Chapter 181: News
After yesterday, Lord Ice Moon, the Sect Master of the Ice Moon Sect, received some news.
Apparently, a group of Ice Giants that came from far away, who said to belong to the Winter Dragon Sect had made an alliance with them.
Of course, he had given such power to the Elders to do this, so he wasn't angered over them not asking him beforehand, but he was surprised, it has been several years since another Sect has appeared. Especially because this area of the Region was usually not as populated, so Sects were rare....
"Interesting, this Sects seems to have an Elder named Drake... And he was Rank 3, apparently... Although the Elder did say that he emanated a stronger presence than just Rank 3, he speculated it could be a second Mana Core... But is that the case?" wondered the Sect Master.
The Elder assessed several papers, as he glanced at the files. This new and mysterious sect seemed friendly, and there were even some kids with them. They all just wanted to use the dungeons, so a contract with them where they would pay 50% of what they earned in the dungeon was made.
"Only 50% though? That Elder was way too generous... I would have asked for 80% at the very least... Oh well, I suppose he intended to keep friendly relationships with them. If we can ultimately assimilate a whole sect of geniuses and powerful warriors, we could boost our strength a lot, and we could even begin plans and projects to expand our influence as a sect... There's another Dungeon a few dozens of kilometers from here, if we could use resources and finally build an outpost there, then a village, and then a city, we could expand our forces and multiply our resources... But for that, we need more capable people," thought the Sect Master.
"Though... Drake... That name is odd, I have never heard of someone named Drake before. It sounds like the name of a dragon's species, those ones without wings... Hm... Nah, it should be just coincidence, it can't possibly be that one Ice Dragon that Greenwood spoke me about because this man was clearly an Ice Giant," thought the Sect Master, thinking of all of this as mere coincidences, he had yet to see any Dragon-type monster being able to turn into a humanoid form, in fact, he had never seen nor heard of such occurrences even with other non-humanoid monster species.
As the Sect Master drank some warm herbal tea and relaxed for a bit, someone suddenly and hurriedly knocked on the door.
"S-Sect Master!"
A young Ice Giant rushed into the room, gasping for air.
"What is it?!" asked Elder Ice Moon.
"Something... happened...! Something happened with the Hideout of Criminals that sold slaves..." said the ice giant man.
The Sect Master squinted his eyes.
"Ah, that cesspool of maggots... What about them? I don't want anything to do with them. I only let them be because there's several Elders and their Families who collude a lot with them, and sadly, they support part of the economy," sighed the Sect Master.
"Well... The thing is... Someone attacked them at night, the entire building is in ruins, there are no corpses left, but a lot of blood-stained everywhere... all the treasures and resources they had are gone, and so... all of the slaves," said the Sect Member.
"Eh? WHAT?! Who did that?!" asked the Sect Master, completely surprised by these events!
He had never expected these damned bandits to actually get what they deserved, seeing how malicious and well protected they were by the other Sect Families... To think that someone would just go and kill them all and even more, steal all of their resources and even slaves in a single night!
That was simply insane to think about!
"We don't know... We are starting investigations, but not many possess strong enough tracking Spells or Artifacts to find the culprits, they seem to have filled the place with ice, so any clue is buried below it, and any essence we can use to find the source of it might have been frozen and become useless," sighed the sect member.
"I see... Well, it is useless to look for clues, stop wasting resources and manpower on any investigation," said the Sect Master.
"What? But Sect Master... the other Elders...!"
"What about the other Elders? I am merely saving resources by not unwisely spending them on stupid things, tell them that. The Sect is mine, and I make the rules here, stop investigations and leave this on the past," said the Sect Master.
"I-I see... Very well..."
The sect member walked outside of the room, as the Sect Master smiled maliciously.
"Hehe... I don't know who did this, but I owe him a nice meal. Having those bastards out of the picture will let me have greater control over the Sect's funds... Perhaps I wasn't able to do something myself, but if it was someone else... Then that's completely fine, right? Hahah...! What a good gift... Now, the next thing to do would be to abolish slavery, but that... might prove to be difficult, these bastards love their slave's way too much, if they take a hold of the economy of the Sect, I cannot do much. If I risk them going elsewhere, the sect will lose a large amount of manpower and resources... Hmm... It is a complicated thing," thought the Sect Master.
Elder Ice Moon walked towards the window as he watched the large city outside, snowy and filled with ice giants. The large buildings, the paved streets, the carriages, everything... He had built everything slowly ever since he settled down a village near the Dungeons in this place.
"This might be the sign that there are some that want to become my allies. Perhaps there is some hope to overtake these Elders in the future... But everything must be done carefully... For now, it would be good to keep an eye on these new allies as well... I do wonder though, how they managed to move so many slaves in a single night?"