Looking at the former bandit campsite in front of her, which had been thoroughly cleaned up, Beatrice fell into thought.
After the group of three men had left, Beatrice had once again gone through the remains of the bandit camp and made sure that nothing that could link it to her was left.
Thankfully, except for that unexpected puddle of water, her father's men had done a pretty stellar job of cleaning things up.
"It's been more than a month, I really didn't expect the medicinal properties of my medicine still be so powerful," mumbled Beatrice as she jumped onto a tree branch.
Over a month ago, back when Beatrice had first captured the bandit group, she had made sure that she had cleaned up the area and didn't leave any traces.
But even if she had, in fact, left some traces, Beatrice was sure that they would have disappeared before people could investigate.
'I slightly miscalculated and underestimated the potency of my medicine, I should have done some thorough tests on it,' thought Beatrice as she jumped from one tree branch to another.
Of course, Beatrice couldn't be blamed for this, as she did not have much time to make some more thorough plans back then.
"Thankfully, it's not the worst-case scenario," mumbled Beatrice as she rapidly climbed the hill and returned to the old Agnes Estate.
...
"I'm telling you, there's something wrong with that place, I could have never fallen unconscious for three days from just drinking dirty water, you know that as well as me," said Darius as he looked at his two comrades, causing them to shake their heads.
"I know that, but what do you want us to do, that idiot doesn't want to believe us, do you want us to desert for something like this?" asked Leroy as he looked at Darius with an angry look on his face.
"It's just some bandits, let's ignore this and move on, it won't be our problem after all, we have more pressing matters to attend to, don't you think so?" asked Jackson as he got up from his chair.
Hearing this, both Darius and Leroy hesitated for a few moments before nodding.
"Alright, I guess it's not our problem," mumbled Darius as he got up from his chair as well and took his axe off his back before walking out of the room.
Although Darius had decided to ignore that bandit situation, he still felt rather frustrated and needed a way to relieve himself.
...
Unaware of the fact that the investigation into the disappearance of the steel rats had stopped, Beatrice stood in the basement of the old Agnes Estate, sunken into her thoughts whilst she stared at the man in front of her.
"Tell me, what happened to your group of bandits?" asked Beatrice as she stared at the man, causing him to suddenly blank out.
Even though the man heard Beatrice's words, all he responded with was silence, as a confused look appeared on his face.
"We... We got- I don't remember..." mumbled the man, as the confused look on his face increased in size.
Looking at this scene, Beatrice faintly frowned, causing the man to be suddenly knocked out.
"It seems as though at least the memory erasure was successful, but implanting new memories needs a lot more work," mumbled Beatrice as she once again sunk into the mind of the man.
The reason why Beatrice had decided that altering the memories of some of the bandits was the best choice was very simple.
Practice
Although Beatrice could probably figure out a method to take attention off her, the process of attempting to alter someone's memories could be extremely useful in the future.
As such, Beatrice had decided to test it in the Lyon Kingdom, where even if she had been discovered, Beatrice wouldn't fall into danger.
At this moment, Beatrice had decided to achieve her goal of altering someone's memories using two steps, deleting their previous memories and inserting new ones.
The first part, memory deletion, was quite easy for Beatrice at this point, which left the second, more complicated part to be figured out.
Although Beatrice could insert memories into other people already, that fact did not help Beatrice in the slightest, as she could only insert memories from other people, and could not create fake memories, just yet.
...
One week later,
As she took a bite out of the steak on her plate, Beatrice couldn't help but turn her head to her father.
"Did anybody come to investigate the disappearance of the bandit group?" asked Beatrice as she looked at her father, causing him to nod.
"Some knights under the service of the King did come, but it looks like they didn't find anything, as they haven't come back a second time," said Renald, causing a faint smile to appear on Beatrice's face.
"That's good," mumbled Beatrice, causing Renald to nod in agreement,
"It looks like you will have to go back once again," mumbled Iris, causing Beatrice to suddenly freeze.
Seemingly in the blink of an eye, the two months that Beatrice could spend in the Lyon Kingdom had passed, as the flying ship of the Rose guild would return in sixteen days.
Although Beatrice could make the journey to the landing point of the ship in just under two days, she was not willing to take such a risk and would have to depart the Lyon Kingdom three days before the arrival of the ship.
9 days, this was all the time that Beatrice had left in the Lyon Kingdom.
Upon realizing this fact, Beatrice slightly nodded.
"That's true, I will have to go back soon enough," mumbled Beatrice as she took another bite of the steak.
Hearing this, both Renald and Iris went silent, as they stared at their daughter.
After a few moments, Renald shook his head.
"Don't be so sad, we have to make the best use of all the time we have left," said Renald as he looked at his wife, causing the mood to lighten up somewhat.
"That's true," mumbled Beatrice as she looked at her parents, who clearly weren't as young as she remembered them to be.