Evening.
In a world without light, the ground was barely illuminated by the light from the stars and the moon.
I was working as a night watch outside the slaves’ tent.
A night watchman.
What does it mean? I am a guard during the night.
A slave merchant was a merchant too.
Their image says they had money or high-quality slaves, that they are often attacked by thieves.
When attacked by a thief, they will lose money, merchandise, or even worse, their lives.
So slave merchants will always use muscular slaves as guardsmen looking out the perimeter.
To be able to fight back when attacked.
The lookout was laid out around the area, day and night.
A slave merchant was only human too. They had to take a rest during the night.
Humans are creatures that must get enough sleep.
So it was just reasonable for Mark to sleep at night.
Meanwhile the slaves and I, the apprentice merchant, are guarding the perimeter.
(Sloppy)
I was aware that my smile didn’t stop.
At this rate, I was certain my night strategy will succeed.
Night Strategy.
It was the scenario I planned before.
First, I will watch Mark through the hole in the tent.
I will monitor the condition of Mark inside the tent as much as possible to know whether or not he was asleep.
If it’s possible, I have to know Mark’s equipment, the location of the weapon, and the location of the contract and the ink so I don’t forget it.
Next, I have to prepare some sufficient tools to raid Mark.
The things I have with me now are the bucket to distribute water to the slaves, the dustpan to gather the excrements, and a brush to groom the horse hair. Everything was tools of a servant.
Honestly, I don’t have any tools that I can use for a surprise raid.
However, how about using the bonfire that we are using during night watch?
And the last one.
How can I kill Mark?
If it would be possible, it would be a one-sided attack if I’m able to take out Mark’s vision. I want to bind his freedom of movement.
I thought up this current plan, get Mark drunk from drinking too much liquor, he will lie down, then I will cover him with the robe that I wear to take out his vision temporarily. This attack method must be done in one go.
I thought about refining it a little bit more before implementing it.
So I refined the action plan according to those three stages.
When there was no particular problem in my scenario, I checked it over many times.
(My nerves won’t calm down)
I decided to observe my surroundings to calm myself down.
Although you may call it a Tent based on the inscription, Mark and I were operating the open-air slave shop in the slum area of the desert.
Slum Area.
This was a place where scoundrels gather, or rather than that, it was more proper to say this was a place where poor people drift to.
The financially poor ones.
For example, a soldier who lost their arm. A mother with a child who lost her husband. An old man who went blind.
Those were the people that quietly rolled in, this was the peculiarity of this slum area.
They carry on their lives by begging, drawing water, or doing manual labor.
They can barely support themselves by bartering.
There are also people who sell stolen stuff that was taken from somewhere else.
In short, everyone living over that slum area had very few decent jobs to choose from.
So where on earth do they get their drinking water? It was at the oasis.
There was an oasis nearby, so they don’t wander far away from it.
But an oasis was also a place where so-called high quality stalls are gathered, there was no place in there for the slum people to stay.
So it was necessary to carry water from the oasis and store it in a reservoir located here.
There are two reservoir, one for drinking and one for daily use.
It was the work of the poor slum people, or the slaves, to carry water to this reservoir.
I sometimes also help. My body endured that kind of work.
However, it was decent work for the slum people and the slaves.
As for that, the salary of the slum people was bad.
If I ever describe the portrayal of slum area of the desert, it would be this way.
I surveyed the perimeter of the slave shop’s tent that Mark and I operate.
No one was looking.
Especially the poor people of the slum, they won’t look towards us.
Somehow they had a very cold att.i.tude towards the slaves because they don’t want to become one themselves.
Their cold att.i.tude will indirectly help me right now.
I do not have to worry about any vigilant eyes that are lurking around.
I gently peeked into Mark’s tent from the hole.
Mark was asleep.
I continued to observe Mark’s tent.
As for his equipment, he had a robe generally made of a mixture of cotton and hemp. He was not wearing any special protective gear.
However, there was a sword for self defense near him that can protect his body when the time comes.
He was sleeping while he plopped his body on a cushion, which I’m not sure if I should call it a sofa or some kind of zabuton.
He was covered by several blankets on top of him.
Penetrating that many blankets would be very hard to do.
There was a desk a little bit away from where he was sleeping.
When I carefully observed everything on that desk, I saw the ink. I a.s.sume it was the same ink used to sign the contract.
Because when I used my appraisal skill it showed 【Raw Material: Indigo Colorant】, a familiar color that was used in the contracts.
Now that I found the ink, next was the contract.
It should be somewhere on the desk, but I didn’t see it.
If I wasn’t able to find it immediately, it would be hidden somewhere at least.
This should be enough for today.
I moved my face away from the tent at once.
I have found so much information just from looking into the tent.
The image of attacking him had considerably become clearer.
I came back to my position near the night watch bonfire and acted like I was guarding once again.
I thought of a lot of stuff in my head.
It would be surprisingly easy to kill him if I raid him.
The only problem was I don’t know where the contracts are kept.
It’s still too early.
However, I will be freed from Mark soon.
I reconsidered my plan for the next step.