My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's

A few hours later, we reached the gates of Krul. Even from a distance the massive gate loomed over us; walls about as tall as I am flanked it and surrounded the city so we couldn’t see inside at all. With a gate like that, it seemed like we could just scale the wall and slip in, so what was the point of the gate?

We crept into the shadows and crouched behind a large rock closest to the gate to observe.

Just like Lattice Nail said, two armored, armed guards stood before the gate. They were too far to read their stats, but one of them was probably a detection or appraisal type.

“All right, I’ll make them open the gate and distract the guards. Once I give the signal, you two slip in and head for the castle without looking back. Oh, and don’t, by any chance, enter the city from anywhere else, okay? You’ll get blown to bits.”

“Blown to bits…? You say that like it’s nothing.”

The hero’s face stiffened at Lattice Nail’s casual mention of such a dangerous thing.

“Hey, I heard each city has temperature control magic, but I didn’t hear about that part.”

“Oh? Really? Then I’ll tell you now.”

Lattice Nail spread both hands toward us as if it were nothing, and while explaining she reduced her ten raised fingers to three.

“Out of the ten towns in Demon Clan territory, the top three safest cities have a magic circle installed by the second of the Ten Demon Lords, Mahiro Uno. A sphere of barrier covers the city without gaps. Besides temperature control, it repels non-demon intruders and a bunch of other stuff. I was told all that too, but I don’t remember everything. They crammed too much in.”

I didn’t even know there were ten towns in Demon Clan territory. I only care about the Demon King's Castle, so the rest don’t interest me.

From how Lattice Nail put it, it sounded like the city had both life-support magic for residents and anti-intruder deterrents. I don’t know much about magic, but it was probably another inhuman magic circle. The image in my head was the same terrifyingly beautiful magic circle I’d seen in the Brute Labyrinth. With Mahiro’s skill that was possible, but don’t cram so many effects into one thing you can’t remember it all.

With such a huge gate and guards, you’d be tempted to just scale the wall instead. That would’ve been the trap. Good thing we didn’t try to climb over the wall and ignore the gate.

“Well, as long as you don’t touch the barrier you’ll be fine. Enter through the gate properly. And once you’re in, hide in the shadows of the buildings right away!”

“By the way, what happened to that black cloak Lattice Nail was wearing when she boarded the airship? If we had that, either Asahina or I could vanish.”

The hero meant the magical tool Lattice Nail used to board the ship without anyone noticing she got in or who was in the cabin with her. I think she put it in her waist pouch at the time. The other cloak — the gray one she lent Crow when we headed to No.7 — was originally for demons to move discreetly but had been modified to make the wearer appear human, so it wouldn’t help here. How many magical tools does she carry around?

“Oh, that? I lent it to Lilis, so it’s not with me. Sorry. But you’ll be fine! Oh, Akira, hold onto this. Don’t drop it, okay? Bye!”

Lattice Nail handed me something, irresponsibly gave a thumbs-up, and walked toward the gate guards. She strode casually from the blind spot, already beyond the point of no return.

“Akira, what’s that?”

“...A stone.”

She set something small in my hand — a tiny stone with small, unreadable characters carved into it. In the dim light I couldn’t make out the script, but I could feel the rough carved surface. The stone itself didn’t seem to hold magic power, but since Lattice Nail gave it to me, it was probably some sort of magical tool.

I put the stone in the bag with the Demon Stones and tucked it into my chest to make sure I wouldn’t drop it.

From our hiding spot, we saw the gate guards apparently notice Lattice Nail.