Grave Danger

Zinrus and Evileye stood silently before a white tombstone engraved with the name: Elizabeth Sarein Zinrus Eitrigg.

"Oh, so you're named after your mother. How'd she die?" Evileye asked, a nonchalant tone in her voice. "Did it have anything to do with the Cult?"

Zinrus tried not to roll his eyes. The vampire came off as a rather….tactless individual. She acted very differently from what Zinrus had been taught was acceptable throughout his upbringing.

But he did not dislike the vampire. Evileye's blunt attitude and sharp tongue was a refreshing change of pace from the lofty yet hollow words of the fellow junior noblemen he frequently had to converse with.

He enjoyed Eloise's company for that same reason. She was not someone who fussed over pointless formalities and seemed to mostly ignore noble custom. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that she was of noble birth at all; her behavior was more reminiscent of a village girl.

"My father wasn't the only one who carried all these unorthodox views; my mother was in on it too." explained Zinrus, "They worked together to investigate some kind of hidden conspiracy in the New Kingdom, which was why I got angry when I saw he was doing the same things with another woman."

"Anyway, almost five years ago, as she was returning home, she was attacked." he finished.

"Returning home? From where?" Evileye interrupted, her interest suddenly piqued.

"Where…." Zinrus wondered. He was sure he knew the answer, but once again, he couldn't quite visualise the location. A foggy feeling settled in the back of his mind as he tried to reach the answer that was at the tip of his tongue.

"I-I'm not sure…." he finally replied.

From beneath her mask, Evileye's gaze narrowed as she saw Zinrus's strange response yet again. "Who attacked her and why?"

"My father told me that it was some kind of frenzied bird monster. He called it a freak accident."

Evileye remained silent for several seconds as she heard this.

Bird….?

"Did you ever see the actual body?" she asked again.

"Only at the funeral, but her face was concealed underneath a veil."

Evileye gazed at the dirt in front of Elizabeth's tombstone.

[Earth Sense]

Through the spell, she could detect two types of disturbances in the earth. One was a small patch of dirt that had evidently been moved on a regular basis, and the other was a large mound of dirt that had been unearthed some time ago, but had since remained untouched.

She walked over to the small patch of dirt and cast [Reverse Gravity]. Sure enough, a white box emerged from the earth to float into the air, surrounded by tufts of loose dirt. Zinrus's father likely came here to routinely update the box with new information, which made the spot where the box was buried easily identifiable.

She grabbed the box hanging in mid air. However, before heading over to Zinrus, she cast [Silent Magic: See Through] and gazed at the larger, undisturbed mound of earth to her side. Her enhanced vision penetrated through several layers of earth to finally rest upon an ornate wooden coffin.

She gazed into the coffin. Sure enough, the half-decayed body of Madam Eitrigg was present as expected. However, a particular feature of the corpse caught her eye: the edges of the skull's eye sockets had several thin slashes scraped into the bone. Upon first glance, Evileye thought they looked like fractures, but as she focused her gaze, she could see that they more clearly resembled scars left by some claw or talon that had been sunk deep into the eyes.

She grimaced. No wonder the boy's father concealed his mother's face from his son-it must have been a gruesome sight. Some type of flying creature likely dove onto her from above and ripped….

"Is something wrong?" asked Zinrus, unable to see the wary expression beneath the vampire's mask.

Evileye turned her sight away from the coffin and walked back towards the boy.

"Everything's fine." she said as she handed Zinrus the box. "I'm not an official member of the Resistance, so I can't initiate you like your father can. None of those rites mean anything anyway, so just open it."

Zinrus shrugged. He had little attachment to the Resistance or their customs. With a bit of effort, he unclasped the lid from the box, noticing the helm-shaped symbol on the lid as he did so.

"What does the symbol represent?" he asked.

"Ah, that!" a rare tone of excitement crept into Evileye's voice, much to Zinrus's surprise. "That's the representation of the Resistance's Creed, the Helm of the Raven Black Hero. It was inspired by Momon, one of the few heroes powerful and brave enough to stand up against Ainz Ooal Gown all those years ago. I have to give it to those amateurs, they do occasionally have some great taste."

"Oh, where is Momon now?" Zinrus asked in curiosity. He recalled hearing about that name sometime during one of his lessons with Professor Tyris.

Evileye's sudden excitement vanished just as quickly as it came. "Disappeared without a trace after the Sorcerer King's death. No news about him has turned up once in the past one hundred years."

The vampire seemed to enter a melancholic state of silence after that. Zinrus wondered whether Evileye and this "Momon" individual had some sort of unique relationship. As the silence began to grow awkward, he quickly turned his attention to the box before him. He set it down on the ground and knelt to inspect the contents within.

The first item that stood out to him was a platinum coated badge lying atop the stack of documents that filled the rest of the box. Zinrus picked it up and inspected it, half expecting to see another depiction of Momon's helmet. This time however, the insignia on the badge was that of nine concentric circles and two swords that crossed at the very center. Four arrows pointed towards each of the four corresponding angles formed by the crossed swords.

"What is this?" asked Zinrus as he ran his finger down the cold metal of the badge.

Evileye snapped away from her thoughts and gazed at the item in Zinrus's hands. "That is the official mark of the Resistance. The organisation was founded by four noble houses, which is what the arrows represent. It was also protected by two of the four Imperial Knights, which are represented by the crossed swords, and the nine members of the Eight Ripples, represented by the nine circles.

"If I recall correctly, your House Eitrigg was one of the founding houses, and would thus be represented by one of the arrows." added the Vampire a moment later.

"I thought the Imperial Knights served the emperor?"

"The Bloody Emperor had a bit of a...mental breakdown after Ainz Ooal Gown's death. His two loyalest knights, Baziwood and Nimble retired shortly afterwards and went underground to combat the remnants of the Sorcerer Kingdom. The third surviving knight embarked on a….different path."

"Anyway, enough questions." Evileye's waved her hand impatiently as she walked over to the box, reaching inside to grab a bundle of parchments tied together with string. "We need to take a look at these documents."

Not long after beginning her inspection of the documents' contents, a disturbed expression emerged on Evileye's face. The expression deepened with every flick of a page, culminating in a horrified look of surprise.

"What's wrong?" Zinrus asked. While he could not see Evileye's face, he felt a sudden heavy tension in the air as the vampire's concern grew.

"It seems…." she replied in a troubled voice. "Your father was looking into something very big indeed. Based on these reports, citizens have been disappearing in waves all over the New Kingdom of Re-Estize. The total number of missing individuals has reached over one million."

"What?" gasped Zinrus. "But how? Everyone would be up in arms if so many people have disappeared. There's no way you can hide the disappearance of a million people just like that."

"Apparently," she explained. "These disappearances occurred gradually over the past two decades." She tapped her finger on one of the documents. "Your father explains here that he and your mother worked with a few other members of the Resistance to uncover an overarching pattern of an almost systematic nature."

"He concluded that collusion from the local authorities and government officials was necessary in order for such a massive phenomenon to be kept under wraps. That's why he began to suspect the Sovereign Duke." she continued.

"Speaking of the Sovereign Duke…" Evileye suddenly recalled. "The reason Arin Aenoch contacted me was so I could identify a person of interest the Duke had been meeting with…"

Before she could finish, Zinrus had already begun rummaging through the box. He pulled up a brown folder with the words "identification needed" written on it in ink. A note scribbled on a small piece of paper was attached to one corner of the folder.

"Here, I just noticed this." he said as he handed it to Evileye.

The vampire nodded her thanks, shifting her gaze first towards the attached note. She read it aloud: "Rest In Peace Gilford Bevarius Fern, who died in the making of this piece of evidence. Although Gilford was killed, he successfully hid the sketch for my eventual extraction. However, the recorded individual is not a face I am familiar with. Must investigate further."

Killed? For recording their appearance? How was Lord Eitrigg able to get his hands on it then? The questions just keep piling further….

As she mulled over the thoughts in her head, she slipped her hand into the folder to pull out a hand-drawn sketch.

Evileye took one look at the individual in the sketch and froze.

"Wh-what?! This doesn't make any sense…." she gasped. Her mind raced with a thousand possibilities, and a murky conclusion gradually began to form in her head…..

"Huh?" sputtered the confused Zinrus. "Wh-"

"Grab the box. We have to get back to Lakyus NOW." interrupted the vampire with an urgent tone. "We'll need her help if we are to figure all of this out. We aren't safe out here. I believe we may be caught in a web of something far bigger than I initially imagined…."