"God...this is certainly troubling," Kari murmured to herself. She was currently hiding behind the pillar from the kitchen's back entrance. She saw a few maids and butlers coming in and out from the kitchen's inside entrance.
Kari frowned, 'There's no way I will be able to get out of the kitchen wearing this...' She looked down at her outfit and looked at the maids once again. Suddenly, an idea popped up in her head.
'Of course! I just have to disguise as one of them! But instead of a maid....how about a butler?' Turning to look at the butlers, Kari grinned devilishly.
The butlers and maids were all wearing masks, Kari frowned, 'A party must be going on...'
Slowly waiting for the kitchen to become less crowded, Kari waited for a butler to walk close to the back entrance.
Once one walked by, Kari quickly held the butler, covering his mouth and sending a sharp glare, warning him not to shout in surprise.
She carried him bridal-style further deep down into the dungeon. Causing him to blush a slight bit. She put him down gently and knelt on one knee, smiling at him.
"May I borrow your clothes? I will exchange money for it." Kari asked with a smile. Even if he tried to refuse… she would still take it forcefully anyway. So there's no point refusing her.
In the end, Kari got the clothes smoothly, putting the black jacket tightly over her shoulders, she tied her hair up into a ponytail and tied the black mask with gold carved onto it.
She took a deep breath and casually walked into the kitchen. Kari looked around in anticipation. No one seemed to notice her. Good. She was nervous that demons' senses were much stronger than humans' so Kari was not confident. Kari decided to be cautious. It was never good to let her guard down after all.
"Hey, you!" Someone shouted at her, Kari turned around. Did someone notice her entering from the dungeon? Kari saw a man wearing a chef's outfit. He walked towards her with a glare, he then shoved a silver round tray towards her.
Kari quickly balanced the tray and the chef placed a plate filled with delicacies on top. "Go deliver this to the ballroom and place it on the white-clothed table!" He ordered. Kari almost made a 'tsk' sound in displeasure but still abiding by her new role.
She followed one of the butlers out of the kitchen and looked around. Now that she thought about it, how much time had gone by? She hoped it hasn't been too long and that there was an internet signal in the castle so she could text her friends with her phone.
Entering the ballroom, Kari didn't pay any mind to the interior and skillfully placed a plate down. When Kari lifted her head slightly up, she saw that the ballroom was filled with countless demons, all wearing fancy accessories, suits and gowns.
Kari eyed the jewels and golden chains on their necks and horns. 'Hold your thief instinct down, Kari!' she scolded herself and quickly did what all butlers were doing. She placed the food onto the table and quickly replaced the empty space with multiple wine glasses filled with a red liquid, leaving them on the table for someone else to take.
She walked around, seemingly fitting into place until she saw a staircase leading up to the second floor. She casually made her over to a balcony and saw the orange and pink sky. Feeling the gentle cold breeze hit her face, Kari smiled. She quickly connected her mind to the space storage and took out her phone.
Kari looked at the time, 'I was gone for 3 hours...but I still want to explore. What good lie can I tell them..?'
Kari searched her mind for a reasonable excuse. She sighed.
"What's on your mind butler?"
Kari widened her eyes and quickly turned to look at the culprit.
A tall man towered over her, he had sky blue hair and pastel purple eyes. With his seemingly flawless face with pale white skin as he looked down on Kari. He was much taller than her. He had an earring in the shape of two long thin rectangles. And dressed in a suit.
He had a snob expression on his face which itched Kari to hit him.
Quickly realised that the man was still staring at her with a grin on his face. Kari coughed, making her voice lower. "I promised my friend that I would go out to drink with him but he doesn't know that I work as a butler." Kari lied flawlessly, making up an excuse, shaping her facial expression to an awkward looking one, and scratching the back of her head to make her nervous act seem more believable.
The man nodded and turned to look at the phone. "That model is so outdated. Where did you get it from?"
Kari almost made a shocked expression on her face from what she heard. The fact that the phone she had in her hand was an old model was unbelievable when it was one of the latest releases! Was the demon country that much more advanced!?
Kari controlled the muscles in her face, making up another excuse. She lied, "Oh, this phone is from my deceased grandmother. I was really close to her so I'm still using this phone. In that way, I feel like she's always with me." Giving her phone a longing look, she sighed and gripped it tighter. Kari felt extremely proud of her acting skills.
"My condolences." The man said and Kari nodded, forgiving him.
"What's your name, butler?" He asked.
"We are not allowed to share our names, sir. I apologise." Kari replied back. She was wearing a mask for an obvious reason!
"Oh, I order you to tell me then." The man said shamelessly.
Kari felt her face twitching. She immediately calmed herself and smiled, "My name is Kane, sire."
The man nodded, "My name is Sugo. It's nice to meet you, Kane."
Kari bowed down, "Likewise. Sir, are you planning to stay here or go back in?"
The man shook his head, "I'm gonna stay here. You can do your stuff. I won't tell on you."
Kari thanked him and stared at her phone again, thinking of an excuse. She sighed, 'I can just teleport home. Perhaps I should tell them to go back first? Will they want to leave without me though? Can I persuade them?'.
Kari contemplated and decided to give it a try.
"Hello, Qino? I'm a bit busy right now. Can you guys go without me? I won't be able to make it."
"What!? Why? What's wrong?"
For the first time, Kari heard the aggravation in Qino's voice. Feeling touched, Kari reassured him. "Don't worry, I'm fine. Just go off without me. I will meet you there."
"How can I be assured that you will make it back!"
"Trust me, Qino! I'm positive! Please?"
After endless persuasion, Kari finally managed to convince Qino.
On the other side, it stayed silent for a while.
"Fine. You better make it back. If I don't see you at school. I will inform the teachers immediately."
Kari grinned, "I will definitely be there! Bye!"
Qino sighed, "Stay safe, bye."
Qino hung up and Kari smiled.
"Managed to convince your friend?" Sugo asked with a smirk.
Kari then remembered his presence and nodded. "Yes, I'm gonna go back, sir. See you later. Or maybe not." Kari walked off quickly before he could say anything.
Once she was out of sight from the balcony, Kari quickly went in the opposite direction. Spotting the staircase again, she went to it and went up to the 4th floor.
The sky had gotten darker and you could see the moon now. The moonlight was shining down on the tall glass-paned windows.
Kari walked silently, making sure her feet won't make any noise. She spotted multiple dark wooden doors around. It was dark and the moon was her only light.
Kari felt something was going to attack her. She felt a menacing atmosphere approaching behind her fast. Kari frowned, turning around. She quickly took out a dagger from her space storage and blocked the attack.
Gritting her teeth in annoyance, she quickly placed a few more blows before the other party could react. Dashing forward, she flung her dagger towards the attacker. He was a young boy with golden eyes and hair. He had a stone expression on his face as he blocked the dagger with his sword.
He stared calmly at her, "Intruders must perish." He said, his melodious voice echoing around.
Kari grinned at the opportunity. It had been a long time since she fought someone in a duel. She wasted no time, getting more weapons from her space storage, she dashed forward holding the dagger in one hand and a small bottle in the other.
She caught the cover of the bottle with her teeth and pulled it off. It was filled with poison. She poured the liquid all over her dagger.
Tossing the bottle away, she made a swift slash at the boy who quickly dodged it. Five small sharp darts appear between his fingers and he threw them at Kari who dodged them one by one, slowly getting closer to the boy to make another attack.
She held out her hand and black fog quickly floated out of it, surrounding the boy and blinding him. Kari took this opportunity to dash forward in the fog, slashing him in the chest. She got pushed back and she slid across the floor. Seeing the damaged carpet under her feet, Kari looked up. 'This boy was strong..'
The black fog floated away to reveal the boy showing a pained expression as he clutched his arm which was holding the sword. Then, he sprinted forward towards Kari, jumping up and slashing at her, who gritted her teeth and blocked it with her small dagger.
The boy pushed down his sword more as Kari struggled to hold it back up. Kari quickly twisted her body to dash and avoid the incoming slash down.
Kari was panting. His strength was not something to joke about.
To her surprise, the boy stopped holding his injured arm and huge black demon wings sprouted from his back. Kari furrowed her eyebrows. 'This is going to be a huge problem.'
Kari quickly got up and readied herself. She ran towards him with her dagger ready, faking that she was going to launch an attack. The boy flew to the right but was confused when Kari, who was in front of him, had disappeared.
He then felt a heavyweight on his back and his eyes widened in alarm. He felt a cold metal blade piercing through his chest and he coughed up blood.
He heard a sigh and the voice of a young girl. "I'm sure I aimed at the heart...I guess demons are different after all." Just as he was about to throw Kari off his back, she suddenly got up, slightly dropping back down on his back.
Making the boy fall closer to the marble floor as he constantly flapped his wings to keep himself in the air. Kari then decided to aim for his wings without any mercy or feelings.
She aimed her dagger at the wings but when she tried to stab them it didn't go through. Kari's eyes filled with surprise. Kari went back to constantly making stab holes in the boy's chest which made him spew out blood multiple times.
Kari didn't tremble at the sight. The boy finally couldn't hold himself up anymore and both of them came crashing onto the floor. The boy served as a cushion for Kari so she wasn't injured at all.
Kari suddenly felt another presence behind her, she turned around to come face to face with a black-haired man in a suit wearing modern spectacles, covering his mint eyes. Two demon wings were sprouting from his back. His eyebrow raised as he stared at the boy on the floor and turned to look at her. 'This must be the demon king! How troubling.'
Kari wasted no time, quickly running towards him at full speed as she threw her dagger using her full strength and quickly pulled out two daggers from her space storage and attacked him with them.
To her dismay, the man had managed to catch the dagger and fight back with her very own dagger, blocking every single attack.
"It's been a long time since I had a guest like you. Why don't we sit down and chat?" He asked, in a smooth, husky voice.
Kari adjusted her voice to sound deeper and snorted, "I was just here to explore your castle. If your little pet didn't go up to me and be like 'intruders must be perished blah blah blah'. I wouldn't even be fighting you! And you! You don't look like a demon king at all. You look more fitted to be the aid of a king."
Kari complained as she aimed to injure the handsome man who blocked her attack effortlessly.
"God, himself, became jealous of me because I was so amazing and so he gave me this face. But it's okay, I like it and it's not even my fault, okay?." He complimented himself without any shame which earned him an eye-roll from Kari. She finally stopped attacking and he did the same.
They stared at each other. The man teasingly said, "Having fun staring at me? Your eyes must be blessed." And… they went back to fighting again. Kari was tongue-tied at his shameless behaviour. So what does she do? Fight back with the same behaviour of course!
"You're lucky to be able to experience my skills." She said as she continued slashing.
The man smirked, "Yeah right. My skills are a thousand times better times than yours. I'm just giving leeway."
Kari made a sound of disapproval and increased her speed of attack. "Are you perhaps born from a piece of shit?" She asked.
"No, but you should admire my beauty while you can. After all, I never look this good when fighting with someone." The man said.
"I wonder how many illegitimate children you have out there. Must be nice having women flocking to your needs and demands."
The man chuckled and agreed, "Indeed. It is nice. I admit, I bedded quite a few. Are you still a virgin? Poor thing."
"I hope you get AIDS." The man looked at her questionably.
"What's aids? I have never heard of such a thing."
Kari didn't answer him back and hummed softly. She stopped attacking once again. Giving a huff, she tossed her daggers back into her space storage. The man looked at her daggers being tossed in mid-air and suddenly disappearing.
"Void attribute? You're from the top noble branch?" He asked.
Kari shakes her head. "No. I'm not."
He nodded, "I see. Ignore my previous question then. Do you want to explore anywhere? My castle is quite big and it'd be fun to give someone a tour. I haven't done it in forever."
Kari declined his invitation. She was tired after fighting with him.
It has been a while since she exercised her body like that. They had been fighting for approximately 15 minutes and Kari usually could hold up to 30 minutes.
She pointed to his golden-haired friend and walked away, giving a wave. "You better treat your pet. I'm gonna go. Adiós, nos vemos."
The demon king stared at the Kari with curiosity. What did he mean by 'adiós, nos vemos'? He sighed and stared at his 'pet'. He snapped his fingers and four demons appeared, all wearing black clothing from head to toe. They carried his 'pet' away.
Kari walked back downstairs and made her way over the balcony. She adjusted her mask and clothes. To her surprise, she still saw Sugo on the balcony, staring at the star-filled night sky. She walked up beside him.
"You alright, Sir?"
Sugo turned to look at Kari, a gentle smile flitted over his lips. "I'm doing fine Kane."
Kari nodded, "I'm gonna exit myself then. Enjoy yourself."
Sugo blinked, he seemed rather disappointed that she couldn't stay and a gloomy atmosphere appeared. Kari sighed, "I have no time to stay here with you. Go find another companion. There's plenty."
Before he could protest, Kari climbed onto the ledge of the balcony and jumped off, scaring Sugo. He rushed to the ledge and looked down. Seeing no trace of Kane. He raised an eyebrow curiously. Where did Kane go?
"Got rejected too, I see." The demon king appeared next to Sugo.
Sugo gave a small chuckle. "First time, I meet a boy who doesn't know who I am. It's really rare. I also found out he had a really old fashioned phone from 2 decades ago. Said it came from his 'grandmother'. Besides that, nothing seems to stick out suspiciously. His skills are impressive though. He just jumped off this balcony before I could say anything. I wonder where did he come from. I really would like to chat with him. He seems interesting."
The demon king made a sound of agreement.
"Are you going to find him and hire him?" Sugo asked, staring at the sky.
The king shrugged his shoulders. "Let's just enjoy this night. We will talk about this tomorrow. I hope you can help me in the search though. He might be difficult to catch."
Sugo nodded along. "Ok."
==============================
Kari successfully escaped the ball. After quickly changing into her previous clothes, she explored the city of the demon's country until she stopped before a fancy hotel. She quickly opened her status band, exchanged some of her money for Demon's currency, and went inside.
Walking up to the desk, she saw no one and was about to call for assistance when a translucent blue holographic screen pop up in front of her. Kari looked at it in surprise. Bringing her hand to it, she felt the solid surface of the screen.
Pressing a few buttons, she managed to register to use a room for a night and a card come out from a contraption that was inside the reception desk.
Kari scanned her card at the door of her room and it swung open. She walked and closed the door behind her. The interior was simple and elegant.
'Since the Demon's Technology is this good. How good are their hacking skills I wonder?'
Kari decided to shower and change first into pyjamas before testing.
Quickly putting a shirt over her head, Kari tied up her hair into a ponytail and took out her laptop.
Connecting to the wifi, Kari immediately opened her browser and started looking for cracks in websites after extracting them.
After a few hours, Kari finally found it. Going inside a website, she wandered around for a while. Maybe because it was the Demon's country dark web, it was actually quite noisy.
Kari decided to put a challenge up in public again. Whoever wins against her, will win 1 million Demos. It was first come, first serve.
The first person that came up took on the challenge and battled Kari. Fighting with that person, Kari was surprised to see they were much more advanced. She almost lost. Kari concluded that her laptop must be outdated which could be part of the reason why she almost lost if it weren't for her hacking skills.
Quickly getting out of the dark web. She went to online stores and looked up the latest laptop release. Kari's eyes bulged at the sight of the fancy laptops she saw and how they were expensive! Kari scrolled through the internet, trying to find a laptop that suited her tastes. Stumbling upon one, Kari bought it.
Before she could say anything, she heard a 'ding' coming from the door of her room. She got up and found out, to her surprise, a brown box hovering in blue light. Kari furrowed her eyebrows. 'Is that my laptop?' Walking up to it, she took the box and the blue light disappeared.
She stared at the box in her hands and went over to the desk to open it. As expected, it was the laptop. Kari was thoroughly impressed with the speed of delivery service.
Wanting to use it to try out on the dark web again, she quickly set it up. Once she did, she went inside the dark web, putting up the same challenge again. This time, Kari had a much easier time winning against the person who had to challenge her.
Satisfied, she exited the dark web and decided to order some dinner. She ordered a plate of food. On the small round table in her room, the food she ordered appeared under the same blue light. Kari took the food, sat down and ate it.
She went through the online store again. This time, ordering a cellphone. The identical 'ding' could be heard again and Kari got up to get the package.
Opening it, Kari explored the phone which had many new functions and features that the author is too lazy to explain.
Finally getting sleepy, Kari yawned and rubbed her eyes. She should probably sleep now. She has to leave early tomorrow. Who knows if the demon king might come after her.
Kari went under the covers of the bed and closed her eyes to sleep.
°The next Morning°
Kari stepped out of the illusion battle. As she stepped out, her faded grey hair went back to snow white and the horns and wings crumbled and became dust.
"Well, it was nice coming here. Maybe I will come back one day." Kari said as she looked back smiling. The air started to vibrate furiously around her and Kari disappeared.
■With the Demon King (Zayd Clarke Alusis)■
"You can't find him?" Zayd said, he was sitting in an armchair with a translucent red coloured holographic screen presented next to him.
Sugo nodded, seemingly upset that he couldn't find the boy and he was one of the top best informants.
"That's weird....." Zayd rubbed his temples, "I couldn't find someone in the database similar to him too..."
"It's like he disappeared into thin air," Sugo commented, taking out his phone and tapping on it.
Zayd sighed, "How could that be possible?"
Sugo shrugged, "Did you check the females too?"
Zayd nodded, "Of course I did. I'm not that dumb to not do it." Zayd slumped down, "Haah, I really want to hire him!~ It's been forever since someone held against me for 15 minutes! Even the last guy couldn't do it."
Sugo shakes his head, "Well you can't do anything now."
Suddenly, an old man bursts into the room. "Your majesty!"
Zayd sat up and raised an eyebrow, "Yes?"
"I got alarming news! The illusion has been recently infiltrated by something!" Zayd stood up, alarmed.
"What!?" He roared. "Show me!"
The old man nodded and hurriedly stumbled out of the room with Zayd following behind. The old man and Zayd went into a dusty and old room with a bright screen on. Zayd walked up to it and started typing, bringing up all the data.
"Tch. This is troubling. A female human infiltrated." Zayd frowned heavily. "She must be nearby..." Zayd quickly pulled the box on the red hologram screen, typing with one hand. He was gonna get drones to search the nearby areas.
~After a while~
"No human in the vicinity...SHIT!" Zayd banged the table, causing a crack and making the old man whimper and look down. "How could she have gone out so fast.....?" Just then, his memory flashed to a certain boy.
"Him....her? But how did she even get demon wings and horns? Even the aura of one! I'm sure humans aren't that smart to create a potion like that. They didn't even discover the Alchemy Attribute! This is ridiculous!" Zayd muttered incoherently.
He was shaking with anger and embarrassment, he should have been more cautious. But he was careless and allowed a human to enter. The world will go into chaos and war once again if they were discovered!
Zayd sighed and rubbed his temples aggressively. "I need to find that girl and track her down." He turned to look at the old man. "Monitor this room from now on. Dispose of any nearby human beings no matter the cost." The old man nodded vigorously.
Zayd walked out of the room and back to his office, he saw Sugo playing online chess. Sugo turned to look at Zayd with raised eyebrows, "What got you so mad?"
Zayd sighed as he sat in his armchair. "A human infiltrated."
Sugo sat up alarmed, "Of course! It must be that butler! There was a reason why I couldn't find him."
"That's not the issue here!" Zayd growled. "We must find that human. You're following along."
Sugo shot him a glare, "Why!?"
"Two against one. It's easier to capture her. I admit it was hard to go even cause a scratch or injury on her. She's way more skilled than you think." Zayd informed.
"Her?"
"He's a girl. She must have disguised herself as a boy."
"Smart."
"Shut up and get ready to go out."
"Alright, alright!"