Chapter 232 - The Illuminati
Julie had used her channels to see one of the items and found out that they were all from the Beast Bloods hideout. The same hideout that was known within the cultists to be destroyed by the city of Silvermoon.
Ron Damien had already been connected with the Beast Bloods. So Jules assumed that Ronny's employer must have belonged to the cultist organization.
Cultists would seldom let rankers handle their business affairs. That meant Ronny was also a Beast Blood. Probably lower in rank than the person who had allowed him to conduct the underground auctions.
Then the auction Ron had organized must have been his clearing-stockpile event that needed to be done before he went off the grid for a while. In Julie's mind, it all made sense.
Eren too had remembered why Julie was melancholic about the bullshittery he was spewing to make her sleep with him. When she hinted to him in the message she had left for him that she was a cultist, her talk of that night made sense for him too.
Eren wanted to come in contact with a genuine cultist organization after reading through Edgar's journal. He wanted even more research than the cultists had on Anthropos and demi-humans to understand what he was.
Ron Damien's cultist background as a member of Beast Bloods had already been presumed by Julie as a cultist as well. Now that the Beast Bloods branch near the city of Silvermoon was destroyed completely, he could claim that he was part of the organization too and nobody would be there to refute him.
Plus, the name Ron Damien must have achieved a celebratory status within the cultists by now. His adventures or rather misadventures with the scion of Slughorn had become public knowledge. So it was easy for them to accept him as one of them.
The best part of the whole thing was that Ron Damien was a masked entity for the rankers. His facial identity was still not known. Therefore, no rankers' organization would be able to tie him up because he used his alias a few more times.
So Eren took his risk and decided to let Ronny take the wheels on this one. He wanted to see what Jules was offering him:
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Coming back to the present.
"You sure took your time getting here, Ronny. I hope everything's alright. Perhaps you have new followers now? Hehe!"
Ronny smiled before pulling a chair in front of the cultist-in-the-shadows assistant professor of LA. The latter had chosen the same table at which Ronny had impressed her with his cheesy pick-up lines.
"You are right, I'm one of them. Just like you. I wanted to lay low for a few months at this time after things blew out of proportion than I had anticipated. But your message has forced me to meet you. Now tell me, why did you contact me all of a sudden?"
Ron asked while pouring himself a drink from the wine bottle that he just ordered as soon as he got to the place. Then he filled the lady's glass as well before fixating his gaze on her:
"I just knew you were like me when you left. It's been a few years since I opened myself to a person without worrying about the consequences.
So when I heard you pour your heart out in front of me, I had guessed that you must have also carried another identity. And identity that you couldn't have made known to the public. Just like me.
I heard about the Slughorn Scandal and figured out your identity. I also know that the things you sold at the auction event conducted at the city of Nilaami contained items that could only be found at a certain place."
Eren AKA Ronny retrieved the F-Rank sound barrier item from his storage and activated it.
Then he raised his glass before gulping a sip from his wine glass. The butcher flashed a smile at Jules before saying:
"That's right. I am one of the Beast Bloods. My branch members have all been killed. I survived because I wasn't at the place.
See? I have come clean in confirming all that you seem to have figured out on your own. Now can we get back to the offer you were talking about?"
Jules smiled at Eren after she saw that Ronny was still nonchalant about the whole incident. He was going to hide in the shadows, but something told her he wasn't as concerned about his safety as he should have been.
"Yes, Ronny. It seems you are in a hurry so I won't beat around the bush. Why don't you work for my organization now that you seem to have broken ties with the Beast Bloods? I mean you would have been safely sent to one of the Beast Blood's hideouts if you were still being accepted by them, am I wrong?"
Julie asked while lifting her wine glass and airing the wine inside it in suave. Eren didn't look panicked and replied just as easily:
"Correct again as well. The Beast Bloods don't want me because they have completely given up on the branch at the city of Silvermoon. They don't want to invite trouble by still being associated with me. Who can blame them, right? Haha."
Eren highlighted with his speech that at the end of the day every cultist was on his own. The concept was true for rankers as well. But with cultists, it had been taken to the extreme.
"Yeah. Cultists cut down on the deadweights after all. But I know someone with potential when I see one. You shouldn't have joined the Beast Bloods in the first place, Ronny. They are all mad lads.
What I'm offering you to be a part of is considered as one of the elitist groups of cultists. Should you choose to accept my offer, I will assure you that you won't be mistreated in my organization the way you were by your anthrope friends."
Eren raised his eyebrows before asking the question he was guessing the answer of:
"Elitist cultivation organization you say? Might I ask what organization you represent?
Jules smiled a cunning smile before saying the net words in a hushed voice even when she knew the sound artefact was active:
"We call ourselves… the Illuminati!"