Surviving as a Broken Hero

From there, it was just a matter of taking upward tunnels that didn’t stray too far from where Koise was sensing the demonic energy.

They finally came upon an opening in the stone large enough for them to crawl through that looked out onto the valley between them and the mountain they had originally seen the demon outpost from.

They had emerged underneath a ridge near the peak of the mountain where the fort was located, and they heard more sounds of thunder while the cold renewed its attack on their skin.

Koise and Aizen peeked their heads over the ridge to take a look at the camp from up close, of which they could only see the sloppily constructed and splintering wooden palisade walls. The logs the walls were made of weren’t even of the same color or width, indicating that they had just used whatever they could get their hands on.

The two of them had succeeded in crossing without being spotted by the demons in the outpost, but their next problem was how to actually infiltrate the outpost itself.

There were a few options Aizen could think of, such as going back and trying to find an opening that would take them out into the demon camp, which was unlikely, as he didn’t think the demons would be that stupid or unobservant if they had gone through the effort to construct an entire outpost there.

That left them with having to get in from outside the camp, which seemed just as suicidal as trying to cross the valley in plain view of it.

They had no clue how many demons were within the camp, and while Aizen knew he was strong for an Awakener of his level, he wasn’t so confident as to believe that the two of them could take on an entire encampment of demons head-on.

‘Then what should we do?’

They couldn’t go under or through… and going over would just expose them to every demon that could see.

‘What can we do…?’

They both ducked back down underneath the ridge, not wanting to risk being spotted while they puzzled out what their next moves would be.

Aizen absentmindedly scratched his chin as he thought, staring blankly into the thin dusting of snow over the stone beneath his feet.

He took in a deep breath of the chilly air, his lungs panging from the frost, as he thought of an idea.

‘Koise can teleport to arrows he lets loose, right?’

He hadn’t explained the ability in detail, but the question was what the system defined as “letting loose”.

If he could cause a distraction and conveniently vanish right before they caught him, Aizen believed they could probably sneak through the other side of the camp.

It was a gamble, of course, because they weren’t really sure how many of them were in the encampment, but it wasn’t like it was at the level of being a fort or fortress, the walls were too hastily and sloppily constructed for them to have access to a ton of time or resources.

The camp was pretty expansive, yes, but many of the demons they had seen were at least humanlike in build, so Aizen reasoned that he could pass as one if he avoided contact and hid his face.

“Do you have an extra cloak by any chance?” he asked Koise.

“Yeah, why?”

“Before I go further, how does that ability of yours work? The teleporting to arrows one.”

“I shoot an arrow, and as long as it remains in the air, I can teleport to it.”

‘Ok, then the question is how long we can keep an arrow in the air.’

“How long do you think you could keep an arrow in the air?”

Koise thought on his question.

‘How long can I keep an arrow in the air…?’

He hadn’t ever timed it before or anything, but his «Momentum Halt» ability lasted for as long as he could channel mana into it, and it didn’t require that much mana to even maintain. He guessed that he could probably keep it up for around ten minutes.

“Ten minutes or so if I use another ability on the arrow.”

Aizen nodded his head, his eyes shining like the gears were starting to click into place in his head.

“Alright, so how about this…”

I waited underneath the ridge as Koise snuck around to the opposite side of the camp. I wasn’t sure how he was going to avoid the eyes of their sentries or patrols, but he assured me that he would have no issues.

So I was just waiting, trusting in someone who had been planning to kill me not even a week before.

Seconds turned into a minute, a minute turned into ten, ten turned into an hour…

I didn’t even have a clock to stare at while each second passed by, and I grew enamored with the patterns that were in the snowflakes drifting down from above.

‘This one has a more hexagonal shape, that one looks more square-ish…’

The waiting was always the worst part, especially when I couldn’t do anything to help or make time pass faster. I would have to be ready at any second, and like that, thousands of seconds passed.

Then…

–Boom!

The explosion shook the earth that couldn’t be mistaken for the occasional thunder that had died down.

I was jolted from my observations of a particularly large snowflake that had landed on my boot and moved.

A cacophony of yelling was coming from the demon encampment. I peeked my head back over the ridge and saw frantic movement through the small gaps in the wooden palisade.

Running up to the palisade, I paused for a moment at the wall, peeking through to make sure nobody was watching.

It was the riskiest part of the operation.

–Boom!

Another explosion shook the mountainside.

‘What the hell is he doing?’

Whatever he was doing, it was certainly effective.

I didn’t see anything nearby. Whatever was going on, they were all flocking to the other side of the camp.

I sucked in a breath and jumped, not even having to enhance my leap in any way. My Strength was high enough to allow me to clear the palisade wall without issue.

Clearing the top of the wall, I confirmed that nobody was nearby as I self-consciously patted the cloak that Koise had given me to make sure that it was properly in place.

The camp was pretty wide, consisting mostly of tents of various sizes along the snow-packed ground.

I didn’t need Koise to tell me where the demon captain was. A strong demonic energy pulled at me constantly in the direction I guessed that the camp leader was.

I stood next to one of the tents nearby and waited until I saw an arrow zip overhead from over the tents blocking the way in front of me, stopping above me, just short of the palisade wall.

Most of the tents were low enough to the ground for me to peek over if I raised myself up on my toes, and the bigger tents blocked my vision here and there looked to be for activities or gatherings—maybe for serving food?

What stood out above those, though, above even the occasional wooden building within the camp, was an expansive circular construction near the center of the camp. It was where I had seen the lightning.

Not even a moment later, Koise appeared overhead where the arrow was and dropped down, falling into a crouch next to me. He quickly pulled another cloak from his item bag and threw it over his head, securing the clasps around his neck and straightening himself.

–Boom!

Another explosion went off.

“What did you do?” I asked.

He shook his head at my question and gestured forward with his hand.

“Caused a distraction, as you asked. Now let’s move before they have the chance to organize themselves.”

The next part of the plan was to quickly navigate through the camp while the demons were too distracted to question us.

If we had managed to make it through the wall and just walked around with the cloaks on, someone was bound to have found us suspicious. I knew I would.

We walked past the first line of tents toward the source of demonic energy that had remained still, somewhere near the east side of the camp from us.

The first demons came into view, some of them stumbling to put equipment on, having been woken from sleep by the explosions, as they stumbled toward the opposite side of the camp where Koise had been.

“Hold on,” I said.

We were on a path to go diagonally, in a straight line from us to the demonic energy we sensed.

“What? We don’t have time to wait, they’ll start combing the camp once they realize it was only me.”

“The center,” I said, indicating with my chin the circular building in the center of the camp.

“What about it? We don’t have time to sightsee.”

“No, we have to at least pass by.”

“Why?” he asked. “Is it important enough to risk getting caught?”

If my suspicions were correct, it was.

“Yes. You said we had to move quickly, right? Come on.”

The fortunate news was that we were able to break out into a jog towards the building in the center without raising suspicion, as others were still moving quickly to react to the perceived threat that Koise had caused.

We closed in on the building after going around what I could clearly see was a mess tent—benches and stones were placed around the large tent, and the faint smell of… soup of some sort… wafted from the tent opening. A very confused-looking demon chef stood in the opening of the tent, gazing toward the other end of the camp with a gray and brown-stained apron over his neck.

Cages stood near the structure with all sorts of creatures trapped in various conditions near a wide, gated opening.

“It’s an arena,” Koise said at the same time that I came to the realization.

That could work to our advantage and give us more time if we used it correctly.

My eyes flitted over the cages, desperately searching for her…

Finally, they came to rest against a woman holding her side. Her clothing was nothing but ragged tatters, and she supported herself against one side of the metal cage, an obsidian-looking collar around her neck.

Her golden hair was somehow still as vibrant as ever, though, unmistakable in the light of the sun.

“Rhil…”