“The auction participants will definitely pay quite the high prices for them, so even if they might treat the slaves poorly, they probably won’t kill them. So I thought it would be better to steal them like that, rather than break into the auction house or raid it.”
“Sure enough…. That seems to be more feasible.”
After all the prisoners were sold, they would be placed under the control of the individual who bought them. Like that, it could be possible to rescue them one by one using Sarkegaar’s transformative ability and Eleris’ magic.
“As long as we know who bought which demon, we’d be able to rescue them, although it would take some time.”
I was too focused on the black market and how to save them all in one go.
It feels a bit uncomfortable thinking about the unspeakable suffering the demons who have been sold would have to suffer through, but…. Like that we’d be able to eventually rescue them. The only difficulty would be to note down who bought which demon in a presumably anonymous auction.
Eleris’ method seemed very reasonable and less risky.
“We won’t be able to rescue all of them that way, but it sure seems a lot safer.”
Sarkegaar nodded.
“However, rumors about the enslaved demons having disappeared or having gotten stolen would start spreading. In that case, the others would significantly tighten their security or hide them away.”
Sarkegaar’s objection also had some reason to it. According to Eleris’ words, we would be able to rescue some of them with certainty. However, there would be rumors circulating about the demon slaves disappearing or getting stolen among the ones who attended the auction, so they would obviously place them under much stricter surveillance.
In the end, there was no way of saving all of them. Of course, we didn’t have to necessarily rescue all of them.
“That’s true, but I think that would be the only safe method we can choose at this point….”
I also thought that among all the ideas we had Eleris’ method was our best option. It was pretty safe and the risk was low. Even though Sarkegaar’s, Loyar’s and Eleris’ plan had their shortcomings, they seemed to think this was their best shot at rescuing some prisoners as well.
However, my opinion was slightly different. Whatever the outcome, the disappearance of the demon slaves was a completely different matter than just some black market auction items disappearing.
If Eleris’ method succeeded, that would lead them to think that a type of criminal organization stole the demon slaves, which would cause a huge uproar in the Empire. Just knowing that some demons were hiding inside the Imperial Capital was a huge security threat. That would lead to a huge amount of guards sifting through the city. News about that incident would probably reach Temple as well.
However, I never wrote anything about the students being blocked from going outside because some demons disappeared in the Capital and one could never know when and where they would reappear.
In other words, that method of rescuing the demon prisoners by stealing them would have little effect, judging by the future I know.
Eleris would have come up with that method even without me around. Sarkegaar’s and Loyar’s reactions seemed like they couldn’t think of any other method, so they obviously would have gone with that if they took action at all.
That meant that Eleris’ method failed or they got caught soon after they succeeded.
The trading of prisoners of war on the black market would have happened whether I was there or not.
Their rescue attempt would have happened no matter if I was present as well.
Therefore, there was a high chance that Eleris’ method would not yield any great results or would completely fail.
I knew these three facts.
I didn’t know how that empty causality was filled, I only knew the end result.
In the end, every method those three could come up with or perform would fail. Unless my presence inspired them to think of a new method.
The only variable in all this was my presence.
I could only come up with an answer on my own.
I thought about using A Writer’s Advice, but I didn’t really want to use it because if I followed it I might end up in an even worse situation.
“Do you have any other ideas?”
“Hmm…. I’m thinking.”
Eleris posed that question. She must have noticed that I wasn’t much of a fan of that method because I was just listening without giving any input.
Eleris’ solution wasn’t something I could have imagined. I could only think of the obvious, namely raiding or infiltrating the black market. Hence Eleris came up with the idea to carry out the rescue operation after the auction was over, and it also felt right to me.
No matter how much I thought about it, I really thought Eleris’ method was the best, but I knew that it wouldn’t end well.
It didn’t matter why it failed. It was only right not to go down a path that would only lead to failure anyway. Of course, knowing why it failed would enable me to make some changes to it, but let’s try to come up with some other methods first.
First, I needed to check how far our reach would be.
“Eleris, can you use the mass teleportation spell?”
That was a large-scale transportation spell which I once used to leave the Darklands together with Charlotte.
“I can use it, but it takes some time to cast.”
Seeing that Eleris was already at the level where she could use this spell that would make her a highly skilled magician. Even teleport was already considered a super high-level spell, and she could even use it on a large scale.
“How long?”
“About thirty minutes.”
“Do you have any Mass Teleportation Scrolls?”
“No, Your Highness.”
Thirty minutes.
That was pretty long.
Mass Teleportation scrolls were, of course, even rarer, so Eleris obviously didn’t have any. I once again felt how rare those two scrolls I used in the prologue were.
“It would be impossible for us to buy enough time to cast Mass Teleport on all of them after we reached the place where the prisoners are held. There probably are countermeasures against that inside the auction house.”
I nodded at Sarkegaar’s words. They probably were the most concerned about theft, especially using magic.
“Yeah, I guess so. But is it really that easy to prepare such extensive defense measures like that?”
“It’s not like that, Your Highness. In the case of Temple and the Imperial Castle, such security measures were always in operation, but it was actually quite difficult to temporarily put them up and maintain them.”
“So I would be right in my assumption that places with barriers or defensive measures of a level where they could suppress spatial movement magic or the use of magic in general weren’t a common sight?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
I found out another fact.
Anti-magic measures would be temporarily applied to the auction house itself.
The only places where such measures were permanently applied were the Imperial Castle and Temple. Of course, magic could be used inside of Temple, so they didn’t use a barrier that would block every type of magic.
That said, it was rare to find a place that had magic-related or anti magic measures applied to them.
“So if the prisoners were kept somewhere else other than the auction house, you would be able to move them with a Mass Teleport spell, right? Even given the 30 minutes of casting time. So, how many people can you teleport at once?”
“Twenty is my limit. If it’s at night, I might be able to do fifty though ….”
Although she was able to withstand the sunlight, it seemed that she couldn’t access her whole power during the day. Twenty people….
Just how many prisoners were there? It was so frustrating not knowing that. There should have been a huge number of them who got taken prisoner, but most of them would have already been executed.
I hated to say this, but the demons that would get sold on the black market were usually individuals that had some commercial value to them.
Succubi, incubi, and other humanoid demons I didn’t know the race name of. I didn’t think it would be such a huge number. I saw the prisoner procession when I escaped from the Demon King’s Castle.
Most of them were monsters.
Loyar looked at me.
“Are you thinking of a different way?”
“I know it might be a stupid idea, but I think the best time to do our operation is when the black market opens….”
Stealing them would fail or have very little effect. I didn’t have any eloquent method to convince those three why I thought like that.
We couldn’t use Mass Teleport inside the auction house where the prisoners were held. We somehow had to get them out of there so that we could teleport them away.
Twenty by day and fifty by night.
If we could get them out to teleport them, we wouldn’t need to teleport in the first place. With such a huge guard force we would have to teleport them away as soon as we could.
It was simply impossible for us with our current power.
We wouldn’t be able to do it.
……That’s right.
“Isn’t the black market in itself illegal?”
It wasn’t just a normal market, it was a black market, so it was a secret auction. Secret transactions between bastards backed by wealth and authority. It was completely different from the normal underworld.
Eleris answered my question.
“Thinking about whether this was legal or illegal would lead nowhere, because I doubt there are any concret laws relating to this situation. The sale of demon slaves isn’t a common thing after all.”
Selling Demons was neither illegal nor legal. Loyar added.
“However, it’s clear that the Imperial nobles who decided to buy or sell demons, who had been declared as enemies to be killed, would be heavily frowned upon, Your Highness.”
“There might not be any problems legally, but there were some moral problems with this, so there was enough room to criticize them.”
That’s why the trade of demon prisoners wasn’t happening in a public place.
Raiding the auction house was impossible for us. If we couldn’t do it, how about we made someone else do it for us.
“What if rumors were to come out that a black market would open for trafficking prisoners of war in the private sector?”
At my words, the expressions of those three changed. They seemed to ask me why I would do something like that.
“Wouldn’t enslaving and trading demons who were supposed to be destroyed undermine the prestige of the Empire and be worthy of the citizen’s wrath?”
It was rather self-evident that the citizens would be extremely angry if they knew that what the upper-class was doing wasn’t in line with the justice they preached about.
“You mean the citizens would be so angry that they might even go so far as to raid the black market?”
“If they were to find out where the black market was located, there would certainly be one hell of a commotion at least.”
Those who would attend the auction were by no means great men in fancy positions, even though they might be of higher standing. If citizens were to flood the black market and start hitting them, they would hurry and try to escape.
Even though that wasn’t a place the general public should know about, like this they would end up finding out about it. If they were trying to use the Imperial Family’s authority as their shield to control the citizen’s riot, they would be admitting that the government was supporting the sale of demon prisoners for money.
“But if the citizens were to do that, wouldn’t that mean that the Empire’s forces would come out to suppress them? They might even just disguise themselves as military forces, so that they can use violent methods to do something about the citizens.”
At Eleris’ words, I nodded. If one found a clue, one’s thoughts would unravel like a thread.
I found a different solution from Eleris’ for this complicated puzzle.
“It’s true that the Empire’s power is piercing the sky. However, trade of the prisoners of war wouldn’t only enrage the citizens, but would also go against the intentions of a certain powerful force. So I’m guessing that’s why they decided to sell them on a black market.”
“Who’s that powerful force…?”
I smiled and gave my answer.
“Religious forces.”
They dispatched religious forces for the pure purpose of destroying evil. They were a very important pillar of the Allied Forces.
At the moment, the forces that participated in the Demon World War of all churches were currently gathering here. And even after the Demon World War they would remain the most powerful group of Paladins and Priests regardless of their beliefs.
They were called the Knights Templar.
“The trade of demons in itself was already a great insult to the Knights Templar. So, there would be a huge backlash from all the religious factions from all over the continent.”
The citizens weren’t my main target. And since the Knights Templar were a religious group they wielded a separate power that wasn’t under the control of the Empire.
If those rumors were to spread, the Knights Templar themselves would come to destroy that black market.
