399 Escaping The Merchant Guild...?

Eva quickly filled her various Epic Rank Bags of Holding with the necessary items. She ended up collecting a total of 5 billion platinum, 13 million medium-grade Aether Crystals, 200,000 high-grade aether Crystals, and 15,000 top-grade crystals. 

She had to leave the various potions, poisons, machines, weapons, and equipment, as well as all types of crafting materials behind though, as they were too much of a liability. 

The Aether Crystals could be used by Umbra willfully, as everyone currently believed Umbra to be that rich, after their haul in the First Player Auction. Thanks to the existence of the Rank 7 Shop, they also could get away with using large amounts of money since nobody but the Vice-Guildmasters as well as the Guildmaster would have the exact figure of the Guild's funds. 

Eva was glad she didn't merely rely on her inventory and had brought along the Epic Bag of Holdings. Even though she and Draco had upgraded their inventories to the max as soon as Update 1 had increased the limit, there still weren't enough rows to carry 999 Aether Crystals up to 1 billion. 

Normal player inventories had a separate tab of cash - like any good MMO - so that wasn't an issue for her.

As for the Aether Crystals, they would require 5+ million slots in the inventory, and their mere 6,000 slots that stacked up to 999 was nowhere near enough to do justice. Thankfully, the Epic Bag of Holding had 900,000 slots with stacks of 9,999. It also reduced the weight of the held items to 0.1% of their total. 

The Bags of Holding Draco had made with his Advanced Spatial Creation Device had only been at the Rare Rank, so how did Eva get her grimy hands on some Epic Rank Bags of Holding?? 

Well, if 1 Advanced Spatial Creation Device created 1 Rare Bag of Holding, why not try using 5 Advanced Spatial Creation Devices on one bag? What would happen then? Well… the answer was kinda obvious, wasn't it? 

Eva had to blow through almost a whole Bag of Holding, which was all she had. Draco had left many Advanced Spatial Creation Devices, and Eva could only bear to use 5 to create these bags for the heist. 

After collecting everything, she carefully assessed the place to make sure that she had left no trails. Any that she found got eliminated with her Abyssal Eye Inheritance, practically banishing it into an endless void she had no real access to. 

Once done, she went to the edge of the pocket space and left the same way she came in, by supercharging her Izanagi to puncture a small hole in the wall of the Treasury. 

It was far easier for her to do it from within than outside, and she didn't even need to waste too many Angel's Kiss potions on the matter. Eva quickly rushed through the hole and appeared in the normal treasury. 

As she did, she could not help but sneer at those poor idiot Demons. Each time they had been coming here, they must have thought that they had cleaned out these organizations to the bones, but were unaware that they were merely drinking a little of the soup while the Merchant Guild held all the meat. 

Now that Eva had cleaned them properly, she felt good, like she was doing the world a favor. After all, no one needed 30 fucking billion platinum in this world, like what could they even spend it on? Why was the top 1% so hellbent on stifling the flow of income? 

Eva pondered these socio-economic issues for a split second before carefully exiting the Treasury in her fully stealthed mode. She saw the Cerebramancer still lying on the floor, sleeping peacefully. 

Eva sighed as she saw him. Such a young chap with so much promise, destined to become a catatonic patient for the rest of his life. Unless of course, the Merchant Guild could find a psychic more powerful than Eva. 

But heh. As it stood right now, Eva herself was completely unable to lift the mental 'curse' she put on him because she had infused too much power into it. To give a clue, it was like using super-powerful glue to stick two metals together, and then trying to pry them apart with one's bare hands after it had dried. 

Still, it would be good to give the Merchant Guild the illusion of hope, so that they wouldn't chase after her with utter hatred and vehemence, at least, not any more than they were already bound to do after her theft. 

Eva left the hallway and reached the room with the stationed guards. They were all patiently waiting for the Cerebramancer to unmask any intruder and deal with them preliminarily before summoning them to either finish the job or carry the captive away for… 'punishment'. 

She paid no mind to them and crawled like some creepy spider over the roof, looking less like spiderwoman or Spider-Gwen and more like a possessed demon from some horror movie. 

Given how fast she crawled, neither stable nor slow, but at a skittering pace it should have alerted anyone with functioning ears, but it got stifled by her Body of Godliness and Void of Perfection. 

Eva opened the Party Text Chat once she had crawled to relative safety and sent a message to Zaine. "How are things going? - Eva" 

There was a spell of silence before Zaine replied: "Swimmingly. They are all but willing to sell their souls for this item, and I have never had so much fun haggling in my life. - Zaine" 

"Good. I am done with the looting, so I'm on my way to the courtyard to wait for your exit. - Eva" 

"No problem, we are in the midst of wrapping things up. - Zaine" 

Eva smiled and continued on her way, trying to keep her heart steady at the success of the heist in total. As she moved along the ceiling in that creepy manner of hers, her lips curled into a smirk that would still the heart of anyone who could see her. 

......…. 

"And so, are these terms suitable for you, Lady Zaine?" The round Guildmaster of the Merchant Guild asked while rubbing his breas- *cough* chest. 

"Of course, Guildmaster Borgious. The price of complete access to four Legendary Dungeons as well as 25 million platinum every year for 100 years is exactly what my dear Draco would want for himself and his Guild." Zaine replied with a lovely smile. 

The people here stirred at that. Especially when Zaine adjusted her legs, their eyes couldn't help but shoot down to spy on the pathway to nirvana, but they were unable to glimpse anything within that short frame of time, leaving them bitter and frustrated. 

Zaine had teased them many times in such a manner without ever going overboard, making it obvious or even getting close to them, yet she had them on the edge of their seats. This was naturally a mixture of her physical sexuality and her Seduction passive skill which worked based on her Charisma, which was already nearing 100 points. 

Both sides signed a contract overseen by the system and shook hands pleasantly. Normally, the Merchant Guild would sneer at any fool who dared to sign such a long-term contract, as the next Great War was coming up in a few years. 

By that time, any entity not part of the topmost powers would be kissing their lives goodbye. The Demons left only a select few of each race or tribe alive so that they could breed again and provide them with ample experience for their harvest. 

However, Borgious and his cohort knew that even if the Demons went insane and decided to slaughter everything at the risk of mutual destruction, Umbra would survive longer than the Merchant Guild. 

This had to do with the entities guarding Vita City-State, which was basically every single top power. If the war truly became hellish, most of the upper echelon would leave their own lands and evacuate there to make a last stand, which the Demons would never be able to penetrate. 

Not only that, but the members of Umbra were Immortal Adventurers. In this entire world, they had the least to fear from the Great War, since only Devils could use Omega Beam. 

As such, this transaction was made in full good faith. If the Merchant Guild could get Umbra to sell them more of this stuff under wraps, everything would be totally perfect. 

During the auction, they had been forced to combine funds with other powers, meaning that they would have to share their 'toy' with those two powers. Putting aside logistics and security issues, just that feeling of having to share with others sucked. 

Now, they could have their own private little realm, hiding away their absolutely most precious items while putting the less valuable in the shared storage as to create a smokescreen just like they had done in the treasury room. 

If Zaine had a player interface, she would see that Umbra had gained 20,000 reputation with the Merchant Guild through this contract which was a great amount. 

After all, under the heavens, the Merchant Guild was the 3rd most powerful entity after the Church of Light and War Maniac Pavilion. Reputation with them might not be as valuable as with the Church of Light, but it was also very useful. 

Zaine was escorted out by Borgious and his cohort to the courtyard and they saw Luxia blitz into sight from wherever it was the Light Phoenix usually hung around at, as she descended to receive the succubus. 

Since the relationship between both parties was warm, they marveled at Luxia's beauty and praised the Light Phoenix, causing the majestic beast to preen her feathers and strut about proudly. 

This caused more than a few chuckles, and Zaine gave Luxia a thumbs up. Eva must've clued her mount into the plan. By acting this way, it would give the impression that she was less of a mount/getaway vehicle and more of an ally. 

Zaine was about to mount Luxia when a guard rushed up to the Guildmaster and his group in a flurry. When Zaine saw this, her heart sunk to the bottom and even Luxia shivered a bit. 

Borgious and co were unhappy that this dolt would ruin their otherwise perfect negotiation by coming in at the last moment when they sent their guest off, so they waved him a way. However, the fellow ignored their signals and quickly reported: "My lords, the treasury has been robbed! Someone took out Mind Mage Dawson!" 

Borgious and co froze in shock, not comprehending his words for a few seconds before relaxing. "Just that? And you thought it was a life and death matter?" 

"Ah?" The guard, and probably any onlooker to this scenario, sputtered. 

Borgious and the others looked at the guard with disgust, as if he was some miser filth that only cared about pennies instead of his millions. "If someone robbed our treasury, first go, and assess what was stolen and draft a report. Then the relevant measures shall be drawn up in response to that. Did you really pass the basic training for our organization?" 

The guard, realizing that he had probably made a mountain out of a molehill, quickly apologized and shuffled away. Borgious and co turned to Zaine, who wore an expression of interest and offered their apologies. 

"Sorry about that Lady Zaine. That dolt forgot that my guild is literally the MERCHANT Guild. The last thing we're worried about is losing money in a petty theft." 

He wasn't just boasting, Zaine could see it from their minds and emotions. They literally gave less than half a rat's fart about some mere robbery and they were not worried that someone would detect their hidden stash. 

After all, many didn't even know it existed! If Draco and Eva did not have the knowledge from the previous timeline and had Draco never made the Advanced Spatial Creation Device, none of them would have known or suspected either! 

Shit, even the Demons, who raided them once every 1,000 years - and had done so more than 50 times - hadn't spotted anything, much less a mere thief born in this era. 

This was a thread of logic Eva and Zaine failed to account for because… *cough* *cough*… they didn't know what it was like to be so rich that you couldn't even spend all your money before you died. They did not have the mind of a rich person, only a powerful person. 

Both groups had different values and responses to certain things, so this was an acceptable oversight on their part. Zaine nodded to Borgious and co, taking off in a streak of light towards Vita City-State. 

As for the upper echelon of the Merchant Guild, they began talking animatedly about how to use the Advanced Spatial Creation Device, what to put in it and where to place it.