Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"Well for a starter… your life."

Eren looked straight in the Adept ranker's eyes after he said that. He had finally remembered Ari from his past life. He had visited the city of Silvermoon when he was a good-for-nothing loser before the time reset. At that time, the then-lousy berserker had heard an important tidbit.

It was about a certain platoon captain of the city of Silvermoon whose tales of bravery and beauty were go-to topics for the citizens living inside it.

Eren had happened to hear one such tale from the group of drunkards sitting across from his lone table when he was inside a beat-up tavern. The tale was about Arizihana Agnoth.

First, the group talked about her beauty and then became sad over the fact that she had died. And the way she had died was also interesting to hear.

Ari had died due to rushing in her ranking journey. She had used a D-Rank potion on herself while being at the E-Rank's solid stage for an expedited breakthrough.

In her defence, Ari had done that because she was stagnating as a ranker. She didn't want to stay in the E-Rank for years on end and reach the next rank crawling. If she waited any longer, her prospects would end at D-Rank.

And she won't be able to break through into further ranks even after using external help. Because her lifeforce would have gotten depleted by then.

That's why Ari had decided to take a bold step. She somehow got her hands on a lost and partially incomplete potion recipe and ordered the best potioneer she could find in the city of Silvermoon to make it for herself by signing a binding contract of confidentiality with them.

The potioneer had warned her that the recipe wasn't something that could be called a standardized model. Plus, it belongs to a lost school of potioneering that didn't have many scholars associated with it.

At their best, the potioneer could only make the potion with half efficacy as compared to the original effect. And this was after the potioneer made sure that the missing blanks are rightly filled with relevant details that belong to the lost potion-making school.

And half efficacy was not the only problem the incomplete potion would have. It would also cause unknown side effects due to there being no suitable neutralizing agent known by the potioneer that could eliminate them.

But Ari accepted the potioneer's clauses anyway. She was desperate and this potion was her only hope. In the end, she had used the potion to breakthrough into D-Rank and surprised a lot of her peers.

But her breakthrough came with a cost. Unbeknownst to her, her mana circuits and her mana core were slowly getting incompatible with each other. The process started slowly and it remained undetectable until it was too late.

Arizihana died by body implosion while she was participating in a battle with the cultist gang. She was executing a mana-heavy spell and that became a trigger for her mana core to go berserk.

At first, the city guards fighting with her thought the cultists had executed a strange spell on her. Her body was brought back to the city of Silvermoon and an autopsy was done by a qualified panel of healers. The autopsy report gave out the real reason behind the platoon captain's death and everybody in the city became upset over that fact.

Ari had a lot of admirers that spanned across males from various races and even females. She was one of the most important people in the city of Silvermoon after all.

So when the news about Ari's cause of death was out and that potioneer was somehow known by the masses, he was dragged out in the open beat-up hard by them. His clothes were torn and he ran naked in the street before being saved by the city guards, who then tortured him some more before finally kicking him out of the city.

People who participated in the guy's beating subconsciously knew the potioneer wasn't really at fault in this case. But they had to vent out their feelings somehow. And the poor lab-rat became the channel to release their frustration.

People had a strange mentality. They would blame their healers for not curing them of ailments in the right manner. When it was their poor dieting habits that were the cause behind them in the first place. And they would blame their parents for failures their own lifestyle choices had brought them.

Anyway! The death of the platoon captain Arizihana, while she was battling it out with the cultists for the city's safety, had created a deep impression in the mind of the Silvermoon citizen. They had even created a statue of her that became one of the city's attractions points.

But all of this was still a few years into the future in this timeline. Ari had just broken through her D-Rank. The incompatibility could still be resolved if treated in the right way. That's why Eren brought the subject up to gain a slave for himself. Otherwise, he would have let the platoon captain die without thinking twice.

"And what do you mean by that? If this is some sort of joke…"

Ari's mood was getting fouler by the second after hearing Eren's wild claim. An F-Rank teen was talking about a D-Rankers life and death. Of course, the snow elf felt offended.

"Please hear me out, Adept Ari. I'm saying that for your benefit. I'm a potioneer who is trained by a C-Rank healer. I can sense an ailment through my mana sense and your presence here feels like your mana circuits and mana core are in a war against each other.

From Master Marla's talk, you've just broken through the D-Rank, yes? But something feels off about the mana signature you are radiating. It is not stable.

I don't think the incompatibility between the two is apparent yet but I'd advise you don't wait until it does. Otherwise, you would implode while executing a spell someday.

Here's my suggestion. Please hire a capable healer and ask them to check up on your current condition. If what I say is true, you can use your weight in the city to grant me a kingdom-sanctioned slave. If not, I'm ready to pay up to 20,000 Extols to you.

How's that for an equivalent exchange?"

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AN: Hi. Most of you must have noticed by now, but I'll declare it officially anyway. VEH has entered a win-win ranking starting this month. Readers can now avail privilege tiers to access stockpiled chapters.

There are two tiers readers can unlock and they would stay unlocked for this entire month. Tier 1 gives you access to two chapters that haven't been released while tier 2 lets you read 6 more chapters.

My suggestion for those who want to support VEH would be to unlock the privilege tiers now at the start of the month to get the most out of it. The privilege unlock would help me as well as you when enough people are participating. So unlocking these tiers is always appreciated.

The normal chapters would continue to be released regularly. And yeah, privilege tier 1 is only one coin away from getting unlocked. That's it. Happy reading and keep your diet in check in the upcoming holidays. ;)