[SS 2.95] Eye Spy (Part 3/4) (Patreon)

Eventually, the school day came to an end, meaning both Gelic and Gawk would soon be free of their duties. Technically, Gelic wasn’t exactly quite sure when her observation was supposed to end. Ba Skin had asked for a day of observation, but was that only when Gawk was working, or was she expected to stay for an actual full twenty hour day from the moment he was summoned? She was fine with that, but the ambiguity was annoying. 

And not that she was in any rush, since there was likely a good amount of hang-out time ahead. After that, she’d message Ba about his expectations. But it was also currently sleep time in Hell, or at least when she would assume most Demons slept, so she didn’t want to message him right now. It should also be sleep time for her, so she was thankful for the impending shakeup. Because even though she’d been chatting with Gawk basically the whole time, damn, stake-out work was boring. It definitely wasn’t for her, and she’d been struggling to keep her eyes open, not that her masked bug ones could actually close.

[Fatigue Resistance Lv.9]

That had definitely helped, as had the constant chatting. But what had really kept her awake was staying in endless motion. Sadly, because of Conceal, she couldn’t really do training with anything that involved MP. Thankfully, she’d be able to cut out using the Skill early, but she still didn’t want to dive too deep into her reserves. And since she needed to keep watching her friend at basically all times, that ruled out something like reading. Even if she gave herself more eyes, that wouldn’t help with focus, and sadly, the boring bumpy book she could read with her hands was back at home. If she did have that, she probably wouldn’t read it, because damn, it’d just make her even more likely to fall asleep.

It was a shame, though, since she wanted to try out Speed Studying, which she hadn’t had the opportunity for yet. Angelica wanted to see just how much it actually increased. Especially because before Angie went into her art Era, she had managed to level the Skill a little bit. She knew it was faster thanks to the transmissive knowledge, but didn’t really know how much without experiencing it for herself.

[Transmissive Speed Studying Lv.3]

So she was back to her usual puzzle box, but at the same time, she was working on one of her few Passive Skills that she could easily train actively: Multi-Bounce. Basically the entire time since they’d gotten to the school, she’d been bouncing around, either in place or from one roof to another. Thank goodness she was invisible, or she wouldn’t be able to bear the judgmental eyes from Gawk, or any other Demons—of which there were actually a few around, keeping an eye on different kids—who would see her hopping around like a crazed kangaroo. 

She hadn’t really messed around with the Skill in a while, so it was interesting to see how much more control she had over it now after some practice and the levels she’d gotten. Her bounces were no longer forced to be double speed and distance per bounce in the chain. There was a decent bit of growth on the upper end, which was neat, but she had far more flexibility on the lower end. It would seem there had to be some level of incremental improvement with each bounce still, but she could minimize it now to near nothing. 

On top of that, she could cut off the speed after a certain point without breaking the chain. The momentum would still carry her for a while afterward, but she could stop it after ten feet instead of being forced to fly a hundred. This was instrumental in letting her actually keep doing her job. Otherwise, she’d have to reset it all after every few bounces, since a few more after that would send her up into the clouds. 

Over the course of the day, she managed to achieve a fifty-bounce chain while barely going up more than two stories. And even though the height and speed were far from her max potential, it felt like the force behind every hit was reaching insane proportions. She’d also purposefully managed to get herself wedged in an alley between two buildings, bouncing back and forth, similarly to when she’d hammered the nail into that Spawn, and after a point, the exponential growth became too much for her, rattling her body and mind. It’d definitely be something that required a lot more levels before she could use it substantially.

[Multi-Bounce Lv.17, Hunger Resistance Lv.5]

She’d also managed to get that since she hadn’t eaten anything all day at this point. The takeout her Duplicate had gotten for her was still waiting in the fridge back in her apartment, and it wasn’t like the school had a food truck within eyeshot. Gelic did have a few snacks stored in Second Stomach that she could have enjoyed, but decided to hold off. She planned to pig out a bit when eating later with Gawk, so that he could try a lot of human things, and she didn’t want to fill up. 

While she could just use Starvation before then, she also kind of wanted to experience the Demon way of things, out of solidarity with her friend. As far as she was aware, he definitely didn’t have Second Stomach, and wouldn’t have eaten anything since his arrival. It was likely he’d get a portion of vitality from his Summoner when he reported in for the day, which she still had yet to experience. And while she could see it doing its job at keeping them alive, it was hard to imagine that it was particularly satiating or satisfying.

She went over the list of all the foods to buy as they went on the move again. Gawk’s target didn’t head straight home after school, however. Instead, he went to a local playground with a few friends. So it would seem there was still a bit of the stalking left in their day, though probably not for too long. A lot of the kids left after only a few minutes, and more got picked off over time by their parents who came to collect them with their ending shifts. 

The kid in question, though, was apparently in it for the long hall. And with less of a crowd, the remaining few children left got a bit more energetic. They played a game of tag that got a bit aggressive, and ended up basically devolved into some pushing and wrestling. But really, it was just kids being kids, merely some horseplay where maybe there’d be a bruise for a day, but they’d be laughing about it tomorrow. Except… Did Gawk know that?

Gelic tensed a bit, keeping a close eye on her friend, to see if he’d do anything to dissuade the behavior. Except… the Demon didn’t seem to care at all. If anything, he actually seemed to be enjoying the minor display of violence. Ah, wait. His own upbringing was full of “friends” who basically just bullied him all day, and these kids weren’t even doing it in a secretly cruel way. He must have thought it was standard behavior. While it may be good to someday correct that understanding, for now, it avoided a potential crisis.

Well… it was avoided for a little bit. When most of the kids were gone as the sun was getting low, and there were no more parents in sight, a few older teens suddenly appeared on the scene. It led to a pretty stereotypical confrontation, the older ones making fun of the little kids, telling them to get lost, one even demanding money at some point—definitely a worse side of humanity.

“Hey, Gelic.” Gawk suddenly spoke up, having not said something on their shared line for some time. He relayed what was happening to her, as if it wasn’t unfolding right before her eyes too. “Is this normal for humans?”

“Hmm, normal, perhaps. Such behavior isn’t too uncommon from what I know, but it doesn’t mean they should be doing it. You’re supposed to get rid of any bullyies, right? Maybe you could do something to scare them off.”

“Yes, great idea!”

Gelic probably shouldn’t have reminded him of such a thing, but she also didn’t want him to fail his first Contract. Since she didn’t know the Summoner well enough, he very well could have considered this a breach if he reported it but didn’t have any sort of follow up. But apparently, the two of them had very different ideas on how to handle the situation. Gelic thought back to when she’d scared an abusive brother, something like that.

Gawk’s understanding, however, was that he should attack them directly. He flew close to the edge of the playground and reared back his wings. When he flapped them forward, a vortex surged into existence. It wasn’t a full-on tornado, more on the level of a dust-devil. But the fact that he could suddenly spawn either into existence out of nowhere was both impressive and terrifying.

Also terrifying was the fact that the humans couldn’t see it at all. There was a rampaging cyclone of destruction headed right for them, and yet they were none the wiser. It wasn’t quite touching the ground, and that left the soil unscathed, but it was still crazy that the spiral of surging wind would go entirely unnoticed. Or maybe, at best, they’d see it as a strong gust or random eddy. 

What worked in Gelic’s favor was that unlike the winds that comprised the cyclone, the actual column of magic was pretty slow moving, so she had a moment to figure out what the frits she was going to do about it. Should she tell him to cancel the attack? Could he even cancel it? Either way, it’d expose her presence, but the time for subtlety had passed. So it’d be easier to just interfere directly. 

Even if his Order had basically implied that he do something along these lines. Even if it probably didn’t have enough power to kill or even really injure them. Even if the teens were pricks and probably deserved to get smacked around a bit—which her Demon side kind of wanted to see, she wasn’t gonna lie, especially if they got sucked up into the vortex and spun around. But her human side told her that them getting hit with a tiny tornado wasn’t the best way for them or Gawk to learn their lesson.  

So how to stop the attack? Could she hit it with a Cyclone Sphere with the winds spinning the opposite way in hopes that they would cancel each other out? Pfft. No. There was absolutely no way she had enough control over the Skill to make that happen, especially since it had fixed potential in its Rune state. Plus, she had completely no idea if the physics worked that way. She did mediocre in her science classes at best. As far as she knew, it could either make the initial tornado even stronger, or make some big windy explosion. 

Her best bet was to block the attack, so that’s just what she did. With a quick Jump Good, she appeared right in the middle of the vortex’s path. Instead of letting it hit her, she summoned a half-circle hollow pillar of ice that was a bit taller and wider than the cyclone. When the wind scraped against the wall, she completed the pillar and added a lid, encasing the tornado entirely. It rumbled for a bit, but the construct held strong. Only to be Salvaged away when the noise stopped.

[Conceal Lv.9]

“Oh hey, Gelic!” Gawk flew over to her the moment she removed Conceal to reveal herself. “When did you get here?”

“Just in time to see you attack those humans, Gawk,” she answered harshly. “You can’t be doing that.”

“But you said to scare them?” He was clearly genuinely confused.

“Scare, not attack.”

“But attacks are scary!”

Well, he wasn’t wrong there. “Most humans don’t generally solve things with violence. And even if they got scared off by sudden magic, it likely wouldn’t stop them from doing things like this in the future. If you want them to stop for good, you need to make them scared of what they’re currently doing, not a random Demon attack. Besides all that, there’s a chance the human you’re supposed to be watching could have gotten hurt too. Now I don’t want to do your job for you, but if you follow my instructions, I can hopefully guide you to a good outcome.”

All this time, the confrontation between the older and younger kids had gone on undisturbed. The teens had begun to act big, like they were going to start swinging and uphold their threats if they didn’t get what they wanted for the young’uns. The kids, however, weren’t giving in—good for them—and when the biggest bully raised his fist like he went to go through it, Gawk’s target stepped in front of the others, clearly intending to take the hit for them. He really was a good kid.

But the teen never took the swing. Instead, they froze, only for a moment, just enough to make it seem they were reconsidering. Though they got over it, and went back to their attack, only to freeze up once more. And then again. With every inch they moved, they were too stunned to move another. Clearly, they were having some sort of internal crisis about the actions they were planning on taking. Or so it would seem.

One of the other teens realised that their friend was chickening out, and stood in to take their place, ready to throw a punch of their own. Yet it was the strangest thing. They froze up too, unable to even think about hurting the kids in front of them. This eventually emboldened the youngsters, and they squared up themselves, ready to retaliate against anything that came their way. And that just freaked out the older kids even more. Why were they so scared of someone weaker then them? Yet it was enough to really freak them out, and they eventually turned around and booked it out of the playground.

“Woah, that was great, Gelic!” Gawk praised her, though he’d done all the work. “It worked out just like you said. Though using Stunning Gaze that many times in a row made my eye itchy. Nyeh.”