Chapter 10: Open the door! Demon Hunter!

After blurting out her complaint, Suna clutched her head, feeling a headache coming on.

As a high-ranking officer in the Demon King’s army under the weakest Demon King, the Burial Queen, she was a legitimate demon shapeshifter.

Yet, the human empire’s goddess had granted her the blessing reserved for high-ranking saintesses.

Was the goddess’s action a quirky sense of humor or sheer mischief?

Either way, Suna couldn’t muster a smile.

Her rapport with the Burial Queen meant she wouldn’t face punishment or scorn for the blessing, but a year of mockery was likely.

While pondering her next move, Suna noticed golden hair at the edge of her vision.

“Hm? Why’s my hair suddenly golden… wait, no way…”

Muttering, she hurried to the fountain, using water magic to form a mirror-like surface.

Reflected was the blonde saintess form she’d used for over a year: golden hair shimmering like ripe autumn wheat, eyes sparkling like pigeon-blood rubies, a delicate, vibrant face, and slightly shorter-than-elf pointed ears.

Though identical to before, the blessing made her glow faintly, radiating an involuntary holy aura.

More concerning than her enhanced appearance, Suna tried shapeshifting into another form.

Her skin and flesh writhed, and the transformation worked briefly, but it wouldn’t hold.

Her usual handsome male face from her Suni days in the Demon King’s army appeared, but the moment she relaxed her magic, it reverted to Saintess Suna.

“What?! I can’t return to my usual human form?

Am I stuck like this?

No, no, no!”

Panicking, Suna realized that as a shapeshifter, being locked in one form crippled half her infiltration abilities.

Worse, while she’d played the blonde saintess for over a year, her chosen gender as a shapeshifter wasn’t female.

“This can’t be real! It’s a nightmare!

My handsome body’s gone.

If I can’t shapeshift, I’m useless as a shapeshifter!”

Muttering, she tried reverting to her monstrous true form.

Tendrils, cracked skin, extra eyes, and toothy maws appeared, but she couldn’t fully escape her human shape.

After this failure, deeply frustrated, Suna respectfully knelt in prayer before the damaged goddess statue.

“Great Golden Bough Goddess, could you please take back this blessing?

Did you grant it to the wrong person?”

No response came; the goddess had clearly seen her prayer but ignored it.

Realizing she’d lingered too long and that the “miracle” might draw others, Suna, with a mournful expression, covered her hair and most of her face with a hooded cloak.

She prepared to leave Korez Town as planned.

Exiting the secluded forest, she reached a roadside, flagged down a passing merchant caravan, and paid a small fee for a ride to the next town.

Despite her suspicious hooded appearance, her smooth talk and modest payments secured rides on cargo trucks, passenger coaches, and carriages, heading toward the empire’s northeastern border.

A week later, arriving at the border town of Stada at night, Suna evaded residents and patrol familiars, preparing to slip back to the Naitrest Demon King’s territory.

Her mood was complex: joy at completing her mission, relief at returning home, and frustration over the unexpected blessing.

But as she trekked toward the border, an invisible wall halted her.

No matter how hard she tried, an unseen force held her back, preventing her from crossing into the Demon King’s territory.

“Huh? I can’t even return to the Demon King’s territory now?”

Angry and annoyed, Suna pushed forward, but her body was repelled unnaturally, stumbling back several steps.

Faced with this odd phenomenon, she recalled her shapeshifting tests over the past week.

Whenever she relaxed her magic after taking a human form, she reverted to Suna’s appearance, though animal or inorganic forms held fine.

Suna had to admit her body was under some strange magic from the Golden Bough Goddess, undetectable by her own inspections.

“Is this a curse?

No, it doesn’t have negative magical fluctuations.

A blessing with restrictions?”

Despair crept over her as she returned to Stada.

Biting her finger, she muttered.

“This is definitely punishment!

To lift the goddess’s restrictive blessing, I need to meet its conditions.

But with my current strength, I can’t even discern them.

To find out, I’d need a temple leader at a Golden Bough Goddess temple to analyze it—that’s a death sentence!”

Feeling trapped in a loop, Suna followed Demon King army protocol, sending an encrypted distress signal via multiple familiars.

Settling temporarily in Stada to await a response, she hadn’t stayed a day when she spotted a dozen demon hunters searching the town.

As they knocked on doors, shouting, “Open up! Demon hunters!” and followed procedures to root out demons and ancient cults, Suna noticed a new wanted poster on the town’s bulletin board.

[Shapeshifter Wanted: A highly dangerous shapeshifter has infiltrated the northern region.

Residents, cooperate with investigations and beware of outsiders…]

Without reading further, Suna knew it was aimed at her.