With everything that is going on in the city, I wasn't paying attention to the harbor. Hearing the explosions I turn some of my attention to see what is happening. A couple of dozen rowboats and a few larger boats are attacking the ship.

The boats are loaded with more criminals from what I can see of them. The explosions I am hearing are the boats being destroyed by the siege weapons of the ship. So far, not a single boat has even gotten close to the ship and it doesn't look like any of them will.

The city guards are all busy raiding the criminals, but the criminals are attacking the ship. That doesn't seem right, so I take a closer look at the criminals on the boats. Even though they are dressed the same as the others, I notice that they are different.

The clothes look the same, but the humans wearing them are healthier and cleaner. They aren't criminals, they are just disguised as criminals, but who are they? Does this mean that the earlier attacks on the elves were just distractions?

If that is true, it means that their goal was the ship from the beginning. After all, if they want elves then there are a lot more on the ship than in the city. Or maybe they are after the ship itself, it depends on who is behind all of this.

The ship is the biggest ship in the world as far as I know and it should be the most enchanted. They have no way of knowing about Athena or the fact that it would be impossible to take the ship. Even if they managed to capture it, they could never control it while Athena is there.

The only way to get rid of Athena would be to destroy the core, but that would also destroy the ship. Without the core, all the magic in the enchantments would go wild and explode. The explosion would be big enough to wipe out the entire city and would probably kill me too.

Of course, that is only if I didn't know about it or have time to prepare a defense. Still, I doubt anyone in this city even has the skills to destroy the ship's core. It's not like I left the core undefended, Athena has plenty of protection, even inside the ship.

However, I don't even need to worry about it, none of the boats are reaching the ship. It looks like they have finally started to realize it, some of the attackers are even jumping into the water. While swimming will stop them from being targeted by the ship, they better be really good swimmers.

They are a good distance from shore, and if they aren't good swimmers they are sure to drown. Not that I care if they all drown, in fact I would be happier if they did, they deserve to die. In just a couple of minutes the boats have all been destroyed and most of the attackers are dead.

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Only a few dozen are still struggling and trying to swim to shore, the rest drowned already. From the looks of it, the remaining attackers don't stand much chance of making it. As I watch, the remaining attackers give up and drown one by one, until only one is left.

Surprisingly, the last one is a strong swimmer and it looks like he will make it to shore. I am still keeping an eye on Lin and the kids, but nothing has happened near them. So I fly down to the shore where he is heading for and wait for him there.

When he finally reaches the shore, he just collapses completely exhausted. Despite me being in my normal form, others still gather around to see what is going on. As I am looking at him, I get a sneaking suspicion, so I cast the new detection spell.

The watching crowd reacts strongly when the attacker loses his form and is revealed as a demon. Before I can say anything, a couple of adventurers in the crowd react and attack. I was planning to question the demon, but I wasn't expecting the humans to react so fast.

However, even though I didn't get to question him, his being revealed as a demon is good enough. Just the fact that a demon managed to sneak into the city is going to cause chaos. The people around are already starting to show signs of panicking.

Not that I really care, since he is dead I fly back to my perch on top of Lin's tower. The fact that a demon was involved in attacking my ship puts everything in a different light. The demons probably aren't after the elves or trying to capture the ship.

The most likely reason that I can think of is that they wanted to destroy the ship. What would be the point of destroying the ship? Are they acting under orders from the demon lords? Are they hoping to delay my return to the peninsula? Or just trying to kill my allies?

Maybe they wanted to force me to return overland through their territory so they could ambush me. Unfortunately, I can think of a lot of possibilities, but I need more information to figure out their plan. It looks like I need to find a demon to question and if there was one, there are probably more in the city.

Just as I am thinking of how to find one, the city's alarm bells start ringing. This time they are different, it is a fast sharp ringing and I have no idea what it means. From where I am I can see the streets around the castle and I can see that everyone has stopped.

Then I spot several people in the crowds all casting the detection spell. Surprisingly, there is actually a demon among those that were near the castle. He was probably there to keep an eye on me, but the crowd reacts instantly.

Before the demon can get over the surprise of being revealed, the crowd rips him to pieces. Even those who aren't adventurers join in, it is like a mob of wild beasts. The only thing that would make it worse is if they were eating the pieces of the demon.

I am guessing that the alarm bells were an order to everyone to check for demons. If so, then probably any demon in the city has already been reduced to pieces. There go my chances of catching one of the demons alive to question.

Any demons that didn't get revealed will probably be fleeing the city just as fast as they can. It makes me wonder how they lasted this long, did they figure out how to beat the old detection spell? If so, that would explain why the new spell managed to catch them so off guard.

Still, they must have been working on infiltrating the city for a while, long before I arrived. Did the demons figure out I would come here and set a trap for me? Or were they already here and I just happened to show up and become a target?