"Indeed, it does." He replies, "but now comes the question, what do we do? Are we gonna stay here and solve the mystery of Theo's Death or shall we move on to higher grounds?" he asks.
I bit my lips and think over the profits and losses that I will incur if I take on the mammoth task of solving this mystery and frankly, all I see is loses. I mean, what will I do by solving this mystery?! It's not like the real Theo is watching me from Heavens and will reward me for getting revenge for him. He surely will not reward me.
Also, if I do want to solve it, won't I need to confront Feng Zhan and Sapphire about all of it?! I know it will destroy their marriage and I don't give two sh*t about it, but destroying a love marriage takes more than a few 'I know what kind of man you're …' and 'you're a monster….'
On the otherhand, there was the deal of the bloodline. My Lord bloodline is a super powerful tool, according to Pef and Moose and my survival depends a lot on it. I want to get to the bottom of my bloodline mystery and that needs me to confront the Merci family. damnit…
"Well, until you contemplate on whether you wanna fight or not, I've something else to discuss."
"Like what?" Moose asks.
Pef looks at me seriously and asks, "Dude, about those kids. What do you wanna do about them? Are they gonna be some random mob character and die an untimely death or…" his voice trails off in an uncertain note.
I frown and ask, "Why? What do you have in mind?"
"Nothing," he shakes his head, "Its just that … I'm an Angelic being and even though, Angels aren't supposed to show favoritism to humans or any other race, but I can't feel sorry for these guys. They have had bad lives for a long time, you know. Feeding on black bread, working overtime, doing chores endlessly and yet, no respect or respite. One can't help feel sorry for them." he says.
This barely has any effect on me because I'm cold hearted but I notice even Moose's shoulders shrinking down in disappointment. But …
"Will they be loyal? Like puppets?" I ask, frowning. This is one of the most glaring and uncertain question in my mind. Humans have a history of betraying their masters and superiors after getting what they want. I don't want to be on the receiving end of the whiplash of human tenacity.
"They will be. Or, we can make them to be." Moose says suddenly, grinning.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"Well, in my tenure working as a Heavenly Guard, I have learnt a few techniques to … let's say, make my subordinates obedient only to me. It is one of the things which got me kicked down in the first place but mind you, even if I'm the creator of this technique, it is not fully fleshed out. It still needs excessive research and experiments."
"I don't need obedience. Most servants are obedient and docile but they still become traitors and help enemies and there have been many examples of such. Humans tends to find a way or another. I just can't seem to trust them."
"You can." Pef mutters, "what Moose says can be effective." He nods affirmatively.
"You see, Angels are designed differently than Devils or Demons or even humans. Their inner circuits are fried to make them only process one thing, obedience. No matter what the conditions are or the consequences can be, lower ranking Angels will follow it unconditionally. Even higher-ranking Angels will follow direct orders from their superiors unconditionally, without regards to what the consequences of their actions. This is what makes Angels such a destructive force among all. But!
If what Moose says, does works, then that means we have one of the best Enslaving Technique in the whole of Audenia."
"Sounds amazing. Moose, what's the technique?"
Moose frowns terribly and folds his arms. He stutters a little at first but then says, "I regret telling you guys about this technique, now that I think about it but … I'm not a part of Heavens anyway, so why not. Okay, listen up. This might sound gross so tell me to stop when you feel grossed out."
"There's nothing too gross to me." I reply, confidently.
"Well, you will regret it." he sighs, "anyway, let me explain you a little about my Enslaving Technique. I call it, the Angel Puppet Technique. There are three steps to this technique, the initiation, the modification and the finalization. Initiation is the technique where you make the Angel obey you, temporarily but since Angels are predefined to obey and thus, this step wasn't a big deal to me.
The next step, modification was the hardest step. Angels brains are like a metallic circuit, imbedded in a hardest and most durable steel encasing. Most illusion techniques won't be able to bluff Angels, all because of this core of theirs. So, I had to manually 'reprogram' them. And that includes torturing them to the highest degree, even to the point of hacking their brains open, which was a pretty nasty piece of work."
"Torture. In Heavens." I ask, baffled.
"What! Torture is a commonplace in Audenia! Creatures of Audenia are hardy pieces of sh*t!" he replies, similarly baffled. "Anyway, I was able to reprogram one. Luckily. But unfortunately, soon after I did it, a big flare went off and the next thing I knew was that I was being hunted by Archangel Uriel! But before getting captured, my one and only success, Araphael gave him quite a beating, even destroying one of his wings but unfortunately though, even he was burnt to ashes by Uriel. Poor fellow…"
"Archangel Uriel!! The badass Uriel!!!" cries Pef, shocked to the max.
"Yea… THAT Uriel…." Nods Moose. "Well, don't be so shocked because even Uriel was doing experiments like that. He was suspicious of me from the very beginning. Seems like he also has some heinous plot up in his mind. Anyway, he let me go and even assigned me to you, Pef, to handle Jed here. Whatever.
The last step of the Enslaving Technique is the finalization. Most Enslaving Technique won't require such kind of a step because it is an ENSLAVING Technique, thus meaning that it has to be something AGAINST the will of the slave. Unlike that, my Angel Puppet Technique, makes the slave believe that what he is doing is correct. I call it brainwashing. You clean the stupid social orders, inborn incompetency and whatever that is holding back a man/Angel, in my case, and make yourself seem as a messiah. The slave will do your bid like a f*cking dog!"
"Yea… brainwashing. Did you know that I'm a master in that?" I ask, smiling to myself.
"F*ck off!!" Moose retorts but I shake my head and smile broader. "In my world, brainwashing is a good way of getting things out of a person. Usually, used for interrogation but it can also be used for your technique. To make slaves."
"Hmph! What do you know about brainwashing! I've done … I'm a master in it! I'm the one who created it—"
"Whatever, Moose! Stay on track! What happens after finalization?" Pef barks him to a stop.
"Well… after finalization, its over. The results will either be death of the subject or their eternal loyalty. But … there is a big drawback to the last step.
You see, since finalization is a manual process, it is the biggest pro and con of the technique. Because, if the secrets of what happened to them are out, of what they are and what they are doing, the slave WILL GO insane. Heck! I've seen more numbers of Angels going insane than I can even count! I can't say about humans though." He remarks.
"Very well," I smile. "I agree. We will go by Moose's technique. Tell me, Moose, what would we need to turn every one of the dozen boys down into mindless zombies for us."
"That's a bad way to describe them but whatever. Like I said, the first phase of the technique is initiation or juggling them up. Something to make them thankful to us, obey us but not instinctively but consciously. But before that, I will need to extensive research on human subjects and see the possibilities of modification. It's not going to be easy and the first things I would need is a nice, good quality and sufficiently equipped torture kit and … a basement of sort, I guess."
"Very well, I will see that we get what you want. In the meantime, let's get these boys buffed up!"
…
The next day went without any big moves. I stayed the entire morning and evening in the library with Moose and Pef, who decided to join in my tutoring of languages. They were both masters at Enochian, Latin and Hebrew and it was a real blessing to me. I learnt a lot from them that day, in short, it was a fulfilling day.
At night, we had a little drinking party and a small discussion on how to get the boys buffed up. The consensus among us three was to follow the Path of Cultivation and so we drafted a little list of what we need, when do we need and how much do we need.
…
The third day, morning.
"So, did we get any buyers for our wares?" I ask Wu, who currently has the task of managing our finance and marketing tabs.
He nods his meekly and replies, "We did find a few, master."
"And who might they be?"
"There's Huang Xiaolong, a private entrepreneur, then there's Zhao company headed by Zhao Xuedong and the Zhao family and the Ming merchant group. All of them gave us a fair price with the Zhao company giving the highest of 1 Gold and 73 Silvers and Mr. Huang the lowest of 836 Silvers. But along with the high price of 1 Gold and 73 Silvers, Mr. Zhao also wants a guarantee of the products, which is … slightly problematic considering that it is stolen."
"Does he know that we stole it from a mercenary's group?" I ask.
"Well, I certainly haven't said anything like that to him but considering the bulk and the randomness of the goods we're selling, it is easily understandable that either the goods are defective or it is stolen. No one in these parts sell their entire house worth of furniture and ware all of a sudden. Usually, there is a huge go-about and consulting and whatnot when it comes to selling these products and given our short time frame, it is really not that secretive that we want to get rid of them."
"Well, we don't want to get rid of them. We're in need of money, that's it!" I say.
"And that is exactly what they are wanting, master. If we are in need then they want buy in less amount. If we drag the deal, though, I think we can make a few increments. But I don't think master and seniors want to stay here any longer…" his voice trails off.
I nod my head and reply, "Indeed. We do not. This place is suffocating. Very well, contact the Zhao office and tell them that we are ready to sell. As for guarantee, here take this." I hand him a paper of property.
"What is this, master?" he looks, questioningly.
"Papers for a bar. We got it yesterday." I smile meaningfully at him. The papers were 'borrowed' from the bartender whose bar Pef and Jia visited a day ago. Pef told me that while he 'controlled' the bartender, he also made him hand him his papers for the bar and also made it official under the name, Valac Vorshevsky. But seriously, I don't know why he named me after a bad demon in the Bible but it felt kinda good having the name of a demon. He also made a fake signature of mine but don't know how with those paws of him.
"Ah… I get it, master. I will immediately—"
"Wait up!" I interrupt Wu. I smile at him and say, "Please wait a while, Wu. I have something else to discuss too."
...