Practice. Practice. Everyday it’s practice in the morning up till evening, and then, I’m trying to get Lani, Reese and Marty’s affection up to 40%, so I’ve been taking them all out for dinner every day.

Time is running out. But I will survive this.

"All peaceful so far…" Sara nods. "I have a few of the soldiers on scouting missions as you commanded. So far we do not have any news."

"Huh." I thought it would be an invasion, looks like what is going to happen is either a portal, or a secret hideout popping out, that they are beneath us all this while. "Do we have secret sewers or something? Perhaps underneath our town?"

Anne thinks for a while… "Maybe? I will need to look up the records."

We try our luck, and go through the archives with Anne. It took us about half a day of looking through old records and surveys, then we found it. There’s a few underground chambers beneath the old markets, and I let Sara know about it.

"Can we go check them out as soon as possible?"

Sara taps her chest. "Leave it to me, I think I can find it if I use my skills. I'll get a few men, Adam and Marty and survey the town, perhaps we’ll be able to find something."

I nod. “Be careful, if you spot anything, tell us and let me get the team together before you try anything.”

Sara nods. “I know.”

At first, there was nothing.

But a day later, Sara came back, looking ominous.

“There’s something down there. I see some people gathering… and some chants. Something’s not quite right down there.”

I nod, and I signal Anne to quietly gather the men. We will spy and attack this group tonight.

Later that night, as the moon hung high on the night sky, we gathered at one of the market stalls, there’s a sewer gate that leads to the old chambers, built few hundred years ago.

All of us descends into the chambers, Sara ahead, Marty right behind her, Adam at the back. At first they told me to stay back, but I think I should be there. Something, a strange instinct tells me I need to go, and I pull Anne along as well, even though she has no combat ability.

Sara guides us to a small room, with a view of a larger hall, filled with rubble and multiple piles of rubbish. There’s a foul stench.

“Wait here... they should be coming soon.”

All of us nod, and we hide. Thankfully, there’s a lot of rats and other critters walking about, and their squeaking and other noises helps mask our presence.

As the night gets darker, a group of men and women stream in. They look like regular villagers, but once they are gathered, they put on a black robe, and start to mumble.

“The stars are aligning. It is time.”

“Yes. It is time to end the Magnus dynasty.”

“Shush. The King may have sensed it, and sent their prince over to suppress us. But till today, he knows not of our presence.”

A young lady walks in, and she too wears the hooded robe. “This summoning will take a week, do we have the materials?”

Two pairs of villagers walk into the larger hall with 2 large bags, they look like bodybags. Let me guess, blood sacrifice. One of the older villagers smile, “It took a while, but yes, we have before you, two young virgin men.”

I think I will refer to them as cultists now.

The young lady nods, and two older cultists start opening the bodybags to reveal two gagged young boys. They are probably not even teenagers yet, just 12.

“Young.” The girl says.

“Will that be a problem?” The old cultist asks, I think he’s the ringleader.

“The book says the summoned demon will need a bit more time to regain their strength.”

“Ah, we should start.”

The cultist girl nods. “Yes we should.” The cultists spreads out the hall and start working on some kind of markings on the floor. It looks like a kind of blood paint, and they are writing runes.

Anne and the rest of the men look at me, I tell them to wait. I want to know a bit more about these men.

They draw two large circular rings with those blood runes, with an overlap, kind of like a mathematical overlapping set, and they set up stakes. They then tie the two young boys’ hands and legs to the stakes on the circular runes, so they are spread open like the vitruvian man.

The men spread around, forming a larger circle around the two smaller circles.

“Everyone here?”

“Yes. Let’s get going.”

I felt this was a good time. I signal the men to get ready, and note to Adam to secure the exit.

The cultists start their chanting…

“Go!”

And our arrows and thunderbolt fly, zapping the cultists.

“HOW?!” The old cultists shout, drawing a dagger. The rest of the cultists grab some wooden sticks, and try to fight off the guys.

“Kill them!” I shout, all of us charge in, Sara, Lani and a few archers pop out of the smaller room and unleash a wave of attacks on the cultists.

It is then, a prompt appears on my head.

[You’ve unlocked a secret mission!]

[Kill all the cultists and enslave the demonic summoner girl!]

Ah! I rush ahead, and jump in. The cultists seem very lightly armed, only a dagger or sticks, so I think there’s no real risk.

The cultists fall like flies, as the arrows and lightning shots from Lani easily take these cultists out. Their physique is just like any other villager, so, frankly it’s no real challenge.

The old cultist and me cross eyes. “The prince? You knew all along?” He tries to stab me, but before he gets to, Sara’s arrow pierces him in the chest. “Ugh… curse you and your Magnus dynasty…”

And Sara lets a few more arrows loose, piercing the cultist in the head and the chest again.

“Thanks!” I shout out, and rush to the demon summoner girl, who’s clearly looking afraid.

Our eyes meet.

“Hi. I’ll have to knock you out.” And I punch her in the gut with all my strength. The force causes this small petite demon summoner girl to stagger back and I take another step forward, and this time, hit her on the back of the head with the hilt of my sword.

And this demon summoner girl didn’t even dodge. She whimpers, collapses.

“Oh we won.” Reese smiles, and most the cultists are dead, a few heavily injured and unconscious from their injuries. We will have to interrogate all of them later.

Sara helps to free the two young boys, who look drugged and is still unconscious.

Is this it?

[You have successfully completed the secret mission! Completed the secret end to the main mission! Countdown timer removed!]

Huh? Wait. What?!

[Special mission rewards given]

[All characters who participated gain affection + 15%]

[You learned a new special skill - The Harem-reality distortion field - All girls will magically accept that a harem is normal with you. Harem end unlocked!]

[You learned a new special skill - Special catalogue - Traders selling unique affection and intimate items will now be available!]

[2 skillpoints granted]

Seriously? Is this really the end?

“Wait.” I look around, at the rest of them, who seem to be clearing out the summoning site. It seems everyone’s rather happy that they managed to stop the cultists. Marty summoned the rest of the army to come over and haul the injured cultists in jail. The demonic summoner is handcuffed with special anti-magic cuffs, and also sent to jail.

“Good call, Prince.” Anne nods, “I didn’t think we have a threat within the town itself.”

“They seem relatively harmless though. Other than some of them with daggers… but they obviously are not trained to fight.” Marty comments, looking a bit puzzled. “And they think they can control demons?”

“Who’s the mastermind?” Adam wonders. “The girl? Since she seems knowledgeable about demons.”

“We’ll have to ask some of the prisoners and the girl later on.” I add.

“You think we’d have more of those next week?” Adam looks quizzical. “Or will they be summoning more demons?”

I pause, before I let out a huge breath of relief. It probably sounded like a sigh to everyone, so everyone turns to look at me. The timer that seems to be counting down whenever I pull up my skill menu is no longer there.

“Ah, actually…. Actually.”

Everyone waits for my next sentence.

“I think we killed the demon before it even appeared. So there’s no threat anymore.”