It was midnight and Ray was sleeping. Or at least his body was.
His soul was currently roaming all around in Acrylia, watching over how things he had orchestrated were progressing.
After Ray, or rather what people knew, a grey cloaked man asked certain 'questions', rumors began to spread across the whole city that an extremely valuable slave would be transported the next day.
Some rumors claimed that the person looking for the whereabouts of the slave was doing so under the order of the east duke, while some claimed to have seen his face.
But whatever be the case, various underground mercenaries, thieves and villains had already begun collecting information. After a not so thorough investigation they found it was not a rumor, but the truth. A slave worth millions of gold would be getting transported the next day.
No one could find why the slave was so expensive, but not finding anything led them to further believe that the slave must have something special.
As such, multiple organizations were preparing traps to attack the people taking the slave and capture everyone.
After the owner of a slave died, the slave would become free, so they contacted a few slave traders in secret to help them after they captured the owner of the slave.
After the slave was in their hands, they would kill the previous owner.
Seeing his plan move forward perfectly, Ray was laughing on the inside.
A few hours passed, and morning soon came.
It was time to transport the slave. Seeing the rays of the morning sun hit the city of Acrylia, Ray phased through buildings and waited in the sky above the slave trading center, observing his plans unfold, ready to take action at the critical moment.
*******************
A group of five people disguised as rich looking nobles entered the establishment and called for the owner after flashing their communication device.
The group had three men and two women. They held a specially crafted communication device in their hands that allowed them to speak to each other with just their thoughts.
While they were waiting for the owner to arrive, the shortest male in the group asked, "Sir, so all we have to do is take the slave to the leader? But then why five of us? Leader didn't even explain anything!"
A woman from the group who looked extremely sleepy for some reason yawned as she replied, "You fool. The leader is an extremely cautious person. Even though our plan is perfect, he still takes precaution in every move. Generally, only VIPs should know about the slave we are buying and how many VIPs do you think there are?"
"Uh… how many?"
"Not even twenty in Acrylia! And they are rich people who rarely visit the establishment when they want. So practically no one should be able to know about the slave!"
"Yes… I mean isn't that all the more reason for not sending five people together?"
"Were you even listening? I told you the leader is an extremely cautious person! In an off chance one or two people knew about the slave, they wouldn't really pay any attention to it because of the extremely common description we asked them to provide! And even after seeing the ridiculous price of such a normal slave someone tries to bid higher, that must mean he used an appraisal skill and knows about it!"
"And so?"
"And so we kill him! Pay the owner to know who has showed interest in the slave and kill him! But if the person used an appraisal skill and wanted the slave but didn't have so much gold what do you think they would do?"
"Snatch the slave? Set up an ambush- Ah!"
"Exactly."
"Wow, sister is really intelligent."
The female raised her head in a proud and satisfied expression.
At this moment the person at the front of the group said in a gruff voice, "Stop talking now. The owner has arrived."
Everyone stopped talking immediately as they saw a fat man wearing tight spotted shirt and trousers running towards them, with sweat running down his forehead.
"Welcome! Welcome esteemed guests!"
"Is the slave ready?"
"Yes, absolutely!"
"Alright, how many people know about the slave?"
"This…"
The man leading the group immediately felt something was wrong.
"Speak. How many?"
"Uhh… Around forty three people other than me and you."
"…"
'What the fuck?'
Anger immediately appeared in his face as he spoke in a repressed voice filled with killing intent.
"Explain. Weren't there only around twenty VIPs? How did this happen?"
"I don't exactly know the details, but around yesterday, the rumors about a rare slave being sold started getting circulated, and people from various places started buying VIP memberships to access the basement…"
"And you let them?"
"Yes? Why not? I'm running a business and we didn't have an agreement about not letting people enter the basement!"
The tall man started pinching the bridge between his eyebrows in frustration while he silently gave orders to the members of the group.
He turned to the petite and young looking female in the group that had not spoken yet and through his communication device said, "Contact the leader and ask him to send reinforcements as precaution. Tell him information had been leaked and someone might have set up ambush."
Then he asked the other male in the group that had kept quiet to discreetly gather information about how the rumors started spreading.
Immediately the man left the building and the young girl went to a corner of the room, took out a communication device and started speaking.
Meanwhile the squad leader turned to the owner and said, "Bring the slave and your highest ranked slave trader and make me her master!"
Immediately afterwards the golden haired girl was brought to the man roughly, bound in chains while a middle aged man with purple hair came and cast an enslavement magic, binding the man as the master and the woman as the slave.
After checking the connection, he asked the purple haired man, "You, what is the rank of the enslavement?"
"Its S ranked, the highest in the empire."
"The highest? How dare you spout lies!"
"No, it's the truth. SS ranked enslavement skills don't exist in the empire yet, and even if they do they wouldn't make an appearance in the public."
"Oh? And why is that?"
"A single SS ranked enslaver can put all S ranked ones out of business. Do you think the hundreds of people in this line of business would leave one alone? They would hunt him down if that was the last thing they did!"
The man seemed to think for a few seconds before agreeing. Even he himself was extremely strong and possessed only A ranked skills, while among his brothers he knew only two people who had S ranked skills. And SS rank? He hadn't seen one other than his leader. So he was pretty sure nothing would happen.
"Alright, you guys, we'll be taking the slave back to the leader. Hide your faces completely, and hide the face of the slave completely too!"
"Sir, shouldn't we wait for reinforcements?"
"We cannot wait for reinforcements to arrive. The leader said to bring the slave within two hours. If we meet trouble in the way we can just use the artifact to hide and wait for reinforcements. Well then, move out!"
With that said, the four people moved out with the slave in tow.
What they didn't know was that a particular soul was following them and listening to everything they were saying.