Chapter 14: Selling to the outsiders

"Wake up. You have done your job well. You’re different from those trash who fell for the sweet threats of those bastards."

The masked woman smiled at us with a pleased look.

There was a certain satisfaction in her eyes as she looked at the remaining bunch.

The knights who would not bow down to even the nobles of the kingdom knelt down to clean up the blood covered floor.

They weren’t disappointed. They weren’t mad. If anything, they seemed completely and utterly obedient to this woman.

It was a sight I might have accepted if she was someone from the Pantheon or a bigger organization.

But from the looks of it, she doesn’t seem to be affiliated with anyone right now.

< "Are you sure?" >

Beth spoke to me as she finished running the physical features I was describing through our database.

< "Yes. She’s using a voice changing tool because she knows someone might eavesdrop on them. She also has a barrier set around this place. It seems to be around (B-rank)." >

It was comparatively a powerful barrier. Even the one around the palace was only an (A) rank so this much was enough security for a lab of this scale.

She must be setting up another barrier now that they have some uninvited guests around, though she doesn’t even seem too bothered by them either.

< "Hmm... hair color, eyes, moles, and demonic lineage. The physical features have a few matches but I’m leaning towards this one more." >

Beth had found her most likely suspect so I’m trusting her with this.

< "Wait, let’s discuss that later." >

What we are hired for, is not related to this.

The reason she just had the others killed is precisely because they faulted towards the other sides.

What they are doing here right now is completely illegal and ethically fucked up.

If they are found out even by those outsiders, they can leverage their position and then even the princess who seems to be on their side for some reason would not be able to stop the crown.

Furthermore, if the information of these experiments is leaked outside, the royal family will face a serious public backlash.

And they wouldn’t want that when the prince has actually vanished from their own front yard.

"Now, now. You bunch are sensible and useful. You know how to sell and how to deal with this stuff."

She was briefly interrupted by the princess and they whispered something about a ’meeting’ before the princess walked out of this place.

She had a look of disgust on her face the whole time, thinking she isn’t the one operating this whole thing.

She’s the one connected to this lab and the drugs and that meeting she was talking about might give us some insight into this...

But it’s happening tonight.

’Will I even get out of here by then?’

I don’t know what she wants from us but if my hunch is right, she now wants us to be the ones to infiltrate inside the other two forces.

"From now on, you will expand your customer base to our guests."

I take my words back. She just wants us to die a worse death than what we just saw.

"You might not know it, but they have been approaching you all for a while now. They know about your little business so they want to see what you have."

She walked back and from a clean, almost sterile counter, brought back a bag of gray, not white, but gray powder.

It was distinct, it was different from what we have been selling, and it was most certainly something worse than what the palace staff have been having.

"I don’t know how you do it or what you do, but you have to get this to those outsiders."

That thing could be poison or something a hundred times worse. It could be a maddening drug for all we know.

She could just be using them to test out her final prototypes.

I don’t know what it is but if I’m to get killed dealing with the people of Theology and Elision, then I might as well just kill everyone here instead of getting my people in trouble.

’But I can’t do that... yet.’

Anyways, she seems like the type of crazy bitch that’ll actually kill me if I don’t do as she says.

"If you succeed, then we will reward you handsomely. You might never have to work again either. But, well, if you are caught..."

She raised her thumb and slid it across her neck, telling us what would happen to us even if we do succeed in what she’s asking us.

"Well, you don’t have any choice anyways."

She could have used a different means to get what she wanted, but she chose us because she knows we are effective and that the others are still after us.

What we could do for her was more than what the other servants, in their locked positions, were capable of.

All of us were being watched outside of this place.

The servants, the knights, the higher ups, the princesses and their maids. The one who had vanished was the only prince who could inherit the throne.

And who doesn’t want the throne?

The ambitious princesses were certainly not going to let their baby brother take what they had fought for all this time.

’Before the prince who came as almost a blessing from heaven, the princesses were the only ones fighting for the crown.’

The Mayn king is strong despite his age but the queens aren’t the same. There might never be another prince in this kingdom so, the lost prince was more important than these small drug activities.

So, while she can kill us now that we have become useless to her, she may have some other things in mind.

"You better behave, alright?"

I was observing as much as I could in this room when they covered my head once again.

And in those last moments, I managed to find something that was worth more than the identity of that bitch.