Transmigrated as a Ghost

As Marcus and Mrazivý finished up their plan to trade Marcus' current unique skill orb for a more suitable one, another knock was heard coming from his door.

Except this time Marcus had no idea who it was, and when he used his life sense skill, he detected three presences, all of which were around as strong as Mrazivý.

"Mraz, I do not know who it is, but there are three of them, and all of them are pretty strong. I do not know exactly how strong, but I would guess that none of them are below level forty."

Growing serious, Mrazivý took out her sword, and sir Heward got ready to protect the two of them from any threat.

Of course, it was unlikely that some hostile was on the other side of the door, but after receiving items worth hundreds of thousand of gold coins, it was better to be prepared.

However, as Marcus was carefully approaching the door, a loud voiced called out, "Mrazivý I know you are in there. Would you mind opening up for your Aunt Camilla, and introducing me to the mysterious high bidder in this room."

Looking towards Mrazivý, Marcus nudged his head towards the door asking for her confirmation if she actually knew this person.

"Yeah, go ahead and let her in. I think that you know her as well."

As Mrazivý said, this, Marcus put it together, and now knew where he had heard this voice before.

Opening the door, Marcus allowed Duchess Ophiria to enter the room and greeted her with a slight bow.

"Duchess Ophiria it is a pleasure to see you again."

A look of surprise flashed on the duchess' face for just a moment when she saw Marcus, before quickly catching herself and saying, "Lady Irene, so you are the mysterious bidder who managed to win that unique skill orb."

Smiling and nodding his head Marcus said, "Yes I had just enough to eek it out. In truth I spent nearly all of the money I painstakingly saved up at this auction."

After saying that, Marcus invited the duchess to join him and Mrazivý, and she did so with a smile on her face.

"You really picked out a good one Mrazivý. I am surprised that you were able to swipe this bottle out of the cellar." Duchess Ophiria said as she drank some of the wine Mrazivý had brought.

Smiling proudly Mrazivý said, "I happened to know a secret way in. So, I can pick out any bottle I want for a special occasion."

Of course, hearing this Duchess Ophiria looked at Mrazivý a bit disappointedly, but she still kept drinking the wine regardless.

Once they had spent a bit of time just chatting, Duchess Ophiria pulled out an item that caught both Marcus' and Mrazivý's attention.

"It's the magic absorbing and invisibility cloak." They both said almost in unison.

"Yes, I just so happen to be the one to win it. It was just too impressive for me to pass up on."

Duchess Ophiria then wrapped it around herself and disappeared, showing off the cloak's abilities.

However, Marcus took this as a good opportunity to test something out.

'Looks like it still works. As good as the cloak is, it cannot hide the fact that the duchess is alive.'

Using his life sense skill, Marcus was still able to pinpoint where the duchess was, even though she was invisible, and hidden from most detection skills.

And to show it off, Marcus walked right up to the duchess who had moved away a bit, and pulled the cloak right off her.

Surprise was written all over her face when this happened.

"How did you know where I was." The duchess asked as Marcus handed the cloak back to her.

"Hm, let me just say that while it can hide you from most skills, it does not work on all of them."

Nodding her head, the duchess, understood what Marcus was getting at.

Even though this cloak was impressive, it was not omnipotent, and the wearer still needed to be careful.

"Well, this has been fun, but I think it is about time that I get going. You two take care." 

Now that she had found out who the mysterious bidder was, that managed to win the unique skill orb, the Duchess' curiosity was sated and decided it was time to leave.

Then once the duchess was gone, Mrazivý handed over the adamantine ingots she had won over to Marcus, and the two of them got ready themselves and went back to their carriages to return home.

"Well, I will see you again in a couple of days. Good luck on your forging." Mrazivý said as she got into her carriage.

Marcus then waved goodbye to her, before going to his own carriage, and beginning his trip back home.

"Lady Irene, it looks like the main road is damaged an impassable. Should I take the detour, or should we turn around and go a different way." Clara, said with a bit of concern in her voice.

Of course, she was right to be a bit worried, as it was the middle of the night, and they had just purchased some extremely valuable items.

However, as Marcus looked out at the road, he saw that it was not just simply damaged. There was currently a work crew and guards around, and it seemed that everything was legitimate.

"Hm we will just take the detour. It should be fine. Oh, but Clara I will sit with you just in case. That way I can react to any threats if necessary."

Getting out of the carriage Marcus took up the seat next to Clara, though his head maid did give quite a bit of protest saying that he should stay inside where it would be safer.

Still in the end she relented, as Marcus was not taking no for an answer and was the boss.

Clara then directed Blitz down the detour that traveled down an alley, that would connect them to another main road.

Yet as they were heading down this alley, Marcus' danger sense suddenly started blaring in his head.

In response, Marcus deployed his man barrier skill, spreading it out to encompass the entire carriage even though it would become weaker and more brittle the further he stretched it.

Still, as the arrows impacted against it, the mana barrier proved to still be more than enough to stop the dozen projectiles aimed at Marcus and Clara.

Quickly, a few dozen guys in cloaks began jumping off of roofs or coming out of side alleys surrounding the carriage.

"Clara, get in the carriage, I will deal with this." 

"Wait Lady Geist, you cannot be serious. There are too many of them. Please let me fight with you. As your head maid I cannot let anything bad happen to you."

"CLARA! This is an order, get into eh carriage and protect Lilia. I do not want either of you to see what I am about to do."

Hearing he seriousness in his voice, Clara nodded her head and quickly got inside the carriage as the dozens of people slowly enclose around the carriage.

"My that is very brave of you to face us all on your own. But do you really think that being inside that carriage is going to protect them." The lead thief said.

"Oh, you seem to misunderstand me. I did not send her inside to protect her from you. I sent her inside so she would not get caught up in what I am about to do to you." Marcus said as he got off of the coachman's' stand.

"Ha, ha, ha. Ah now that is funny. We have you surrounded and outnumbered, and you say you are going to take us all on. Oh, but now that I get a good look at you, that is a pretty face you and a nice body you have. I like feisty girls like you so I think I will make you my new toy."

'Thirty-eight of them within my life sense's range. And that lead man is level thirty-nine, while around half a dozen of the others are in the mid-thirties. These guys are not just your run of the mill thieves.'

While the thieves' leader was busy grand standing and talking about all of the "fun" things he was going to do to Marcus, he had been analyzing the battlefield and getting his strategy together.

'Ravenous abyss.'

Casting his tier five darkness magic spell, Marcus summoned up a massive black sphere of darkness, that seemed to draw all the light around towards it and snuff it out.

In fact, the ravenous abyss was unable to even fit complexly in the narrow ally way and its body which was almost fluid, conformed to the space it was in making it look even more grotesque than it normally did.

Seeing this, many of the thieves that had come after Marcus started to tremble in fear some even falling down on their asses.

They could sense the unescapable and horrible death that awaited them at the mercy of this creature that had just appeared.

"All of you get yourselves together. It is some kind of trick or illusion. There are dozens of us and only one of them."

However, before the thieves' leader could turn around, all he saw was an endless darkness, as the ravenous abyss shoved him into its mouth.

"Kill them all. Do not let a single one of them escape."

With a big and horrifying smile, the ravenous abyss did as Marcus had commanded, and dozens of black hands shoot out of its body, dragging all of the screaming thieves towards its mouth and eating them several at a time, until none remained.