A man in a butler suit walked through the halls of the mansion with a calm gait and haughty face while all servants walking by on their business bowed toward him with respect. After a few turns he walked into the hall where he met a group of servants surrounded by guards walking by with a cart loaded with different lots to be auctioned shortly.
One of the lots as Butler Vernon noticed was the transparent casket filled with water that had a mermaid chained at the neck inside it.
"Butler Vernon." Greeted the man, one of the servants from the team bowing to him.
"Hurry, hurry. Don't stop for every minor thing. Today is a very important occasion." Said Butler Vernon gesturing with his palm for the servants to move on.
The servant bowed again and the team hurried further down the corridor toward the backstage of the auction hall.
Butler Vernon followed them with his eyes for a few moments before turning and walking further down the corridor leading deeper into the mansion.
As he walked up to the cargo elevator going to the basement he suddenly stopped with a thoughtful expression and stood as if scanning the elevator door with a troubled face. Then he suddenly turned around as if spooked and hurriedly walked away from the elevator, hiding behind the corner.
The team of servants with the guards that he met in the corridor just a few minutes ago came back. They opened the elevator door, and quickly entered inside, going down into the basement.
When they were gone, Butler Vernon came out of his hiding place looking at the closed elevator door once again watching it for a few minutes with a strange expression that was changing a few times from surprise to anger, to thoughtfulness.
"Vernon?" A woman's voice called him from the back spooking him.
"What are you doing here?" Asked the madam of the house walking up to him with gloom in her eyes and slight anger in her haughty voice as the butler turned around toward her.
"I…master sent me to…" started to answer the butler.
"Forget it. Come here. I need your help." Said the madam with a dismissing tone, not caring to listen to his excuse, and turned to walk away showing that she expected him to obey without question.
They walked down the side corridor before she looked around and walked into one of the rooms standing at the door and holding it open for him. As Butler Vernon walked inside the room she closed the door and clicked the lock shut.
"Where were you going?" She said with anger, walking up to him.
"We were supposed to meet in another place, stupid." She added with a sudden gentleness in her voice and a smile.
She lifted her hand to touch his face and at that moment time suddenly stopped.
"Make up your mind, Noah." Said the plush bear suddenly appearing in this frozen world, standing on the table near these two people while watching the butler. "In a moment she will touch your face and the illusion will distort letting her know that you're an imposter. This is the last chance. Do we sound an alarm or do we keep an act?" Said Ugy.
"Fuck! I knew it was suspicious when you suggested disguising as the butler. You did it on purpose."
"How could I have predicted this? There is no such skill in my arsenal as a prediction. I am innocent. This is all just a coincidence…lucky one though."
"You noticed the relationship between these two from the get-go, am I right?"
"......I would lie if I say I did not notice the sexual tension between these two the moment I saw them in the garden." Said Ugy. "But this is not a place to discuss it. I can't hold the frozen state for long."
"How did you know they were going to meet?" Asked Noah inside his head while watching the plush bear through the illusion of the butler's face that he was disguised as while infiltrating the mansion.
Plush bear rolled his eyes with annoyance.
"It was not a hundred percent assurance, but I can bet she was wet between her legs the whole time she greeted guests with her husband at the main gates, but it was not the hubby that she wanted. She was full of expectations. From that, it was a simple conclusion that they were going to have a rendezvous after the auction had begun. Her hubby would be busy attending the auction. Butler would have excuses to organize the work to not show up at the venue. The wife could find an excuse to slip away for some time.
So I concluded that while these two are hiding somewhere from everyone's eyes cucking her hubby we would be able to freely walk inside the mansion in one of their appearances. But I had no idea we would meet her here. You can't blame this on me. I am innocent. Also, enough with the chit chat, the time is ticking, I am at my limit." Said Uggy while his body started to rapidly get transparent.
Noah noticed that the time started to slowly accelerate, returning him to the normal time speed and the woman's hand started to slowly creep toward his face with an increasing speed. Just before her hand reached his face, Butler Vernon grabbed her hand stopping her from touching his face.
/We are going to discuss this when it ends, Ugy!/ Exclaimed Noah in his head with anger.
/Sure./ Said Ugy's nonchalant voice. /But right now, fuck this woman until she's mindless!/
*****
A few dozen minutes ago Noah and Brianna unloaded the crates from their carriage together with other members of the group and while the butler and Werewolf leading this group checked the crates, the leftover team started to move their carriage out of the warehouse.
What this team did not notice, however, was that one member of their team moved a bit stiffly like a puppet on the strings, while walking out of the warehouse in the tail of the team.
Once the butler confirmed the goods, the team of servants of the auction house surrounded by the team of guards moved the crates with women inside into their own carriage and drove it through the doors, disappearing inside the mansion.
After that Butler Vernon led werewolf toward the stairs leading toward the auction hall while they chatted with smiles on their faces.
*****
A few minutes later Noah appeared inside an empty warehouse dressed in a suit similar to the butler, with his face disguised through his second skin illusion, looking like the butler's twin. He disappeared into the mind realm exchanging places with a body that Brianna controlled with her puppeteer skill.
A few minutes after Brianna walked out of the warehouse with a puppet instead of Noah, she found a way to slip away from the team while walking in the back. And changed her appearance to a lady with her face hidden by the veil and dressed in an elegant dress very similar to the one she had at the ball, but with slight adjustments in a few places. This way two people in the team disappeared without a trace.
She did not have enough time to make a new dress, so she only made a few changes to the one she already had in her storage ring, the one she wore at the ball.
As Noah looked at his minimap, standing in the warehouse, he saw that the cargo door through which servants moved the crates with Samantha and Kate inside into the mansion, had a signature of a magical trap, that would most likely activate an alarm if someone were to trigger the trap, so he did not even try to sneak through that door.
Instead, he walked toward the same staircase that the real butler had left through with the werewolf just a few minutes ago.
Noah's initial plan was to pretend as one of the servants and sneak after the butler into the auction hall then sneak behind the stage and get to the safe room where the women were moved to. However, Ugy insisted to use the butler's appearance as a disguise, claiming it would heighten the success of this infiltration.
Noah reasoned that walking through the hall in front of the guards with the same face right after the real butler had just walked by would seem quite suspicious, however, Ugy persisted in his persuasion, claiming he just had to make a serious face to not anyone disturb him, as the butler seemed to have quite a bit of power in this mansion. Noah found Ugy's persistence quite suspicious, yet could not find any ulterior motive that he might have.
Currently in Noah's view were multiple screens that showed him several targets of his "lock on view" skill and one of them was butler Vernon, so he knew where the real butler was at all times. This allowed him to not mess up by meeting with him face to face or entering the same door twice in front of the same people.
As he walked up the stairs, instead of going inside the auction hall he went toward the exit where he met Brianna in her disguise and made it look like she was a respectable guest that he went out himself to meet instead of letting servants lead her.
Then he brought her directly to the auction hall entrance skipping the line of people waiting to be checked for a ticket.
As she was led by the Butler Vernon himself, no one questioned them when they walked directly to the door, passing the people in line without waiting. Stealing a ticket from one of the people in line with Brianna's puppeteer skill was no trouble at all. And the skipping line allowed her to enter long before the person whose ticket she stole would start a commotion.
Inside the mansion, the wide auction hall had a half-round shape like a theater with several entrance doors, all of which were guarded by a pair of guards.
On his lock on view screen, Noah saw that the real butler was still inside, having a conversation with a few servants at the main stage, so he did not dare to enter the room to not get found. Once he showed Brianna through the door with respect, he turned and quickly skipped away.
After that, he changed his path and walked towards one of the corridors leading deeper into the mansion. One of the "lock on screens" was showing Samantha and the path the servants took to carry them into the safe room. This helped him to find a path to the safe room without needing to walk around in the blind searching for the way on his own.
All the guards and servants that he passed on his way bowed toward him with respect and stood at attention not daring to stop him. So far the infiltration was a total success.
However, once he got to the elevator that would lead to the basement he was stalled by an unexpected thing. The minimap showed that there was a magic trap. The servants passed here with no problem so there was obviously a trick to it. However, Noah did not know what they did to not trigger the alarm.
While following the servants through the "Lock On view" screen his sight was more on Samantha and her surroundings. The one that deactivated the trap, was most likely the lead servant that walked in front of the group and quite away from Samantha at that moment, so Noah did not see how he unlocked the magic trap.
On their second passing, while hiding behind the corner, Noah finally found out the trick. A password.
One place of the magic circle on the door was a lock. Once you put your hand there and send magic in some pattern, the trap would easily deactivate. The problem is, Noah could not learn that password from just watching them.
This was a problem and he did not have a good solution. The servant with the password was constantly under guard and the team was always together, so infiltrating their team was also hard. Yet Noah needed to get that password or he would trigger the alarm.
/Damn it. Any suggestions Ugy?/ Asked Noah in his head.
/I bet there are other people besides that servant who know the password. We just need to get it from someone else./ Suggested Ugy.
/How do I do it? Walk around and ask who has the password to the safe room?/
/Well, the list of people who would know it isn't that big. I can't believe the owner here would trust a lot of people with it. The butler, his wife, and one or two more people are most likely the only ones who would know it./
/The problem is to find them and make them spill it quickly enough before the girls are in trouble./ Said Noah sighing. /Can't you just look up that password in the great library? It has all the information in the world, right?/ Asked Noah hopefully.
/No. An inquiry like that would be too traceable./ Answered Ugy.
/Hold on? What do you mean by traceable? Traceable by whom?/ Asked Noah surprised, feeling the strangeness in Ugy's words.
/The Great Library administrator. The Archive./ Answered Ugy.
/I don't get it. So what? You have access to The Great Library, right? You've been referring to it on many occasions./ Said Noah with his eyebrows creased from suspicion.
/Well, technically…No, I don't./ Answered Ugy feeling clearly uncomfortable from this discussion.
/What do you mean, No? But you keep referencing it and searching for information there all the time when you need it… Holy fucks, you've been cheating it! You were stealing information from the world archive, The great library, the source of godly knowledge. The Akashic fucking record, You've been stealing from it this whole time!/ Exclaimed Noah finally realizing the truth.
/Stealing is a rude word./ Answered Ugy with an offended voice. /More like taking a little peek. It's not like I did anything illegal. I just used a few loopholes in their rules. The information I can get is what the loophole can allow me to access. It's not stealing if it's not well protected and anyone can take a peek at it accidentally./ Made excuses Ugy.
/Bending the rules to suit your gains is swindling. I can't believe this. No! You know what? Who am I trying to make laugh here? I should have expected this from you. So tell me, what would be the consequences if you are caught stealing from it?/ Asked Noah.
/Well, the worst case might earn us a total wipeout./ Answered Ugy with hesitation in his voice.
/We would be erased? Like they would kill me?/ Said Noah. /You risked my life doing it?/
/I mean the whole world you live in. But yes, we would be dead as well, so technically you are right./ Said Ugy.
Noah, jaw opened wide. /Son of a…/ Exclaimed Noah in his head, then took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
/How did you gain access to the most dangerous thing in this world?/ Asked Noah, rubbing his temples.
/It was their oversight to be true. The Ugly Bastard system database does not have any instructions, right? That's why we get a comment section screen instead of a system skill tree list. We get to learn everything on our own, right? Create our own path, so to say. But the troubleshooting process decided I need to cross-reference with the names of existing skills to know the names and settings of skills I create so that there would not be cases of the same skill with different names added to the library. Downloading and uploading information back and forth from the library is a common thing for all systems. It's absolutely normal. They just never thought my self-learning and the internet of the world we connected to would get me enough sentience to…umm…let's say, think up reasons to cross-reference with the library, without any justified reason for it and take a skimming peek at the information that I should not have the right to look at. But it's their fault. No one ever said I am not allowed to do that./ Justified himself Ugy.
/If it's not banned, why are you afraid to be traced?/ Said Noah crossing his hands making Ugy go silent. /Thought so./ Said Noah.
/Well, yes. I can't be sure of the Archive's reaction to the fact that someone gained access to the Great Library's information without approval. They may not outright destroy us as it was a consequence of their oversight. But better be safe than sorry. Even if they simply erase the loophole barring us from gaining access we would still incur a great loss. So I was always careful not to make any overly suspicious inquiries from the library. And searching for the password would be an outright risky move gaining lots of suspicion from the Archive./ Explained Ugy.
As they stood discussing they heard someone's voice from the back.
Noah turned around with surprise seeing the young wife of the Auction House master.
/Look at that./ Said Ugy with a strange tone in his voice. /We don't even need to look for the person. She came to us herself./
/Yeah, but even if she knows the password, how do we make her spill it?/ Asked Noah.
/You remember the conditions for the skill "On the same wavelength" that we have?/ Said Ugy with a blatant lewdness in his voice.
/No, no no no. That's not gonna happen!/ Exclaimed Noah in shock, realizing Ugy's suggestion.
/Yes! You are fucking her so hard, she can't think properly while I gain an access to her thoughts. Just a bit of manipulation and we have a password./
/Oh no! No, no, no, no! I am not having sex with this stranger and someone else's wife at that!/ Screamed Noah in his head.
While discussing it with Ugy in his head he followed the woman into the room that she led him to and a moment later she suddenly came over and tried to touch his face. If she touched it, however, that would distort the illusion on Noah's face, breaking the skill of the second skin illusion. At that moment the time stopped and Ugy with a lewd expression on his plush face appeared in the corner of Noah's view.
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