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

Chapter 2097: Chapter 2097 Around and Around and Around she Goes

--- Lily ---

Lily sniffed the air with a frown. While the not-scent was something she could track it was much harder to follow now that they were in amongst the crowds. Lily found she couldn’t just sprint after the attacker and catch up to them because following the trail was a massive pain. It was also hard to avoid the few people on the street because Lily was tiny and not a lot of them had much care to avoid stepping on her. Lily found she had to dodge the crowd as they moved...

And this got much worse when they ended up in a city square area. It was filled with stalls, mostly handing out various foodstuffs. The guards were all over the place and Kat was assuming that this was a market mostly for the people displaced by the poison. While that was good for the those people, it made finding the trail even harder. People were packed in tightly, the scent of food was everywhere, and the vague not-scent was fading further into the background.

Lily hopped up on Hedera’s shoulder. Lily was shot a confused look before someone bumped into Hedera on their way into the market, clearly not liking the fact she’d just stopped on the step path and suddenly the reason for Lily’s change in location was made quite obvious. Lily summoned up a tiny bit of shadow and shaped it into an arrow to direct Hedera the way they needed to go.

With the new set-up established, Hedera pushed her way through the crowds following Lily’s instructions. There were a few points, mostly intersections, where the trail would be dispersed somewhat. Likely when the attacker collided with other people more thoroughly. It gave them a slight scent for a moment, but Lily began to get used to the layered sensation that accompanied it. The ’not-scent’ was still the easiest thing to follow, and even if it wasn’t quite so easily detected amongst the other, you could almost tell what it was brushing up against based on how the other scents changed.

It was a good test of her tracking capabilities and Lily was learning a lot... but they weren’t exactly making speedy progress. Hedera COULD force her way through the crowd a lot faster and being Rank 2 everyone else would just need to let her go... but Lily wasn’t really able to track things much faster then the walking pace they were currently using as their default speed. The occasional slowdown at intersections was actually more useful then a hinderance...

But it seemed like their attacker had managed to work out they were being followed. Hedera had done a loop of the market already and yet, the scent tracked back into the crowd. It doubled back more than once but because of how faint and almost fragile the scent trail was Lily was forced to follow it exactly... and obviously the attacker knew what they looked like so this little game of run around would continue.

Lily shifted carefully to place her face near Hedera’s ear and meowed as quietly as possible while leaning HARD on the translation ability she inherited through Kat. She couldn’t take the time to use too many meows, and she didn’t want to be overheard. The crowd helped, the fact it was so quiet helped, and hopefully the fact she was trying just to speak to Hedera would help. Though that last part was the least likely to work with the ability, it was nice to hope. ”We’re being run in circles, I don’t know what to do.”

”Huh... I didn’t think... I mean that’s the first time you know?” Hedera said oddly. Trying to answer Lily’s words without making it too obvious what she was responding to. She was also quiet, though couldn’t manage to make as little noise as Lily. ”I’m not sure. Are there any... things that suddenly pop out of nowhere? Did something get traded?”

”I don’t know if they know how they’re being tracked. It... feels the same, and hasn’t been too disrupted,” answered Lily once again trying to remain quiet. Though she could feel something straining in the process. *Hmm... perhaps I’m pushing the translation a bit?*

[Well we know that’s possible because of Hunter. She was able to do a lot of crazy stuff with it and from the comments she made we barely scratched the surface. You’re trying to not only translate animal noises but ALSO do it with just a single sound. Not even one short, clipped word. Plus it’s not really a language so that might be making it harder as well.]

*Dammit. Apparently this is something else that we really should be practicing. Me especially because it will be useful. Do you know how much I can risk speaking? What happens if we push the translation too far? Like I sort of felt that I was already pushing it... but is it like a muscle? Do I need to break it a bit to make progress? How long does something like this take to repair itself? Is it different because it’s arguably YOUR translation and not mine?*

[Not sure about that last one. Depends if you picked up your own copy when you got demonic energy or when I added you to D.E.M.O.N.S all that time ago. Regardless, you should focus on what you’re doing for the moment, and perhaps try to keep the usage limited in case it’s crippling in some way? Perhaps try to limit the number of words you’re squeezing into one sound?]

”Well, how long do you want to circle?” asked Hedera, cutting off the train of thought Lily had been sharing with Kat. ”Perhaps... a certain someone will take note and we might end up with friends. Of course, so can they.”

*Oh, um... Kat have you spoken to anyone about this?*

[Yeah I’ve let the guards know but there just isn’t enough of them to come and help. They’re needed back here to defend the brewers and I’m currently part of the defence so I’m not working on the poison which is probably going to be a problem. I might end up sticking around overnight or something.]

[Anyway, that’s me rambling. I’ve let the guards know, and they plan to inform Steel when they can... but I guess they don’t have a way to contact him at the moment? Not sure there’s anything he can do either. Do you guys know what the attacker looks like?]

*Nope. At least, I don’t... but that does give me an idea.*

”See if you can spot them. We hold for now,” meowed Lily quietly. For perhaps the last time for at least a while. Lily could almost feel gears grinding together as she imbued the words with meaning. It wasn’t broken yet... but Lily could tell if she tried anything more than that soon things would start breaking.

The real issue was that she had no idea what ’soon’ counted as for a bit of weird magic that she couldn’t feel most of the time. She also had no idea if that short break between her most recent meow and the first two was enough for it to recover at all... or if it was a small enough message that nothing broke. It could be days... hours... weeks. Lily had no idea. She’d save future uses for it to for now. Only if it was absolutely without doubt necessary. If things broke and she couldn’t understand anyone that would be an issue. It would be worse if it broke Kat’s as well.

”Alright,” sighed Hedera, pretending as if she was upset about something before she ’rallied’ herself and began to stand back up straight. She kept her head forward but if one watched her eyes you’d see that they were darting around all over the place, taking note of as many faces as she could manage and collecting them all in her memory. It wasn’t quite so grand as Kat’s but Hedera had a decent eye for detail and picking some noteworthy piece of everyone’s outfit to help jog her memory was a good way to start.

As she completed another circle, Hedera was able to dismiss a number of suspects. Mostly due to the fact they weren’t moving enough. A notable hat here, a funny shirt there. They were mostly at market stalls a few steps down. There were also the people who just grabbed what they wanted and left, never to be seen again. So Hedera was able to mostly ignore any new people that popped up. Though she kept track of a couple just in case she’d missed them the first time.

The corners and turns in the market were the most important. Now it was clear they were circling around, the chance someone was trying to sneak up on them, or simply following along behind them in order to avoid being seen was quite high. Which it seemed they were doing. Hedera was able to make note of a few faces that kept popping up in the loop. The problem was the fact there were a few instead of just one, and working out which to go after would be a problem. Especially if they chose wrong, panicking some random person and giving the real culprit a chance to escape.