Nacio cleared his throat. "Now that we've stated who we are, let's get started with the meeting," He turned over to Albaz. "The demon's assault on Avalon."

"You've violated the peace treaty we have!" Henry said angrily.

"You violated it first," Albaz said calmly. "We haven't received the full amount of human bodies from the Mythosia Kingdom for months. In fact, we've only received about half."

All heads turned to the diplomat for the Mythosia Kingdom. He looked to be in his fifties with gray hair starting to come out. "We have been having problems with transport."

Everyone began to rub their heads at the admission.

"Problems?" Albaz asked in an icy tone. "Only three carriages made it to the drop-off point. Tell me, what problems are you facing?"

"Bandits have been attacking the convoys," The diplomat's voice became more shaky upon hearing Albaz's tone.

'Bandits?' I thought. It didn't make sense. 'Why would bandits attack convoys filled with bodies?'

As if reading my mind, Albaz began to speak again. "Bandits? Tell me, why would bandits attack? There's nothing valuable in those carriages."

"We have no idea what those criminals want," The diplomat said.

"Be that as it may, you haven't fulfilled your part of our agreement," Albaz said as he turned to face the rest of the council. "We have kept our word and have been patient. However, you only offer excuses as to why you couldn't."

"We've tried our best!" The diplomat protested. "We've done our best to stop bandits, it's simply out of our control."

"Out of your control?" Albaz questioned. "No, it is perfectly in your control to stop it. You just haven't been putting in the effort."

Hearing this back and forth, I had to admit that I admire Albaz. His tenacity was great. He countered their responses expertly while applying more pressure on them. I watched with a wide smile on my face. I was excited to see where Albaz was heading.

"We've more than put in enough effort. More money was spent to arm the convoys with better weapons as well as training. We've also worked on better methods to preserve the dead bodies to last longer before decaying."

"And what have those led to? Sure you may have better weapons, but you still failed to deliver."

The diplomat was at a loss for words.

"Is there any way for us to keep the peace?" Henry asked.

Albaz had a wicked smile. "We're renegotiating. We want 20% more bodies."

I let out a small chuckle as Albaz finished. Some people glanced at me strangely, but I tried my best to ignore them.

"What you're asking for is unreasonable!" One of the diplomats yelled out.

"Let me remind you that it wasn't us that broke the treaty. If we let this slide, the whole world will think that we'll just roll over," Albaz said in a calm yet cold voice.

Nacio rubbed his head with his finger. "Can you go down to 10%?"

"15%," Albaz countered.

He paused for moments, thinking about the decision. "Does anyone oppose these new terms?"

A wave of hands appeared in the air. Counting it out, it was more than half.

However, Albaz expected this. Even better, he already had a tactic prepared. Fear.

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"If I remember correctly, the collateral damage rate was about 200 humans per demon. 500 demons were used for the assault, with 450 returning. That means 1000 humans died as opposed to our fifty," Albaz said with a chuckle. "Tell me council, are you ready to return to a time of war and death? In the slim possibility that you win, you'll be left with nothing."

"Threatening the council goes against the rul-" One of the diplomats said before getting interrupted.

"Now did I ever say unless you agree, we'll attack? I'm just saying that you're very close to breaking our peaceful relationship," Albaz began to laugh, establishing their dominance in this meeting. Any country that disagreed was saying that they didn't care about the lives of their citizens.

My respect for him grew even greater. No matter what choice they chose, they would face backlash from their citizens. However, accepting his offer would be less damaging than rejecting it. Both in terms of citizen morale and lives.

"A revote perhaps?" Albaz asked. "All those in favor?" Reluctantly, a majority of hands rose. Only a few kept their hands down.

"I guess that closes this matter," Albaz said before taking a seat again.

The council continued on with smaller matters after that spectacle. The whole scene kept replaying in my mind. While Albaz's negotiation skills stuck out to me, something else rubbed me the wrong way.

Why would the bandits attack convoys? All they had were dead bodies. So what was there to gain? Fame or fortune?

Fame didn't make sense. Why continually attack the same convoy? Why not work on bigger and more lucrative targets? If you want to get your name known, you'd attack high-profile targets.

So that left a fortune. It also didn't make sense. There was nothing of value to gain from those ships. Furthermore, the resources needed to keep stealing from them were greater and greater as they improved their weapons.

But what if the value wasn't in the ships? What if someone paid them to attack it? If that was the case, the people wanted to provoke a war between humans and demons. They also had to be wealthy enough to continually support the effort.

So who would gain from this? The demons? No, it couldn't be them. No way their kingdoms would agree to this plot so soon after a peace treaty.

So then humans? But most of them lose from this situation. Who would gain from this situation?

The scene kept replaying in my mind as I thought about every word that was said. The only time some sort of gain was mentioned was with the purchase of weapons.

Wait, weapons! They had to up their supply of weapons. Not only that, but the bandits also had to have better weapons. A weapons company was behind this!

They have the means to do this. Motive? Their profits would've dropped dramatically after the war ended. Furthermore, they were well connected. They could've easily gotten the route, plans, or other intel from their contacts.

"Heh," I gave a small laugh. I got more looks as it was out of place for the current topic.

And that just left one important question. What do I do with this information?

Luckily, the answer came easier than getting to it. Extortion! I could gain enough gold to fund my experiments and my business ideas. And all I had to do was threaten to expose the information. It would mean certain death for the people in charge of the companies.

So, all that was left was to come up with a plan to do the deal without exposing my identity.

----------------------------------------

Ah, Curiosity and Relics. Your one-stop shop for anything shady.

"Where even are we?" Hanson asked as he and Leo looked around the streets.

"This is called downtown. Home of the lower and middle class," I answered. "I need you two to wait out here."

"That's against our orders!" Leo protested.

"Now is not the time to be so rigid," I told him. "And the person I'm meeting doesn't like strangers. I think."

"And who exactly are you meeting?"

"I'm meeting-" I said before pausing. I never got the shopkeeper's name. "the shop keeper. You can watch from out here."

"Okay," Hanson answered lazily. Leo grumbled something I couldn't hear before moving next to Hanson.

I looked like a salesman. I was holding a book filled with loose papers and maps in between my arms and chest. It was all my research into the company and its dealings. I carefully started walking into the shop, trying my best to not drop any of my papers.

When I entered, a bell rang. I saw the shop owner look up before speaking immediately. "No"

I frowned. "I haven't even told you what I wanted yet."

"Knowing you, it's something sketchy."

"And you don't deal with sketchy things all the time?" I asked, tilting my head.

"That's different," He said. "You come in with strange requests."

"Come on, I make life interesting. You never know what's going to happen," I said enthusiastically.

"Some say that it's a bad thing."

I just sighed. "Enough games. I'll just get to the point. Do you know of any middlemen?"

"I do. I assume you need one."

"I need one that deals with high-value, illegal, and risky transactions," I replied.

"How big is it?"

"Several thousand gold coins," I responded. His eyes widened as he heard that.

"Kid, I will personally middleman this for you for a 10% fee," He said, his attitude doing a complete 180.

"5%, final offer, no games."

He thought about it for a while. "Fine," He answered. "Just what have you gotten yourself into?"

"Extortion. I'm moving up in the world," I answered cheekily.

"For a deal this big, they'll have eyes watching you after you pick it up from me."

"Don't worry, I have that figured out," I answered confidently.