The other prisoners who wouldn’t be put on the black market would probably be managed by the Empire, and no form of trickery could help us rescue them. I wasn’t sure if the Empire would kill those prisoners or do something else with them. It was possible that they would conduct experiments on them for research purposes.
No matter what, we couldn’t save them. It would be absurd to even try to save them. Even the operation we were going to carry out this time was extremely dangerous.
“Did you say it was on Thursday?”
“Yes.”
Sarkegaar had already bought the tickets.
Today was Monday, and the black market would open starting Thursday. It would stay open for a total of four days, from Thursday to Sunday.
The question was, were all those prisoners put on the black market? If they planned on replenishing the prisoners every day, we could only save a quarter of the demons that were planned to get auctioned off.
“I think they will probably have all of them there, but….”
There probably were prisoners of war who’d enter the Imperial Castle to be detained. It would be far more efficient to siphon off the ones they want to sell from the beginning, than take them out of there every day. So the auction would be held for four days, but the black market would keep all the prisoners they were planning to sell in the auction house.
The best way they could go about this was to find out through which Gate the prisoners would get led and siphon them of immediately at that moment before detaining them in the auction house.
There were dozens of Warp Gates in the Capital alone. It was impossible to monitor all of them.
We didn’t use the Rotary Gang to gather information for this operation. Only Loyar, Sarkegaar and Eleris would take action. Later, this incident might be seen as a terrorist incident caused by the demons, but if we used the Rotary Gang to gather information beforehand, that would just cause unnecessary suspicion.
“As we expected, they’ll come from the Badelz Gate, won’t they?”
“That’s what I think.”
The location of the black market was in the Badelz District, which was the Mapo District in my mind. It would open in the basement of the Merchant Guild’s headquarters. In other words, the Merchant Guild had a solid relationship with the black market owners. That fact was a nice bonus.
When I learned the location of the black market, I wondered why I didn’t think of that sooner. That was quite the obvious place for it to be.
The Merchant Guild must have big storage units for all the expensive goods they had to store, so it would be enough to temporarily accommodate the prisoners in these units equipped with enough security, safety and scale. Of course, it would be easier to proceed with the auction like that as well.
I didn’t know how deep the Merchant Guild was involved in this. However, they would have had to agree to this drastic move of opening a black market in their headquarters. They probably judged that they wouldn’t be able to stop this business, which was supposedly linked with many people with great authority. Of course, they might have been coerced, but we wouldn’t be able to find out that much.
The venue was the Merchant Guild’s headquarters. Even in my opinion, there wasn’t a more suitable place to proceed with the black market auction. In addition, as many merchants were rather rich, they were likely to directly participate in the auction.
Even if there were rumors about a black market opening soon, the chances that they would change the venue were remarkably low. Even after I thought about it quite thoroughly, I couldn’t come up with an auction venue that would be more optimized than the Merchant Guild’s headquarters.
Since Sarkegaar was a noble, he wouldn’t be able to come out of the Imperial Palace for a while because he had to attend the Victory Ceremony and Party.
He decided to only attend on Monday for now, and would find some excuses to join our side from Tuesday onwards.
The prisoners would most likely arrive through the Gate in the Badelz District, where Loyar was stationed.
However, I and Eleris were keeping watch on the side where the Victory Procession was continuing on endlessly, just in case.
* * *
Monday evening.
The vicinity around the Imperial Palace was rather crowded with people, and one could hear the sound of magic used as fireworks bursting from afar. It seemed like some wizards were putting on a fireworks display.
As alcohol and food were distributed free of charge, the streets were full of people drunk on alcohol and euphoria. There were many people who didn’t even know each other before, sitting together at tables placed on the streets, talking while hugging and dancing.
Of course, the miraculous survival of Princess Charlotte de Gardias was also one of the hot topics. Although it’s been some time now since the Princess returned, Artorius’ bravery, The Allied Force’s greatness and the miraculous survival of the Princess were still in everybody’s mouths.
There were also talks about the Princess becoming a supernatural power user.
Charlotte was so preoccupied with finding Valier at the moment, that she didn’t seem to concentrate much on improving her power though. In fact, Bertus said that Charlotte was on the verge of self-destructing, and I agreed to that to some extent.
-The Princess has to obviously become the Empress!
-Ooh! True that!
-After surviving through such hardships, she absolutely has to be blessed by God!
However, the public didn’t hesitate to say that the Princess should become the Empress, and there was no one refuting with that. The Public overwhelmingly supported the Princess.
A princess who was rescued dramatically after being kidnapped by the Demon King. She was also the sole survivor.
That was one hell of a story. Bertus didn’t have anything he could beat that story with. Although he had the possibility of becoming a Sword Master that was still in the far off future. Also, becoming a Sword Master itself was great and all, but the Demon King was already dead. He had nothing to accomplish after becoming a Sword Master.
That story alone wouldn’t make her Empress, but it was only natural that huge conflicts would arise if Charlotte, who was supported by the public, didn’t ascend the throne.
In my personal opinion, the one who displayed superior abilities at the moment was Bertus. However, the public supported the Princess, and she wasn’t that hugely inferior to the Prince. Therefore, Charlotte was still in a more favorable position in regards to the succession of the throne.
Now that the Victory Festival was taking place, it seemed obvious that the citizens of the Empire would like to see Charlotte become the next Empress.
Of course, regardless of that, at the end of the Victory Procession, we confirmed that no convoy with prisoners was among them, so we were about to go over to the Mapo District. At the confluence point, we were mixed up among a group of drunk passersby.
-It’s free! Free, I say! Eat and drink to your heart’s content!
There were quite a few stores that offered free food and alcohol to share the joys of victory separated from the Festival. For that purpose there were many tables placed before inns and restaurants.
The Demon Realm had been a long time enemy of the humans. The mere fact that they were now forever freed from the fear they spread was enough to make everyone euphoric even handing out free food.
If they had lived their whole life in the Imperial Capital, then they should have never even seen a single hair of a demon for their entire lives, and now they wouldn’t ever see one in the future as well. However, where did their fear and hatred against demons come from?
People were afraid of the unknown after all. In fact, the Demon Realm probably made plans to conquer the Human Realm as well.
We sat at an empty table. Loyar was wearing a robe, Eleris cast a bit of disguise magic on herself, while I didn’t wear any disguise at all. I had already transformed into a completely different form not comparable to Reinhardt after all.
Loyar opened her mouth.
“I saw a lot of wagons covered in black sheets coming through the Badelz Gate.”
“Did you check what was inside of them?”
Loyar shook her head in answer to my question. Our surroundings were very noisy, and Eleris cast some soundproofing magic so that no one would hear what we would be discussing now.
Since this had nothing to do with the Rotary Gang we decided to hold our meeting here.
“I didn’t see them, but I could tell just by smell and sound alone. I’m sure it’s them.”
Loyar’s sense of hearing and smell were particularly developed.
“…Aren’t you actually a dog?”
“What?”
“No, I mean… You’re… just very much like a dog.”
I mean, she had a good sense of smell and hearing, she listened well to orders and when she slept she seemed no different from a wild dog as well. She was completely like a dog in human form. What was with this?
Even in your human for you were like a dog, huh?
Loyar seemed shocked by my words and Eleris covered her mouth and laughed.
“She’s not a dog. She’s just a very dog-like person.”
“Hey!”
At Eleris’ words, Loyar’s face turned red. Eleris also seemed to be having fun teasing Loyar.
“Well, I’ll trust what you said. You’re sure, right?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Although the convoy’s content was hidden, Loyar could tell by the sound and smell that the numerous wagons that came through Badelz Gate were filled with the demon prisoners.
Loyar continued to recount what she saw.
“I don’t know about the Victory Procession’s side, but all the wagons were under strict escort. People seemed to be interested in them, but no one seemed to know what was in them.”
Some might have contained things like spoils form the Demon Realm. They probably got transported through the same Gate. Some of the wagons also contained some of the prisoners.
“Most of the wagons seemed to be moving towards the Imperial Palace, but some were also heading towards the Merchant Guild’s headquarters.”
Loyar probably went up to a high place to watch the wagon procession. Some of the wagons that were supposed to go to the Imperial Palace actually went to the Merchant Guild’s headquarters.
“There were a total of 30 wagons. Judging by their sizes and the sounds and smells coming from them, I’d estimate there to be about 5 per wagon.”
“So about 150 people….”
Thanks to knowing the location of the black market in advance, it was rather easy to infer which gate the prisoners would get escorted from. 30 wagons, so about 150 prisoners of war were to be sold on the black market.
“No, Your Highness, I estimate them to be half that amount.”
However, Loyar shook her head at my estimate.
“Why is the actual number smaller?”
“No, that’s not it, Your Highness. There were about a dozen wagons loaded with things other than prisoners.”
“What other things?”
“It seems that the prisoners of war aren’t the only merchandise sold on the black market.”
“Ah…. Right. That might be the case.”
Other than the prisoners they took from the Demon Realm, they also loaded the wagons with loot they wanted to take to the Merchant Guild. Twenty wagons were filled with prisoners and the other ten with loot.
They would also sell the items they stole from the Demon King’s Castle on the black market, not only the prisoners.
“Hmm…. I’m not sure about the prisoners, but if it’s stolen loot, there might be a possibility that this wasn’t approved by the Imperial Family…. Or was that loot designated to be sold?”
The chances that the Imperial Family had nothing to do with this slightly increased. There might also be the possibility that the loot that was to be sold were things the Imperial Family had no interest in. After all, there was little chance that the Imperial Family didn’t know about this black market.
Most of the wagons with prisoners made their way to the Imperial Palace. There was nothing we could do about that.
However, about 100 prisoners would make their appearance on the Merchant Guild’s black market.
They could be rescued or slaughtered depending on how well we do.
“It’s fortunate that we were able to get some information in advance. Like that we were able to ascertain the amount of prisoners. How about security?”
“I have confirmed that it’s tighter than usual. There were more than 10 guards at every entrance of the Merchant Guild’s headquarters, and they were all disguised as mercenaries, but the atmosphere they gave off and their appearance were by no means ordinary.”
High-level armed forces disguised as guards were stationed at the Guild headquarters. I didn’t know if they were Knights or something, but leaving them unattended would be rather difficult.
Of course, there’d also be wizards inside.
“Okay…. Now we have to somehow force the Knights Templar to raid that place….”
As slaves, they might be able to save their lives, but they’d stay demons no matter what.
I wasn’t sure if it was worth risking their lives to give them their freedom.
However, as the last leader of the Demon Realm, I made a decision. I had no intention of rebuilding the Demon Realm, but I had decided to rescue them.
Gradually I started to realize that a leader had to be a person that made a certain judgement before even discussing the rights and wrongs of that decision and perfectly carry out said judgment.
If all of them were slaughtered by the Knights Templar because of the failure of our operation, would I be able to withstand that? Hundreds of lives could be lost due to my negligence, could my mind handle that?
Some might want to sacrifice their freedom to keep their lives.
I could never know.
So, I decided to take it easy.
“I’ll have to think of a way to pass on this information to the Knights Templar without getting caught.”
I’ll definitely succeed.
My ability would make that belief reality.
My power couldn’t actually do that yet, but it helped me calm down at least.
