"You look like you digested that nicely."
Altrouge tilted her head, watching the pale boy as the biting mountain wind whipped around them. A playful smile danced on her lips. "But I do wonder… just how much of my power did you manage to steal with a single drop?"
Rimuru didn't turn around. He just cast a dry, sidelong glance over his shoulder. "Is the nun handled?"
"You speak to me as if you are the Princess here," Altrouge huffed, crossing her arms. "But yes. Basically."
"Define basically."
"You wouldn't let me take her, wouldn't let me hurt her, and threw a fit over anything that would cause permanent brain damage. What exactly did you expect me to do?"
Altrouge glared at him, thoroughly annoyed by the restrictions. She reached into the folds of her skirt and casually tossed an object at his head.
Rimuru caught it. It was a mask.
Carved from pale, bone-white wood, it resembled an Oni from Far Eastern folklore. Deep, blood-red patterns traced the cheeks, and a single, crimson tear mark was painted beneath the left eye.
"I planted a hypnotic suggestion," Altrouge explained smoothly. "For the next six months, she won't be able to consciously recall anything that happened tonight. She'll only remember that she nursed a traveler back to health, and then a wild animal attacked the courtyard."
"Six months…" Rimuru let out a soft sigh, running his thumb over the smooth wood of the mask. "I suppose that's the best we can hope for."
He examined the Oni mask. As a Mystic Code, it felt strange to the touch, ice-cold, yet radiating a faint pulse that made the blood in his veins hum.
"This will hide my identity?"
"It completely isolates your magical signature and disrupts clairvoyance. It's an import from the Far East." Altrouge waved a hand dismissively.
She clearly didn't care about the mask's deep lore.
When you've spent centuries hoarding the spoils of war, memorizing the backstory of every trinket in your vault becomes a chore.
"Alright then." Rimuru slipped the mask over his face. His voice immediately dropped, slightly muffled and echoing behind the wood. He turned to fully face the Black Princess.
"So, what's the grand plan? You went through an awful lot of trouble to recruit me. You must have a target in mind. What do you need me to do?"
"Hmm…"
The moment he asked, the regal, terrifying aura of the Dead Apostle Queen vanished. Altrouge froze. Her small face tightened, and a very faint, very awkward blush crept onto her cheeks.
"Actually… I don't really have anything for you to do."
"???"
Rimuru stared at her through the eyeholes of the mask. Are you kidding me?
"My trip to Germany wasn't some grand military campaign. It was just a routine diplomatic mission to deal with the White Wing Lord," Altrouge grumbled.
She held up a small fist, extending her fingers one by one as she listed her grievances.
"I went there to negotiate. First, about a ceasefire in Austria. Second, about his aggressive territorial expansion lately…"
Rimuru connected the dots instantly. "So, the results?"
He thought back to his desperate flight half a month ago. Wait. "Let me guess. The 'negotiations' resulted in you two leveling three entire cities across Germany?"
Bingo.
The moment he said it, Altrouge puffed up like an angry cat. She stomped her foot against the rock, her fangs bared in sheer, unadulterated frustration.
"The result is that Ortenrosse told me I was daydreaming, and then tried to beat me awake!!"
"…"
Rimuru slowly massaged his temples through the mask.
"Tch. How do I put this? You are… vastly different from what I imagined," Rimuru said, spreading his hands helplessly. "Maybe you do need a knight who actually knows how to negotiate."
He let out a long breath. "Well, if you don't have an itinerary, how about you help your newest, most loyal knight run an errand?"
"Oh? Are you sure you're loyal and not just a traitor waiting for his moment?" Altrouge's eyes narrowed playfully. "What exactly do you want to do?"
"There's a specific item I need to acquire from a major magus family in Germany. Logically, the 'proper' way to do this would be to send an envoy, establish my lineage, and request a formal meeting."
Rimuru paused. A dark, cynical chuckle echoed from behind the Oni mask.
"But since I've joined the Dead Apostles, I really should embrace the role. I suddenly feel like kicking their front door in would be much more efficient."
"Germany?" Altrouge arched an eyebrow.
"Yep. Germany. Right in the middle of the White Wing Lord's backyard."
"Tch." Altrouge tilted her head, a brilliant, vicious smile lighting up her face. "What an absolutely delightful proposal."
…
Three days later.
When Rimuru set foot on German soil once again, he couldn't help but feel a profound sense of irony.
Just half a month ago, he had arrived here as a naive academic. A magus stepping out of the Clock Tower's ivory tower for the first time, cautious, methodical, and severely lacking in genuine crisis awareness.
Today? He didn't need to fear the monsters lurking in the dark.
Because he had become one of them.
Rimuru raised his hand, his fingertips brushing against the seemingly empty, freezing air of the dense forest.
Ripple.
The atmosphere distorted, concentric circles radiating outward from his touch like a stone dropped in a calm pond.
"This is the place."
Rimuru looked back over his shoulder.
The freezing mist clung to the forest floor. Hidden within that white shroud were dozens of pale, hollow-eyed figures. A militia of vampires, baring their fangs in the biting cold.
"Go in," Rimuru commanded, his voice cold and absolute behind the Oni mask. "You are permitted to feed. But there will be zero casualties. No one dies. Understood?"
He turned back to the invisible wall.
He didn't bother looking for the Bounded Field's structural weakness. He didn't need to unravel the magecraft. He simply raised his arm and funneled his massive mana reserves into a stolen formula.
Exorcism Rite.
Golden light flared as Rimuru repurposed Grand Inquisitor Vissela's anti-heresy spell. Seven jagged streaks of holy light slammed into the invisible wall.
CRASH!
The Bounded Field shattered like cheap glass. The illusion of a dead, barren winter forest instantly melted away, replaced by the towering, ancient evergreens and pristine, magically preserved snow of a hidden domain.
Finding the Einzbern family's ancestral castle was notoriously difficult. To locate this hidden pocket of reality, Rimuru had ordered his new Dead Apostle subordinates to scour every single aristocratic estate in Germany with a fine-tooth comb.
It was worth noting that this army of vampires wasn't actually part of Altrouge's personal guard.
They were local Dead Apostles, rogues and dissenters who operated within Ortenrosse's territory. Altrouge had simply drafted them on her walk over.
While the White Wing Lord, Trhvmn Ortenrosse, controlled the largest, most structured territory and faction among the Twenty-Seven Ancestors, Altrouge operated entirely differently.
The Black Princess was a nomad. She wandered the globe, granting the Embrace to fascinating magi or simply offering her absolute protection to any vampire who opposed Ortenrosse's rigid rule.
To her, it was just an amusing hobby. To Ortenrosse, it was a blatant, aggressive expansion of her military power, which was why she commanded the title of Queen and attracted so many rogue followers.
Because her faction was so decentralized, her "subordinates" were scattered to the four winds. But that freedom came with a price.
When the Black Princess came knocking on your door and told you to march...
You didn't have the right to refuse.
….
+20 chapters on my p@tr3on: Kazuma_trash
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