CH716

At a scheduled time in the morning the next day, Ogilt opened a portal between Stonewall and their prison out in the woods. It was both to let Thera renew her spells on the demons to keep them from getting too unruly and to let Ben do a variety of tasks, from examining their minds and cards for changes to bringing a mini gate through to make checking easier for him, on top of providing two materializers, one creating food and one water, so the space spirit could teleport both into the test subjects stomachs to keep them alive longer for results to be collected, ending with another tool brought to keep the demons from getting too unruly while they were gone.

He’d spent the night creating mind control circlets, improving the designs from the last time he’d constructed such an enchantment to keep them all contained and in line in the event enough time passed for Thera’s spells to wear off. Better to keep them docile and easy to work with for however long he’d be having them.

A significant part of him knew that everything he was doing was unethical no matter what the reason he held for it, but they were demons. They weren’t some enemy that just happened to be fighting on another side of a war that could have been understood and befriended if experiences had only been a little different, they literally lacked the capacity for such things, only caring about getting stronger and fulfilling their base desires, ensuring that anything they didn’t outright kill was kept squarely below them. The fact that they should have been killed the instant they’d been found and that his tests had the chance to improve the odds for the world and its people as a whole let him justify it to himself and his lack of empathy towards the creatures meant it was never going to be a concern, with the only thing weighing remotely on his mind being the question of how the human race as a whole might have judged him for his actions.

But they can’t so it doesn’t matter. He told himself as he finished and left, parting with Thera as she went to work for the day while he went to begin rolling the ball for a task of his own. Maybe this is wrong, I’m objectively subjecting an enemy to torture and inhumane experimentation but seeing as how peace can’t be an option I need to focus on improving the odds for the side I care about winning, it’s that simple.

He fully believed it too, but he couldn’t deny the small part of himself that was for once grateful to be fully cut off from his homeworld, not wanting to give any mind to what the people he’d long lost might think of the man he’d slowly become.

It was as he moved through gates and got to the magic towers that he was able to clear the thought from his many minds to instead focus on what he was there for as he made his way to their local branch of the adventurer’s guild.

The plan was to put in a request for all of the people he’d need, offering to pay an excellent price to each one, and since he wanted it done fast it made far more sense to head out to a bigger guild on a gate network than to try and arrange it through Stonewall’s local branch and as he got there he let himself in and went to the front desk, same as when he’d gone looking for information on the dark tower, with his card already in hand and rank displayed for the waiting receptionist.

“Hello there, I’m looking to make a request,” Ben told them brightly, not giving them time to react to his rank in any way that could cause him problems. “I am looking for people who hold the adventurer’s job with at least two spots open in their party but preferably more if possible. To be clear, I’m not looking for a single party, I’m looking for up to seventy but failing that, as many as you can find me. In addition, for every party that doesn’t already have either an apprentice mage or a true mage in it, I’ll be looking for one of those two as well. Finally, I’ll also be looking for as many people currently under the mind user job as you can get your hands on for me. I’d be hoping to get them all in seven days but I’ll come in a day or two beforehand to get an idea of who you were able to get for me and the party compositions for the adventurers.”

He said seventy despite not having that many jobs both to prepare for the fact that many of them would be partway through their adventurer jobs meaning he’d have an incomplete experience pool to work off of, as well as in anticipation of any advanced varieties he might end up with since he had no way to actually know how that would work out. There were some within his list he was sure would give him additional options such as high actualizer yielding its master job after along with whatever options would spring up after that, with a sacrilege aligned one feeling practically guaranteed at the very least, but then there was the host of ones he’d never found reference to in any book he’d read to that point that all sat as complete mysteries to him.

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There was also the issue of his three currently available master jobs. While those would normally always give advanced branches with the main exception he could think of being master adventurer, he had no clue if title master or master of destiny would give him another option and connect master didn’t seem to be a normal master job since he’d only unlocked it after having taken mind master. He had no reason to believe it would give him the expected variants no matter how badly he wanted it to.

Still, it was better to have too much than too little and in the event he got more people than he needed he would still pay them for their time. It was the least he had to do to ensure a good showing and to the receptionist’s credit, they didn’t bat an eye at either his rank or his quest submission, only waiting to ask additional questions.