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“Huh?”

All of a sudden, an extremely familiar aura appeared, causing me to raise my head subconsciously to look towards a place covered in darkness.

“This is?”

This aura was exceedingly familiar, and I seem to have sensed it somewhere before. Nevertheless, I was utterly incapable of recalling who it came from.

“What’s the matter?”

Perhaps due to my sudden absent mindedness, Carol proceeded to ask in concern. Shaking my head, I replied: “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Eh?” Carol shot two concerned glances at me, before running towards the group of rescued slave girls and starting to mumble and discuss god knows what topic. The way they were talking didn’t give me the impression that they had only known each other for half an hour.

Durango was seated against the wall, propping up his swollen, pig-sized head as he looked at the scene before him in envy. For some unknown reason, a “nothing left to live for” aura started to radiate from him. Despite being so far from him, I was still able to feel a tinge of jealousy coming from his heart.

At this moment, we were in the basement of the auction house, which was the gathering point that we had decided on earlier.

“Speaking of which, these young girls seem to trust you guys a lot. There wasn’t even an ounce of doubt in them when they followed you out.”

“It’s not us they trust, but Eleanor,” explained Durango as he rubbed his pig-sized head: “At the beginning, they did not completely trust us. In fact, they had even treated us as bad people. However, it seems that Eleanor holds a very high status in their heart, as almost all of them immediately decided to follow us upon hearing her involvement in this plan.”

Eleanor, huh…that silver-haired young girl’s image suddenly appeared once again in my mind. Truly worthy of the person that was able to create that entire organization. Despite being locked up for so many years, her name still holds enough power to cause those young girls to obey her. However, speaking of that…

“Did Eleanor tell you guys about the second half of the plan?”
“Second half of the plan? What plan?” A stunned look appeared on Durango’s face.

Nope? Looks like I’ll have to wait for Eleanor to return to tell us what to do.

I can make a good guess to what Eleanor’s follow-up plan would be, and that would be to blow up the eggshell above the auction house using those Explosion Scrolls that I’ve buried. For the sake of protecting those aristocrats, the auction house had stationed a large portion of their forces in the auction grounds. Therefore, we can rely on the ensuing chaos and loopholes in the defense to rush out of here. However, the remnant Saint Artifact present in the outermost level was still a problem that needed to be tackled.

If I still had my ring, I would be able to use the scrolls of Saint Realm and above to easily break through the Saint Artifact. However…now, I can only wait for Eleanor to return.

Nevertheless, I feel that Eleanor’s goal isn’t as simple as escaping from here.

“Er…has big sis Eleanor returned?” All of a sudden, a sweet young girl ran over and asked. From the looks of it, she seemed to be the type that easily gets frightened. Yet, she still had managed to muster the courage to speak with me.

Although the young girl didn’t speak too loudly, everyone quietened down the instant those words left her mouth, as her words rang clearly through the entire place. In the next moment, every single young girl turned their attention towards me, seemingly begging for me to give a reply to them.

The young girl’s eyes glimmered with a clearness akin to the surface of a lake. Nevertheless, I could see the unease hidden beneath the surface of the water. For the young girls who had lived under the horrifying treatment of the auction house spanning from day one to more than 10 years, the decision to follow us might have already drained all of the courage they could muster. Therefore, it was exceedingly normal for them to be filled with unease to this degree.

However…even if you look at me with that kind of sorrowful gaze, I still don’t know when Eleanor will return!

At this moment, I could only shake my head and reply with the truth: “I don’t know, though she should be arriving any moment now.”

“Oh…” Hearing my reply, the young girl walked back in disappointment. Nevertheless, at the instant she turned her head, I heard a really faint “tsk” ring out.

Haha. That must have been my misconception.

“About that… big sister.” All of a sudden, Durango nudged me with his elbow while saying: “Don’t you feel something strange about the situation?”
“What?”
“From the 9th level to here, we did not bump into a single enemy.”

“Now that you mention it.” Although I was spotted by them on the 6th level, I’ve also heard about the experiences Durango and the others had gone through. Furthermore, I wasn’t able to detect any enemies even after I had gone on a rampage for quite some time. But it was very possible that I might have smashed them into bits without realizing it. Even so, this situation is indeed very strange.

“Could it be that the auction house already knew which direction we were heading to, so they had purposefully not obstructed our movements at those chokepoints in order to destroy us in one fell swoop later on?” Durango extended his hand and pointed towards the direction that we came from: “Take a look there. There are only 2 entrances. If they had blocked both of the entrances, we’d definitely have been wiped out by them.”

“That shouldn’t be the case, right? How can the auction house know all of our movements?”

“You are most likely right. Maybe it’s just my overthinking.” said Durango as he breathed a sigh of relief. “Other than the possibility of a traitor, how would the auction house know what we’re planning to do?”

That sounds about right. How could it be possible for there to be a traitor within our group? Although Eleanor’s goals weren’t that simple, the gaze she had radiated when she asked us to rescue the slaves was extremely earnest. Other than us and Weir, not a single soul was present at our meeting. How would there…

That’s right…Weir…I seem to have forgotten about her…

Ahahaha! How could Weir ever betray us! Although I felt something slightly off with her during the time I’ve spent with her, that’s just…

“HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!”

She…wouldn’t betray us…right…?

An ear-piercing chuckle rang out from the darkness, as a bespectacled middle-aged male with a thin handlebar mustache walked out from the shadows. The darkness behind him started to squirm and wriggle, as though it was camouflaged, before a large crowd of people with malevolent smiles on their faces appeared, their eyes staring excitedly towards us.

Upon seeing the group of people that had suddenly appeared before us, the young slave girls instantly turned pale. That was especially true after spotting the middle-aged male, who was as frightening as an evil demon to them.

“What…what’s going on?”
“We’re going…to get captured…”
“I’ve said earlier that we shouldn’t escape, right? Slaves that escape will definitely die a miserable death…”
“I… I don’t want it! Save us, big sis Eleanor…”
The cries of the frightened girls made my heart feel all jittery. I glared at Durango for a moment before asking the middle-aged man before me.

“Who are you?”
“Who am I?” The middle-aged man felt very delighted from the reaction of the girls and answered, “I am the master of this auction house, you may call me the great Wilkis.”

This fellow…really looks disgusting.

“How did you know where we are?”

“As for that…I’ve naturally got a little cutie to inform me of your whereabouts.” as Wilkis clapped his hands, a familiar Fairy Elf walked out from the darkness. Despite her lowered head, I was able to recognize that it was Weir with a single look.

“Hehe. Don’t keep your head lowered. Raise your head and let them see who you are. If not for your timely reports, I really would have lost them.” Wilkis forced Weir’s head up, letting everyone see her face, before pointing towards another direction and saying: “As well as those dangerous things you’ve left all over my auction house.”

Following his finger, a subordinate holding a bunch of scrolls walked out from there and dumped all of them onto the ground before me.

They were the scrolls that I’ve placed around the auction house. However, at this moment, there wasn’t even a sliver of magic power fluctuation coming from them. Through what I think is some unique way of processing, all of them had already been disabled.

Being forced to look at us, Weir’s face was intertwined with guilt and terror. In the end, she was still being controlled by her own weakness.

“I’m…I’m sorry! I’ve betrayed all of you! However, it’s impossible for you all to escape from here! What’s more, I…” tears streamed out from Weir’s eyes.

“I don’t want to be sold off…”

At this moment, Weir’s appearance painted an exceedingly pitiful image, as though she was being forced with a choice between saving her family or herself. Nevertheless, the more pitiful she appeared, the more anger I felt boiling within me.

Don’t want to get sold off? However, don’t you know that due to this decision of yours, there’s a possibility of even more people getting tortured and sold off? What’s more, you’ve buried your only chance of freedom and thrown it down the drain!

Do you even know what you’ve done, Elle Weir!!!

Seemingly frightened by my angry expression, Weir shrunk her head back as she retreated two steps back. At this moment, the young slave girls seemed to have recognized Weir, as all of them shot furious glares towards her.

“Traitor!”
“Coward!”
“We’ve always treated you so well! Why do you have to do this to us!”

However, aside from causing Weir to lower her head, their verbal lashing didn’t have any other effect. At this moment, the most important matter was how to escape from this situation.

“Retreat to the back!”

I pointed the group towards a pathway to flee to. Nevertheless, right as I turned around, a large group of auction house guards walked out from there, blocking our path. Indeed, we have been surrounded.

“Hahaha. Stop your struggles.” Wilkis unleashed an exceedingly rampant chuckle as he said: “As long as all of you kneel down and lick my feet, I might spare your lives!”

Lick your feet? I’ll feel disgusted even if it’s the other way round!

Consoling the young girls that were lost in shock and despair, I said: “Don’t be afraid. We’ve yet to lose.”

Hearing my words, the young girls finally managed to somewhat stabilize themselves. Although they weren’t too familiar with me, my status, as the person that had freed them from their cages, turned out useful in my forceful attempt to stabilize their minds.

“Huh? You guys still have some cards left?” hearing my words, the smile on Wilkis’ face disappeared, while he cautiously retreated behind his subordinates.

“Hmph! Of course, we have! Do you know that I’m that one who caused the earlier explosions!”

“WHAT!” for some unknown reason, an expression of extreme anger instantly appeared on Wilkis’ face, before he started to uncharacteristically shout at me like a madman: “So it’s you! It was you! You were the one who has destroyed my darlings!!!”

Huh? What does blowing up all of those people have to do with his darlings?

“I want all of you to go! Capture all of them, especially that golden-haired little 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡! I want her alive! I want her to experience hell till she begs me to kill her!” Wilkis roared as he jumped about in fury.

Despite seeing enemies encroaching upon us, there was not a single trace of fear in my heart. On the contrary, an unknown feeling of wanting to laugh appeared within my heart. Since you guys want to seek death, this princess will grant your wish!

I subconsciously wanted to dig out a scroll from my Storage Ring. However, as I sent my senses into my scroll storage space within my Storage Ring, I was immediately stunned.

They…are not there?

As my senses swept time and time over my Storage Ring, other than the pile of gold, silver, precious treasures, divine weapons and artifacts, there were no scrolls!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT THE 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊!???

They’re gone!!

The over thousand scrolls stored in my ring, from the 3rd rank Fireball Scroll, to the 9th rank Explosion Magic Scroll, are all gone!!

Sweeping my eyes over to the dozen pile of scrolls that Wilkis had just dumped on the ground, god knows my many “𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐬” rang out within my heart.

Now, the problem has come. A thousand over minus a dozen will still be a thousand over. As for the leftover thousand …where the hell had it gone to?