(Immortal: Untouchable)

Only human heroes could beat the immortal demon lord – that was a tale as old at time itself in the realm. That was the story she had been told as a child. Was the legend true, whether or not it was, she, a young human woman clad in black and violet, was doing the hero’s job that moonless night.

“So this is the castle of one of the four generals…”

With a black scarf covering her face and her long black hair tied into a braid, she had stealthily snuck her way into the headquarters of one of the demon lord’s strongest. Past the guards and defenses, she made it to the deepest part.

Click!

“Alright. I’m inside. Now where could he be…? His private quarters...? Looks like he’s drinking...”

When it came to the realm they lived in, humanity never was the strongest. In fact, they were considered amongst the most short-lived species. With a life span much shorter than dwarves and elves, they were an ephemeral existence that only shined brightly trying to make the most of their limited years. Their numbers were so great that they had much potential to grow and spread – having a far greater variety of abilities and affinities than the other stagnant species. In the long run, very few left their mark in the world, but that was why they tried so hard to carve their names into legend.

“Before the Hero can get here, I’ll take care of this small fry.”

To the elf that was her mentor, she was one of those humble humans - still yet a wee babe. But the nearly 3 decades of her life had been worthwhile to her to the point where even beastkin and demons knew her by her nickname as a mercenary.

‘…The Immortal Devil… how do I do this...?’

To take down an immortal general, they needed the Immortal Slayer – The name was an oxymoron. While long lived species had an end, there actually were immortal beings in the realm. From phoenixes to Daywalkers to elementals – they all existed. Thankfully, many preferred to avoid contact with humanity, but those under the service of the demon lord were an undying thorn in humanity’s side.

‘…What kind of immortal is he? Should I use weapons or magic?’

Whenever she was hired to deal with immortal beasts like vampires, their presences somehow always vanished after she was done.

“Oh? It appears I have a guest.”

“Huh?”

Whaaaaaam!

However, though she was doing the hero’s job of fighting the demon lord’s general, she was no hero. Before she could ready her spell, a powerful fist had slammed into her side, knocking her from her high ground into the wall of the floor down below.

“Blargh!” she spat out blood as her body peeled off the ruined stone wall and onto the cold floor. She found herself standing at the feet of a tall, muscular horned man who stood at least 200 elfin centimeters tall. He had visible scales under his eyes and a pointed tail. He was a demon.

“Hic! Well would you look here – I thought it was too quiet tonight. Guess I know why now,” the Immortal Devil’s arrogance poured out of his mouth with every word. His face was flushed. The strong smell of alcohol and the sight of empty barrels told her he had been drinking plenty. “Don’t you know whose territory you’re in, Missy?”

It wouldn’t matter in a short second, as she answered with actions rather than words. From her prone position, her body vanished into mist, immediately appearing behind the demon. From her robe, she unveiled a concealed holy dagger and quickly thrust it at his throat.

“-?!”

“Heh, I guess you don’t,” the Immortal Devil continued speaking as if nothing was amiss. Nothing was because the dagger aimed at his throat was stopped in place upon contact with his skin. “You humans call me the Immortal Devil, but in demon language, I’m Vole the Untouchable. My body’s been bathed in the Black Dragon’s blood. No weapon, not even that blessed anti-demon dagger of yours can’t hurt me. And is it dipped in some sort of poison? That won’t affect me either.”

Vole grabbed the anti-demon weapon in her hand and crushed it. If his assassin hadn’t let go of the weapon in time, she wouldn’t have been able to evade the claw swipe that quickly followed.

“Tch… I made the wrong call. He’s invulnerable to physical attacks,” the mercenary clicked her tongue. “How troublesome – an immortal I can’t poison…”

Now that she had taken a step back, Vole took a moment to look at the intruder to his castle. She was a short woman, possibly only 160 elfin centimeters tall. She was clearly was an assassin clad in all black but there was a mage’s touch to her clothing. Purple lines with intricate woven patterns were at the ends of her sleeves, mantle, and where her black shorts met her black tights. The other distinguishing feature she had was the clover shaped symbol in her hair.

“Hm… That clover…,” the devil actually recognized the design. Upon realization, he let out a hearty laugh. “Gyahahahaha! I see! So the humans sent the Immortal Slayer after me. And to think she’s such a weakling. I guess those rumors my advisors were warning me about were unnecessary.”

At the laugh, the woman felt insulted, putting her left hand on her right wrist, channeling magic power into her hand. “You recognize the Trifol mark and you still dare to mock it?”

“Of course I do,” smirked Vole just as several spheres of pure energy were launched right at him. Despite his bulky body, he swiftly evaded each one and closed the distance between the two of them.

“Gwah!”

Slaaaaaaam!

The drunken demon grabbed her using her own scarf and slammed her into the ground. “Even if the Trifol elves taught you magic, a human like you is far too slow and weak to land a hit on me.”

Unfortunately, this was the difference between humanity and the other species in the realm. Their own strength was their diverse skills and affinities, but they could never compare to the magical ability of elves and fairies and nor the physical aptitude of beastkin and demons.

“G-Gyah!” the demon put his foot down on the mercenary’s chest.

“Y’know, that sure was some weak magic. I guess you’re a physical fighter,” Vole determined the woman’s strengths. The alcohol loosened his tongue more than his judgment. “I heard plenty about immortals up and disappearing whenever the Immortal Slayer’s around. I guess whatever method you use to get rid of them doesn’t work on me thanks to my invulnerability.”

He wasn’t wrong. Though she was taught by an elf, her aptitude for magic outside of her non-offensive based affinity was terrible. Stealthy physical attacks and poisons were indeed how she was able to take care of her previous targets. The demon’s invulnerability to physical attacks made him one of her least favorite immortals to deal with.

“Well, I’m disappointed, but let’s end this here, Missy. Normally, I’d make a show of killing the Immortal Slayer, but I’ve still got a few more barrels of mead to finish.”

The demon pulled his arm back, readying his claw by pouring magic power until it so that a green flame surrounded it. This was the end. His affinity and hers were just terrible matchup…

… A terrible matchup for him.

“Heh.”

The woman smirked as a light began to glow from beneath her thick clothing. Marks written on her torso began to glow as she channeled magic into it. If she couldn’t hit him and if her magic attacks were too slow to hit him, she’d just have to use a spell with an enormous range that he couldn’t avoid. Invulnerability to physical attacks and the speed to evade targeted magic meant nothing to the magic circle drawn on her body ahead of time. This was the trump card she had prepared to use on him.

“What the-?”

In an instant, the entire room of Vole the Untouchable’s chamber filled with a bright light. The demon had been ready to kill her without mercy, but his talkative nature had dragged things on for too long. The next thing he saw when he opened his eyes a place that he was no longer his castle.

“W-Where is this? She had teleportation circle prepared?” Vole sobered up from the shock. He looked left and right to find that his surroundings were entirely black –a field of inky darkness. Had the assassin transferred him to her home turf?

“A teleportation circle? That’s not quite right,” the woman’s voice echoed in the demon’s head. He tried to look around for her, but to no avail. Looking up, however, he saw a purple ceiling. Was this a cave? It looked unnatural even amongst demon standards.

It was no cave. The mercenary’s affinities with most magic were weak. Her teleportation magic was definitely not strong enough to teleport him so far away from his castle. However, her magic affinity with another type of magic had been successful in accomplishing her goal. And her affinity with that type of magic was far more perfect than anyone would ever believe.

Rumble. Rumble.

“What in blazes?”

The ground and ceiling began to move. It soon became clear to the Immortal Devil that what purple ceiling he had been looking at was not a ceiling. It was the purple outline of the cloak the woman had been wearing. Upon it shifting away, he found himself staring at an enormous face as large as his own castle.

Vole the Untouchable had been shrunken down to a mere 2 elfin centimeters. He was standing atop the now mountainous breast of her woman he had been stepping on earlier.

“Oh, I love it when the tables are turned on you undying fools. I couldn’t use the Redushroom Poison earlier, but it looks like the magic circle I had Master draw for me worked wonders.”

This was the Immortal Slayer’s true affinity: the Mini status - not just with Mini magic but also with Mini causing poisons and skills. This was how she had become known as the Immortal Slayer.

Whaaaaaaam!

“Grk!”

Before the demon could react, the woman’s gloved hand came down onto him. The sheer weight of a hand larger than a storeroom slammed him down into the woman’s breast. Even with his demonic strength, he couldn’t fight a mountain much less a mountain-sized woman.

“No damage. As expected of someone resistant to physical attacks. But it looks like you can still be held down at this size. Good.”

“Y-you impudent brat…” Vole struggled to push himself up to mumble.

The woman’s Mini affinity made her capable of hearing him. As she had been successful, her voice grew more confident… more dominant. “I think the impudent one is you. You’ve realized it now, haven’t you? Why immortals seem to disappear whenever I’m hired?”

Rumble.

The mercenary couldn’t resist chuckling. Her laughter caused her chest to shake, rattling the shrunken immortal pinned to it.

“If I can’t kill you, I can at least immobilize. And what better way to neutralize with an undying monster than to weaken it until it’s unnoticeable?” she was grateful Vole had been so talkative earlier because it motivated her to speak up in his place now that he was speechless.

The young woman’s confidence was clear now that her spell worked. Her affinity with Mini was so great that it could shrink down a demon general to such a small state. And even more than that, Vole himself could feel how long lasting the effects were. This was not a state which he could simply recover from in a day.

“This affinity… it’s monstrous…” Even a demon knew how absurd such a powerful Mini spell was.

“Monstrous?” the mercenary pressed him harder into her chest as she stood up. The warmth of her body flowed into him from every direction but the air around him vanished in the cramped space between her palm and her breast. “I think the monsters around here are you immortals.”

Dexterously, the woman’s hand moved, grabbing the 2 cm tall demon between her thumb and forefinger. He was helplessly held in place, unable to move despite not being able to be hurt.

“Well, I suppose you’re more of an insect than a monster right now,” the mercenary smugly smiled. “I’m glad you recognize my power though. You see, while I would love to go take care of your immortal master, the demon lord, that is apparently the hero’s job.”

“My king won’t be so foolish as to be defeated by the likes of you,” snarled the shrunken demon.

“That may be true,” the woman sighed, knowing her own limitations. “But because I know that: to make the hero’s journey even more likely to succeed, it’s my job to deal with your unfair existences. I’ll at least make my name known through making you undying beings disappear.”

How was she going to make him disappear? That was up to her to decide.

“Let’s see… Where should I put you before I take you to Master? I’m in a good mood now that I finally caught you,” the mercenary wondered. Despite being in a demon’s territory, after shrinking its owner, she now had a playful tone in her voice. “Since you’re the invulnerable type, that does mean I have to make sure you’re restrained properly… Ah!”

Whoosh!

Much to Vole’s dismay, the woman’s hand moved rapidly. The world around him became a blur. It was only when she stopped moving that he saw his future prison. The shrunken horned devil found himself staring at a pitch black net.

“Wait, this is-”

Of course, it was only a net because of his current size. The flesh covered wall the mercenary started to shove him against was her leg.

“My tights should be quite tight, of course,” the woman had pulled down her pants and rolled down her black tights to push him against her thigh. She released him for a moment to re-dress herself, but his miniscule size made him too small to escape in the brief second that she took to pull up her tights and shorts. The black net of fabric instantly snapped back onto the woman’s thigh, sealing his movements with intense pressure. The only space he had left around him was filled with the smell of sweat. “There we go. Perfect. I think I can keep you here to hold you until I collect my reward.”

With those words, the mercenary began to leave. A single movement of her leg strained her tights as her thighs could hardly be constrained by them. This resulted in a sharp spike in the pressure that pinned the demon to her leg.

“Mmghh!” Vole’s talkative nature was sealed. His miniscule squeaks were now completely muffled by the fabric, and his body was now completely hidden away by the black cloth. The Immortal Devil – Vole the Untouchable, had been successfully neutralized, sealed by mercenary’s black tights. The quality of her magic affinity was simply too strong.

“Hm… I would’ve liked you to be a bit smaller so I didn’t feel you, but I guess your resistance was fairly strong… Oh well, that sensation alone is a reward for a job well done to me.”

This was the Immortal Slayer: Annelie of the Trifol - a magic wielding assassin whose Mini Magic was unparalleled. After shrinking immortal beings down, her very body could become their prison.

“Time to get going. I still have a few more targets I was hired to deal with.”