnt to move around blind. Back when she was weaker and had less control over her aura her eyes simply failed to register anything while using the technique, or perhaps it was the world that refused to let her see anything at all.

Hunter 23HX443’s teacher of the technique, Steven, had been infuriatingly unclear on the specifics at times.

Steve’s lessons had been more about learning to make her own way. Which was nice in theory, and rather good for her in practice… but Steve didn’t care enough to follow up with the specific details afterwards. Hunter 23HX443 personally suspected that it was partly because Steve herself didn’t know and didn’t plan to find out.

Steve was a weird one like that, specifically choosing a common male name from a dimension she liked to visit instead of something more normal. Then again, in the clan names were a big deal so Hunter 23HX443 suspected Steve spent more time thinking about her name then it seemed.

Hunter 23HX443 went over her thoughts as she moved down the line of wagons looking for ones that might have a map. Hunter 23HX443 had intentionally skipped over a number of the weaknesses of her stealth technique, and couldn’t help but wonder if it was right to keep so many of them back.

The big one was that she couldn’t breathe during the technique. No air in, no air out. The technique was extremely specific about that. For obvious reasons this also meant no smelling things, making tracking harder… but as a Lamia ‘tasting’ the air skirted the boundaries of acceptable for the technique.

Hunter 23HX443 still had to be very careful when smelling that way, and ensure that she didn’t accidentally take in air in the process. She also had to be doing a number of things to ensure the technique was at its strongest.

Which was the other thing Hunter 23HX443 had avoided explaining. There were degrees to this technique and it was possible to hide more from the world, including that ‘yelling’ she’d claimed was necessary for the technique. Because it WAS necessary, but a skilled used could hide that yelling alongside everything else with enough practice.

Hunter 23HX443 knew she wasn’t quite there yet herself, but perhaps it was possible before reaching Rank 4. Time would tell.

Hunter 23HX443 let her gaze roam over the various wagons, dismissing most of them instantly. The easiest to dismiss were those barely covered farmer’s wagons, with produce peaking out from under tarps or completely on display. Hunter 23HX443 knew such people wouldn’t bother carrying maps. They knew the roads nearby, and didn’t plan to go any further.

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This was likely a regular trip of theirs and a map would be a large expense the farmers simply couldn’t afford.

The next easiest to dismiss were the carts with ore in them. While a map may be useful, the miners also likely didn’t have any way to keep the map clean and useable.

The technology level here didn’t seem to be high enough for lamination, it certainly didn’t have any of the high-tech solutions, and cleaning enchantment for a map they probably didn’t need would’ve been much to expensive for someone in charge of selling raw ore instead of refined ingots.

From there it was harder to narrow things down, so Hunter 23HX443 stopped in place and flicked out her tongue a few times just to check. It was a lot of information to take in all at once but Hunter 23HX443 had a few tricks for that as well. She slowed her thoughts down and quickly ran through the information, almost manually, as it came in.

In the massive list of ‘scents’ she was able to detect paper came up a few times. They were all coming from further down the line so the direction was easy, but the specifics after that was a bit hard to determine. There was simply so much.

Hunter 23HX443 continued to slither slowly along the ground, not worried about running out of breath. Lamia had exceptional lung capacity even amongst demons who could already hold their breath for a long time. Well, as long as they weren’t talking. For demons that was by far the larger source of air loss. It had come up in her low oxygen training.

Underwater adventures, cave ins, things of that nature.

Even then, it isn’t a complete waste. It is not as if the oxygen is gone, it just leaves a demon’s lungs. Keeping talking to a minimum was still preferable, and Hunter 23HX443 knew plenty of tricks with the translator to help that along. One of her clan techniques, if it could be called that, was a shorthand language that relied on short words and slight body motions.

You could convey information exceptionally quickly, and the whole language had been designed to abuse the heck out of their translation abilities.

Hunter 23HX443 knew people who had achieved such mastery in the language they could simply move around and yet others would hear full paragraphs. Hunter 23HX443 personally thought that the language was developed based on experiences of people who ‘gained understanding through fighting others’ instead of working with the most basis language the clan could find and then chopping it down from there.

The books insisted that it wasn’t the case, but Hunter 23HX443 knew perfectly well that just because it was in a book didn’t mean it was true.

The real question for Hunter 23HX443 was why the clan wanted to perpetuate the lie. Of course, Hunter 23HX443 didn’t bother spending any time answering that question. Not only would it require her to prove that it was in fact a lie on something that might be a hunch, but the real reason for it was likely that the truth had been lost over time in one of the clan’s many civil wars.

Perhaps even one of the smaller ones that weren’t really talked about.

Hunter 23HX443 wanted to sigh. Whenever she entered this stealth mode her mind seemed to drift in odd ways. Steve insisted it was another side effect of the technique but Hunter 23HX443 found that difficult to believe. True so far, yet still difficult to believe. Thankfully her practice splitting her focus meant this wasn’t a major problem. Especially not when the rest of her mind was still working.

Hunter 23HX443 paused next to a particularly large wagon. It was being drawn by two horses similar to the one that Kamiko had been riding and after a second check, definitely had the scent of paper about it. Hunter 23HX443 adjusted her position until she was in a blind spot for all of the nearby drivers and then let herself appear again.

Hunter 23HX443 quickly pulled a number of props from her ring, a hat, a bag and a sword while hiding away her gun. After shifting everything around a slight touch she slithered over to the driving wall keeping a tight grip on her power.

Hunter 23HX443 knocked on the side of the merchant’s wagon and as soon as he turned towards her she suppressed several small parts of his notice. It was delicate work, suppressing just certain aspects of her appearance. Mostly removing any notice about her demonic side. It took an extremely light but specific touch. “Hello, I was wondering if you had any local maps in stock,” stated Hunter 23HX443.

The merchant looked over at Hunter 23HX443, taking in her appearance. Hunter 23HX443 had ensured that she didn’t look too exceptional. A ratty dirt covered jacket hid her upper body, a large hat alongside her power helped take it off her face, and the gloves on her arms made it impossible to see that her hands were only lightly calloused despite her work.

The merchant was looking for a way to upcharge her, Hunter 23HX443 new this well… and only knew the basics of how to avoid it. “I see, I see… well I do happen to have a map but it’s not strictly local and it’s for my own personal use. It would be a hard thing to part with, but I suppose with the city so close… I can be persuaded,”

Hunter 23HX443 doubted that was the case. She’d had lessons in how to detect lies for hunting down criminals instead of animals. Sadly she’d always been on the lower end of acceptable for those classes and this was a merchant with some skill in his field. He had no obvious immediate tells, and Hunter 23HX443 lacked the time to find them. “Well, I am well travelled.

A hunter by trade, so I have some things I can offer in exchange I’m sure. I was planning to visit the city you see… but the line here is making me rethink things. I’m hoping to use the map to bypass the city now, assuming I can get a good price…”