"Exactly."
The man sighed for the nth time today while trying to process everything Evan had just told him. He had predicted that the Demonic Hand would retaliate in some way, hence the reason he had pushed for Evan to have guard knights before.
But he could have never expected the existence of Fake Heroes in his wildest dreams.
"A simultaneous attack on all the known Heroes, each with at least 100 Senior Members, half of which are grandmasters, and Epic Level existences too.
Then topped off with Fake Heroes…it's a miracle you guys even survived this."
The man thanked his stars that he had Luke go with Laurene when she wanted to investigate the remnants of the Tenth Division's base in Cheart because he knew fully well that her original guard detail would not have been able to withstand the force sent after them.
'It was precisely because she had a guard detail that they sent such an overwhelming force.'
Even Finley who was usually light-hearted had a slight frown on his face as he realised that he had sorely underestimated the Demonic Hand.
'For them to mobilize over a hundred masters and grandmasters and more than 15 Epic Level Existences in different countries simultaneously…'
Although he was a nonstandard type who could defeat people above his level, he wasn't so sure he could defeat the Demonic Fused Craitid on his own, not to talk of if he was aided by the Fake hero #12.
And the current Finley was less than 10 levels away from Level 500!
Of course, he would not be like Evan who could only damage Craitid by taking advantage of Mesarthim that ignored defences & BoD that bypassed durability and would actually be able to deal a good deal of damage to the wyvern using his 'Heaven Sword' skill, but defeating him was a different case entirely.
"The thing now is the status of the other two Heroes who had been targeted by the Demonic Hand…"
"Yes, you did say something about that. Care to elaborate?"
"Basically, there's a limit to the number of Fake Heroes the Demonic Hand can deploy at once due to World Law restrictions, I believe Laurene should have already filled you in on that?"
"Yes, but not the number."
"The number…is 20.
The Demonic Hand's plans from what I know, were to deploy an equal number of Fake Heroes to each real Hero they have discovered. So, the fact that both Laurene and I were attacked with 5 each…"
"…means that there are two other Heroes who were also attacked."
Rudeus arrived at that conclusion, completing Evan's words as a contemplative look appeared on his face. Just when he was about to speak once more, Luke's voice rang out.
"If the number you say can be deployed is truly 20, then only three Heroes were attacked, and not four."
"Huh? Why'd you say that?"
Evan was surprised upon hearing Luke's words, especially with how confident the man seemed. From the Game, the Fake Hero attack targeted both the player and their support characters 'the other heroes' that they had unlocked at the time.
But since unlocking characters was not locked to the Main questline alone, the number of characters players had at the time was not set in stone.
Hence, Evan was not sure about the number of Heroes the Demonic Hand knew about now.
"I received information from an Elven contact yesternight. And from that, I was able to find out that there was an incident in Whaijan five days ago, around the same time you and the princess were attacked."
"Whaijan? Isn't that where Kethryllia's base that the Elven Emperor destroys is?"
Evan muttered that to himself, casually revealing a piece of information that surprised all the others in the room.
"Kethryllia? Isn't that the woman you said was an executive too?"
"Yeah, the Seventh Finger. Anyway, it's not really something important."
"I think we need to revise your definition of 'important', Sir Evan."
Jenson could not help but retort as he flipped through the files on the Demonic Hand to where the biodata they had on Kethryllia was. Of course, it was mostly empty as all they knew was her name, gender, and race.
'Celestials, huh? Then she's most likely from Tarse…'
While Jenson was trying to deduce the woman's origin country, Evan skimmed through his memories of the game, checking for an event that involved Whaijan in February of 1053.
'The Third Finger is supposed to be in Whaijan now…'
"Can I carry on?"
"Huh? Sorry, I just had a terrible premonition. Please do."
"Hmm…Anyway, according to the info I got, the incident was ruled off as a battle between 'powerful monsters', but my Elven Contact was able to get me more details.
The Appearance of the Elven Imperial Knights there and the fact that there were sightings of the 'Twilight Blade' in the city of Ogrein just hours before…"
Immediately he heard the words of the Sword Saint, Evan's Time difference skill's sub ability, Organized Calculation was activated and it didn't take him long to arrive at the conclusion with the aid of his in-game knowledge.
"The third Hero that the Demonic Hand attacked is the Elven Emperor's daughter, 17th princess Abigail."
"…Yes."
Luke confirmed his statement after a short pause but he was not too surprised that Evan arrived at that conclusion, it was no secret that 'Twilight Blade' Zestari Herrera was loyal to Abigail, after all.
"I see…that's a relief.
If it's Zestari then it should have been no problem for her to deal with the Legendary Level one."
"The what now?!"
"Hmm? The Legendary Level Fake Hero? Didn't I mention it earlier?"
"You most certainly did not, Young Duke."
Ralphie replied to the boy's inquiry with a sigh, one that everyone present could sympathize with. But before anyone else could say a word, Evan's gaze moved between the Emperor, Luke and Duke Roger who had just been silent since the beginning.
'Perhaps…'
"Were you guys already aware that Princess Abigail was a Hero?"
"Huh? Why would ask that?"
The Emperor tilted his head with slight confusion upon Evan's inquiry, but the boy only shrugged his shoulders and replied.
"Dunno, I just have that stinking feeling that you guys were already aware, that's all."
Evan spoke casually, not showing any hint that there was a fire spirit on his shoulder whispering to him that Luke had told Rudeus about this a month ago, right after he came back from his little trip to the Utrarian Republic where he met some of the other top dogs of the Alpha continent.
Apparently, while they were all surprised at Evan's conclusion which Luke confirmed, one of the young lesser ranked spirits who were floating around said something that caught Evan's attention.
[Why's the blondie surprised when that 'scary guy' had already told him this before?]
Taking the strengths of everyone in the room into account, the only person the spirits could call the 'scary guy' was Luke.
As for why there were spirits in the castle, it was because it was possible for spirits to be born in areas with naturally high energy density, and the part of Gerfast where the Royal Castle was built happened to be one such area.
Or rather, it was built there because it was one of such areas.
Back to Evan's question, Rudeus wanted to reply but someone the lie detector that was Laurene was present so he opted to question Evan back instead.
The reason being the man felt Laurene's Lie detection was unlike other skills of similar nature he knew about, which required the wielder of the skill to be the one being spoken to for them to be able to tell if the statement was a lie or not.
Laurene's lie detection was an ability of her Mystic Eyes, which affected everything within her field of vision, so even if he wasn't speaking to Laurene, she'd still be able to 'see' his statement was a lie.
Just as he thought that, Evan suddenly spoke up again.
"You know, I think Laurene and I should have been informed if a new Hero besides ourselves had been discovered.
Or did you think I was going to suddenly run off to the Beta Continent after hearing there's a hero there?"
"There is a possibility that you might just do that."
Evan's brow twitched lightly when he heard Ralphie's little quip, something Duke Roger concurred with much to his dismay.
"Come on guys, I have no plans of going to the Beta Continent yet…"
"Yet?"
"…I'd go when I'm at least an Epic Level."
"So, you were planning to go either way."
For some reason, Ralphie's expression as he said that rubbed Evan off the wrong way.
"I'm going to ignore that.
Anyway, I was going to go to the Beta Continent either way because of the three Heroes that are there. I already knew one of them was in the Elven Empire, I just didn't know it was Princess Abigail."
He shrugged as he spoke, his words surprising the others as he had just implied that he knew the countries where the Heroes were. And when Laurene asked him that, he gave an affirmative reply.
"Mind if I ask how?"
"Leader Privileges."
'I don't think that's part of the Leader privileges…'
Such were Laurene's thoughts on Evan's reply, but she did not voice them, instead asking about the other countries where the other Heroes were.
"Draidan and the Holy Empire."
"I see…I understand you're aiming to achieve Skill Resonance, but there's just one problem."
Laurene locked gazes with Evan, her eyes completely serious as she asked.
"What if they're not 'like us'?"
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
She ignored Finley's question and kept gazing at Evan who placed a hand on his chin and spoke, his voice carrying a cold tone that surprised most of them in the room.
"That would be a problem now, wouldn't it?
For starters, I'm sure Abigail is 'like us'. My data on her shows that Alissa's success chances were 5% at best.
But I'm not sure about the other two's circumstances. I don't know if they'd turn out like us, or we'd have a worst-case scenario."
"In that case, you'd have no choice but to either use your leader's authority, or straight up end them."
Rudeus and the others in the room were stupefied upon hearing Laurene casually talk about killing another one of their fellow Heroes, and even more so at Evan who nodded along with her.
"I think I'd rather use the Authority."
"You sure? Knowing them, especially if it's Sixth, they might have a way to bypass your authority..."
"Hard chance."
Evan knew what she was hinting about but his Leader Authority could not be categorized under something the Sixth Hero could use their skill against.
"Hmm…let's hope so. I don't want to deal with those guys at all."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢