章 31: Shaltear's Blunder
To achieve this, Sebas and Solution infiltrated E-Rantel under the guise of members of a noble family, with Sebas acting as a devout butler and Solution as a spoiled heiress from the Baharuth Empire.
By coincidence or the power of the original plot, after establishing their reputations in the fortress city, they solicited the driver Zach—just as in the original anime—to take them to the Royal Capital.
Zach, of course, was an informant for a bandit group, the Death Spreading Brigade, who planned to ambush the wealthy pair outside the city.
What the bandits didn't know was that Shalltear Bloodfallen and two of her Vampire Brides were also traveling with Sebas and Solution in the carriage.
Unlike the duo's information-gathering assignment, Aurelius had assigned Shalltear to search for and capture Martial Art users and humans who would not be missed, one of whom was Brain Unglaus.
While everything on the surface appeared similar to the original, many things were different behind the scenes.
One notable difference was Albedo's supervision of this mission.
Using various magic items, Albedo had been continuously monitoring everything from the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick, ready to take action if anything went awry or if any lives were in danger.
Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened, and everything went according to plan—Aurelius's plan, not Shalltear's.
It was because after Shalltear killed the bandits of the Death Spreading Brigade and fought Brain Unglaus, she allowed him to escape due to her carelessness and overconfidence, chasing him down for fun. This was precisely what Aurelius had anticipated and wanted to avoid.
However, Aurelius had foreseen and prepared for this situation. He had already informed Albedo about Shalltear's likely behavior due to her overconfidence.
To teach Shalltear a lesson, Aurelius decided to replicate the events of the original timeline, allowing her to fail in capturing Brain Unglaus because of her carelessness.
How did he achieve this?
By introducing Brita, whose presence in the original storyline had thrown Shalltear off guard.
Unlike the original, this time Brita had only one Red Potion, which she had sold to Nfirea, and she couldn't accidentally stop Shalltear. So, on Aurelius's orders, Albedo hypnotized Brita with a divine item and gave her another red healing potion to use on Shalltear if she failed to catch Brain Unglaus.
The events unfolded much like the original. When Shalltear, in a "frenzied state," was about to attack Brita and her team, Brita threw the red healing potion at Shalltear. The bottle shattered, and the crimson fluid spilled from its mouth, splashing onto Shalltear's skin.
And then—there was a faint stinging pain.
The insides of Shalltear's mind went white for a moment, and her bloodlust was instantly extinguished.
Shaltear looked at the place from which the pain had come, which was the hand that had batted the bottle aside. She turned to look at the fallen bottle. She was very familiar with that container.
It was a potion bottle of the kind commonly used in the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
The liquid within should have been a low-tier healing potion. Because healing items could damage the undead, Shalltear's skin was probably slightly dissolved.
"Impossible!"
Her roar shook the very air.
"Capture that woman unharmed!"
Upon hearing Shalltear's command, the Vampire Brides—who had only been watching from the sidelines up until now—sprang into action. In an instant, they had seized the arms of the female warrior while she attempted to flee during Shalltear's brief stupor.
Brita struggled valiantly, but the Vampire Brides' strength far outmatched hers, and they dragged her before Shalltear.
"Look into my eyes!"
Shalltear grabbed Brita's chin and forced her to look into her mystic eyes.
A thin film seemed to cover the eyes of Brita as she was forced to meet Shalltear's enchanted gaze.
The look of fear and hostility on her face soon became one of friendliness. This was the charming effect of the [Mystic Eyes of Charm] skill.
Of course, what Shaltear didn't know was that Albedo had already used Divine Items to change Brita's memory, so even if she used the [Mystic Eyes of Charm] skill now, it would only give her false information.
Unaware of the truth, Shaltear had many questions she wanted to ask. However, one burned ahead of all the others.
Shalltear picked up the fallen bottle and held it before Brita's face.
"Tell me about this potion! Who did you get it from!?"
"A man in black armor gave it to me at the inn."
"...No way... no, this can't be... but... where... in which city is this inn?"
"It was an inn located in E-Rantel."
Shalltear gasped in shock as she felt the world spin. This was because she had a rough idea of who the black-armored man actually was.
If her guess was correct, that only raised more questions. Why did this woman have this potion? That person would not give out potions for no reason.
"Could it be..."
Had that person given the female warrior an order? Or perhaps he had given it to her in order to strengthen their good relations?
The unease she felt at possibly having ruined one of her master's plans filled her with limitless frustration.
"Why did you come here? What was your objective?"
She was no longer in the mood to dance around the topic. She had to find out as much as possible, and so she stared at the female warrior with eyes that were now bloodshot for a completely different reason.
"Yes. Our job is to protect the city, so we came to investigate when we heard there was a bandits' nest nearby. In the end, we found something strange, so we split up our team. Our party was responsible for a reconnaissance in force, which brought us here."
"You split your team?"
"Yes. We didn't know how many bandits were present, so we decided to split up and draw the enemy into a trapped area the other party was setting up."
"So there's another team," Shalltear muttered. She clicked her tongue as she realized that this meant more trouble for her.
"Then, how many of you came here?"
"There were seven people, including me, and then—"
"Hm? Wait, seven people? Not six?"
Shalltear counted the corpses around them. Three warriors, one mage, one cleric—and this woman. The numbers did not add up.
The female warrior's answer to Shalltear's doubt-filled gaze was direct and to the point:
"Yes, there was also a ranger. He said that he would hurry back to E-Rantel for help if an emergency occurred."
"Say what...?"
Eyes wide open, Shalltear charged up the sides of the lowlands, faster than the wind. She leapt over the edge and looked around, but even her darkvision-capable eyes could not penetrate the depths of the forest, and though she listened carefully, she could only hear the wind blowing on the grass and trees.
Shalltear did not possess any detection abilities or divination magic. Under these circumstances, finding a single person in the entire forest would probably be impossible.
"Damn it!" she roared.
Shalltear gritted her teeth, furious at missing her chance again. She had been too careless. With "Blood Frenzy," she had staged a splendid bloody feast. If she returned to Nazarick without any results, she would surely earn the hatred of Aurelius himself.
But that wasn't all.
Shalltear wanted to spend her days receiving love and affection from her beloved Lord, just like the other women. She wanted to bear his child and live peacefully. However, due to her overconfidence, she had made a significant blunder, and now she needed to quickly find a way out of this predicament.
However, as Shalltear tried to call her followers, clearing her head and thinking of countermeasures, a voice suddenly rang in her head.
[Shalltear, how is your mission going?]
'Shit!'
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