‘Considering the reward for the quest was so worth it , I might have to try and complete the Scrilda side quest.’ Ruth thought to himself as he stood near mauve’s tent along with mauve , aria and gin.

“ We actually need a artifact maker soon considering how we are soft locked inside the forest .” Ruth thought out a little loud for everyone near him heard him but no one said anything to their master and just had their heads slightly bowed.

“ Aria try the recipe for mid grade and maybe even high grade mana potions , health potions aren’t required urgently but experiment their recipes as well”

Aria nodded her head and with that ruth and gin left the camp but not the same way as always , this time they rode a mista wolf that ruth enslaved .

There was the fact that the magic tower will definitely sense a mista wolf in the village its just how accurate their predictions are and will they be sending soldiers just for a single wolf , though it is very unlikely case of happening it is still possible .

The duo rode the wolf and unlike the usual hour they take to travel , the distance this time was covered in only 9 minutes .

Mista wolf despite being smaller than a scrilda are faster than them but the two have very different use scenario , the former provides speed but for less weight load but the latter provides less speed but for a much greater weight load and for longer distances.

The wolf didn’t have any name and ruth didn’t even bother naming it , he left the nameless wolf in their empty training field .

Since he was a wolf he shouldn’t have that hard time staying outside but even then ruth left some food and there were small crevice near the house where he ended up resting inside off .

***

A few days have passed since the murk wolf hunt and currently ruth was on his way to the capital in leo’s wagon .

It was still early in the morning just like the last time ruth made a visit to the capital , this time though he was accompanied by his newest maid , Aria.

The only reason gin wasn’t with them was because even though he was already useless , him not having ever visited the noble district just made him even more useless and hence aria joined her master.

Aria used to live in the common district and due to her work and chores she had visited the noble district many times and knows more about it than anyone from his village or his slaves.

The journey was as quiet and nothing noteworthy happened , the two sat inside the wagon quietly .

Ruth was thinking of his plans on dominating and how he is supposed to proceed with his things and aria on the other hand was lost in her own thoughts.

She was carrying a pen and papers as she was thinking and simulating recipes for the potions inside her mind , yes she can’t test the recipes just in her mind but having various variations and substitute thought out is also just as important and that's what she was busy with right now.

As she sat or curled on the floor of the wagon with the papers on floor and writing the recipes and ingredients she lost herself in her own things , cutting out any distractions from the surrounding , which included her master too and completely focusing on her thought train.

And that was the only reason nothing naughty was happening in the wagon , ruth wanted to have some fun on the way but decided against it as he saw the focus and concentration with which aria was working and disturbing it will just affect him later ,

As having potion formulas and tons of potions ready is going to be useful sooner or later and ruth knew their importance very well in his soon to be very large army of goblins and other races since he can't always be there to heal them and there will definitely be a time when his troops would be able to use mana and then mana potions will come very handy.

*screech**screech*

The wagon stopped slowly and smoothly and ruth, as he was already looking outside knew that they reached the city gate ,

Aria who was completely in her thoughts was brought back to the real world with the  stop , her papers slightly scattered on the floor but nothing was destroyed or damaged as the stop was fairly smooth.

As soon as she composed herself , she remembered what they were originally here for then saw her master and her face went red from embarrassment , just from the fact that she completely forgot about her master when he was sitting near her.

Ruth’s gaze fell on her and saw her reaction and he laughed internally in amusement but didn’t show it on his face ,

The wagon moved again albeit slowly this time , after a minute or two the wagon stopped again and now the gate guards were visible .

Normally both of them needed to get out of the wagon for checking but since Leo is a regular on the route and friend to few of the guards on duty they didn’t bother to check the insides properly and just skimmed through the stuff from outside .

Ruth looked outside and saw that there are 10 guards here and the guard named ‘max’ from last time isn’t here , the wagon moved again and this time it was the artifact checking their ids and probably other stuff which even the normal people didn’t knew of .

***

“How rich do you have to be to use a wagon inside the city ?” asked ruth to his wagon driver leo as they got out of the wagon near the wagon hub .

“Master , from what I have heard from my friends to use a wagon inside the city you need to have a permit , the permit’s price isn’t publicly known but its rumored to be as much as 20 gold”

“Hhaha , thats cheap as fuck . Where does one go to get a wagon permit anyways ?”

“I apologize master but that I do not know” leo bowed his head and his back almost a full 90 degrees which just as the last time caused a weird reaction to the others present there ,

Few thought nothing of it and the ones who saw ruth last time too just thought of him as a very rude customer that abuses the drivers and the poor.

Ruth saw the gazes directed at him but thought nothing of them and just started to walk towards Luna’s shop.

After a few minutes of walking the duo reached the run down potion shop which was just as it was before , not surprising as they just weren’t gone for long and the shop itself wasn't any famous to make big changes that fast.

Ruth was here for his delivery for his potions that he ordered last time and had even paid in advance .

*ding**ding*

The door chime rang as ruth opened the door and entered inside , he looked towards the reception where aria used to work before now was empty .

There was no one on the reception and no one welcomed the duo that entered the shop , but it wasn’t really a problem for this shop as they rarely had any customer so losing customers wasn’t a thing for them and even the potions on display were mostly fake or either very low quality that stealing them would only bring loss than profit to anyone.

Ruth looked at aria with a gaze that meant ‘do you know’ and aria shook her head , how could she know why the reception was empty as she didn't work here anymore and when she used to something like this had never happened.

The two stood there for about 5 more minutes and only then were some footsteps heard , someone was coming towards the reception and the sound came from behind the backdoor .

The door from where Luna came the last time ruth was in the shop and unsurprisingly this time too it was her ,

Luna was as flat and ugly as she always was , wore a dark blue gown and didn’t suit her and was heaving with her hands on her waist as she looked at the customers that were standing in the shop.

“*huff* sorry for the wait *huff* young master its just since I sold aria to you the work force has been halved and due to the…..”

“Stop it , I am not here to hear your excuses you have wasted enough of my time already , just give me the potions I ordered and I will be going” ruth said to luna with angry and loud voice.

“ T-the potions are ready but I can’t carry all of them here as they are behind the reception table and are very heavy , i didn't knew you were coming today but if young master gives me some time I can arrange a wagon to carry them for you…..”

“No need for that , just show me where they are and I will carry them” ruth interrupted her and spoke but that surprised not only Luna but also her own maid aria .

Both of them were surprised because they knew how much carrying 100 potions can weigh , not the potion vials themselves but the crates that are used to store vials so that they don’t break . These crates can weigh as much as 50 kg just for 100 potions .

Aria was sure her master was strong as she had worked a few days in the goblin camp and there with mauve and lots of other goblins she got of hear about her master’s wonders and his strength but even with that she was a little doubtful about it ,

But the main reason she was doubtful wasn’t lifting the crates but how were they going to carry it to the home and why did he even come here the first thing in the city but every doubt she had vanished when she saw her master move towards the crate and … and absorbed them .

Both of the girls were surprised again , aria was first surprised and tried to formulate how could her master do that but when she couldn’t come up with a conclusion just accepted it as a fact and felt pride for her master and being a slave to such a master .

Luna however was surprised but not very much so because she was under ruth's hypnosis and though the hypnosis didn't work properly it was enough to slightly mislead the mind and he did all that because ruth didn’t want his powers to spread around , ruth didn’t knew if inventory magic is a thing here or not but if it wasn’t and he was found out he would have many behind his head wanting to enslave him because of such a precious power.

Ruth smirked as he saw the reaction on her maid’s face but didn’t say anything and simply walked out of the store and when aria saw her master leaving she followed behind him too .

…

“Why are you looking at me like that ” ruth said to aria who was walking beside him on the side of the road while practically staring at ruth and not even trying to hide it somehow or maybe she didn't knew she was staring so hard.

“ I.I… I apologize master ….”

“Its alright just say what you wanna say , I promise I won't punish “

“Then ,if you don't mind me asking how did you ‘absorb’ the potion crate ?” aria asked nervously

“Hahaha , just that ? Its a skill or lets say a power I have that allows me to store stuff in a different space ” ruth replied in a low voice while laughing as he patted aria’s head and she lightly blushed .

The two didn’t speak anything else and continued walking towards the inner second wall , each wall has 4 gates , at least the 3rd and 2nd wall . These gates are usually in the four directions for easier access and navigation.

Ruth entered the capital from the north gate as meltia village lies to the north of the capital city , and just like that the duo were walking towards the north gate of the 2nd wall .

Some odd minutes later , the duo finally got near the north gate as they got there they noticed a few key differences of this gate to the gate on 3rd wall .

the wall itself was a little shorter than the 3rd wall by as much as 5 meters but it was still tall enough to call it gigantic.

The gate had some minor differences too , it was the same height and length as the one from the 3rd wall's gate but was visibly thicker and made from metal but also had decorations and engravings on it .

The number of guards were the same but the guards here were not really so friendly and were looking way stronger and experienced unlike the ones on the 3rd wall.

The duo got near the gate and because there was no one besides them entering the noble district they didn’t have to wait .

They walked forward and each and every guard looked at the duo , ruth felt weird being gazed upon by so many strong guards as he never felt like that before .

Using their gazes to his own advantage he used [observe]

[ ERROR !! ][ ERROR !! ][ ERROR !! ][ ERROR !! ]

[lanti - level 49]

Ruth who was already a little worried was now even a little scared , even the weakest of them was almost as strong as him , though with his magic attribute he could take care of one or maybe even 2 people of the same level as him this many wasn't a good thing and he didn’t want any mishappens with them ,

The guards had a slight disgust on their faces towards aria but not towards ruth , as he was wearing a good and expensive suit which to them meant that ruth was a rich commoner and they had nothing against him.

There was no scanning of the id or anything and with that the two kept on walking but suddenly ruth felt a hand on his shoulder.

Sweat formed on his forehead , he couldn’t even feel that guy coming close to him and only felt something when he already touched his shoulder.

“You seem new here , there is a entry fee of 1 silver per person for entering the noble district . If you are going to be a regular here I would suggest you going to the permit depot they can assign passes for wagons and your entry pass too” the guard said with a very friendly and welcoming voice

Ruth gave a dry smile as he heard the guard talk , he was actually expecting something to happen but turns out the guy was really cool.

Ruth got his hand inside his pocket and took 2 silver coins out of his inventory , the hand inside pocket was just to hide the fact about his inventory.

He gave the 2 coins to the guard and the guard took the coins and put them in a box as he gestured the duo to continue their walk .