Old man Amory kept smoking his pipe as he replied to Eren.
"The kingdom knew the possibility of an attack like this, lad. But it wasn't able to pinpoint the target on time. Still, it tried to prevent the attack from happening by launching a preemptive strike."
Eren narrowed his eyes as he listened to Amory.
"Are you telling me this attack happened after their preventive measures failed? When did they become so useless?"
Eren asked this question to nobody in particular as he released white clouds of his own through his mouth which were swept away by the winds. Amory's nostrils flared when he smelled the stuff Eren was smoking. Even with his B-Rank constitution that was almost impervious to Adept-ranked resources, he could tell that the herbs the butcher was smoking were very potent.
'This lad has the smoking habits of an old man. I don't know how he functions normally with smoking herbs like those.'
Amory noticed that Eren was especially critical of Edinburgh's army and special forces. The old man sighed before answering.
"Yes… we can say that.
I made some personal inquiries after we got out of the Badlands. My contacts say that this cultist group was recently attacked by Edinburgh's army. It had conducted a search and destroy operation in the Delva Gorge to wipe out the cultist base.
Now the army believes that the cultists were somehow tipped off."
A metaphorical bomb was detonated inside Eren's head when Amory spoke about Delva Gorge. This was the same site he had been dispatched to for his exit mission. Where he ended up killing Gilhause and all his retainers. He also killed an Expert-ranked army officer there because the guy had tried to follow Gilhause's trail.
'Don't tell me… Gilhause fucked up the entire operation to mess with me. And I just added fuel to the fire by finishing what he started.'
Eren had a blank look on his face as he thought of an almost confirmed possibility. Since the awakening of his soul sense, his mana sense didn't fluctuate easily under sudden mental stress. As a result, he still appeared to be listening intently to Amory's explanation without any changes to his expression or presence. However, there was someone else who couldn't understand the importance of keeping his mouth shut.
"Delva Gorge? Wait a damn minute…"
'Shut the fuck up, you fat bird. Eyes on the skies.'
Argo was shut down by Eren as soon as he opened his mouth. The demon beast complained to Eren about how he was not given enough red meat to be treated like this. Yet, he shook his eagle head and released an angry eagle cry before doing what Eren asked him to do.
Thankfully, Amory and Nina were too immersed in their own chain of thoughts to care about Argo's intervention. The former took a brief pause before explaining further.
"The main force of the cultist organization escaped before the operation even began. What was even more surprising was the fact that the left-behind cultist force managed to kill two Expert-ranked personnel from the Edinburgh army.
The C-rank cultists that were left behind managed to escape the operation as well. The army couldn't do anything further because of Delva Gorge's peculiarity. The two army personnel that were killed in action were also supposed to be handling the aftermath of the mission and conducting follow-ups. But since they were no longer there, the army couldn't assign other officers to the case on time.
The army's job was to raid the cultist base and destroy the accumulated resources. The special forces' job was to intercept the higher-ranked cultists and destroy them. The army deployment was supposed to shake the hornet's nest and let the big bad boys come out.
But apart from the two Expert-ranked cultists, no other high-ranked cultists could be found at the scene. And even they knew how to escape the traps laid by the army in the Gorge. Thus, the army and special forces both believed that the cultists had been tipped off.
In the end, the cultists just expedited their plans after Edinburgh's preemptive strike failed. The cultists that managed to escape from Delva Gorge reached the city of Curar and initiated their plan right away, catching all of us by surprise. I'll go ahead and say that the preemptive strike was beneficial for the cultists. This is because they managed to deal such a severe blow to our guild right after its failure.
So yeah, we can say that the enemy rankers have managed to infiltrate the kingdom. And Layos has a hand to play in it since the cultist organization was known to be funded by it in recent times. Edinburgh's failed strike cost my guild dearly. And the effects of a healer-centric guild getting wrecked will be visible in the upcoming war."
'*Sigh. I also had a hand to play in the mess, I guess.'
Eren sighed as he confirmed his predictions. He was sure that it was Gilhause who had tipped off the cultists to set a trap for him. He thought of the mission as an opportunity to get rid of the butcher and prioritized his clan's interests over the kingdom's well-being.
The whole mission was rigged. So it was natural that it would give a negative outcome. Still, everything could have been prevented to some extent if Eren had only killed Gilhause. But the butcher's killings of multiple prominent army personnel aggravated the negative impact.
Only now did he understand why Healers' Nirvana was attacked by the cultists in this timeline. The war with the kingdom of Layos was the major reason for which he was directly responsible. The second reason was the cultists' escape from the trap Edinburgh's forces had set for them, for which he was indirectly responsible.
He was wondering about the anomalies in the two timelines a few minutes ago– not realizing he was the biggest anomaly of them all.
'Heh! It's not like I could have done things much differently. Those bastards hardly gave me any choice.'
It didn't take Eren long to shrug off the consequences of his actions, claiming they weren't his to bear. He was just glad that Aunt Nina was not caught in the Domino Effect he was responsible for directly or indirectly.
'Erni, today's color is fuschia.'
Eren was lost in his thoughts when he heard Nina's voice in his head. He looked at his aunt and raised his eyebrows before asking.
"Hmm? What color?"
A low-key angry hmph was heard. In the next moment, the butcher was ejected from his fully reclined seat and approached the ground at critical velocity.
'Fuschia, huh!? I… I don't know what that color looks like.'
Eren thought to himself as he smoked while falling.
AN: Delva Gorge was first mentioned in chapter 890.
