At night more factions came but these were mostly spies sent by the local nobles and other powers that wanted to know exactly what was causing the Ztarworth raid. Even nobles who acted high and might felt uncomfortable since they didn’t know anything about the situation except that all the factions in the western midlands had sent an team to the little town accompanied by high level members or even leaders.

 

At night in the auction hall of the merchant company, stood about 24 people. These were the factions representatives of the biggest powerhouses in the western midlands. A man that was the basic definition of what a short round merchant looks like was standing in front of them. He bowed and said “ I apologize for making honorable members such as yourselves waiting. Please forgive this little me”

 

Hmph….

 

Tsk….

 

A few grants could be heard in the crowd with a little murmuring but no one said anything so the merchant continued “ this little one is Steven Raider and….”

 

He was suddenly caught of by a man yelling “there is nothing little about you so just get to the point and answer our questions.”

 

“yes, yes, my apologies. A member of SoR is here to speak to us and explain everything.” Said Steven but he felt crushed by the pressure from all these strong guys.

 

“Come down, there will be no fighting here today" said a cold voice that sounded like a nightmare.

 

There was no killing intent in it otherwise half of the people in this room would have cut down the masked kid standing in front of them. The kid infant of them was wearing a plain white mask and a black cloak. He was not strong at all. To them he was a bug that felt like he had not even gone through the Awakening ceremony but the problem was that they couldn’t not feel his presence at all. They could see him but the man had zero presence. It was like he was not even there. They were not sure when he had appeared and how long he had been there since they didn’t notice him until he had spoke.

 

“I am the emissary of the shadows of Raguel and I am going to teach you about who we are so take seat.” The boy said as if all the pressure these people where putting on him was nothing. He gestured to the seats and moved a seat for himself as well.
They had been using their auras to try and suppress him but they couldn’t properly lock on him and he seemed to be gliding around as if to mock them. They now understood that this kid was not an easy person.

 

They sat down and the boy said “ yesterday morning, you all received a file that contained a portion of the information that our group has on you all. That was a threat incase you didn’t figure it out….:

An out roar came from the audience with weapons even being drawn but the kid raised his hand with file in it and the room went silent again. The child continued “ it is best of you listen and let me finish before you do something rush.” He said as he put the file down.

 

“ the files you guys received was a threat. We just arrived in this territory we have little resources and manpower so we can’t fight you all but what we offer is information. If the full contents of files we have on you guys was to be leaked. You all know that it would not be pretty for any of you since you would all lock down from your enemies attacking you.”

 

“ we are using the raider company because it seems to be growing in this region already. We dare merchants too. We just sell information and experts for certain tasks. We are will to help you all as our friends which is why we sent you guys the files as gifts.”

 

The crowd became enraged by this man’s shame of calling the files' gifts for friendship after calling them threats. The kid continued and said “ your information is very safe with us and you can even buy it all and other faction information you need. We don’t sale information that could compromise our premium customers.”

 

There was murmuring in the room again and a priest old man asked “ how does one become a premium member.”

 

“its simple, first you have to not be recognized as an enemy of the kingdom. Second you have to pay a certain per year. One will lose his premium membership once the organization deems you as evil or when you can’t handle any of the premium membership requirements.” Said the kid.

 

Hmmmm….so they are declaring that they will follow the kingdom rules and that showing that they have the power to end us by releasing out files. To prevent us from attacking them and finishing them up for their threat level . They have given us the risk free option of just paying money to get information and protect ourselves. The old man thought this was fun and he understood that making them all gather here was also a show of power. He then said “ where do we find you?”

 

The other leaders had also come to this conclusion and had now been eased to know that these guys were just common thugs that wanted money. They were going to pay until they got a chance to take down these guys and winning over the information of the other companies .

 

 

These guys were all playing chess and Kevin behind his plain mask was smirking as he saw their faces twist with comfort and plans.

 

He then got back to character and said “we will find you guys who are interested in becoming premium member, there is no need of you looking for us. Our people will be delivering our cleared bounties to the Raider company. We will continue to treat your company well since they help us with this little ball dance.”

 

“Bounties!?” that was what everyone had in their head.

 

 

“Mr. Steven, this ring contains bounties that my people handled yesterday night. Please make sure that you prepare the payment for all of them by tomorrow evening. I will find a way to pick it. As of now, a good night to you all my dear friends.” The kid handed a ring to Steven bowed and walked towards the curtain door. He disappeared as soon as he touched the curtain shadow. It was like he had been swallowed by it.

 

Mr. Steven felt a chill go down his spin. He turned and saw that everyone was looking at him with serious scary faces. He got the message and immediately put some mana into the storage ring.

 

Shrieking …….

 

Loud screams could be heard thought the building, the sight in front of them was something one would not forget anytime soon.

 

 

And because of the screams in the room, the troops out side all jumped into the building. Through windows, doors and other holes they made. Their weapons were drawn but they all froze at the sight.
On the stage was a huge pile of human heads. There were more than 400 heads. They were all tagged with a paper that identified them. All these were criminals. Not small time criminals but some pretty dangerous criminals from the western midlands. Almost all of them were cleanly cut and a third of them seemed to have turned purple. This was the bounty that SoR was cashing in with the raider company as a middle man. This was a multi million gold coin deal.

 

“That guy said they were under staffed.” Said one of the leaders. This immediately told the untold story of exactly how powerful this new organization was. It seemed that information gathering was not their only skill. Assassins¡¡¡¡¡ this was a big problem for the different factions' plans to overthrow or Annex them.

 

Assassin group were very dangerous characters to handle. Mainly because they didn’t do open field combat. For every assassin you killed, you would probably lose about 10 or more elite fighters and maybe 5 times more normal troops. One highly skilled assassin could kill hundreds of troops with poisons and eliminate high ranked members in one night. Everyone remembered how they couldn’t sense the presence of the emissary of SoR. In short that guy could kill them in their sleep.

 

All the leaders and representatives had a cold sweat and the same thought run in their heads “am fucked".

 

In the shadows of the auction hall, stood a boy with a board smile as he thought “Checkmate”