To Rimuru, these drafted vampires were entirely expendable cannon fodder.
The Einzberns weren't a proper magus lineage anyway; they were a glorified factory of homunculi. Even their current patriarch was nothing more than a biological terminal built by a disciple of the Third Magic.
If Rimuru somehow managed to lose a PvE match against a bunch of programmed bots, he had no right to dream about outsmarting Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg.
But just because a CEO knows how to code doesn't mean he writes the mundane scripts himself.
As the newly minted White Knight, Rimuru had a certain status to maintain. More importantly? He needed to absolutely screw over the White Wing Lord.
If Rimuru kicked the door in by himself, the Holy Church and the Mage's Association might just sweep the incident under the rug.
They'd toss the Einzberns some compensation money to maintain the peace and call it a day.
But a large-scale, coordinated invasion by an illegal gathering of Dead Apostles?
That was a different story entirely. The Church would have no choice but to launch a massive, violent crusade across the country to clean house.
And since Germany was Ortenrosse's primary stronghold, the White Wing Lord would inevitably take half the blame for the chaos.
Honestly, Rimuru suspected that was the only reason Altrouge had agreed to this little field trip.
Ulterior motives aside, her faction's intelligence network had definitely saved him months of blindly wandering the frozen wilderness looking for a hidden castle.
The moment the Bounded Field shattered, Jubstacheit von Einzbern, commonly known as Acht, the eighth-generation patriarch, felt the feedback.
He stood in his study, his sharp gaze piercing through the frost-covered windows toward the silent forest. With a single mental command, he booted up the combat network for the estate's homunculi.
Across the sprawling castle, maids and servants stopped mid-step. Their vacant, doll-like eyes flared with the cold light of autonomous magical defense protocols.
While the majority formed a defensive perimeter inside the stone walls, a vanguard unit of combat models plunged directly into the woods to intercept the intruders.
The Einzberns might have lost their grasp on the Third Magic centuries ago, their reputation steadily declining, but they weren't helpless.
To fund their obsessive pursuit of the Holy Grail, they monopolized the global market for high-end homunculi. Because of this, the castle wasn't just staffed by porcelain dolls.
Much like the Yggdmillennia clan, the Einzbern estate was a fortress bristling with combat golems and weaponized homunculi.
The entire castle served as Acht's personal, heavily fortified Workshop.
To date, no magus had ever successfully breached it. Acht was supremely confident in his defenses.
Mostly because the true heavyweights of the magical world knew the Einzberns no longer possessed the Third Magic, rendering the frozen castle utterly uninteresting to anyone strong enough to actually break in.
Five minutes later, however, Acht's absolute confidence began to waver.
His vanguard unit had gone completely silent. No telemetry. No combat reports. Just radio silence.
A very human frown creased the ancient homunculus's face. He turned and strode slowly out of his study, walking to the castle's grand entrance. The heavy oak doors swung open. He looked out into the courtyard.
And there they were. Pouring out from the treeline was a horde of pale, misshapen, bloodthirsty monsters. Ghouls. Beasts. Dead Apostles.
…
A biting, freezing wind swept over Acht's wrinkled face. It carried the heavy, unmistakable stench of copper and iron. It wasn't homunculus blood; even the most advanced dolls in his armory didn't bleed red like that.
With the patriarch finally making an appearance, Rimuru didn't bother hiding anymore.
He strolled casually through the defensive perimeter his new "subordinates" had torn open. He stared coldly at the snowy courtyard, which was littered with shattered porcelain limbs, gears, and torn synthetic flesh.
Nearby, a hulking, beast-like Dead Apostle was pinning down a combat maid. The maid was still struggling mechanically, but the light in her artificial eyes was rapidly fading to dull glass.
"I specifically ordered you not to kill anyone," Rimuru sighed, sounding more exasperated than angry as he stepped over a severed, twitching arm to look at Acht.
"But, my Lord…" A scarred, grotesque vampire with a face like a mangled wolf sneered, wiping synthetic blood from his chin. "These things aren't human."
Rimuru stopped. He raised an eyebrow beneath his Oni mask, a cold silence settling over him.
He was annoyed. Technically, yes, there were no purebred humans in the Einzbern estate. But he hadn't expected a grunt to play semantics with a direct order.
It was the textbook definition of malicious compliance, like telling an employee to fetch a guest a drink, and they deliberately hand them a glass of boiling mop water.
Was this idiot genuinely that dense, or was he testing the new boss?
Either way, it needed correcting. Rimuru, generally preferring the "reasoning" approach to management, opened his mouth to explain the concept of obedience.
He never got the chance.
A streak of pitch-black light flashed past his shoulder. The scarred vampire let out a sudden, agonizing shriek. A geyser of blood erupted from his shoulder as his entire right arm was cleanly severed, hitting the snow with a wet thud.
The sudden spray of real, vampiric blood caught the wind. Even Acht, with his centuries of mechanical stoicism, felt his artificial heart skip a beat. His pupils shrank.
Stepping gracefully out from the dark shadows behind Rimuru was a petite figure in a black gothic dress.
The moment her delicate eyes swept over the courtyard, every single Dead Apostle instantly dropped to their knees, pressing their heads into the freezing mud. No one dared to breathe.
"Technicalities aside," Altrouge purred, her crimson eyes staring down at the bleeding monster with absolute, freezing disdain. "Who gave you the right to talk back to him?"
An invisible, crushing pressure slammed into the scarred vampire, forcing him completely prone.
He clutched his bleeding stump, shivering in cold sweat. Behind him, the air distorted as the Black Knight materialized. Strout rested the icy edge of his demonic sword lightly against the back of the vampire's neck.
The lethal intent was absolute. The grunt squeezed his eyes shut, paralyzed by terror, not daring to utter a single word of protest.
Rimuru watched the brutal display of authority and sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. "And here I thought you were still sitting in that cafe in town, eating ice cream."
"I leave you unsupervised for two days, and the grunts are already trying to stage a mutiny." Altrouge shot Rimuru a withering, exasperated glare, completely ignoring his teasing. Her voice dropped to a cold whisper.
"I distinctly remember telling you, Rimuru. If a dog disobeys an order… you just put it down."
….
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