Continuing to channel his rage towards something productive, Marcus used the mithril he had obtained from the boss chest in the Cordillera Depths to make weapons to sell.
Even though he had more pressing matter, he could not deal with them right now, so he worked on getting ready for the future.
Along with the kingdom meeting and the tournament, there was also a number of high-end auctions that would be happening right afterwards, and Marcus needed capital to participate.
He had spent a good deal of his money to purchase the atlas of the continent he was on, so his funds were pretty dry.
Luckily with his skill level he would be able to make some decent money in a short amount of time since powerful weapons were always in demand.
However, where he planned to make the real money was in the auction itself by selling top tier mithril weapons recognized by the system.
But eventually it was time for the meeting with the ones that had kidnapped his maids and Marcus turned his focus back towards his new enemies.
He had played friendly up to this point in order to get close to them, and as soon as the little mice let the cat in, it would be time to commence the hunt.
Dumping out all out all of the contents of his item box Marcus then looked towards Roxene who nodded her head and stored away Marcus' scythe and floating rings in hers.
Certainly, they had said to empty his item box, but luckily his partner had her own.
"Okay Roxene stay hidden in my companion storage unless I give the signal. There is a good chance I will not need you or my weapons but better safe than sorry."
Roxene then jumped back into Marcus' companion storage and with his preparations complete he headed out.
He had told all of his maids and the new guards that he was going out to meet an acquaintance that could help find Jenna and Grace.
Of course, everyone tried to convince Marcus not to go alone, but he said that he had to and that everything would be fine.
Walking outside of his gate Marcus began making his way towards the outer city, and when he arrived there went into its depths.
As he continued towards his destination, he quickly moved into the more seedy parts of the city.
Luckily Marcus did not have to deal with much trouble, and while a few people began to approach him, as soon as they saw the look on his face and the feeling of death in the air, they backed off.
Soon Marcus arrived at the destination he had been told to meet at and immediately was assault by a fowl scent.
The store was a tanner and not a very good one judging by the horrible smell. But Marcus thought that this might have actually been a sound tactic for a criminal enterprise since no guard would ever want to go near something that smelled this bad.
However, Marcus did not come this far to be warded off by a bad smell and fearlessly entered the store.
Unfortunately, inside the smell was even worse and Marcus was very grateful he was not a human anymore since he felt he would have started throwing up.
Inside the front room Marcus could not see anyone, but he could hear someone working in the back, and after deploying his life sense found three people sitting in a hidden room.
Knocking on the counter Marcus heard the sounds of working stop as the person who ran the shop came out from the back to see who was here.
Looking at the man, Marcus saw that he was missing a number of teeth and had pustules all over his body from infection he had never cleaned.
The man was the very definition of repulsive and it was certainly a choice by how far he had gone to make himself look appalling.
"Yes, what can I do for you young lady." The man said with a voice as pleasant as nails on a chalk board.
"I am here looking for someone to help me with the cold." Marcus said while keeping a poker face and reciting the code word he had been told to use.
The gangly old man nodded his head and said, "Sure no problem, someone will be out to help you in a minute.
After that the old man went back to working on whatever he was doing, leaving Marcus alone.
Sighing Marcus waited in the stench filled room hoping that whoever was going to lead him to the actual meeting site would come soon.
Luckily, he did not have to wait long before one of the guys from the hidden room came out from the back and said, "If you would follow me, we I will take you to your appointment."
Nodding his head Marcus quietly followed the man into the hidden room that was now open and the other two guys were waiting.
Once he was inside, the hidden door slid closed and Marcus quickly appraised the three guys.
'As I thought they are definitely grunts. Even the highest level one is only fourteen.'
Now inside the hidden room Marcus wondered what was going to happen next since he did not peg any of these guys to be the mastermind behind Permafrost.
"Now we need to check you to make sure you do not have any magic devices on you."
One of the three men then began to pat down Marcus check his pockets and waved some type of rod-shaped magical tool like a metal detector.
"Okay you are clean. Now open up you item box so we can check to make sure it is empty."
Complying to their demands Marcus opened his item box and the man pulled out some sort of glowing sphere and put it into Marcus' item box.
Then after a minute the sphere forcefully came back out and was glowing blue.
"Good looks like you followed the orders." The grunt said, with a look of relief.
From the way he had been dealing with him, Marcus could tell that these grunts knew they were outclassed, and that if he wanted, he could kill all three of them at any time.
However, it was impossible for them to know exactly how strong Marcus was since any obtainable information would have him still at level thirty-five.
"Now that we have confirmed that you do not have any magic devices or weapons stored on you, I will begin leading you to your meeting with our boss."
One of the other grunts then pressed a brick into the wall and another secret door opened leading into a network of underground tunnels.
Seeing this Marcus was actually pretty impressed by the level of security they had gone to, but this must have been what was necessary for them to stay in operation.
Following one of the grunts into the tunnel, Marcus heard the door close behind him and they were now steeped in total darkness.
Of course, this did not make a difference to Marcus, but for most people who could not see in the dark it would have been a terrifying experience.
Going down the network of tunnels, the man leading him took many turns in order to make sure that Marcus was disoriented and would not be able to follow this path again before they made it to a small room far from where they started.
"This is the end of the line for me. Someone else will be with you to guide you the rest of the way in a few minutes."
The man then turned around and headed back the way he had come, leaving Marcus in the small room that simply had four doors going in the cardinal directions.
Waiting for what seemed like quite a while, Marcus could feel that he was under some type of establishment since his life sense was picking up numerous signals above him.
But eventually he started to feel a signal coming from the door leading to the west which promptly opened.
A man who belonged to the race of people that had four arms and three eyes then opened the door and looked at Marcus.
Marcus could immediately tell that this newcomer was far stronger than the grunt that had led him this far.
This new guy was decked out in high quality armor and had two large mithril swords on his back.
'Level thirty-eight. Looks like they are not playing around anymore.'
After appraising the guy in front of him, Marcus waited for him to say something, but the man simply turned back around and with his top right hand made a beckoning motion for Marcus to follow.
Doing just that, Marcus walked behind the man but soon after he did, he heard a quiet clicking sound and the telepathic connection he had with Roxene was severed.
This surprised Marcus greatly because he was not expecting them to do something like this, but it did make since once he thought about it.
Luckily even though they could not send messages anymore through telepathy, the connection between the two was still intact so they could still feel the others emotional state, so Roxene knew Marcus was not in any trouble.
Continuing through the labyrinthine underground system that Permafrost was using, after many twists and turns and one revolving room, the man leading him finally stopped in front of a large door.
The four-armed man then fumbled around with a set of keys before unlocking the door and opening it to reveal a lavish room.
Marcus was then beckoned into the room and inside he saw two couches facing each other and on the closest couch he could see the back of two people's heads who were sitting down.
In the room was also six other high-level men and women visibly acting as guards with four more hidden in the ceiling and none of them were below level thirty-five and the highest was forty.
As Marcus walked into the room one of the men sitting at the couch turned around and said, "Ah it is good to see that you have arrived without issue, please go ahead take a seat on the couch across from us."
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