Using the swarm of ghost snakes, I spied on Leon and Eric’s team while they slew my clones easily. Leon’s strength was formidable, his powerful ax easily destroyed my snakes, and they were left hopeless. Their poison, shadows, and other attacks barely affected them as he was being helped by Eric and the other priests with him, bringing healing, status effect recovery, and magic shields to the mercenaries and adventurers led by Leon.
Meanwhile, using a sneaky snake ghost, I was glaring down at Catarina and her two idiots. She was looking for me everywhere. The trio seemed to be able to float in midair like Vampires in fiction can. So I guess they can fly the same way I do as a ghost, naturally… huh, that’s kind of unfair.
She was taking her sweet time, though. For some reason, she was trying not to get close to this group of mercenaries and priests. They were most likely told not to get involved with them and to only hunt me down if I escaped their grasp, which I did.
So the Vampires and the Aristocrats of the Kingdom seemed to have some kind of alliance, although their own pawns didn’t even know about it yet and were unaware of the other… well, Catarina seemed clearly aware. Still, she wasn’t given the order to interact with them or interrupt them, most likely.
So strong, yet she’s still a lackey for the big bosses behind this entire thing… what a waste of potential.
“Damn it! Where did she go?!” Shouted Catarina.
She was a temperamental woman. Her entire flawless and beautiful face was raging in pure and utter anger. She was hopelessly furious as if she had done something so foolish. Despite her strength, she had very loose control over her own temperament. I can see why she just broke apart most of the landscape.
“Catarina-sama, I think she went inside the forest…!” Said one of her lackeys.
“Agh, but those idiots are there. We can’t… get there. According to the boss,” Sighed Catarina.
“Should we retreat before they see us then?” Asked the other.
“No! I am not going to retreat! Are you crazy?! What if she beats them down?! We have to catch her! Let’s watch over and see if she dies or not… If she begins winning, we enter and quickly kill her for once… She’s a tough nut to crack, though,” Said Catarina.
The two Vampires nodded at her words as she flew into the ground and hid beneath the shadows of the trees outside the forest, looking down into the interior of the forest for anything suspicious.
“If she survives, we’ll follow her to the end of the world, did you hear me?”
“Y-Yes!” The two lackeys nodded fearfully.
Her words were strong and firm. Despite that, she didn’t realize one of my clones carrying all the people had already run away very far from here.
And… I could quite possibly do the same as well, but if she notices I ran away, she’ll look for me everywhere… It would be better to just crush her here and now and get a ton of EXP out of it.
She’s an A-Rank threat. After all, she’ll surely give some tasty EXP… I am a B+ Rank threat myself in power… but I can clearly exceed that if I use all the powers within my disposition. I had already accumulated tons of magic crystals from monsters I had stolen from the duchy back then, so I can use them to enhance the Unit Cards of my allies within my Soul Grimoire and enhance their stats. Or even more, consume them to fuse with them temporarily and gain part of their power…
I am not in this without plans or ways of fighting… however, even with all of this taken into consideration, this woman is fearfully strong. I cannot fight her with distractions such as a bunch of other B+ Ranks annoying the hell out of me.
So I plan to deal with these idiots in the forest, at least the weaklings first, and probably lure the other idiots close to the Vampiress, provoke her, and “accidentally” make her… well, commit an oopsie against these guys.
Wouldn’t it be for the best in this regard? Although she would end up with all the EXP instead… Wait, can we take down Leon and Eric by ourselves? …I think it could be possible if I take down their small fry first.
Which I am going to do right now.
“Gahahaha! These snakes are stupidly easy to kill!” Laughed Leon.
His Axe was shining brightly with the power of his strong techniques. He was able to shatter the earth beneath his feet and slice through dozens of trees with his powerful moves.
“[Purification Ligh]t! [Heavenly Domain]!” Eric shouted as he unleashed light around him and shot powerful rays of light that purified the snakes into nothingness.
The other priests also worked hard and did their very bests, fighting off my snakes and defeating them with ease. Their holy light was very strong against my little tiny snakes… but that was fine. I was just buying them time.
“How odd… I don’t get any EXP from them,” Pointed out an adventurer.
“Me neither…!” Said a mercenary.
“Indeed, what kind of monster doesn’t give EXP?” Asked Eric.
Even the priest was immersed into this world with its RPG rules I guess, so even he wondered where the heck the EXP was at. Well, my clones don’t give EXP because they’re technically just a part of my body. Slaying it won’t give EXP unless you actually defeat the real deal, me. And they had yet to even do that.
I sneaked around them and used Stealth-based abilities. My eyes suddenly glowed brightly as the snake-headed tips of my hair opened their eyes as well…
The weak adventurers and mercenaries of all appearances, sizes and classes suddenly felt a strange power bathing their bodies. Even the weaker Priests felt this power bathing them, and even their strong barriers were nothing against them.
The eyes of a Gorgon!