Ray was at this moment in his palace room, sharing his senses with Claire watching the meeting, where he saw a red haired man he didn't recognize get introduced as their vice leader.
What Ray thought to be a handsome and quite a calm man at first sight suddenly blasted two of his subordinates to the wall for a mistake.
The moment the red haired man had used his powers, Ray frowned, but he kept watching the meeting progress through Claire.
At this moment the vice-leader looked at Claire with serious eyes.
"Will you follow all your master's orders?"
Ray ordered her to act as if Number 1 was her master and keep on pretending.
"Yes."
The others in the room sucked in cold air as the new number 15 didn't address the vice leader with respect.
"You won't call me sir?"
"Only if master asks me to."
"…"
"…"
Everyone in the room waited quietly, without speaking a word.
"Speak; was everything that Number 14 said the truth? Was there truly an assassin?"
"Yes-"
"Speak only the truth."
Suddenly Ray felt a reaction from his enslavement magic. Claire was about to go against her instructions, she was about to say it was all a lie…
Ray took action immediately and commanded her before she could speak.
'Claire! Do as I say, speak only what I want you to!'
"Yes, there was an assassin."
Claire didn't know what had happened either. She was just following her master's orders, but the moment the red haired man asked her to speak the truth, her mouth almost moved on its own.
She would have spilled everything she knew, but her master strengthened his control at the right time and gave her specific orders which she must obey.
"Hmm… so it appears that there truly was an assassin…"
"Number 1, let a few members of the purple gang stay and recall the others, Number 14, I want to get conclusive evidence about everything that has happened by tomorrow. The old snake in the East will never interfere in matters not concerning him. I don't think it's him. There can be no variables in our plan…"
Both Number1 and 14 who were coughing up blood felt the pressure on them disappear as they got up weakly and bowed down accepting their orders.
"Don't disappoint me. Now… I hope nothing more unexpected has happened?"
"No sir!"
"Alright, Number 1, I hope everything in the palace is ready?"
"Yes sir, we have already obtained the magic circle coordinates, and the invitation for the five has already been sanctioned."
"No one suspected a thing?"
"No sir, the queen has already fallen under the confusion spell; she has issued five more invitations at the request of the finance minister from the palace…"
"The queen isn't a problem, she would have sanctioned those invitations even without the spell, the problem is the prince, and he didn't suspect anything?"
"No sir. The prince has been mostly staying in his room and the training grounds dueling people after obtaining his system. He hasn't involved himself in the kingdom's matters for the last few days…"
The red haired man shook his head.
"Its fine then… the prince is exceptionally cunning."
"It won't be a problem. The queen has strictly asked everyone not to bother the prince for a few days. It seems like she wants him to spend the few days before his coronation without working too much…"
The vice-leader burst into laughter.
"What a joke. It's even better for us this way. Then… Number 2, all the artifacts are in place?"
"Almost. All the artifacts have been purchased, but Number 1 couldn't pull strings to make the palace sell some artifacts…"
"Oh? Is that true?"
Number 1 immediately nodded his head and continued.
"Sir, the palace will soon be completely under our control, so I didn't think it was wise to create chances for further suspicion… after all, making the palace sell artifacts in its treasury is very difficult."
"Well, you're right. The palace will soon be under our control either way…"
After thinking for a few more seconds, he looked at the next person.
"Number 3… How is everything in the North?"
"Everything is under control sir; the duke doesn't suspect a thing!"
"Excellent, Number 4 and the rest, you don't have any role in this plan. You still have time, but I hope you keep doing your work unless you want to end up like your predecessors…"
Everyone bowed in affirmation.
"And finally, Number 15, you will…"
******************************************
Ray was now absolutely sure something was wrong with his memory.
The meeting had just ended and Claire was following Number 1 to a new base. Ray had cut off his sense connected to Claire and was thinking about everything that he had seen.
First of all, the group was extremely strong. Ray was pretty sure he would have to give his all to fight that Number 1 guy alone.
But that didn't matter to him. After all, too many strong people were in hiding everywhere and some of them joining hands to form a hidden group wasn't rare.
What bothered him was the vice-leader.
That red haired man was on another level. He could blow away those immensely powerful cloaked people without even being present, through a communication device.
Ray wasn't a match for him…yet.
However, such a strong person couldn't have escaped his sight in his past life.
Even though Ray was extremely curious about his memory, he couldn't really do anything at the moment.
Even if he could, he wouldn't. He had an idea about what might have happened to his memories, and if that was true, it was best to not tamper with it right now.
Ray had learned quite a few things from the meeting.
There were fifteen cloaked members from Number 1 to Number 15. Number 1 was somehow related to the palace and had quite a say in it.
The people with enough authority to make a proposal directly to him or the queen were the heads of the various departments in the palace.
Ambrosia and old man Wilfred were the heads of the court mages, but he knew it wasn't either of them. One was his aunt and the other was a magic obsessed old man. Ray wasn't being complacent, but he had already properly checked them both with his appraisal and didn't find anything weird.
That left the head of the foreign affairs department, the recruitment department, the various guilds, the finance department, the leader of the army, head maid Adrianna, the head of the crown's shadows and the crown's advisor.
He already knew the finance minister was somehow related to the group because he had approached his mother to sanction five additional invites for some nobles' kids.
'But he isn't Number 1…'
He had personally already cleaned the foreign affairs department because they had played a major role for his downfall in his second life.
The various guilds and their leaders were personally elected by him. Even if the guilds were filled with moles, he could say with confidence that the leaders were clear.
Similarly Adrianna was out of the question.
The crown's shadows, as the name suggested were a family of trained professionals that blended in the palace and protected the crown from harm.
However, they had refused to protect Isis as she wasn't the real heir to the crown and promised to be reinstated only after Ray ascended the throne.
This group was extremely devout to the throne, and other than him, Isis and the previous emperors, no one knew who the head was and they never left the palace.
That left… Draya, the head of the recruitment department; Kingsley, the head of the army and finally Lothain, the crown's advisor.