This time they were guided to a new private room for them to talk. The guildmaster has left a letter with the guild as well. In it, he detailed what he wanted them to do in his absence and who should be his substitute and all. Most of it wasn’t anything that Cain had to deal with except the few things the guildmaster highlighted.
The individuals, Cain, Sofia, Selena, and Alice are to be ranked up as A-rank adventurers. Their party shall be on par with that rank, making the Cobra’s fang and A-rank party. That was to be held if they succeeded in the dragon mission which they did.
The second point was that the king had shown an interest in Cain from multiple incidents and not just guessing the outcome of the elvish Coup d’etat. There was the matter of the speed at which he was ranking up, being the first to win the fake exam and treating William’s daughter. All of those things have been reported back to the capital and the royal family by either the guildmaster or William himself.
Hearing about all those deeds and with the guildmaster’s recommendation, the king has shown interest in Cain and wanted to meet him as soon as possible. The guildmaster has detailed that the king must be needing something from Cain and that he will offer a great reward as compensation. The reward is most likely to be the position of the court mage and the job is probably related to the king’s third daughter who has been unable to control her ice magic. This will most likely be because he heard that Cain cured Alice.
Mary then explained her part, it was about what the guildmaster has entrusted her to do.
“The guildmaster has asked me to be your representative, Consider me as your manager. If you had anything to ask, any quest to take, please let me know.” She said with a charming smile.
“I mean you already are, what difference does it make to have a representative? I have never seen dragon’s fangs having one.” Cain’s question was expected as he had never experienced that in his past life.
“Well, it means you can call me all day. It also means that I can participate in your adventures as an on-field manager. You can leave the talking, law, and finance to me when going on a long campaign.” Mary said with a charming smile as she slid a stack of papers toward Cain with a quill and an ink bottle. “Please sign them quickly so the guild can start processing them as fast as possible.” There was something strange about Mary’s smile, it had left Cain feeling a bit uncomfortable.
“They can wait I’m going to read them all.” Cain dropped everything from his hands and started reading the stack of papers.
“It will take a long time, there are over 100 papers there so please sign them first. You can always read them later.” Mary said nervously, sweat dripping from her head as she pushed the quell closer to Cain.
“I know of a great hero that got imprisoned in hell because he didn’t fully read a contract, I’m not going to be as dumb as him,” Cain said as he was flipping the pages going through every paragraph.
Behind them, Zaleria was amazed by the sweetness of the bread served with the tea. “This tastes better than the flesh of titans, who could have made such a thing?” She pushed the entire loaf into her mouth slowly chewing on it savoring the sweetness.
“That’s apple honey bread, it’s made by one of the finest bakers in this city. Her name is Mabel. You can find her working at Evan’s inn.” One of the guild staff replied as she served Zaleria more bread.
“I haven’t tasted something like this in over half a millennium, you humans are really something!” Zaleria said with a wide smile and happy face.
The guild staff looked at her, “Wait what?” they didn’t know she was a dragon.
After a few minutes, Cain finished reading the papers and was looking at Mary with a sharp glare. “Now tell me, what do I make of this? Have you read it yourself?”
Mary started sweating unable to find a reply. Her face twisted as she looked around the room trying to think of something on the fly.
“All earnings, including material, monetary, artistic, and connections are to be reported back to the guild? What is this?
All information on the involved party including, stats, learned magic, magical items and weapons, achievements, and skills are to be reported back to the guild? Are you serious?
Listen, is the guildmaster who wrote this? If so then I’m going to tear his beard off when I see him next time.” Cain put the contract down, “I will resign from the guild before I sign on this thing. No wonder the Dragon’s fang never accepted this.”
“But you will receive the guild support, with this you can act freely and even the kingdom won’t be able to lay a hand on you!” Mary protested opening the pages of the contract that detailed that.
“An I will be under surveillance from the guild. This isn’t protection, it’s just the guild being as greedy as the kingdom. And what freedom are you talking about? I’m going to summon a hundred devils to fight an undead army, what do you think?”
“No, no. You can’t do that, it’s forbidden magic and is extremely dangerous.” Mary said panicking as Cain’s face seemed serious.
“See. What freedom are you talking about? I’m not signing this thing.” Cain stood as she was about to leave, any matter that the guildmaster wanted was probably rigged like this and wasn’t worth trusting.
“Please wait a moment, read this first!” Mary caught his hand and handed him a sealed letter from the guild master, “He said to give you this.”
Cain looked suspiciously at her and quickly snatched the letter, “Is this another scam?” Cain said as he opened the letter.
[If you are reading this it means that you have rejected the contract, a wise decision. Burn this letter as soon as M-read it! The number of quests with cobras in them has increased so make sure to hunt as much as you can, the guild will provide compensation…” The letters continued with meaningless talk, [M-read it] was intentionally scrapped away to the point it wouldn’t be possible to be understood without great magic sense. M-read meant to read the text using only the words that have an equal amount of Mana infused to them. It was a method created by the dwarves to encrypt letters among mages.
When Cain immediately deciphered it the letter became.
[Don’t stay close to the guild, take Mary and follow me as soon as you can. I most likely will never return to Forberg, it’s a long story. Avoid dragons at all costs, a talent like you is priceless in this time. Burn this later after you read it.] Cain looked at the letter with a shocked face, there was little sense he could make from it but he memorize it anyway.
Puff! Cain immediately burned the letter using [Bonfire] all the staff looked at him in surprise as to why he had done that. “That’s idiot guildmaster, his pranks are too much!” Zaleria looked at him with her mouth full “He had cast a spell on the letter to burn in my hand!” Cain complained.
“What did the letter say?” Mary asked with a worried face.
“It said that this whole contract was a joke. You will be our party’s representative without the need for a contract or any documentation as he had already taken care of that with the higher up. Nice to work with you, please prepare me a list of all B-rank or lower dungeons close to the city. See you tomorrow Mary!” Cain stood up, quickly taking advantage of the situation and turning it to his benefit.
‘From his letter, the guild master seems to know about the dragons’ problem. I was wondering how come someone as strong as him, was oblivious to such a big matter but it seem I was mistaken. This would also explain why he was absent most of the time.’ Cain thought as he finished what work remained with the guild staff about their rank up and the rest.
“Let’s head back home it’s already late,” Cain said as he looked at Zaleria who was still eating. She was a dragon, after all, filling her stomach through her tiny human mouth would take ages.
The snow had picked up since they were last outside, as they got out they found all the roads covered with a white blanket. Even though it was freezing, Zaleria was emitting so much heat she seemed like a walking fireplace.
Looking at Zaleria and remembering how her body looked in his past, Cain wondered if Sofia will grow to be like her in the future.
“Nice!” He said under his breath.