A guest fainted.
Bright red blood flowed from his nose, and he collapsed unconscious on the spot.
Cries of alarm instantly rose throughout the hall.
The man in the top hat who had just been dragged away by the soldiers had sohow escaped. Not only that, he had returned, reappearing at the entrance of the banquet hall.
"Hahaha, the banquet is over, my lords."
The top-hat man laughed loudly and raised both hands.
In an instant, the wine on the tables turned pitch-black. Everyone who had just drunk the wine began bleeding from the nose. Even a thin trickle of fresh blood ran from Lord Orden's nose.
Most of the people present had been poisoned.
Panic swept through the entire banquet hall. People covered their noses, clung to one another, and trembled in fear.
The top-hat man slowly walked into the hall, his gaze arrogant and smug. He removed his top hat with theatrical flair, even brushing his hair back with one hand.
"Surprised? I may not have horns, but I am a true demon."
Hearing his words, Shane suddenly rembered what Kraft had said when they t him in the Schwer Mountains.
"Two hundred years ago, I once saw soone who could perfectly hide their demonic horns."
Could this hornless demon before him be the person Kraft had ntioned, the one who could perfectly hide his demonic horns?
As Shane thought this, the top-hat man walked up to a dining table.
He casually picked up a wineglass from the table and swirled the black liquid inside.
"Letting you catch earlier was rely a way to buy ti until all of you drank this specially prepared wine. Well? Delicious, wasn't it?"
"From this mont on, Vorig belongs to the demons."
He raised his glass in an affected gesture, lifted his chin, and waited quietly.
He waited to hear the wails filling the hall.
He waited to hear the lord's furious, unwilling roar.
One second passed.
Three seconds passed...
Nothing.
The hall was deathly silent.
Even at the head table, Shane and Frieren made no move at all.
The top-hat man grew confused, his expression nearly slipping.
"Why aren't you resisting yet?"
Faced with his question, Shane kindly gave him an answer.
"We were waiting for the priest."
"The priest? What priest?"
Whoosh—
Sein unfurled a massive green magic formula across the floor of the entire banquet hall.
Then he stepped forward. The scripture in his hand opened, and the entire magic formula erupted with dense green light. Everyone standing within it was bathed in a wash of green magic.
The poison was imdiately cleansed.
The top-hat man froze.
"You were prepared for this!"
Only then did Shane calmly draw the sword at his waist.
"Obviously."
The mont the words left his mouth, he vanished from where he stood. In the next instant, he appeared behind the top-hat man and thrust his longsword straight into the demon's lower back without hesitation.
Pfft—
The blade sank in all the way to the hilt.
Crackling white lightning surged into the top-hat man's body as [Electrocution] took effect.
The top-hat man dropped to his knees in agony.
The attributes on the longsword activated one after another.
All kinds of negative statuses brought by [Suspicious Poison] instantly covered his entire body, making him convulse violently.
Long before the banquet began, while everyone had been waiting by the side entrance, Sein had already slled sothing wrong with the wine.
As a veteran drunkard and a priest most skilled at detoxification, he had instantly seen through the demons' trap.
However, after a brief discussion, the group decided to go along with it.
First, because Sein judged that the poison would not be fatal in the short term.
Second, because Lord Orden believed that letting the nobles experience the demons' treachery firsthand would make it easier to unite them.
Third, because Frieren felt that if they wanted to lure the snake out of its hole, they naturally had to wait until the whole snake had erged.
That was why they had not allowed Sein to neutralize the poison in the wine ahead of ti.
There had been a few small twists, but overall, everything had proceeded according to plan.
"Talk. Do you have any accomplices?"
Shane put away his sword.
The top-hat man kneeling on the floor trembled violently, enduring all sorts of statuses like [Stiffness], [Paralysis], [Freeze], and [Dizziness]... Shane even caught a fleeting glimpse of [Lust]. Did that count as a negative status too?
Just as he was wondering about it, the top-hat man suddenly revealed an eerie smile.
Shane's heart skipped a beat.
Frieren, seated at the head of the hall, reacted extrely quickly. The instant her staff appeared in her hand, a layer of [Defensive Magic] wrapped tightly around Shane.
Boom—
An explosion rang out.
The demon on the floor vanished.
No, to be precise, he vanished from everyone's sight.
At the critical mont, Shane acted on instinct, and [Goddess's Barrier] instantly opened. However, he did not use the barrier to protect himself. Instead, he wrapped it around the demon, cutting off the demon's plan to injure the surrounding guests through self-destruction.
The explosion rang out.
The demon detonated himself inside the barrier.
[Goddess's Barrier] turned into a sphere, locking away both the impact of the demon's self-destruction and the blood left behind.
At that mont, a huge blood sphere hovered in front of Shane. Within the churning blood, a leech-like worm was wriggling around, constantly slamming into the sphere as it tried to escape.
[Goddess's Barrier] could hide whatever was inside it, so the others could not see this grotesque scene.
Only Shane stared at the blood-filled sphere, his brows gradually furrowing...
The banquet ended in haste.
Thanks to the demons' open attack and poisoning, the nobles of the entire region beca unprecedentedly united in their resolve to resist the demons.
Lord Orden's battle plan to restore his military strength and continue intercepting the demons received unanimous support.
All of tonight's plans had gone almost perfectly.
Of course, except for the one unlucky guest who had fainted.
However, at his family's request, Sein had already given him a detailed examination in private. The final conclusion was that he had not fainted because of the poison.
He had fainted because he was afraid of blood.
Lord Orden and Stark, who was disguised as Young Master Wirt, went to the entrance of the mansion to see the guests off.
The musicians also left one after another.
The lively hall instantly grew quiet.
"Where is Lady Frieren?"
"Huh? I just saw her asking a maid for dessert... She didn't follow her to the kitchen, did she?"
Fern pressed a hand to her forehead.
A mont later, the girl let out a long sigh.
"This half month was truly difficult."
Shane glanced at her.
Although her tone carried relief, why did her expression seem a little lonely...
He could not help curling the corners of his mouth. The way Fern looked right now was exactly like one of those top students who had worked hard revising for an entire week, marched into the examination hall full of confidence, and then learned that the exam had been canceled at the last minute.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing. Do you want to dance?"
Fern turned her eyes away.
"You are joking again."
"You really don't want to?"
"..."
Shane smiled, bent slightly at the waist, and extended his hand toward the girl.
"Co on. Let see the results of your half month of practice."
Fern pressed her lips together and lowered her head, hesitating for a few seconds.
Then she took a deep breath and slowly raised her hand, clad in a white lace glove, before gently placing her fingers in Shane's palm.
Shane lightly held her hand and led Fern to the center of the banquet hall.
At this mont, the hall was already empty. The guests and musicians had all gone.
The two of them stood in the center of the hall.
Fern nervously looked down at her feet, already beginning to mutter under her breath again.
Shane lowered his head slightly and looked at her. The girl's cheeks, still faintly baby-faced, carried a soft blush. Her eyes blinked nervously, beautiful and lively.
Before he knew it, she had already grown into a young lady.
When he and Frieren first visited Heiter, she seed to be only eight years old. Ti truly passed quickly...
Shane sighed silently in his heart.
Then he stepped forward and led Fern into a dance. Although there was no background music, his steps still carried a strong rhythm.
It was just... a little too rhythmic.
"Ah."
Fern's foot had been stepped on.
"Ah."
The girl's face darkened.
"Ah."
After her foot was stepped on for the third ti, Fern stopped moving, making no attempt to hide the murderous look in her eyes.
"Mr. Shane, do you not know how to dance?"
"Cough... You can't put it that way. It's mainly that the kind of dance I know isn't popular here."
"What is the dance you know called?"
"Square dancing."
Fern's pretty brows knitted together.
She had never heard of that dance before. Mr. Gabel's lessons had not covered it either...
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