yemalu

I looked at the group of maids gathered in front of me, "So… Are we continuing with the extermination of this cult? It kind of feels like we bit off more than we can chew."

Katsuki shook her head, "It\'s fine, Mistress. You do not need to worry about us, we are all ready to go."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Are you sure about that? We almost got wiped from a demon encounter…"

"I do not believe there are any more demons, Mistress. If there were, they would have tried to take over the capital by now."

"Eh? Really? You mean that demon from earlier wasn\'t enough? Now that I think about it… Why didn\'t they make use of that demon to kidnap the princess? Instead, they were betting on the princess coming here on her own?"

Katsuki hesitated for a moment, "I\'m afraid I am unable to answer Mistress\'s latter question but I am able to speculate that this cult does not actually have control over the demon that Mistress defeated. They most likely summoned it and kept it here where it remained docile until we came along. The demon itself does not follow their orders."

Hmm… I guess that would make sense… But seriously though… What made them think that the princess would even make her way here after that attempt to kidnap her?

Sure, she initially wanted to, but there\'s no one in their right mind who would agree with the princess and allow her to do something like that… Everyone would have stopped her.

So unless these people know something that we don\'t which made them so sure the princess would come here, or they\'re just complete idiots.

And seeing that they all think that using the princess to summon a demon of all things was a good idea… I\'m going to go with the latter possibility.

Welp, since I have received their assurance that everyone was fine and there weren\'t any problems with forging ahead, I agreed with their plan of continuing forward.

Which now brought about the next question… Where to?

"Mistress, up there," One of the maids pointed.

I looked at where she was pointing and I realised there was a sort of hole in the wall with metallic bars for a window all the way at the very top of the cavern, almost flushed with the roof.

I\'m assuming that\'s where we had first heard the voice from and how that person realised that the princess wasn\'t here. But right now there was no one there so that person must have left before he saw the end of the fight.

"Ok… I guess that\'s where we need to go next?" I assumed.

Katsuki nodded, "That place should lead us to the real hideout of the cult. The previous one must have been a decoy meant for their pursuers to find so that they could be led to this place and have the demon take care of them."

Alright, then all we need to do is get up there! Good thing I have a line of sight to that place so I could cast [Link Portal].

Two portals materialised instantly with one of them being behind the bars and the other one appearing in front of me.

I then gingerly strode forward and held the portal open, allowing the other maids to come through after me.

The place we teleported to seemed to be a viewing room of sorts where there was even a couch and a cabinet filled with bottles of liquor.

I\'m willing to bet that whoever was in charge here wanted to sit here and watch the princess get torn apart by the demon or something.

Hmm… That also doesn\'t make sense… They need the princess to perform some ritual to summon more demons right? So wouldn\'t it be bad for them if the demon were to… Oh…

They never said they needed the princess alive…

Damn, this just makes things worse… We better get rid of everyone in this cult then… They\'ve already managed to summon one demon, things would definitely be worse if they manage to summon more.

Even the demon from earlier would be able to destroy quite a bit of the city if it was released without any warning.

It\'ll definitely still be killed and not achieve the cult\'s goal of overthrowing the Royal Family, but it\'s definitely a threat that they could have used.

"Mistress," Katsuki called out to me, bringing me out of my musings to see her standing at the only door that led out of the room.

All of the maids, with Katsuki included, had their weapons drawn, already expecting a fight up ahead.

I unsheathed my own sword and nodded at them, advancing with the maids down the dimly lit corridor outside.

I soon realised why they were prepared to fight when voices echoed from up ahead, though it was too muffled for me to make out what they were saying.

A short walk later and we found ourselves at what looked to be a dead end, the voices coming from behind a smooth slab of rock.

"Hidden door?" I guessed.

The others nodded, already scouring the walls of the passageway to look for a hidden mechanism that could operate it from this side.

Ummm… Some of them even got on the ground to search, which meant that their bottoms were presented to me on full display and I had to try not to react to that…

Instead, I focused my sight on Katsuki, watching her trace her hand along the wall before she suddenly stopped.

My Inugami maid rapped her fingers against a part of the wall before pushing her hand against it, causing a part of the wall to sink in and the sound of the stone slab being moved.

Everyone immediately formed up again and rushed through the opening, jumping out into the open at the same time.

There were shouts and cries of pain that followed soon after, prompting me to rush out as well.

I stepped out into what could be described as a rather spacious meeting room of sorts where several robed people were currently being cut down by the maids one after another.

"The… They\'re Combat Maids from the Nilm Family!!"

"What is the Nilm Family maids doing here?!!"

"Run! Run!! Quickly ru--aaarrrghhh!!"

A few of them tried to fight back but none of them were any match for the maids.

Well… Since they were taken out by the demon earlier, they did not get to showcase their skills and in the previous encounter they were fighting people who were concentrating on grabbing the princess instead of fighting back… So I think they might be the first proper fight they have today.

I even spotted someone trying to shoot a crossbow at a particular maid and was about to jump in to stop him when the maid simply reached under her skirt to throw a throwing knife at her assailant.

The knife struck home on the crossbowman\'s head, killing him instantly before he could even shoot his bolt.

Another maid was fighting three swordsmen simultaneously with an estoc in her right hand and a dagger in her left, expertly parrying and dancing around the three men despite wearing a voluminous  maid uniform.

Hey, I have the [Fashion Forward] boon, so it\'s fine for me.

Supporting the maids at the front line were another group of maids that were either shooting arrows or flinging spells at the enemies, all of them coordinating with one another without even speaking like they have done this plenty of times.

Despite that, there seemed to be quite a number of enemies this time and a few of them were escaping through the door on the other end of the room.

Looks like that\'s a job for me!

I used [Link Portal] to teleport myself to the other side of the room, appearing in front of the runners with my Light Sword in my hand.

"Hello there~ Going somewhere?" I chirped.

"Who\'s this?!"

"I don\'t know, but she\'s not wearing a maid uniform of the Nilm Family!"

"That means she\'s weak! Cut her down and run!!"

Oh, now that\'s just rude…

The first man raised his fist to try to punch me so I just sidestepped him and poured my mana into my sword, cutting his arm at the elbow before swinging it back to cut through his legs.

The man took another step past me before his limbs separated and he fell over onto the ground, screaming out in pain.

The next guy tried to slash his sword at me, prompting me to raise my sword and cut through his blade. He stared at his broken sword dumbly, only to have my sword slice through his neck in the next instant and decapitate him.

The last guy screamed upon seeing his dead comrades and tried to run past me.

Of course, I wasn\'t going to let him escape so I smashed my pommel into the side of his head, sending him crashing into the wall.

"A fantastic display, Mistress. You personally took down the leaders of the cult by yourself," Katsuki praised, appearing behind me without a sound.

Eh? These three were the leaders? I guess one of them sounded similar to the voice I heard earlier…

But umm… I killed one and then chopped off the limbs of another one… That\'s fine right?

Right?