Chapter 281 – Thrall and Human

While walking, I used magic to carefully search the place.

For me, this meant activating both Magic Search and Magic Exploration at the same time.

Magic Search was a wide-area magic that detected anything with magic energy within the area, and Magic Exploration told me what type of magic it was.

After all, when it came to things containing magic energy, it could be a magic tool, magic stone, human, monster, or the dark ones.

And the moment I had cast Magic Search around the embassy, I had discovered several hundreds of creatures with magic energy.

And then I cast Magic Exploration on each one.

‘There are vampires. At least ten Lords.”

That was what I knew after such light searching.

‘Are there any charmed people or thralls?’

‘There are. A lot of them.’

Currently, the majority of workers within the embassy were either charmed or thralls.

Shia was able to tell who was a thrall by looking at them. But she could not do the same with charmed.

Serulis could not tell with either of them.

However, with Magic Exploration, I could tell who was charmed and who was not.

‘Indeed. Leave the small fry to me. But if a Lord comes out, fight them.’

‘Very well.’

‘Understood.’

‘And be careful of the evil god protection. That being said, I don’t really know what to do.’

‘Yes, they are very dangerous.’

‘It seems that recently, the Vampires have come up with a technique to bury the evil god protection core inside of their bodies.’

‘That really is terrible.’

‘Grulf, if you can detect the device that is making the hole in the divine protection, tell me.’

“Grau!”

Grulf barked reassuringly. I was happy to hear it.

Previously, the Vampires who infiltrated the royal palace had a magic tool that weakened the effect of the divine protection.

My guess is that they had something like that, but evolved and strengthened within the embassy.

I took the lead as we headed to the building. And then, someone ran towards us from the gates.

There were five people in all. That was too much for gate keepers.

‘They must have thought we would come through the gates, and were prepared.’

‘They didn’t think that we would come through the wall then.’

‘Mr. Locke. Are they people? Or thralls?’

What Serulis meant by this, was if they were charmed, and could be returned to being normal people.

‘There are people, and also thralls. And some who are neither.’

Were they bought with gold then? There must be some explanation.

Perhaps they had become believers of the evil god, even while they remained humans.

In any case, we could not kill them. We would have to hand them over to the privy council later, so that they could be questioned.

The more information we had, the easier Eric and Marguerite’s jobs would be.

‘In any case, leave this to me.’

‘Understood!’

‘Very well.’

Thralls could not go back. While it was sad, we had to kill them. That was the only way to save them.

The problem was people who were charmed, or unaffected at all to begin with.

We had to neutralize them without killing or injuring them too much.

Right now, out of the fifteen headed towards us, there were five thralls, six charmed, and four humans.

“We will show you mercy if you surrender right now.”

I called to the ordinary humans.

And just like that, the four humans stopped in their tracks.

“What? You broke into the embassy! Don’t think that you’ll get away with this!”

The man who appeared to be the leader shouted in a rough voice.

Indeed, it was as he said. Or it would be, if this were any other situation.

But even as I and the leader talked, the thralls and charmed were jumping towards us.

I dodged them as I asked the human,

“Do you know what you are doing?”

“I think it is you who is confused as to what you’re doing.”

The leader retorted, but…

“What do you mean?”

Asked one of the warriors.

“This place is a vampire nest. Were you ignorant of that when you were hired? Or did you already know?”

Those who were charmed or who were thralls could pretend to be ordinary humans if given the order.

Most people would not notice the difference, and it would be possible to fool them.

“What rubbish! The royal capital is under the divine protection. Vampires could not…”

While the warrior was talking, I unleashed magic spears at the five vampires.

Thralls were below even lesser vampires.

One spear for one of them. In most cases, that was enough.

And yet the five dodged the attacks with skill. They had the movements of a first-rate warrior.

“Very impressive. You must have been great fighters when you were still alive.”

When you became a thrall, your combat ability improved.

So the better you were while a human, the stronger you were as a thrall.

“So it’s only those five who are thralls!”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then we can fight as well.”

“We will join you!”

So saying, Serulis and Shia started to attack the thralls.