Proofreader: Xemul
It was not very pleasant to rehash a topic that had already ended.
Despite her conviction that it was necessary, Lapis seemed to think that it would be meaningless to make Loren feel bad, so she did not touch on the topic for a few days after she first invited him to go north.
As for Loren, although he had given it some more thought as Lapis had asked, he still felt uncomfortable with the idea of traveling so far north to see the leader, and still hoped that Lapis would give him a break if at all possible.
So neither of them had any desire to talk about it, and the time passed without either of them mentioning it, and just as they were about to forget about the whole thing, the Adventurers’ Guild received an extraordinary piece of information.
It was Ivy, a female staff member of the Guild, who received the piece of paper on which this information was written.
The paper itself had been brought in on a fast horse. The rider, who obviously had been riding for some time, came staggering through the entrance of the Adventurers’ Guild and, after handing the paper to Ivy, who was working as a receptionist, had promptly fallen unconscious on the spot, perhaps exhausted from all the horseback riding.
Ivy, after instructing the other receptionists and staff to tend to the rider, looked at the paper and immediately ran off to the back of the building, her expression slightly changed. The people at the back of the building were all high-ranking executives and Guildmasters, and the fact that Ivy ran to the back meant that she had something that required a superior’s opinion.
This happened at a branch of the Adventurers’ Guild, located in the city of Kapha. The adventurers were bracing themselves for what was about to happen when Ivy came back from the back of the building and uttered the following words.
“An urgent commission from the Adventurers’ Guild!”
A paper detailing the details of the commission was immediately added to the bulletin board where commissions were posted, and a sort of commotion broke out among the adventurers who saw it, indicating the gravity of the situation.
“Loren! Loren! We’re in trouble!”
It was in the evening, and Loren was discussing with Lapis and Gula about what to have for dinner in the dining hall when he felt the air around them suddenly stirred. As he dazedly watched the crowd getting frenzied, he heard a voice calling out to him and looked over to see Ivy, dressed in the uniform of a Guild official, somehow walking quickly toward him.
“Ivy? What’s with the uproar?”
“You just said that there is an urgent commission from the Adventurers’ Guild, didn’t you?”
Loren knew what Gula was talking about even without being told. What he didn’t know was the connection between that and Ivy walking towards him. He thought it would be better to wait and listen to Ivy’s explanation, so he sat still and didn’t greet her.
Ivy quickly came and slammed a piece of paper in her hand onto the table where Loren and his friends were sitting.
“It’s trouble!”
Ivy looked as if she still hadn’t lost momentum yet and was leaning forward when Loren said while pushing her face back with his palm:
“We can hear you, so calm down and explain what the trouble is.”
That was when Ivy finally realized that repeatedly saying ‘trouble’ didn’t explain anything. She took a deep breath, calmed herself down, then pulled out a chair from Loren’s table and sat down.
“We’ve received an urgent commission from the Adventurers’ Guild.”
“We heard that, but what’s the big deal?”
“It’s a retaliation commision!”
Ivy looked at Loren as if she thought he understood, but there was still a question mark on his face as if he didn’t understand what was being said, unlike what Ivy had hoped. She turned to Lapis and Gula to see their reactions, but Gula did not seem to be interested in what she had just said at all, and looked as calm as ever. Lapis also seemed disinterested; she opened the menu and seemed to think about what to have for dinner.
“Hey, everyone?! This is a big deal!”
Ivy slapped the tabletop with force, and Lapis finally looked up from the menu.
“I don’t understand what the big deal is, even if you say so. A commission is something you don’t have to accept, so what does it have to do with us?”
The three of them believed that no matter how much trouble they were told was happening, all they had to do was to not get involved in it. Although they were prone to getting into trouble, if they kept in mind that it was going to be hard, they could just avoid it.
However, Ivy immediately rejected this idea.
“No, that doesn’t work! The Guildmaster has instructed me that this retaliation commission is one that all adventurers in the silver rank and below are obligated to participate in!”
“What?!”
Ivy’s words were absurd even to Loren’s ears.
To begin with, if they were talking about Kapha, there were currently no adventurers above silver rank, and if the condition for participation was as Ivy said, then everyone would be sent on this commission. Loren was racking his brain to think if such a strange commission was even possible when Lapis whispered softly to him.
“The Guildmasters in each branch have tremendous authority over their members. If you refuse, your participation in the guild may be revoked. But…”
Lapis then turned her gaze from Loren to Ivy.
“All adventures from the silver rank and below… the number of participants will be far too large. Do we really need that many people?”
“Oh, no. As far as this one is concerned, we give you the option of either providing the manpower or covering the funding.”
‘It is written here’, Ivy said and pointed to the piece of paper she had brought and spread out on the table.
It was true that the same thing that Ivy said was written there, but Loren’s eyes widened when he saw the minimum amount of money that would be required.
“Five gold coins or more, that’s a hell of a lot of money.”
“Silver rank adventurers can probably manage the money, but it’s difficult for the iron rank adventurers and below.”
The conditions written there were that each person must provide either five gold coins or labor. Even if one paid the minimum to be excused from participating, five gold coins was a lot of money. Loren thought that this was too much, but after hearing Ivy’s explanation, he changed his mind.
“A branch of the Adventurers’ Guild has been destroyed.”
The Adventurers’ Guild was a mutual aid organization for adventurers. If a part of the guild had been destroyed, it was understandable that the entire organization would come together to retaliate, and it was also understandable that all members would be required to participate.
But destroying a branch of the Adventurers’ Guild, which used its organizational power solely for the benefit of adventurers and not getting involved in politics, can only be described as outrageous.
“Their staff was almost completely wiped out, and the adventurers who belonged to them were either killed or captured, with only a few able to escape. These few crossed the border and asked for help from the Adventurers’ Guild of a neighboring country, and fast horses were immediately deployed to send information to all branches throughout the continent.”
“Neighboring country? Wait a minute, Ivy, you’re talking about one branch being destroyed, right?”
From Loren’s point of view, destroying even a single branch would be outrageous enough. However, if they had to go all the way to a neighboring country to ask for help, it was not just one or two branches that had been destroyed, but all the branches in the territory of some other country.
“Unbelievable. Which Lord would have gone to such an extreme? What did the Adventurers’ Guild have against him or her?”
“It was not a Lord.”
Ivy, perhaps to calm herself, pressed her palm against her chest and slowly calmed her breathing, which was becoming heavy, perhaps due to stress.
No matter how you looked, Ivy, an employee of the Adventurers’ Guild, seemed like a typical woman with short blonde hair and a beautiful face. But in reality, just as Gula, she was the Evil Goddess of Envy, created by the Ancient Kingdom. Even though she had changed her looks with her own hands, there was no way she could change what she was inside. While Loren and the others looked at Ivy and wondered what had happened to make someone like her so stressed, Ivy, who had regained her composure, said in a slightly trembling voice.
“The culprit who destroyed fifteen branches of the Adventurers’ Guild was the Kingdom of Lombard, whose territory is at the northern part of the continent. It was the king, Lompard III, who gave the order.”
It took a while there for Loren and the others to understand the words that Ivy had told them.
The first who did was Lapis, who shook her head in disbelief. Gula was next, leaning back in her chair with her face contorted in surprise. The last was Loren, who, once finally understood the situation, began to look at the paper spread out on the table and Ivy’s face alternately with a grim expression.
“I know it’s hard to believe, because I still don’t believe half of what I’m saying myself. But the information I have received definitely states that branches of the Guild were destroyed by the leadership of the state.”
“That kingdom was unbelievable, but the Adventurers’ Guild is also unbelievable. I know it’s a big organization, but I can’t believe they would take retaliatory action against a country.”
The Adventurers’ Guild was a huge organization that had spread throughout the continent. Loren knew this, but it would be hard for it to pick a fight with the country and win. It was true that the number of members alone might be comparable to the number of soldiers a country possessed, but they were scattered all over the continent and should not be a force that can be operated collectively at once.
Thinking about this, Loren suddenly remembered something that bothered him about the conditions for participation, and asked Ivy about it.
“If it’s that important, shouldn’t we also have adventurers of the gold rank and above?”
Even though their numbers were very small, adventurers of the gold rank and above, who were supposed to have extraordinary abilities compared to those in the silver rank, were not included in this commission. If the situation was that serious, it did not make sense not to mobilize such forces.
“It won’t work. The Adventurers’ Guild is allowed to operate throughout the continent because of agreements with the countries, and one of those agreements is that adventurers of the gold rank and above are not allowed to participate in wars.”
According to Ivy, adventurers of the gold rank and above were considered a force comparable to at least several units, or even an entire army of ordinary soldiers. Such a force was able to move freely throughout the continent under the name of the Adventurers’ Guild because of such an arrangement. Without it, it would be impossible for countries to allow a force that could rival an army to wander from place to place.
“In this case, even though it was the Lombard Kingdom that made the first move, if we mobilize adventurers of the gold rank or higher in retaliation, there is a strong possibility that the agreement will be broken.”
“It’s a troublesome story, isn’t it? If we keep that agreement, we cannot use our first-class forces.”
“It seems that the Adventurers’ Guild has decided that such an act would put the very existence of the Guild in jeopardy.”
If retaliation failed and the problem ended up being confined to the territory of the Lombard Kingdom, the Adventurers’ Guild would suffer a considerable blow to its organization, but it would not be fatal. However, if the Guild were to break the agreement and mobilize gold rank adventurers, it would alert all the countries on this continent, which could jeopardize the continued existence of the Guild. Therefore, the Guild was unable to mobilize this force, despite the fact that it was a very effective force if used.
“Wait a minute. So that means that if we choose to contribute by manpower, we will be sent to war?”
Ivy nodded at Lapis’ words.
“The Kingdom of Lombard has been at war with a neighboring country, even before the Adventurers’ Guild branches were destroyed. This time, we are sending our forces to lend a helping hand to that neighboring country.”
If the Adventurers’ Guild itself were to enter into a dispute with the kingdom, it would be very difficult, as Loren thought. But if it were to lend its forces to a country already at war, it would not be such a bad fight.
“So, which country is this neighboring country?”
Ivy opened her mouth to answer Loren’s question. But before she could say anything, somehow Loren already had a hunch about what was going to be said, and the words came out of his mouth instead.
“Could it be the Justinian Empire?”
Ivy, who was about to speak, looked at Loren, who had spoken first, with surprised eyes. That was enough of an answer, and Loren and Lapis looked at each other in surprise.