"Chairman..."
"Yes, I know already. I've already asked our neighbours to supplement for us, so we'll be able to deliver slaves worth the original 5 gold coins. All you need to do is delay him enough so he doesn't leave."
"Y-yes, master... but, he doesn't seem to be one who should be angered in anyway, sir." Alvin complained.
"I believe you have work to do, Alvin. As long as you don't die, it's good enough." The chairman said.
"Y-yes, sir. If I may ask, how long will it take for the rest to arrive?" Alvin asked.
"20 minutes at most."
"Ok, sir. I'll try my best." He answered before leaving.
Back in the waiting room where Aldritch and Ingrid waited, Alvin suddenly entered the room with a weird smile on his face. He did a good job masking his actual emotions of apprehension, but in front of perceptive vampires, Aldritch noticed the shift in demeanor.
"When will the rest of the slaves arrive?" Aldritch asked with a telling smirk.
'So he knows?...' For some reason, Alvin felt relieved that Aldritch already found out what they were doing.
"In thirty minutes at most, but they'll surely arrive before then." He assured.
"Alright then. In the meantime, why don't you take us around to see the different slaves you have available for sale?"
"Of course... if you'd like that, I'll gladly oblige."
Aldritch was hoping he'd see something like special slaves with some kind of power, maybe like a former knight or mercenary or something like that. He did ask, and to his surprise, those kinds of slaves were available, though only in short supply, since said knight would have to have committed a grave crime to be branded a slave as his punishment.
Even then, knights would rather die than have their dignity be tarnished like that, becoming a slave.
'I don't need those for now, but it's good to know.' Even though he could turn people into vampires under his family, their loyalty wasn't so guaranteed even though they practically can't betray him as their maker, they could still get someone else to do the job. 'Luckily I can monitor their loyalty,' Aldritch thought to himself.
There was also the fact that he could give absolute commands to them which they had to follow, but that isn't something that has to be used every time, as that would mean the subordinate is defective.
Mere 12 minutes later, a large caravan moving slaves arrived. Once they combined them, their numbers reached the required amount, and the chairman even threw in quite a few as a bonus for buying so much. He came out to see Aldritch, not even asking what he wanted to do with so many slaves.
After that, Aldritch brought all the slaves into the forest, making sure they went deep enough. The forest they had chosen was very convenient, since it was close to the outer city walls. There was also a river that flowed out of the city from there, and naturally, there was provision for the river through the thick city walls.
With Aldritch's skill, taking care of the guards stationed there would be a breeze. Once they reached the river, Aldritch found the post, the only problem being that it was positioned on top of the wall. Luckily, there was a flight of stairs that extended from the bottom of the wall all the way to the top, embedded on the side of the wall.
Because of the size of the wall, the curvature barely affected the stairs.
Aldritch didn't waste any time and scaled the stairs as quickly as he could, reaching the top in a minute. In the post set up there, he found three guards, all of them asleep.
"Soldiers!" Aldritch shouted, waking them up from their slumber. They all sprang up and turned to face Aldritch with wide eyes. All they saw were striking dark red eyes, and that was it.
"You will forget everything that happened this night. You will fall asleep, and no matter how hard anyone tries to wake you, it will only deepen your slumber. You will only wake up when the moonlight ceases." He said. The men once again returned to an even deeper slumber than before, and Aldritch left. As for how their bodies will detect when the moonlight seizes, he didn't really care.
It was more of a psychological thing anyway, since their natural clocks would already be used to the time when the moon would seize.
Ingrid, who already knew what Aldritch's plan was through piecing everything together, couldn't help but ask him just to be sure, as it seemed like too much.
'If I'm correct, then we're going to kill all these people? That's just too excessive.' She thought to herself while observing Aldritch.
"Alright, Ingrid, lead them to me from the covers of the trees, one after the other." Aldritch said to her while standing on the river banks.
His plan for that night was simple and straightforward. He was going to use these slaves to kill two birds at once.
"Are we really going to kill all these people?" She asked, not holding it in anymore.
"Of course. I would love to keep them alive for longer and recycle them, but unfortunately, I'll need a very big private property to hold them all so as not to rouse suspicions. For now, that is not possible."
Ingrid maintained a normal expression as much as she could, even though nothing of what was about to happen sat well with her.
She felt conflicted, turning to look at the numerous slaves.
"A weak mind will get you nowhere, Ingrid. I don't know about you, but I'm not someone who compromises by goals because of some minor hurdles, in this case, quite insignificant ones. If you are concerned about this number, then maybe you were never meant to be beside me in my family." He said.
Molded by a number of past life experiences, killing was not something new to him, neither was doing it on such a scale.
She hesitated briefly and finally moved.
'I have to be strong, I can't let something like this stop me.' She thought to herself.