ã€ŠThe Guild of Black Sheepã€‹


 Chapter One: A new day for a new guild

    Greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling, my eyes opened. Wind, from an open window, swayed the curtains which allowed light to coat the room; due to which I saw a bland room of a small table and bed once I raised my head.

    Cracking my back as my body rose from the floor, I swished away the curtains to see the lively streets below. Amidst the crowds bustling in the daily chaos I¡¯ve barely gotten used to, I see a figure with white hair similar to Jessica; a couple hundred metres away running towards where I am. They disappear behind some buildings before I could confirm their likeness.

    Mesmerized by the dynamic picture outside of my window, I space out for who knows how long; only to be Jolted back into focus by knocking at my door.

    ¡®Sam, please, answer the door for the sake of the gods!¡¯ I hear from¡­ my own head?

    ¡®Sam! Are you still asleep or what?!¡¯ the monotoned voice continues¡­

    ¡°Right¡­¡± I mumble, then speak up as the knocking continues, ¡°Miss Ess?¡±

    ¡®Are you going to let me in or what?!¡¯ they yell, banging on the door continuously.

    Finally I fully waken, stretching again as the knocking continued. I then casually walk to the door to let her in.

    ¡°Sorry¡­ You know how bad I am at waking up, and I¡¯m not used to the telepathy yet,¡± I claim as she steps in. Though, without knowing it from her own words, it¡¯d be hard to guess they were a she. Having seen the clear tangent, I go onto asking the real question, ¡°Are you here for a reason, or what?¡±

    ¡®Sam¡­ Really? You forgot our meeting at the Guild Hall?¡¯ she asked, clattering her teeth whilst doing so which was previously masked by the knocking made me smirk. Though, I didn¡¯t comment on it.

    ¡°Ah¡­ Oh well, not like I¡¯m important anyway,¡± I claimed, shrugging my shoulders.

    She smacked me in the chest with her scabbard. ¡®How am I going to speak if you¡¯re not there?!¡¯

    ¡°Not? It¡¯s just listening to what she wants us to do anyway, I doubt we¡¯ll even get a chance to speak our mind.¡±

    With that said, I walk past her, trading the non-coherent mumbles from the window for my steps down the wooden staircase with S¡¯s steps behind me. We get to the ground floor, where we find the exit blocked by a panting, white-haired woman.

    To summarize her looks in one description, she was mature, if not elderly. In spite of her white hair having no dark roots like it was grey turned white, her skin was smooth without wrinkles or blemishes... Although her hair-style and style of bland summer dresses is only describable as ¡®old fashioned¡¯.

    After catching her breath, she greeted us, ¡°Heya Sam and Ess, you heading out so soon?¡±

    S nudges me to start translating for her as she asks: ¡®Jessica, isn¡¯t the meeting soon?¡¯

    Although I shorthand it which results in her nagging at me as Jessica answering. Both of which happening simultaneously made me completely disoriented, and I started to feel groggy if not outright sick...

    Eventually the messages get across, basically Jessica¡¯s answer to S was: ¡°They moved it to two, plus he just woke up, right? Let¡¯s eat then head out, everyone else is waiting to eat anyway...¡±

    Seeing S look my way, it¡¯s not my mouth which confirmed what Jessica said to S, instead my stomach spoke up in its place.

    With that dealt with, she beaconed us to the dining room on the floor. And as she said, six of the ten seats were filled with the others.

    As I scouted the room for available seats, Jessica fled into the kitchen and I noted who was sitting where:

    At the head of the table, which was also the nearest seat to the room we were looking in, a petite and visually flawless girl, Serv. Her silver hair poked out from her veiled headdress which seemed insane in this weather. It¡¯s hard to say it mattered for her however.

    To her direct left was another, slightly more realistic girl who was taller than me, Helen; whose fluffy brown ears perked from her head of medium length and curly brown hair. A brown tail also stuck out from both her dress and chair, which swayed around impatiently. Seeing her face, a ribbon covering her eyes was the only interesting thing, although I would describe it- for some reason- suiting her more than ruining the inherent cuteness of her youth.

    Going clockwise further, the seat next to the dog-girl was a man, Grey. He has similar but grey ears popping from his grey hair, almost as if someone was seriously unimaginative when naming him. Whereas his ears were perked up, his tail was far better behaved than the girl¡¯s. His stature was wide enough make the seat his was on seem like a child¡¯s; his height being just as impressive.

    To the right of him was an empty seat, then a slimmer person wearing a mask, dubbed Mask. Their physique was thin compared to the previous male. But compared to me, they still had massive arms which were clear from the tight-fitting leather armour they wore even to the dining table.

    Further right was a lady who competed with the dog-man for height, Jacqueline. And although her muscles were slimmer than his by far, compared to both the masked person and myself, they were threateningly large. Her raven-black hair and deep green eyes seemed like an obvious hypnotism point, but as me, I averted it without trying. Additionally, her tight black robes and bones adorning her as jewelry made her seem the most eccentric at the table at a quick glance; which, considering I considered myself into this, was quite the achievement.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    Finally, to the left of Serv, was a male with a middling build compared to the others at the table, Charles. His blond hair, chiseled features and sky-blue eyes were probably as hypnotizing to the other gender as Jacq¡¯s, and his white robes adorned with golden crosses added to his angelic image.

    As I finished taking in the information, S had already become seated between the gothic lady and the obviously religious man, in the seat closer to the lady. She place her hand down as to pressure me to sit next to her, which I obliged¡­

    Jessica calls from the kitchen, to which Serv gets up to and heads to the kitchen with Grey and Charles. Soon, all four return to the dining room with a collection of seven dishes in hand. Jessica also takes the head of the table, as the flawless lady who sat there stood over the dog-girl and helped her eat. S, Jessica, Mask, Grey, Charles and Jacq all talked together. And since Jacque could also hear S, I wasn¡¯t needed to translate; this making S¡¯s previous talk to me earlier even more pointless.

    Talking proceeded from topic to topic, but as I was struggling to eat the meal alone, I ended up ignoring all of it. The meal itself was nice, a perfectly cooked but basic dish of sausages, mashed potatoes, gravy and a variety of vegetables, it was just the sheer amount forced onto my dish which made me both mentally and physically give up halfway¡­ Disappointing S and Jessica in the process.

    The food, apart from on my plate, was emptied from the table and the festivities wore thin. So when someone suggested to head-out together, we all silently agreed.

    -

    Together we took a carriage, riding for about half an hour until we reached a massive building which was our goal¡­

    The building was pristine, and considering the traditional buildings surrounding it, its decors and architecture stuck out like a sore thumb. It was around six stories tall and as wide as three regular houses, being a painted brick cuboid tower with an absurd amount of windows which dominated the area.

    There, we got our of our carriage and headed in with the flow of fellow adventurers and guild-folk.

    Inside, there was a massive, pretty much empty room which had two full walls of papers which had rather impressive crowds for a lunch-time and a wall dedicated to a large counter with most of the people around them. To emphasize its size, there must¡¯ve been at least fifty people in the room at that point, and it still looked incredibly spacious. To the side of the counters was a door which was wide enough to fit three people at once, which we entered instead of queuing up.

    Going up a couple floors, we enter another empty room although this one had luxurious seats and only ten or so people, meaning our number nearly doubled the amount of people here. Although the room was large, it was noticeably smaller than the ground floor¡¯s, also, this one had no papers on the wall and instead had two walls full of numbered doors.

    Without a queue, we head to the counter instantly. And instead of having to wait, they usher us to a certain room. And a member of the staff joins us in it, wearing a traditional golden and white gown.

    ¡°Do wish for an explanation on what¡¯s about to happen, or do you wish to just proceed?¡± the staff member asks, and to a six to three vote, we end up hearing the explanation¡­ ¡°Okay then¡­ What I am about to do is seance the Goddess Lithy, who is your guild¡¯s potential sponsor. All of you will have independant talks with her one at a time, and the contents of the talks depends on what she feels like. This will feel weird, but you will talk to her in the dream-realm. So as I say your name, close your eyes and you will remember the talk once you wake. It should take about twenty minutes with this amount of people. Is that a good enough description, or does anyone have any questions?¡±

    We unanimously decide it¡¯s enough, so she continues... calling Serv first. She was passed out for little over a minute before reopening her eyes.

    Then it was Jacq, who took about three times that. Next was Charles, Grey, S then Helen, in that order, who all took about a minute or two each as well. Then was Jessica, who took about five times as long as the majority, after which was Mask, who took about as long as Jessica and finally it was me¡­

    I close my eyes and hope it doesn¡¯t take long.

    My dream was blinding, with a spotless white room with two chairs and a desk between them. One of the chairs was occupied by a lady, who¡¯s complexion literally glowed golden lights.

    As I was looking around, she, in a calm voice, ordered me to sit in the available chair. Which I obliged to.

    Looking above me, she glares at it for a while then glares at me, asking, ¡°Another traitor, huh? What are with these¡­ Uh¡­ What are these specially hidden skills?!¡±

    ¡°I can not answer.¡±

    ¡°Can you say which god or goddess?¡±

    ¡°Klast.¡±

    She sighs deeply, face in palm at the news. ¡°Okay¡­ Can you explain why I see ¡®Traitor¡¯ in your titles?¡±

    ¡°Yes, but will you trust my answer?¡±

    ¡°That is up to me to decide. State your answer!¡± she demands, standing up and slamming her palms onto the table suddenly.

    ¡°I¡¯m a former slave. I murdered my master, hence the ¡®traitor¡¯ and ¡®murderer¡¯ titles, and the edit on my name.¡±

    ¡°... I don¡¯t believe you. How did you kill a master without dying!?¡±

    ¡°Look at my skills, and think what should have killed me...¡±

    ¡°Judgement! Explain yourself now!¡±

    ¡°Fine... The master used a collar to make me their slave. So I learned how to teleport the collar off me and murdered him with an arrow before he could do anything about it.¡± Hearing my matter-of-factly tone, she visibly flinches.

    ¡°Okay¡­ You are not dead and I used judgement when you were saying that, so I have no reason to not believe you right now. I must say, however, you are the oddest of your group of oddballs.¡± Mixing a partial sigh with a yawn, she pauses for a while before continuing, ¡°I am getting a headache and need to chase up Klast now, who is always a pain to contact¡­ So, I will ask you three last questions. First: can I trust you to not become a traitor again?¡±

    ¡°I can not tell the future, but as long as Miss Ess is with me, yes.¡±

    ¡°Will you do your part to repay my kindness?¡±

    ¡°That depends if Klast will let me.¡±

    ¡°... Explain.¡±

    ¡°I can not without Klast¡¯s permission.¡±

    ¡°Fine¡­ Last question then, what is your goal for joining this clan?¡±

    Blushing, I look away answering, ¡°To see miss Ess alive and, or happy.¡±

    The goddess just laughs at this, then eventually states, ¡°Well, I will trust you for now. Remember, what I want is for you to your jobs, and become one of the top ranked guilds in legacy and finance. I don¡¯t really care about you expanding¡­ Oh, and I¡¯ll greet you lot at the headquarters I built every now and then.¡±

    The scene turns dark. Soon noises from the real world come through and I open my eyes.

    Knowing I was awake now, everyone focused on the staff member.

    Seeing this, their eyes turned from the host¡¯s previous green into the familiar deep blue of the goddess we just spoke to, and said in the goddess¡¯ voice, ¡°Since you seem to be fine and interesting people in your own ways, I look forward to advising you. Upon becoming your patron, I dub you: The Guild of Black Sheep. I wish for our partnership to be a long one.¡±

    With that said, we were shown the exit and promptly looked for some quests to do.

    OldBegginings:[Howdy, just here to say I will be updating the series in march as I''m still making buffer to hopefully get through it. Next week being especially terrible due to two midterms. Anyway, not sure if I''m able to call this either comedy or drama at the moment, and unless stated otherwise, will likely not put either for at least the time being.]

 Chapter Two: Poor Slimes...

    ¡®Sam!¡¯ S exclaims using telepathy. Her voice interrupting the constant rumbling of the wooden wheels colliding with the jumps of the uneven terrain, the sputters of chat amongst the others in the carriage, and the occasional beats of hooves thudding on harder ground than the wheels; only to be muffled but the rickety wheels of the carriage once more.

    My eyes, which had closed by habit in the hard wooden/steel carriage, were opened by her interruption. This caused me to groan as a once again forced myself awake¡­

    Looking at her, to my left, she explains, ¡®We¡¯re almost there¡­ Are you okay?¡¯

    ¡°Fine¡­¡± I mumble back, still getting weird looks from Mask and Charles who were sitting opposite us like I was mad for doing so.

    Looking outside of the windows, a range of mountains cut into the backdrop, getting closer and closer although still hiding their bases behind a couple hills we still had to pass over. In the sunlight of day, the grassy hills all encompassing the terrain insight flowed like waves in the wind, with the curtains of our carriage doing the same.

    ¡°Guys¡­ let¡¯s work out part positions, shall we?¡± To the question initiated by Charles, everyone including me nodded. He continues, ¡°Okay¡­ uh, is Miss S the only one who can vanguard?¡±

    ¡°I can summon vanguards¡­ Let¡¯s make the under-levelled three do it all though,¡± Jacq states, rather uninterested.

    ¡°Alright¡­ What is your weapon Sam?¡± Charles asks, but I don¡¯t answer, instead summon my bow which I promptly unsummon. Shrugging he continues asking questions, ¡°If need be, I trust Miss Jacqueline to beat anything we face¡­ Oh, Mask, can you at least handle things one on one?¡±

    ¡°Depends on who¡­¡±

    Charles discusses more specifics about our formation, but it¡¯s pretty redundant. In the end, he only realizes that what he said was correct, using up all the remaining time getting to the mountain tediously confirming it.

    -

    We get out of the carriage drawn by rather neat looking skeletal horses. Whilst we walk away, the carriage and remains of the horses vanish into an abyss of red fire. The ground afterwards was perfectly intact, not even remotely singed by the fire.

    Looking around, the scenery is a rocky mountain-side with a steep, nearly 90 degree, surface  surrounding the mountain¡¯s base; there was an exception to this however, that being a cave dug into the same surface. This cave had an entrance the width of five people and the height higher than that of a giant. The top of the mountain was white, but currently a black cloud was visibly hiding the peak. Around us was rocky terrain with a couple trees dotted around, and even when I used my tracking skill, no signs of life apart from us were visible except in a forest about five hundred metres behind us.

    In the time that took, the others were pretty much inside the cave¡­ So I casually walked behind them.

    The inside of the cave was narrower than the entrance, quickly getting to the width where only two of us could go shoulder to shoulder. Even though our composition had Charles- having summoned holy armour and a holy weapon- and S at the front, thankfully nothing happened whilst we were walking down the winding, thin path and we got to a large opening rather quickly.

    When I finally got inside the large room, I could see the fight already happening. S, backed up by Charles, fought off ten or so small slimes; most of which were already just liquid with shattered cores.

    Once the anti-climactic battle was over, Charles and Mask grabbed bottles and proceeded to scoop up the remaining slime as S grabbed all the silver, slime core bits she could, then headed my way.

    Without being needed to be told, the pieces disappeared from her hands, same with the bottles of slime Charles and Mask had fastened close, all of which being placed into my storage.

    Acknowledging that done, everyone moved on into another thin, winding path which lead to a staircase.

    At the end of the staircase, was a peculiar room. The odd thing about it was how the roof, about two stories high, was coated in small blue, green and red slimes with a larger yellow slime in the middle. Yet no one but me seemed to notice as they walked in to the chest on a raised platform in the centre of the room.

    Instead of telling the others about the trap, I quickly lock onto the large slime, open up a portal and put my hands through it¡­ With enough force, my hands return with a large and intact magic core which I promptly put in my storage. The splatters from the large yellow slime falling to the floor alerted the rest of the group, and the fight ensued from there with me not even having entered the room, therefore I got ignored by all the slimes.

    Even though I had dealt with the large slime, the at least one-hundred small ones which remained posed a rather big problem¡­

    Well, it was a problem until Jacqueline actually started helping in the fight and overwhelmed the slimes with skeleton summons and dark magic, evaporating almost all of them in the process. Of course, this did mean that there were barely any resources from them which survived, barely adding up to a bottle of slime and about three and a bit slime cores, but everyone was unharmed and I didn¡¯t need to do anything else, so there was some solace in that.

    ¡°What happened to the¡­¡± Charles thinks aloud. Soon met with similar questions from Mask and their line of confusion lead to some rather start conclusions.

    ¡®Sam, what did you do?¡¯ S asks, being one of the only two people who would¡¯ve known it was me. The other one ignores the comotion, clearly not caring in the slightest.

    I shrug at the accusation. And so, after a while of questioning without an answer, I collect the remaining drops and open the chest¡­ which turned out to be empty.

    We continue on through yet another tunnel, which lead into yet another trap room to which I was going to treat the same way. But I stopped when the others realized it as well¡­ Instead, I took some cores from some of the smaller slimes in the corner, hoping not to be realized. Taking nine or ten intact slime cores in the process.

    ¡®Why are you doing that in secret?¡¯ S asks, catching me before triggering the trap with Charles and Jacq.

    Again, I shrug and hope no one sees the exchange. Thankfully they don¡¯t even notice the slimes I killed. Though this is mainly due to how many got destroyed by the numerous black, teardrop shaped projectiles coming from Jacq which exploded everything in the area with a black fog on contact.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

    This time, regardless of the fact the large slime core was harvested before Jacq¡¯s magic started, we got about the same amount of cores and only two more bottle of slime. This was bad efficiency knowing single small slime was as about thirty centimetres in diameter having enough slime each to fill a small sized bottle and a large slime was one metre in diameter with enough slime to fill at least ten of the same.

    After this, they collect the remaining core parts then, once I had collected them, they walked towards the chest, which actually had a weapon in this time¡­ I didn¡¯t have time to check it before Charles, the person who opened the chest and received it, literally threw it my way point first and it ended up in storage before striking me.

    ¡°It¡¯s probably cursed, better let Grey look at it¡­¡± he stated, thinking he¡¯d need a reason to be so sudden.

    ¡°How long is this dungeon anyway?¡± Jacq asks, yawning probably from boredom.

    ¡°We¡¯re halfway,¡± Mask bluntly states, putting his hand to the wall as he said it.

    Grimacing at the news, Jacq begrudgingly continues following us as we enter yet another narrow tunnel. This time, however, there was some action in the front although I couldn¡¯t see what it was...

    It¡¯s over in about a minute, then we continue down some steps and end up in another large room. This time, there was four large slimes already on the floor and a roof filled with smaller slimes.

    Taking the time to remove as many small slimes secretively as I can, I end up with around twenty more intact cores. Additionally, due to the amount of big slimes, we got twenty bottles of slime from them alone and this time Jacq just used her skeletons rather than her darkness magic, leading to no imploding resources¡­ In the end, we got enough core bits to make at least fifty small cores and two large cores, additionally we got five bottles to add to the twenty from the big slimes. Although it did take around half an hour to actually get them all and place them in my storage, which made everyone both more bored and more tired¡­

    -

    Going off into another tunnel, we ended up bumping into a large slime which could barely move in the tunnel, making killing and harvesting it easy and efficient. We got seven more bottles of its slime, then ran out of small bottles so had to use one of the medium sized ones from my void storage.

    By this point, we were all coated in slime of various colours, with even me- who was mainly in the background- having to swish the viscous liquid out of my hair and eyes¡­

    After two more similar fights in the narrow tunnel, we ended up in one more room. This one was far bigger than the others. Whereas I¡¯d estimate the others to be thirty metres by twenty, I¡¯d estimate this to be nearly one-hundred by one-hundred metres. And at the center, a slime with a crown on about the size of ten large ones bounced towards us on our arrival.

    Every bounce caused slimes on the ceiling to fall with rocks, filling the room up rather quickly with slimes and debris. Although this was a larger fight, Jacq didn¡¯t use both her magic and her summons, only using the latter. Though the amount and tiers of these summons were not mere skeletons with simple swords and shields like before, instead they were gigantic skeletons equipped in steel armour and wielding broad-swords of the same material.

    Due to this change alone, it was a complete one-way massacre¡­ The skeletons minced the small slimes regardless of them actually being made of liquid, killing tens of them with each swing, although to say S and Charles didn¡¯t do as much would be a lie, since those two slaughtered just as many small slimes themselves as all the skeletons together.

    Eventually, the minions were destroyed. The price for which being that the royal slime cracked the armour, bones and skulls of most of the twenty giant skeletons Jacq summoned. With the tables turned, the royal slime become more erratic, no longer having to pay attention not to murder its own kin. Since we were mainly around the entrance guarded by the skeletons, most of its bounces only lead it into the stalactites on the roof. Each collision causing it to bleed off noticeable amounts of slime each time.

    Still, every bounce shook the room, caused the same stalactites to fall to the floor and, if hit, they would crush those underneath to a pulp. Due to this, S and Charles left most of the fighting to Jacq¡¯s skeletons and Mask, who could easily keep up with the slime without breaking a sweat. So staying with me and Jacqueline herself in the tunnel during the rest of the fight.

    The six remaining skeletons turned to five with one barrage of attacks, then into three from another, not really getting any hits in. Eventually, with everyone apart from Mask near me, I put a mental tracker on the royal slime and tried to remove the core by hand in the same way I did before. I tugged with all my strength, putting every part of my body into it...

    But it didn¡¯t work, I couldn¡¯t make it budge slightly, so the fight continued.

    I didn¡¯t give up however, nudging S on the shoulder then asking her to help, we tried with the two of us, but came up with the same result¡­ Then Jacqueline, who got bored of seeing her now two remaining skeletons fail to get any serious hits in, went over to us and tried it herself without getting Charles involved on my request, but it still didn¡¯t work.

    With mana fatigue settling in, I gave up trying that scam, instead waiting with the rest of them to whittle down the royal slime¡­

    -

    An hour later, the royal slime had bled enough to where it wasn¡¯t an instant kill, although Jacqueline had to waste another wave of summons to it. Instead of fighting it for that long, Mask, between fighting, rested with the rest of us every now and them for a time adding up to approximately half of the hour. Apart from that, he spent most of his time using the largest bottles I had to grab the royal slime that spilled from the boss. Filling three of these in the process.

    Now Charles and S went into the fight. However, it still wasn¡¯t that easy¡­

    Due to how much weight it had lost, it lost some power but gained speed in the process and bounced for far longer from every attack it made. The royal slime was also still about the size of two large slimes, yet regardless of how much they tried to hit it, they just couldn¡¯t due to its speed.

    Even Mask began struggling to keep up with it, although this was mainly because he wasn¡¯t prioritizing to hit the boss. I could also still keep track of it with my archery skills.

    ¡°Miss Jacqueline, want to try again?¡± I ask, to which she responded by coming over to me in the tunnel.

    Putting her hands in once again, she tugged as hard as she could. Her face went red as she put everything she had into pulling¡­

    In the fight, Charles, S and Mask set up a three-pronged attack¡­

    Like they had set up, the royal slime targeted Charles for a bouncing attack. He met it with his blade, which although harming him, also caused a large physical cut in the royal slime¡¯s membrane, making it bleed off large quantities of slime and finally reveal its core.

    And, with good timing, S also made an equally large attack. This resulting in the slime pinned in place.

    Then Mask attacked the slime¡¯s revealed core with a leaping stealth attack¡­

    The slime¡¯s core literally vanished in the wake of the attack. But as Jacqueline handed me the intact golden slime core the size of a large slime from earlier, Mask and the other two became greatly confused to the lack of core shards¡­

    S soon snapped out of it, realizing what probably happened¡­ Looking over to me shrugging back once more.

    There was still slime and cores from the smaller slimes to collect, additionally, Jacq unsummoned her remaining skeletons and collected the bones of the fallen ones¡­ This took around an hour to complete due to the sheer scale of the fight. In total, we ended up with 6 large bottles of royal slime, pieces of small slime-core which added up to around five more cores and ten medium bottles of mixed slime.

    After which we proceeded down the remaining tunnel, ending up in a room with five chests and shockingly zero slimes¡­

    Two chests had weapons, one being a bluish knife and the other being a dark, wooden staff. The two other chests had armours, one being chainmail and the other being a bluish material. In the final chest had a thick, pristine book in. All were passed to me for storage incase they were cursed.

    There was also a portal on the wall behind the podium with chest on. After looting everything, we headed through it and got spat out by the cave¡¯s entrance, even though the cave entrance had been sealed up.

    Summoning the carriage with a freaky fire ritual, Jacqueline, followed by the rest of us, got in and went back.

 Chapter Three: An anticlimactic dragon fight

    On our trip back, we sat in a carriage heading through a forest on a road to a nearby village. From there, the plan was to go down the larger and smoother road leading from the village to the city we¡¯re based at. However, as the others were casually discussing the mystery behind what happened, and being told the blatant truth by an annoyed Jacqueline... I lurk silently at the edge of the carriage, focusing on the trees and hills rolling by outside the window.

    To end this, however, was a sudden noise which dominated the area.

    It was a loud, deep roar which bellowed from the forest to our left. We all spied through the window, to see a red dot flying around a watchtower which poked above the treeline. Although it was between two-hundred and five-hundred metres away, with my archery skills I could see the red, scaly beast in decent detail. Behind the roar, we could pick up some screams.

    ¡°We have to help them, right?¡± with valour, Charles announced.

    The bored Jacqueline, agreeing, dictated the carriage to head back to the off-shooting road which leads to the tower. This path was more rickety than the main path due to rougher terrain, so the carriage shook rather violently as it proceeded at posthaste.

    I must have visibly cringed since S, who¡¯s sitting between me and Jacq, asked, ¡®What is it Sam?¡¯

    Whispering it into her¡­ uh¡­ skull? Anyway, I whispered the answer close to her, ¡°That thing will be a pain in the neck.¡±

    ¡®Huh? W-what do you mean, I¡¯m sure we can deal with it!¡¯ she stated, standing up to emphasize her liveliness even during the bumpy ride.

    Whispering once more, I stated, ¡°Spoiler, that was a migrating red dragon. Shockingly enough they can fly.¡±

    Tilting her skull, she pressed me for further detail which I explained, this time forgetting to whisper, ¡°No one here can fly, Jacq¡¯s magic destroys resources and its a dragon. So either this will take multiple hours, or guess who¡¯s going to need to do everything...¡±

    Everyone, even Jacqueline- who seemed in her own world a second ago- faced me with quizzical expressions.

    ¡°We are heading to a wild red dragon. Do say if I am wrong though,¡± I spitefully explained, realizing my mistake.

    Almost in sync all four of them asked the obvious question, as Mask put best, ¡°And you can kill a dragon quickly? Don¡¯t make me laugh...¡±

    Their giggles at the absurd concept were stopped short by my own laughter. My quiet and unusual cackles are heard over the bemused silence in the carriage with ease, further increasing the levels of confusion each had.

    Managing to stop myself for long enough, I made a seemingly baffling offer, ¡°Let us all make a bet: one arrow and the dragon dies. If I win, I will not share the loot from the kill. If I do not, I will not get a share of it. Anyone want to take it?¡±

    Mask and Charles, in order, react immediately with no thought behind the unmistakably more likely outcome, ¡°You¡¯re on, you cocky brat.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a dragon, of course I call your bet...¡±

    S then, after a moment of thought, replies next, ¡®I don¡¯t trust that smile¡­ Not taking the bet.¡¯

    Jacqueline takes a while longer to bite, thinking it over until the last moment until we reached the watchtower, ¡°Regretfully, I will bet against you.¡±

    With me still smiling- holding in even more laughter at my absurd bet being taken by the majority- we reached the end of the path. There the forest opened out for around two-hundred by two-hundred metres surrounding the watchtower, which was now in fiery tatters and on the brink of falling.

    The dragon hovered barely over the treeline, chasing down the screaming figures still running from the tower to the forest surrounding it with brutal efficiency. Either burning those who ran alive in a sea fire from its gaping maw, or swooping down to tear the prey to pieces with its claws and jaw.

    I, who had summoned my bow and a single arrow on the carriage, took up my position then aimed downwards to my foot.

    Double checking the position of the dragon and making sure my mental tracker on it was accurate, I turned to my foot and stretch the string of the bow- arrow in place.

    As the dragon rose once more, my grip was released and the arrow flew towards my foot as fast as it could. Most of my focus was now on enchanting the arrow.

    An icy mist engulfed the arrow almost instantly, and there was no pain even as the mist faded.

    Curious, I checked everyone, all of whom had their jaws agape. All stared motionlessly at where there should¡¯ve been an arrow embedded, to find out it wasn¡¯t there.

    Seconds later, a far off thud redirected the looks of the peanut gallery. The ground around us then shook for a couple seconds.

    The dragon, which had been preparing for yet another swipe at the crowd numbering less than ten at this point, was now resting motionless amidst a crater in the dirt. A couple trees nearby had also collapsed, but thankfully, the survivors weren¡¯t hiding near those specific trees.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    Seeing the other four frozen, I opened up a portal and took a couple steps. After blinking my eyes, I found myself next to the dragon corpse which was fully intact. No wounds were seen in its skin, but, unlike a living being, when I touched it the corpse completely vanished into my storage.

    My laughter returned for a moment, looking face-to-face with the few survivors, who were still scared to the point they were frozen like statues due to what happened. I can only shrug their way after my random moment of emotion...

    Staring at them in mutual silence, the sounds of destruction from the tower fills the mutual silence with noise.

    It takes a couple minutes for the other four to come back to reality and come towards us.

    Not missing a beat, as he came towards me with a face mixing anger with confusion, Charles turns to the survivors with a completely different expression, asking, ¡°Ah¡­ Haha¡­ S-sorry for anything he¡¯s done. We¡¯re just a clan wandering by, does anyone here need any healing?¡±

    Still frozen, the group of survivors eventually fall to floor simultaneously, all passing out knowing the threat is over.

    ¡®What the heck was that sam?¡¯ S, who caught up to Charles with Mask and Jacq, asked me directly. Not needing to breath, she¡¯s the only one aside from me not panting.

    Charles at this point was looking at the crowd of collapsed people, checking for pulses. The other three, including myself, go to help him when a scream within the tower alerts us all. Being a twisted, burning husk of its former glory, every second more chunks from the building collapse. Thinking anyone could be alive in there was somewhere between surreal and ludicrous.

    As I looked back to our group, Mask¡¯s presence wasn¡¯t there anymore. Changing my gaze back to the tower, a figure was already at the base of the tower as if waiting for help.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go, you two do this,¡± Jacq announced, in a rather confusing way.

    So S helped Charles carry the remaining people to our. As for me... since I still had too much spare mana, I opened up a portal to the carriage to make transportation easier.

    By the time those two came back, they realized what I had done and Charles at least wasn¡¯t amused.

    ¡°Can you not just teleport them to the city?¡±

    I shake my head towards him, although S seemed to have realized why so just continued¡­

    ¡°Just what are you¡­¡± he mumbles seeing my response, begrudgingly getting on with his work.

    Minutes later, we had put everyone- as delicately as possible- into the carriage. And by this point, Mask and Jacq were also at the carriage holding one barely living person. At the side of the carriage were between ten and fifty dead bodies unceremoniously piled up.

    Seeing how no one else can fit into the carriage apart from one person driving it, S told Jacqueline, ¡®Miss Jacqueline, please take them to the guild then return to pick us up.¡¯

    She nodded, then, after making sure the unconscious people were secure, she left.

    Since we had to wait anyway, we all started digging makeshift graves. One for all the dead.

    Charles then blessed the corpses with a speech for the group as we buried them.

    During this speech, I tried to sleep using a tree as a pillow; the cold weather and S pestering me being the reasons this failed. And Mask was nowhere to be seen after we finished digging, but just before Charles finished, I saw him return from the building holding as much as he could carry. Thankfully, he got even more scorn than me, so even S forgot to continue yelling at me.

    After this we set up a fire, as it was getting dark. Then, on request from S and Charles, I took out some playing cards and we used the money Mask stole as counters. However, since my laughter had ended a while ago, opening up my storage makes me woozy from mana loss. I¡¯m barely able to get the cards out before I pass out right there and then.

    -

    When I awoke, I felt my head resting something firm- but not necessarily uncomfortable.

    Looking up, I see S¡¯s skull greet me. This makes my cheeks blush as I try to get up as fast as possible. Although getting disoriented due to this, I do succeed and wake up due to it.

    Taking a second to look around, I realize we¡¯re back in my room.

    ¡®Just accept it¡­¡¯ she whispers, from her word choice it seemed she was disappointed it ended this soon.

    I refuse her though, freeing myself non-violently from her then continue down stairs where the other seven are waiting.

    ¡°There¡¯s no room here, let¡¯s go downstairs,¡± Charles states.

    There, first I handed the royal slime to Jessica who then headed out. Then gave Serv the normal slime and cores. At first, all four of them were confused how there were so many intact cores. But when Charles explained, they just accepted it, and it wasn¡¯t like Helen was mad for not having to put more cores together before using them. Finally, Jacque told everyone par me, her and Grey to leave the storage room.

    Even then, with the entire storage room free, it was barely big enough to dump the whole dragon in.

    Inspecting it for quite a while, Grey¡¯s mouth was forced open as he exclaimed, ¡°How the hell did this die!?¡±

    Jacque explained that is was me, but this just caused Grey to get even more confused. So further explanation was needed¡­

    In the end, he eventually accepted the story, and went into his workshop. Then re-entered the storage room with a massive black broadsword and a smaller green knife. With him, Serv entered the room with some more jars made by Helen.

    Once removed, he passed me the various pieces he dissected one-by-one. Starting with the head, then tail, wings and limbs. Meanwhile Serv, with Jacq¡¯s help, put the spilling dragon blood into jars, then handed me them as well.

    This freed up enough space in the room to where he started skinning the torso; delicately using the knife to sever veins and organs from the scaly skin before he separated each scale. As this part of its body alone was big enough for all four of the people in the room to stand inside it, with plenty of room to spare, it took over an hour for this delicate yet tedious dissection by Grey. Going as fast as possible, Serv, Jacq and to a lesser extent I, helped cleared away the flood of blood which bled every time he made an incision.

    It was already a long day, I was on the edge of falling asleep due to how much my dimensional storage was being used, and the sheer volume of stuff being placed in and out of it. Considering that this is an S-rank skill and how I¡¯ve rested fully twice already, speaks volumes to how much during the hours I¡¯ve used it.

    Finally finding out how genuinely tired I am, Grey- having gotten all of the main organs out- cleans his blades with a small towel and passes me the remaining husk of the body. Grey then announced, ¡°That¡¯ll do for today, there¡¯s no need to rush.¡±

    Relieved, I left without delay and stumbled my way to my room. Not taking any time to do anything but lock the door, I pass out on the floor right there.

 Chapter Four: A long day of sales.

    A now familiar ceiling greeted me as I opened my eyes, and I somehow feel amazed to not hear S¡¯s voice immediately upon awakening..

    Still groggy, I continued to lie on the hard wooden floor as I fought my heavy eyes by intaking the surrounding noise; most being the unadulterated noise of indistinguishable conversations from people on the bustling streets below my window.

    Eventually, enough incoherent noise let me win against my tiredness and I rose to my feet. I next headed through one of four rooms leading out of the simplistic room to start running a bath, using this to remove the final remnants of my mental stress from the last few days wash away; rotating two enchanted stones at the head of the bath which let water of both hot and cold, mix together in the tub. During which, I rummage through a wardrobe in my room in search of a change in clothes. Although as long as I had one of each clothing type, any choice would look nearly identical; therefore the process didn¡¯t take long.

    As I have my bath, I watched the sky out of the window; locating the sun- now overhead- swiftly. A small smile came to my face as I realize how lucky I am to have such a place to live in, which continued throughout as I eventually washed my body and left to dry up and get dressed.

    -

    Upon getting dressed, I left the room and headed downstairs to the dining room as a voice interrupts me.

    A subtle, succinct voice behind me said, ¡°Mind helping?¡± Causing me to turn around to nod to whoever asked.

    Grey stood there, carrying ten-odd shieved swords in his outstretched arms. Making them vanish into my storage, he sighed of relief before beckoning me to the storage in front the foyer connecting the place with his workshop and Helen¡¯s; where swords covered most of the visible shelves, likely with at least one other hidden behind each visible sword.

    ¡°How many do you wish me to bring?¡± I asked, wishfully assuming that it would be moronic to sell all the over one-hundred such swords at the same time.

    ¡°Just those,¡± he answered, pointing to a shelf on the left with about twenty in all. All of which promptly entered my storage.

    Hunting through his various wares once more, he hands me three more swords. One of which being the sword we found in the chest, which although I could tell was the same sword, seemed changed in a couple ways.

    After telling me to wait in the foyer, Grey went into Helen¡¯s workshop. I couldn¡¯t hear anything for the duration, but as it took a couple minutes until returning with Helen and Serv, I could tell something had happened. As I didn¡¯t care, I took the bags Serv was carrying, which she doesn¡¯t even acknowledge, and leave with all three of them.

    When we leave the main building into the front garden, I get interrupted. And even though Helen and Grey take a while to notice me stopping, Serv, somehow, stopped immediately with me and snapped to face whoever stopped us.

    ¡®Hey Sam...¡¯ S said from who knows where. It takes me almost a full rotation for me to see her waving towards me. Unlike before however, when she had minimal if any chainmail armour, she was wearing full-plate and was training her swordplay against another skeleton- this one wearing leather and using a bastard sword and knife against her.

    Although this other skeleton looked battered, it still had some life in it and made the occasional strike whilst S continued to talk to me, halfheartedly fighting back herself.

    ¡®So Sam, you¡¯re going with those three, right?¡¯ Waiting until she wasn¡¯t focused on parrying, I nodded in response to which she informed me, ¡®It¡¯s fine, can you drop off the remaining royal slime bottle here though? We¡¯re going to report that quest in whilst you do your selling, maybe grabbing a quest as we do it.¡¯

    As I did as she said, she swiftly stepped to the left as the skeleton lunged into where she was. Then, in one hit, she swung her blade- this time a weirdly curved blade instead of her normal, plain greatsword- at its neck, decapitating it with only an impact wound.

    Once it¡¯s skull clunk to the ground, she came next to me to receive the jar, nodded, and went back inside.

    A minute later, everyone- par Jessica- stood next to Jacq¡¯s carriage, went in and headed off. The ride went smoothly, but uneventfully as I nodded off onto S¡¯s shoulders.

    -

    Eventually woken by S¡¯s yelling, me, Helen, Grey and Serv left first, dropped off before a wider, shorter and overall more classy looking building than the guild hall; the others heading off a bit further to the tall building we could see even from here. Without time for more sightseeing, we headed in with both Serv and Grey leading Helen by her hands, as she mainly yawned with a drooping tail as if she was about to pass-out like me.

    Inside, similar to the guild hall, the first floor has a room mainly designated to people waiting for a counter, and a lot of people doing so. Furthermore, there were papers spread amongst the wall. But unlike the guild hall which was filled with quirky adventurers, this, the merchant¡¯s hall, was filled with mostly mildly dressed folk which made me blend in well. Additionally, the walls were separated by domain, on which the papers indicated the ¡®needed¡¯ items worth temporarily extra. The counters were also split by domain, having counters designated to: ¡®crafters¡¯, ¡®smiths¡¯, ¡®farmers¡¯ and ¡®others¡¯.

    As we didn¡¯t care to split, we ended up queuing in ¡®others¡¯ instead of either the two Grey and Helen should¡¯ve went to. A benefit of this, however, was that this queue was extremely short. So we reached the counter in half the time we likely should have.

    ¡°Greetings. First time here? Please fill in the form and hand over the relevant ID.¡± the female half-elf clerk explained succinctly in a peppy tone, not giving any of us a chance to even answer her question before shoving the said form in grey¡¯s face.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Only Helen and Grey hand over their IDs, and meanwhile- handed off by Grey- Serv filled in the form asking an occasional question to him before handing it back.

    Taking a minute to read it, she leaves the counter from a door behind her. Grey uses the time to double check the boards under ¡®Crafting specials¡¯- making small notes in a small booklet he had in his pocket before returning. He then hands it to Serv, who whispers the contents in Helen¡¯s ears, as her ears perk up slightly.

    A while later the clerk finally returns, handing us both our form- which now had a blue stamp on- and a small slip of paper which had a floor and room number listed on it. Then sends us off after vaguely pointing out the directions to where it was.

    It takes some time to get there, but relatively soon- for three stories- we reach the room, which we immediately enter. Upon doing so, there was a female full-elf- having full, pointy ears jutting out of her otherwise perfectly straight hair- on the other side of a table.

    Serv- having it in her possession- places the form and slip of paper on the table, which the elf promptly plucked from the table before scowling over both; setting the slip aflame after she was done.

    Having done so, she turns to the door we came from and left after explaining, ¡°So, I have to call out both a specialist in crafting and smithing. So if you can sit down and wait for a while, I will return as quickly as possible.¡±

    Not really caring for the conversation about what they made between Serv, Helen and Grey, I remain silent and space out reading the random guideline posters propped up on most of the walls. Most being about potions and alchemy, although bits were on furs, ropes and other miscellaneous items.

    Reading them for the nth time, I was alerted to the door finally opening again. In came three people including the elf from before and two new people. With one male and one female dwarf making up the ¡®specialists¡¯.

    ¡°I am Ixora, your generalist for today. Here are Nabul Alebreaker and Yosselin Shadowflayer, your crafting and smithing specialists respectfully. For now, please place your crafting goods on the table for Nabul to judge.¡±

    I appeased their request, bringing out the bag I took from Serv onto the table. Although rather than the bag, they first are audibly and visually shocked at how I do that¡­

    Their amazement clears, and Nabul, the Male dwarf with help from Ixora, take out: firstly, fifteen bottles filled with a blue liquid and four with a golden liquid. Next, six red-spotted black, deflex-reflex bows with golden threads acting as the bowstring and small slime-cores each of the bow¡¯s sides. After that, two two-metre red-spotted black staves, each encrusted with a fully intact medium slime core, and finally the remaining slime cores. This notably not including the fully intact royal slime core, eighteen small cores and six medium cores. All of which came out of the mighty bag Serv didn¡¯t even react to suddenly vanishing from her grasp earlier.

    Clearly underestimating how much a newby guild had to sell, Ixora fainted and the other two remained space out with gaping maws.

    Given a couple minutes they snapped out of it, with Nabul starting to count. Half-way through the elf woke up, joining in. Using swaths of paper to keep a running total and every now and then scratching their heads due to how many calculations they had to do...

    Panting, they eventually reach a verdict on the Helen¡¯s stuff, ¡°Okay¡­ For all of this so far, I would suggest the sum of sixty two gold and fifty silver¡­ Now then, please produce your smithing goods for Yosselin to examine.¡±

    Obliging, I do as such. Showing off the twenty-two red bladed, red-spotted black handled swords which ranged from seven small bastard swords, three greatswords, six cutlasses, and six quirky curved swords- which although seeming like cutlasses, curved multiple times. On the hilts all of these had medium-sized slime cores in their handles. They all had the same insignia under their cores, this being a simple picture which looked like a tail wagging and the initial ¡®G¡¯ in the middle of it. Finally is a bluish-grey bastard sword with a leather hilt, being the sword we found in the cave.

    This time all three go down for the count before I¡¯m halfway done, and unlike last time, it took what feels like an hour for them to regain consciousness.

    ¡°How did you get so much dragon bone!?¡± Nabul yelled, waking up Yosselin in the process.

    ¡°Our other half found a wild, red dragon on their way to get slime cores, so we just used their resources,¡± Grey subtly explained, which thankfully seemed to sate the dwarf¡¯s curiosity.

    In silence, Yosselin goes to work, using the same paper Nabul used to do her calculations.

    ¡°I can give you one platinum and ten gold for this¡­ Giving you a final total of one platinum, seventy-two gold and fifty silver¡­ with taxes, that leaves you with one platinum, thirty-two gold and fifty silver.¡± the dwarven smithing specialist mumbles, letting Ixora take over.

    ¡°Do you understand how much that is? That one payment means you are currently in the top one-hundred guilds in the country in terms of finance¡­ And your guild is six days old! I know it¡¯s only april, but come on! How can you be so apathetic with that much money lying around?!¡±

    Us all shrugging at this news caused Ixora and the dwarves to simply give up trying, instead mumbling to themselves. Then, after telling us to stay put, the three left the room through an entrance hidden behind a bookcase- returning after another few minutes of awkward silence with the money.

    After counting and confirming the amount, Grey- followed by the others- demanded I store the contents in my storage. Unanimously agreeing that carrying such an amount of money on-hand was simply stupid.

    Finally, with the three onlooking with bemusedly staring eyes, we left money in tow.

    -

    Although the plan had been to have the others meet up with us here, S and the other three were nowhere to be seen. So, after waiting for another few minutes in an awkward break, we headed off on foot.

    We had been in there for hours, and so even though the sun had been around central- approximately two-ish PM- sunset was now approaching as a thick crimson dominated the cloudless to-be night.

    For the sake of time, we ended up taking the occasional back-alley in tandem with the main streets as miniature short-cuts. Eventually getting from the shopping district to the more run-down outskirts between it and the base made by the goddess. Apparently sketchy enough to warrant the need of a half-hour detour around it when arriving by carriage.

    As evidence of that, a couple streets in we were accosted by a group, who demanded, ¡°Give us everything, or die.¡±

    Replying to our blatant apathy in standing there, five or so more people stood from each of the paths offshooting from where we were; all brandishing their weapons which ranged from simplistic clubs to rather neat-looking swords. With one person wielding a club next to me, I subtly summon a small hand-crossbow and shoot downwards.

    With the wielder¡¯s shriek, a bolt magically appeared in their wrist. And seconds later their weapon fell behind them with a metallic thud. Then more shrieks in anguish followed, which felt odd as I didn¡¯t fire anything else.

    Turning around I found the cause, Serv, who was literally unfazed by the bandit¡¯s feeble, desperate attacks was punching them. Each landing and shattering their leather- or even steel-plate- armour in such a cluttered melee that it felt absurd. Additionally, using a mace he for some reason had on him, Grey also joined in the fight and showed a similar contempt for those he hit.

    With the person I fought the least maimed, we continued on with nought a word. Reaching the our building without so much as a casual glance back.

 Chapter Five: A rather humbling celebration

    The last remnants of sunlight vanished by the time we reached our guild¡¯s building. Due to this, both the lights coming from the first ground windows, and the sounds of obnoxious laughter from within- in contrast to the near silence of the cold streets- are more present than they normally would be. With even Serv getting somehow confused by this, we genuinely showed more caution reaching the door due to this than we showed with the bandits before.

    Upon our arrival to the main entrance of our building, with our emblem and named embedded into the door on a metal plate, we were greeted.

    Or, well, I was greeted as audibly as S physically could as she waved to the others, ¡®Hey Sam, welcome back.¡¯

    The others gave low-effort waves back and went through the door, whereas I stayed with her, with S continuing on to explain what was going on, ¡®You see, we were going to return to pick you up after dropping off our stuff here¡­ but things happened. It¡¯ll be quicker just to see for yourself.¡¯

    Going in together, we headed down the main corridor to the dining room when I started to hear even more voices add to the wall of noise from within. With the only words I could understand being ¡®Welcome back¡¯ in various, poorly synced voices.

    Having followed S into the room, I find a feast so large my hunger vanished by just seeing and smelling it. The cacophony of noise was at its peak, with the feast on the table only being outdone by the literal kegs of who knows what lining the walls. Instantly explaining why my ears hurt so much.

    Taking a second to get my bearings straight, I see nine people in the room in addition to myself. There was Jacque, Mask and, ironically, Charles who were drinking as if racing each other to drown first; the occasional spurt of red liquid missing their mouth indicated the drink was likely wine. On the other-hand there was Helen, Serv and Grey talking to Jessica and a mystery person. Meanwhile S was still with me, walking towards this latter mentioned conversation.

    To describe the mystery person: they had a similar height and hair and eye colour to Jessica- white if not platinum blonde with blue eyes. However, this other person- although having a visible bust- wore a cheap suit with trousers. Their hair was also cut short and combed thoroughly.

    Finally realizing I was there, Jessica turned to me specifically, saying, ¡°To cut a long story short, this is Plum. Because we¡¯ve finished our first quest together, I wanted to celebrate. And Plum is the only person I trust to make alcohol. If you¡¯re not too young, have some and join the festivities¡± Casually gesturing to the mysterious person, accordingly dubbed ¡®Plum¡¯, she then gestured to both the feast and the various kegs in amidst her relatively succinct explanation.

    ¡°I am too young... And even if I wasn¡¯t, I doubt that her wine would make me drunk in the first place,¡± I replied whilst subconsciously adding the latter part, honestly just wanting to head off and sleep.

    As if saying forbidden words, Plum turned to me with a finger pointing at me. ¡°That sounds like a challenge for me. How about this¡­¡± she clutched a specific keg of wine, which, unlike the others, was both smaller and of a different colour.

    She then continued, ¡°This is the extra strength wine. Take back your words, or try to drink two cups. If you drink two cups and don¡¯t even stagger, I¡¯ll ignore your comment.¡±

    Obviously, the cup she handed me was also two times as big as the others in the room, and she filled it to the brim the the scarlet drink. I take a sip, and as expected, I taste nothing but bitter grape-flavoured water, so proceed in drinking it slowly without any feeling aside from the bitterness. As she pours the next, I drink it as casually as the last. Looking Plum right in the face as I do so.

    ¡°I do not feel a thing. It was kind of bitter though,¡± I bluntly reply, not even attempting to be humble nor stumbling or even stuttering as I did so. Plum, with Jessica and the rest of the peanut gallery, now consisting of everyone else in the room, faced me, mouths gaping in awe. Even seeming more shocked than when I killed a dragon in one shot.

    ¡°You¡¯re a human, right?! He¡¯s not like¡­¡± Plum, exclaiming her confusion, suddenly got gagged by Jessica¡¯s hand.

    Getting released, she continued to ask, ¡°She told me you¡¯re human¡­ You are a human, right? Not a dwarf, or a dragon in disguise?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I am human. I just can not get drunk. I did state my doubts for a reason,¡± I flatly stated.

    ¡°How then!? Are you a Yik or something? No, can¡¯t be¡­¡± she sighed deeply, and only then mumbled off, ¡°I need a keg, or three¡­¡±

    Coughing awkwardly, I continued to eat a bit. Getting occasionally challenged to drink more, but refusing because, honestly, the bitter aftertaste made me visible cringe. But there was still no buzz or anything aside from the terrible flavour left in my mouth. Quickly getting my fill on food, I leave for my room.

    S, unable to drink in the first place, joined me in eating then followed me out, asking, ¡®Do you really not feel anything?¡¯

    ¡°Yeah. It was not as if I want to make myself look strong, it is just nigh impossible for me to get drunk in the first place. I¡­ do not wish to go into why though. It is a depressing, long story.¡±Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    ¡®Are you sure? I have nothing but time¡­¡¯

    ¡°Yeah. Let us celebrate after our victory, rather than brood on the past.¡±

    With that, I went to sleep.

    -

    I awaken, knocking bombarding the door. The light already in the room is enough for me to see, and by opening the blinds, my eyes scream in agony. The sun directly shining onto my window. Removing any grogginess from my body, although afterwards- ignoring the knocking for now- I can still taste the drink in the back of my throat.

    My groaning at my terrible decisions lead to the knocking stopping, being replace by S asking, ¡®So, are you actually drunk?¡¯

    Cursing the sun under my breath, I proceed to open the door to allow S inside, covering my eyes with my free arm.

    ¡®Is this the infamous ¡®hangover¡¯ the others are complaining of?¡¯ She asked, tilting her skull. Although she doesn¡¯t have a face, the distance her mouth is apart let me place an expression on her- currently picturing her as either gormless or teasing...

    ¡°You don¡¯t have eyes to kill, right?¡± I countered. And when she nodded, I, turning my face to the side, open the blinds once again. Hearing her grunt of acknowledgement, I closed them before facing her once more.

    ¡®Makes sense¡­¡¯ she softly mumbled, walking off whilst gesturing for me to follow heed.

    Doing so, she lead me to the dining room where the majority- seemingly suffering from the same ailment- holds their head respectively. Five of them held their head in there hands, refraining from both light and sound as much as physically possible with their crouched over posture, meanwhile Helen and Serv were like they always were. The former overly peppy to a degree you flinched to protect yourself from her tail flying off, and the latter apathetically standing over her to be of assistance.

    After brooding on if the pain of speaking would be worth it, Jessica initiated a conversation, ¡°Sam¡­ Urgh... H-how much money did you make on your side?¡±

    Postponing of answering, I came behind to and dropped every one of the eleven coins fell on the table. The clanking of them bouncing off one another making the five hangover survivors cringe in agony. Only then do I say, ¡°One platinum, thirty-two gold and fifty silver exactly.¡±

    Pacing herself, she eventually regained to explain, ¡°A-alright¡­ The others made five gold, and given we¡¯re splitting it evenly between us nine and Lithy. Tha-...¡± She held her head in a vicious snap towards the table, hiding her face behind her arm as she did so, exclaiming, ¡°Urgh! Why am I doing this now?! Just place a tenth of that on the podium for my goddess¡¯s sake!¡±

    S fulfils that for me. Not caring for detail, she simply grabbed two large, golden coins and left. From the open door leading into the main corridor, an pale white light shone for a few seconds, ending just before the door closed by itself. She then came back in, placing a couple small golden and other coins on the pile.

    Serv then took over, taking the logical step to split the remainder- in an excruciating long and purposely drawn out process- into nine equal piles. Giving each person one such pile as obnoxiously audio-wise as possible.

    The five people who were about to either murder specifically me and Serv or self mutilate fled as quickly as their legs would carry them; each likely darting to their own rooms.

    ¡°So, Miss S. Did you four get any quests yesterday?¡± I ask, leaving the room to the outside with her, as Serv helped Helen finish her meal.

    She stopped, pausing for a moment before answering, ¡®Yeah, but it¡¯s a full party one¡­ Why?¡¯

    ¡°I am just bored¡­ what do you wish to do?¡± Stretching my arms, I give a deep yawn.

    ¡®We can just grab something to eat. I woke you up, didn¡¯t I?¡¯

    ¡°Honestly, I am getting used to that. Anywhere you wish to go?¡±

    Again, she stopped mid-step. This time however, her head fully cocked to the side as she asked, ¡®By the way, how is the walk from here to the guild?¡¯

    ¡°Bloody,¡± I quipped. S almost fell over trying to tilt her head more, so before she did I elaborated, summarizing the events in a succinct manner.

    Amidst laughing¡­ Well, laughing through telepathy and chattering her teeth, she looked to the far off sun.

    We had left the overly massive guild house Lithy made for us, and were in one of the five fields of plain grass which made up the gardens to the estate, with a front, central building section with a, now desolate, driveway for carriages. A light wind made the nigh oceans of grass dance gracefully, like waves rippling in a sea. The peace and serenity given by this lead to a silence as we walked, which left me to forget my worries.

    The same, apparently, wasn¡¯t the case for S, who paused. Her gaze affixed on the dominating sun in the otherwise flawless, azure sky.

    ¡®Sam¡­ Mind if I ask you a question?¡¯ I nod, and she continues, ¡®Why are you so formal with me?¡¯

    As she turned to me, I shrugged. ¡°Why would I not?¡±

    ¡®You¡¯re amazing¡­ You fought miss Jacqueline head on to get me back, you killed a wild dragon in one shot, and you even out drunk adults as a child. I¡­ I¡¯m just a skeleton with a sword. You don¡¯t even know the real me!¡¯ Her face couldn¡¯t show it. But from her pacing, tone and words, tears seemed to fall from her eye sockets.

    ¡°Miss Ess, I have said this before, yet I will say it again until you believe it. I do not care what or who you are. You have already done enough for me to respect you until the end of this earth, and forgive any past or future pain you may directly or indirectly cause me... Why do you bring this up however?¡±

    ¡®I¡­ I don¡¯t know? It¡¯s... just, finally set in I guess. How much you are giving to me for such a shallow reason. I know the others are also working to reach my goal, but the more I find out about you the most amazed I become. Yet you don¡¯t even want to tell me more about yourself.¡¯

    ¡°Why depress a great day? If you want to know about me, ask at a more fitting time. For now, let us just celebrate our successes as they come. No story of my past is uplifting by any metric anyway...¡±

    ¡®So¡­ you will trust me to listen when you want to say them, right?¡¯

    ¡°Why would I doubt you? Anywho, let us decide on what we will do now, as we await the others recuperating,¡± I stated, ending the conversation there as I continued to walk off.

    After a moment of silence on her behalf, I heard the patters of her footsteps as she rushed to catch up to me.

 Chapter Six: Splitting the party (1/2)

    The moon had risen and fallen by the point we reunited with the others once more. We were now all huddled around the main dining room, talking about what quest we were going to do.

    Charles, taking the lead, one-sidedly announced, ¡°So, to explain for the crafters, we selected two quests. One to uncover an assassin in the priesthood, and the other to help subjugate the yearly green-skin mass. The former is more inclusive. Naturally, ¡®S¡¯ and miss Jacqueline cannot attend. Although not explicitly banned, necromancers and the undead are very much taboo. And since Mask has sworn an apology for his crimes leading to his traitor title, it makes sense that him, Sam and I fulfil the quest for the church whereas the others achieve the others. ¡±

    I butted in however in a monotoned confession, ¡°I have an objection. I am also a traitor, and unlike mask, I will never apologize for my actions which lead up to it. So I will join miss Ess and Jacqueline instead.¡±

    Even though there were eight other people in the room previously eating in amidst the conversation, it was silent enough to hear the mild wind outside. Everyone, aside from S- who had no emotion on her skull- and Serv- who seemed completely unperturbed- stared at me with a mixture of scorn and shock.

    The silence ended with Charles, now laughing out of what can only be described as delirium, asked, ¡°You¡¯re kidding, right? How the heck is someone as young as you a ¡®traitor¡¯.¡±

    Looking into my eyes however, his laughter became staggered before quickly dying out all together. Like the others, he fell silent.

    -

    The awkward silence ended only to acknowledge the change in the split. The crafters headed to their respective workshops with Serv and Jessica. Out of the two carriages outside of the base, Mask and Charles head inside of the one not drawn by Jacq¡¯s undead horses, whereas she, S and I went into the one which was.

    Most of the trip followed the awkward silence, I spent this time watching the scenery pass by. From the regularly placed buildings of the city centre, the image became more rural throughout the duration of the journey.

    As a general pattern, the carriage went north-west of the city¡¯s outskirts. Mostly flat ground with hills and only grasses for miles around. And once officially out of the city¡¯s reach, it went about ten miles longer until a thick forest of varying tree types breached the horizon.

    Near where the forest-line started, there was ten other carriages. The people previously occupying which were standing in a large crowd with one person standing adjacent to then.

    Upon our arrival, Jacq unsummoned the carriage and we joined the crowd. Hearing mid-way into the speaker¡¯s speech, who became derailed after our carriage- apparently the last one- to ask if everyone was here.

    In a loud, but unstrained shout, the armoured female knight acting as the speaker announced, ¡°Good greetings everyone, my name is ¡®Claudia¡¯ of The Guild of Red Fangs. I welcome our representatives of: The Guild of Bloody Swords, The Guild of Blue Wolves, The Guild of A Thousand Flames, The Guild of The Golden Touch and, last but not least, The Guild of Black Sheep. And wish to express my pleasure in working with you all.¡±

    She took a small break from her announcement to allow for everyone to look around at one another. As the late-comers, most gazes are directed our way.

    Unlike our clan, who generally wore whatever we wanted due to no one sharing the same discipline, the other clans were more or less colour coded. Claudia and the people wearing the same armour, all had full suits of bluish-grey full-plate armour, with emblems of a blood-red, sharp and long tooth- root and all- on a black background. Their weapons were almost all polearms, with most using spears, a handful using tridents and one or two sword users. There was eleven people other than Claudia who had this pattern of dress, split evenly between men and women based on first glance knowledge.

    Those with similar, but fundamentally different emblems- of a blood-red silhouette of a plain sword on a similarly black background- varied their armours from light, scarlet-tanned leather to similar plate armour. But whereas the Red Fangs had their emblem attached to their shoulder pads, all the bloody sword members had black and red swords, the hilt of which had their emblem attached. There were also twelve people with a similar getup.

    Others who belonged to the blue wolves all wore leather armour, dyed navy blue. Their weapons varied from throwing knives with a diverse range of types, daggers, rapiers and one with an arbalest, which looked heavy considering the person with the second most fragile-looking build- second only to me- was visibly shaking as he carried it. They seemed to be the most numerous, with about twenty of their number.

    Next, there were people wearing cloaks and tall hats sharp enough to be considered a weapon. Some held staves with others holding nothing, with daggers secured to their waists. They were the second lowest in number, counting eight in total.

    Finally was a party of people dressed in white robes. Emblems of golden silhouettes of an open hand adorned their robes. They had fifteen members, split into three smaller groups of five.

    With vague introductions out of the way, Claudia gained our attention once more in saying, ¡°For now, before we begin, I will state our goal: Foremost, save any survivors of the twelve parties reportedly working in the area as of yesterday. Otherwise slaughter any and all greenskins from the area, the numbers of which are between three and four digits based on the information we have received. They are, for now, scattered amongst this forest. And, although they might not daunt any of you, I shall remind you that more people died last year from goblins than any other monster, with orcs in the top five. Final reminder, the job ends when we meet the other team on the other side.¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    Realizing no one was moving after she turned away, one of her guild members quietly spoke to her then she turned back explaining, ¡°Oh, yeah¡­ Formations. Firstly, my guild¡¯s parties will vanguard for The Guild of Thousand Flames, and will do so centrally. To our left, we request the parties of the Blue Wolves to fight. To our right, we request the bloody swords. You three from the Guild of Black Sheep, feel free to join whichever flank you wish. Finally, those of the Golden touch, please split evenly behind us. For if we retrieve any casualties, you will be critical in helping them. Now then, without much further ado¡­ I wish us all to be successful with casualties. Let us prepare our lines and begin on our count.¡±

    The others quickly formed up according to the plan, whereas Jacq explained, ¡°We should join the left flank. The blue wolves do not have many genuine vanguard, the bloody swords are generally seen as elitists and the other two guilds have their bases covered for the most part.¡±

    Upon S and I nodding in response, we followed Jacq to the left flank. This leading those from the Blue Wolves to eye us with curiosity. Shortly after, I grabbed my bow and- for now- a single arrow headed with a dimly-glowing stone. S wielded her sword and equipped her helmet and Jacq summoned ten of her larger skeletons, the eleven skeletons then headed to the front row. And after doing so, the other¡¯s curiosity seemed to be saited as they placed four of their own members to stand with S and the skeletons at the front, and six- including the man with the arbalest- stood with me and Jacq in the back row. The rest made up a middle row, spacing the vanguard in teams of six with spaces between them for them to make their attacks and fall back effectively.

    The closest of our section to the centre was still about fifty or so metres away from them. And the front row was split into 4 teams of three vanguards who were all spaced a metre apart, with five metre gaps between the teams for the middle row to properly attack into and out of effectively. The main reason for the space though was due to the forest not being uniform, having the space meant we could split trees between us without losing overall time. The healers being a safe but close enough distance of ten metres behind the back row, with a few metres between each row. I was on the left side, as was S. Jacq being more central.

    There wasn¡¯t a need to communicate further, and since the other three clans were set up already, so the countdown started immediately after one of the blue wolves gestured to the others that we were done.

    At the end of the countdown, we marched through the forest at a cautious- yet not boringly slow- pace. And to start with, apart from me or one of the other ranged rearguard killing the occasional goblin munching on some dead animal or magic beast before it realized we were even there. Unlike in the dragon fight, I only used my magic to get new arrows from my interdimensional storage. Relying on good aim to shove an arrow in their necks-or their eyes or mouths when I wished to show off.

    But this changed eventually, with a slightly muffled yet audible call out from someone in another team. Who simply called out, ¡°Large group, don¡¯t let any escape.¡±

    The fight from the centre party spilled over onto our side as we closed the gap. With our forces making a near-surround on the tide of greenskins.

    Initially it was only goblins, who- to Jacque¡¯s skeletons- died in one hit. The arbalest user¡¯s shots were far slower than mine, but cleanly cleaved heads off of whatever goblin got in its crosshair. The forest up to this point was even ground, which made hitting things far-off hard when they got too close.

    As the tide felt like it was fading, a wave of delirious and fleeing Orcs ran into our vanguard. Although most went down as swiftly as the hill of goblin corpses, some survived the initial attacks by Jacq¡¯s skeletons. With one or two being in bad positions for us, managing to get a hit or two off before a middle-ranked fighter could help finish it. They only increased in number from then on, at a rate of almost replacing every dead orc with two more.

    Before long, we had another fight on our hands. With a surge of orcs lead by a troll, which towered a head above its fellow orcs, hitting our left flank. So whilst we surrounded the middle lot, they were almost surrounding us. One of the other rear-guards near the other sections called out the news in a loud and succinct tone.

    With even S having to fight the left conglomerate of the ten or so orcs lead by the ogre, I started firing once more. Due to how close the fight was and how tall Jacq¡¯s skeletons were, I was forced to aim for joints in their arm or shoot over. As, for the most part, heads were completely hidden in the mess and we had no vertical terrain like a hill to benefit us.

    The left orc force gained numbers faster than we could slay them, soon risking to spill over into a surround. With this being so, an order to fallback ten or so metres in the middle was given by one of the middle ranks. And as we did so, the two flanks- instead of surrounding us completely- mindlessly went for the path of least resistance, meeting where we had fallen back. But rather than gaining numbers, the two seperate forces instead attacked one another as well as us.

    Even though the fight had turn into an easier one for the middle two teams of vanguard, the ogre on the left finally reached striking range with the left-hand flank, which contained S. Even though I could- and therefore did- shoot in its eye due to its increased height, it didn¡¯t die from the first one, and covered them for the rest of the fight with its arm. The arm regenerating every wound before it became an issue, completely glancing off arrows going through its joints. Whilst countering me effectively, its other pummeled blindly into S and the other skeletons on the flank.

    Although not hitting, as it got closer S and the others ran out of space. And even with attacks from me and many people in the middle ranks, none made it even flinch. With mostly knife users and broadsword users without much space, and less every second, the ogre uncovered its face to hit an opportunity attack on one of the non-S skeletons.

    Given this chance, one of the arbalest user¡¯s arrow then whipped through the air. Before the ogre could react, its left ear and most of its surrounding face were torn off. Causing it to wildly miss its mark, get into a daze and left it hopeless to our attacks. S and one of the other vanguards got heavy attacks off to its waist, I got an attack off to its eyes as some throwing-knife users made a pincushion out of its body. Finally, an attack from a vanguard¡¯s sword severed its head from its body, an attack even an ogre couldn¡¯t survive.

    The mop-up of the three remaining orcs went far easier, and whilst we were focusing on the ogre, the other side had completely finished its fight, having even made sure no survivors had fled from behind by pushing plenty forwards. This result lead to a joint sigh of relief from the majority fighting.

    -

    The general pest control continued for over an hour, without another large group to be seen. The forest had gotten more dense, so even though it was still around noon at this point, none of that light could reach through the canopy.

    Eventually we heard muffled screams from our left. So, us in the left half of our flank split to investigate it, as the others asked for a temporary pause.

 Chapter Seven: Splitting the party (2/2)

    Upon hearing the screaming, most people broke rank and sprinted towards the source of the noise. There were people like me however who simply walked behind the chaos, with most of the people supposed to be in the front row being behind people. With S being even further behind, walking alongside me as we joined them in investigating.

    She, thankfully, had not even a scratch on her armour. Meanwhile, one of Jacq¡¯s skeletons bore dents in their armour and skull, so likely took all the hits from the ogre. In spite of this, she seemed lost, if not downright depressed. Focusing on something else to the degree of not noticing things like trees and people in her way, nor even communicating to me.

    Continuing to watch her brood on her thoughts, the people we were following headed into a nearby cave somewhat shielded from the forest¡¯s foliage. Inside, the screams became louder, and the occasional clang of metal and grunt could be heard when the screams had a pause.

    Now running, I finally spot Jacq herself in the twenty odd people all piling into the narrow cave; all her skeletons not with her.

    Finally, we get close enough to see blood; both the green blood of the greenskins whose corpses littered the already cramped tunnel, and mixed in was the occasional spot of red blood of the humanoid(s) who released such a scream. The noise of fighting was still a ways away from the sound of it, but we patiently wait either way. Mainly because I was likely critical for transportation, and I¡¯d get blamed for letting people die if I wasn¡¯t trying to get there.

    The tunnels soon opened out to a massive room, in which you could see all the people massacring everything green and moving. Two people, who weren¡¯t with us before, laid bleeding on the cold, jagged floor. I used most of my energy to open a portal, and lead the two through it as the others were found¡­ Although this made me on the edge of passing out, getting closer with every second.

    Safely getting the two outside to where the main group were, the healers who remained waiting got the message with no words needed. Immediately getting them from me and starting treatment both efficiently and cautiously.

    I could also see that the others were still busy looting the previous site as we were trying to save lives¡­ the ¡®main¡¯ objective of our mission.

    S shortly followed, getting through my portal with yet another survivor who¡¯s taken of her hands swiftly.

    ¡°Stamina potion¡­ please¡­¡± I demand with heavy breath. One is thrown my way without delay, and I glug the contents of the blue potion down with one swig. Continuing through the portal to the inside of the cave.

    In the time passed, it had become far less cluttered, with the dying lined up patiently against a wall. And the combatants retreating to allow the seven healers present more access. However, without many provisions due to the rush, they couldn¡¯t do much. Six of the ten people lying there definitely not breathing, and the screeches of agony from the other four resounded through the otherwise silent cave. S and myself, with later Jacq joining in as well, couldn¡¯t even access them due to the wall of people blocking the healers off, even when I pointed it out verbally, my words went unheard¡­

    Out of the four, three fell silent. The forth falling unconscious, and finally allows to leave through my portal before I joined them, the world falling dark on my end due to magic power deficiency.

    -

    Gentle noises from the environment awoke me, the sun poking out of a cloud at that very moment to burn my retina for good measure. Again, the sensation on the back on my head was of an odd, but not necessarily uncomfortable firmness.

    Before I regained my vision, I called out, ¡°Miss Ess?¡±

    ¡®Hey Sam. I carried you until we reached an opening, then the others continued as Jacq told me to let you rest. She¡¯s also here, looking after the survivors. It¡¯s not like anything happened whilst I was waiting¡­¡¯ she explained through telepathy.

    As I rose my head from her lap, my retina burn died off enough to let me see her. And so, I sat up and faced her.

    She gave me a meal, waiting for me to finish it. Dismissing offers to share with ¡®I¡¯ve already eaten¡­ I don¡¯t need to eat anyway.¡¯ I couldn¡¯t even finish half of it before my stomach gave up.

    However, she was lying evidently from the green, viscous liquid still dripping from her sword. Yet, I don¡¯t bother pointing it out, instead asking in a cold, monotone, ¡°Did the fourth end up surviving?¡±

    She simply shook her head, looking down without a word.

    ¡°Oh well, how about this. Given the dim mood already, I will let you ask me a question about myself, and I will answer it for you. Hopefully it will at least distract you from what just happened.¡±

    It took her awhile to consider the deal, but eventually looked to me and nodded.

    ¡®Why are you a traitor?¡¯

    At her question, Jacq- who was trying to look as if she wasn¡¯t listening in and doing her own thing a few metres away- suddenly twitched and unconsciously looked this way before turning away swiftly.

    ¡°Will you believe my answer?¡± I countered, remembering how absurd the story was.

    Only when she faced me and nodded, I continued, ¡°Do you know what this is?¡±

    I pulled up my leather armour, revealing plenty of scars which still showed up on my extremely tanned skin, and other than that there was a burn with a circular form. A round shape which once magnificently portrayed a beetle, was now disfigured. Although the burn should be black, it was only a pale red- barely coming up on my skin at all. Jacqueline closed the distance to take a look herself, not even putting up a pretence as intrigue dominate her thoughts.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    ¡°It is what you think Miss Ess and Jacqueline, I used to be a slave. My masters were merciless, cancerous... and overwhelmingly stupid enough to teach me void magic. So, I became a traitor when I used the latter to murder my master and freed myself. Do you wish for more details, or is that depressing enough as it is?¡±

    Both fell silent, likely asking themselves the obvious question, just to remember what ¡®void¡¯ magic truly was. Nodding as it eventually made sense. Then, as both looked down at the ground at a similar timing, both finally asked the other obvious question.

    As the answer couldn¡¯t come to her, S blatantly asked me, ¡®Why are you a traitor for that though? Are the gods really that strict even in such circumstances?¡¯

    Jacq, knowing the answer, simply faced away from S as I coldly answered, ¡°That is how the world works, Miss S. Although I had a few gods, goddesses and gatekeepers on my side, the high council couldn¡¯t come to the decision to remove the title due to there being a draw in their ruling, so, due to how the system works, it stuck. It is that simple. I refuse to regret my decision, so get hated.¡±

    ¡®I¡­ I¡­ I can¡¯t understand! How can the gods, who out ruled slavery in this world, allow such a thing? And how does a council even end up drawing, with an odd number of people?!¡¯

    Jacq looked back at me, curious herself as to the answers.

    ¡°For one, I was enslaved in the underrealm, although being born in this realm and returning here before the council met. One of the reasons it was controversial was due to the laws governing the underrealm taking precedence in the case. And, for the latter, a member of the sworn into the council refused to pick a side. Their reason being both loyalties to the system making accepting our ruling impossible, but also a sense of ethics meaning he couldn¡¯t reject it either. This was allowed back then, because, although a draw could have happened, apparently my case was indeed the first that it did, and so they flipped a coin and made it stick... Due to privacy on cases in the high court, my name was masked. But, as it caused wars between some of the gods and goddesses in this plain, likely any god knows the case, including Lithy.¡± I had no emotion in my voice as I recounted it.

    S fell silent once more, looking down at the floor. Jacq left, keeping with the survivors. And the awkwardness continued for a few more minutes.

    Eventually both decided we should rejoin the effort. With S physically dragging me as she sprinted, yet, due to my own weakness in that regard, she ended up carrying me most of the way. Jacq had summoned some skeletons to carry the still unconscious survivors. Going straight in the forest, only deviating slightly as to not hit trees, we reach the lines in a reasonable about of time.

    They all seemed fine, even somewhat bored. They also let the blue wolves join the bloody sword¡¯s side, likely due to the lack of vanguards on one flank and lack of rear guards on the other. Most, aside from few individuals in the middle row and all of the mages, were coated in the green-skin¡¯s blood, to a point where it likely caused problems. Also, the amount of corpses made physically moving an army was hampered significantly.

    ¡°You three, make a section to join our flank. We could use the help,¡± one of the mages announced, snatching us for what was now the left flank.

    Due to this, I proceeded to summon my bow, S wielded her blade and Jacq set up her skeletons to make yet another flank, with being central in it. As we set up as they continued to march at a snail¡¯s pace, there was no need to coordinate a pause with the other flank. And soon, both flanks, lead by some of the rearguard, ordered us to speed up since the corpses had long come to an end. So we gained ground at a relatively decent rate, seeing visible progress in ten minutes against the dense forestry shrub which dominated the ground.

    Soon, we reached one more combat. This fight was slightly smaller in scale than the one earlier, but with three ogres, and the rest of the near triple digits of things being orcs, with a handful of the orcs being high ones. The fight relied mainly on both the vanguard not falling, and the rearguard mage¡¯s area of effect attacks, which, even for the thousand flames mages, was significant. With them alone halving the amount of living greenskins. Jacq, on the other hand, didn¡¯t join in by using her magic. Instead, her sole contribution was her summons, who definitely did their job.

    I, myself, killed a couple orcs. Primarily aiming at eyes, inside of open mouths and in elbow and shoulder joints, either killing them outright, or crippling their attacks for the vanguard to mow them down. The ogres were the only problem, but as we slaughtered the orcs, an individual in the high orcs became significant.

    Even though high orcs was basically just a rank of how visibly dominating an orc seemed, being killed the same way but with a slight bit of caution added on; one soon stood out, the one wearing a crown. And since most- but not all- of the orcs were ¡®male¡¯, having aesthetically male chests, this was one of the minority who were female. In fact, even though they were overall lower in number, the females made up a high proportion of those we judges as high orcs.

    A lot of the comments from the people were about this individual, otherwise being comprised of complaining about kill stealing, and notifying others were they were and which targets was theirs. It was highlighted by the commentary between the bloody swords and red fangs about the red gangs actually showing caution when fighting them,  and the bloody swords backhandedly insulting them for doing so.

    Using a massive blade and shield, they stood at the back. As I could see them between the ogres and over the orcs, I took some shots. Not missing, she soon took notice of me. Anticlimactically, however, as they began to shield me off, they suddenly fell. Their head being unceremoniously split in half probably due to the arbalest or some magic.

    With that, the remaining orcs became frenzied. Attacking each other and us with a new-found vigour. The ogres on the other hand, simply swatted the orcs away, mostly towards our lines, as they revelled in the chaos. Soon being the only ones, due to there only being ten orcs even left after the king¡¯s death, and the high orcs being killed by the rearguard before the vanguard could even reach them. Annoying them to no end.

    Each of the ogres took time to kill, that was, until Jacq actually used her magic to completely dissolve one into darkness. For the other two, One was whittled down on the right flank, using the arbalest to secure the kill. On our end, the ogre was distracted by me, significantly wounded by the fire mages, and killed by a large swing by S and another skeleton, simultaneously decapitating and disemboweling it.

    The former lasted longer, as they mainly used patience on their flank to wait for openings, whereas we mostly spammed attacks until it became weak enough to kill. And with that, we regained the drops¡­ As in, I took an ogre and some high orcs without anyone realizing, as the others simply grabbed loots. Mainly fighting over the crown.

    That was the last major fight, as the rest was just killing remnant stragglers until we met up with the three other flanks. Upon meeting them, we were told our mission was completed, each guild participating was given a certificate of acknowledgement by a ¡®witness¡¯ from the guild hiding his identity as one of the healers, and we were basically forced back to where we came.

    We casually walked back, not needing to rush or anything. Eventually, after hunting a couple beasts and securing as many herbs as they could force me to put in my inventory, we exited the forest, Jacq summoned her carriage, and we headed back. Getting back as sunset started to kick in, painting the otherwise plain, navy-blue sky with an array of purples and reds.

 Chapter Eight: Double Seance

    Around five-ish in the afternoon, the three of us- in Jacq¡¯s carriage- arrive at the block-shaped guild hall. Simply with the job of declaring our job done.

    Being late enough to not be around noon, but also not late enough for people to have finished travelling from their afternoon jobs, there are only around twenty people on the first floor, with five of them being guild employees. Due to this, we arrived at the counter after we started queuing without a noticeable wait.

    The employee behind the counter we go to was an elf; to state his pale complection, thin but muscular build and pointed ears was just redundant. The only remotely interesting part of his visual description, aside from both them being here and working for the guild, was purple eyes- which although he tried to hide with some kind of magic to blue, showed themselves in flickers which I could easily see.

    ¡°Good afternoon lady, sir and skeleton, how may I serve you?¡± To his question, I handed the certificate we were handed upon doing our job. He became silent as he read over the details.

    After a minute of skeptically reading, he faced back at us with a sigh and handed back the paper. ¡°I see, well then. I can confirm this quest complete.¡± He leaves for another minute, before returning. ¡°Please enter room two-nineteen, second floor, on the left from where you enter. We will prepare your reward there. By the way, we have to ask you to remove your summon Miss¡­ Jacqueline was it?¡±

    ¡°She isn¡¯t one, this lady here is just a free, sentient skeleton who joined our guild,¡± Jacq explained. With S waving on her own accord to the hapless clerk.

    ¡°Oh, I do apologize for my assumption then¡­ Well then, please feel free to all go to the room,¡± he beckoned us to the stairs, and welcomed the next person as we left.

    We headed up the stairs without issue, with literally no one in sight for the entire process we reached the room without serious delay. There, S knocked before hearing a voice to come in, which we obliged.

    Inside, another employee, this time a human female, gestured towards a heavily cushioned, wide chair which could seat at least five people at once which I had never seen before.

    Once confirming us seated, she asked, ¡°Can you present the certificate and your guild cards please?¡±

    When we immediately handed over, she scowled them for a few seconds with glowing eyes, looking back at us with a nod after it had been done.

    ¡°I can confirm these aren¡¯t forgeries. Now then, onto the reward¡­ The total award given by the town of Lacria was fifty gold, and this city of Prestoria awarding another one-hundred to total one-hundred-and-fifty gold. With six parties fulfilling the request, as the certificate says, we have split the reward so that your guild gets twenty of this gold. This being due to your lack of numbers both working and at the risk of dying. Although we do acknowledge with your successes on your side; such as saving the majority of people and slaying your fair share of orcs and ogres. Hence, although it may seem small when compared to how much the other guilds will receive, we believe this to be a fair amount and you have heard our reasoning behind this. Do you have any problems with the reward amount based on our explanation?¡±

    We unanimously shook our heads, so she continued, ¡°Well then, please wait for me to amass the reward.¡± After saying which, she headed through the backdoor, which locked both magically and physically as it closed behind her.

    Sometime later, she returned with a small bag, handing it to Jacq. She, once counting it, threw it to me. Although it vanished into my storage midair. We then left the room and guildhall, returning to our carriage.

    -

    The sun fell by the time we returned to our base. Jacq clears away the carriage, as me and S head into our guild¡¯s base. The clanking of metal from the workshop, and other grating noises in the background likely from sawing, are the only sounds present as we head to them. Scarce other sounds from the building can be heard.

    As we have no real goods for Grey, and hearing him still busy, we only knock on Helen¡¯s workshop. Which, although emanating noise, was silent in comparison to Grey¡¯s next door.

    The door opens, to reveal Serv as the one who opened it. I simply pass her the ogre and a few orcs that were in good enough condition for me to pick up. All having only a few massive cuts in them and no arbalest-sized holes in their bodies or chests. She ignored me and, after inspecting the corpses, took them inside. I then left with S to the main room.

    We had the money in forms of twenty small gold coins, so we gave two to the designated area in the shrine Lethy made in the base, putting the rest of the money par mine, Jacq¡¯s and S¡¯s share and a note on the dining table. Then S and I split for the night. Either waiting for morning, or for the others to arrive.

    Upon reaching my room, I lie floor with the usual blanket. Having only rested due to magic power fatigue and not on the carriage ride like normal, my body put up no resistance, falling asleep spontaneously.

    Instead of blacking out, I end up in a familiar, near blinding white room. Two fidgeting figures on the other side.

    ¡°¡±We need to¡­¡±¡± the two said in sync, snapping to the other with expressions of confusion.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    One was a black-haired male, with a stout, muscular build and wore simple overalls with a blue apron on. The other, a platinum-blonde female with scales over some of her skin, intricate red marks on her face and spread down her neck to where it hid under her rather revealing clothing.

    ¡°Why are you here?! I on purposely seanced this boy! Get out now,¡± the male declared.

    ¡°How shallow, I seanced this child on my own accord. If anyone should leave, it should be you,¡± the female countered.

    ¡°You draconic gods are so full of yourself! My personal child is at risk of this traitor murdering him, and even though I went through all the right channels¡­ How dare you feel entitled to eavesdrop!¡±

    ¡°You dwarven gods are so rash and hypocritical, my favourite daughter is at more risk! No dwarf are even is this traitor¡¯s party, so how is your child at risk?¡±

    ¡°I can say the same for bloody dragons Missy. Also, I reign over all smiths. You have no excuse miss Andricine, goddess of white dragons. Oh, you didn¡¯t know? Us dwarfs actually bother to learn the names and domains of other gods and goddesses in our plane, as we¡¯re not egoists, unlike your own! My name is Logan Ironforge, god of Mister Jacob Silverfang, who under me made a legendary weapon is in his party. And, so, very much is at risk of him.¡± Resting his case, he simply asked, ¡°Well Missy, anything to say in defence or will you kindly leave?¡±

    ¡°Fair point, I must acknowledge I am indeed shocked that you know who I am¡­ However, you are critically wrong. There is indeed a dragon in the same clan, who, unlike your claimed son who I¡¯ve already seen murder people, my daughter is a pacifist through and through. If anyone is at risk from the boy who killed a dragon with a single arrow, she is. And I very much refuse to let this happen, thank you very much.¡±

    Easily figuring out who each of them are talking about, I soon cough to bring the attention back to me. ¡°Did you two hear the story I just told, or do I have to repeat myself? This is getting annoying if I do say so myself. If you are to say no, I¡¯d suggest using judgement on what I¡¯m about to tell you. I can guarantee you will not believe me.¡±

    Both turn to me, with gaping expressions apparently appalled by my lack of emotions. Andricine stated the obvious, ¡°We are gods. You are a mortal. Do you not fear us just killing you here and now for insulting us?¡±

    ¡°You are the idiots who would have to explain your reason for killing me to Klast and the council. Knowing him, he¡¯d very much ruin your day for your problems. So, miss Andricine... Go on, I dare you.¡±

    Both immediately cringe, then Logan, who had been being quiet while fuming expressionally with rage, answered my previous question, ¡°At least I have not heard your story. I have no time to spend stalking the mortal realm, especially for those who aren¡¯t my disciples.¡± Andricine nods to his sentiments.

    ¡°Alright, let me make this quick. Remember a specific high court case¡­ from about five years ago? If you remember any case from that time, you will likely know the one I am talking about.¡±

    Thinking hard, Logan swiftly clicks his fingers whereas Andricine doesn¡¯t, brooding for over a minute more before shrugging in defeat¡­

    ¡°W-wait¡­ You can¡¯t be, right? I didn¡¯t get the deal back then, but if you¡¯re this young, I can see why that drama happened.¡±

    ¡°Huh¡­ Oh, are you talking about that slave-master killing ca¡­ Judgement: are you perhaps saying you were the defendant in that case? That¡¯s awfully coincidental if so.¡±

    ¡°Yes, yes I am. You now know why I became a traitor. Well? Did I die ,or can you understand the non-issue and let me go yet? If you want more details, you will have to ask Klast however¡­ I am honestly shocked he even allowed me to say that much knowing how much of a black scar it is for him.¡±

    Both are too shocked to reply, each unblinkingly staring into one another¡¯s eyes in astonishment.

    Eventually, they snap out of it. With Andricine asking me one more question, ¡°Judgement. I said too much, so I know you now know who my daughter in your group is. Therefore, answer me this: Will you show her, or his- as obvious to you now as my daughter- son, direct danger?¡±

    ¡°No. Why would I bother doing that? The only reason I have not explained my title and past is that, unless it was directly needed or I was in a position where it would leak out immediately, Klast banned me from mentioning that role. In the case it did leak, he allowed me to explain it to anyone. Also, I know no one without Judgement will believe me anyway, so what would be the point?¡±

    ¡°Meeting Adjourned. Now that I know the circumstances for myself, allow me to express apologies to the dim attitude and blatant anger I showed you here. My precious daughter is that important to me¡­ Hopefully the next time we meet, the tone is more relaxed.¡± Andricine explained, curtseying.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry too¡­ Sam was it? I was too brash as well. Now you know who my son is, you can likely guess how many people have harboured ill-mannered plans for him in the past,¡± Logan followed, bowing.

    At that point, the seance ended and the sound of S¡¯s¡­ voice, woke me.

    ¡®Hey, Sam¡­ Are you asleep?¡¯, she asked. Through the doorway I could hear her starting to walk away.

    Without speaking, I put on some clothes in a rush and ran after her. Lightly panting, I returned a question, ¡°S-sorry miss S¡­ What is it?¡±

    ¡®The others came back a while ago, and asked me to hand you your share. I¡­ Sam, do you hate people knowing that story?¡¯

    ¡°You got Jacqueline to tell them, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    She faced her skull to the side, forcing an answer, ¡®n-n¡­ Kinda?¡¯

    ¡°Miss S, I did not keep it a secret because I wanted to. Firstly, something out of my control was indeed stopping me, and secondly, not everyone is as.... Trusting as you Miss S. I did not even think Jacqueline would buy it, let alone the people who openly showed me contempt. Now, I did tell you the truth, I am also used to no one believing it. So please don¡¯t feel bad about it.¡±

    ¡®I¡­ I didn¡¯t want to tell them. Jacq wasn¡¯t even there, so I just rebutted. I didn¡¯t know Serv could understand me, so she started telling the others the story with skepticism. I did my best to make sure they believed you, but even Jessica voiced some doubt about it.¡¯

    ¡°To be expected, even if it is true, it sure must seem like a crazy story. But, thank you for at least believing me when the others clearly do not. Goodnight Miss S.¡±

    Saying that, I wait for the money to be given, then left for my room to sleep once more.

 Chapter Nine: Calm before the storm.

    Waking up, I get immediately blinded by opening my eyes in a bright white room. There, again, two figures are sitting. Straining my eyes full of retina burn, I could tell one of them was lithy and the other, Klast.

    Although normally looking as if he was about to kill everybody in the room with a face permanently pressed with scorn, with a large and outwardly ruffian physique that would cause even higher beings to shudder. Now, he showed an expression of notable contempt my direction me. His blood-red eyes staring daggers into me, with his dark-skin having a red hue.

    ¡°Sam, there is a limit to how many gods, deities or whatever I wish pestering me. Regardless, we have business so let us not digress,¡± he bluntly stated, letting Lithy fill me with the details.

    ¡°So, this little fiasco happened at a terrible timing. To cut a long story short, a majority of the treant population are causing an uprising within most of the forests on the continent as a whole. Warning they will cause as much damage as possible in a week given no decision is reached in time, which we know will not happen. Though they do have a valid reason, ¡®tis a bit of a concern and limiting the situation has become a priority A request for every guild in the country¡­ including ours. Now, the members protected by the gods will likely have you identified as a non-issue due to the priority, and I will try to get the others to ignore the issue as I announce the situation to everyone as a whole¡­ Yet, with a request of this magnitude, I feel that even the remnants of a drama will become an issue. So, I implore you to deal with it as soon as possible. I have a plan in place to help you do so, just do not try to aggravate the situation further.¡± She explained, allowing no time for comments and expressing a strict, non-nonsense tone.

    ¡°I will do my best. However, will you actually allow me to explain the situation in full master Klast? Leaving anything out will only lead to more questions,¡± I commented, pressuring the person who fumed with fury already.

    ¡°Go ahead,¡± he answered, filling every syllable with emphasis.

    ¡°Meeting adjourned.¡±

    With the swift conversation over, I end up waking in the real world. My eyes, although severely in pain during the seancing, had no such issue now. The light in the room was about normal for when I wake up, and I could hear footsteps quickly closing on through the door.

    Preempting whoever they were, I opened the door¡­ getting hit in the face by something hard and falling due to it.

    ¡®Uh¡­ Sam? Are you¡­ okay? I-I¡­ I¡¯m sorry. S-sorry, please follow me though.¡¯ S helped me up and then bowed profusely, apologizing.

    Having a revelation about how S always woke me up with her knocking alone, I then proceeded to shake it off and followed her without more conversation.

    She lead me to the shrine room- the room directly opposite of the dining room. In it was a simple and humble shrine with a statue of Lithy at its centre at the front, and nine seats- six of which packed with all the members of the guild par me, S and Charles. There was no conversation of curiosity or any other icebreaking topic, although the silence is occasionally broken with a yawn I don¡¯t bother to locate the source of.

    -

    Eventually Charles came, entering without a word and filling the final chair swiftly.

    A light filled the room. An intense blue coming from the statue, as movements behind the veil of light became evermore present.

    As suddenly as it came, it vanished like mist into the background. The statue being replaced by a moving, living being. The avatar of Lithy, with identical looks.

    Without room for commentary, she explained the situation in full, ¡°To those who have no gods, let me explain the situation. There is a priority A quest coming in a week, and I can see the seeds of distrust in your relationship due to a specific recent ordeal. I implore you to follow what I say without question to sort things out. So, I have arranged a trip for all of you in the neighboring country of Alpatoa, one of the more vibrant nations with both great scenes of nature and a strong, quirky culture. All I want you to do: relax and get rid of the animosity building within you. Now then, the arranged carriage will arrive in an hour from now. This is no joke, for the reasons stated, this is imperative you obey the request.¡± Taking a deep breath, she continued to ask, ¡°Any questions.¡±

    The room was in silence as she finished. From the expression on those who had faces, confusion over it reached critical mass. Even Helen and Serv reacted by blankly staring into space, trying to compute the situation in front of us.

    To break the ice, Charles simply asked, ¡°Sorry Goddess Lithy, but who do you see as right?¡±

    ¡°After using judgement and talking to other gods, I can only say I believe his surreal story. Those with gods of their own should also reach this conclusion to it in due time. Any more questions?¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!

    A unanimous nod ended the conversation then are there. With everyone splitting up to pack their needed stuff.

    -

    Soon the deadline had come, and as we lined up outside in silence. Everyone carried their own necessities, with me not even offering to store anything. The carriage came a few minutes out of time, and we all fit in with no delay.

    A thick atmosphere of brooding and confusion filled the journey with silence. With me taking an end seat, with S next to me and Jacq on the other side. Helen, Serv and Grey filled up the direct opposite side of the carriage, Mask, Charles and Jessica sitting central.

    -

    The tense aura inside made it so I couldn¡¯t sleep, so instead, I viewed the scenery gradually change out of the window. Adding to the silence. Even with this said, the journey wasn¡¯t ¡®short¡¯, with a few hours travelling to the coast, upon which we boarded a ship which brought us to an island, where we spent another hour travelling on land.

    However, eventually the journey ended. Trees pink with blossoms lined the streets, oriental arches loomed over a path on a nearby hill and the sunset died the orderly streets with wooden houses scarlet, all of which greeted our collected vision as we exited. The building we were guided to was only four stories, but with lack of competition from the ordinary houses- which seemed more like huts with their short height- it poked out of the horizon with ease. A massive sign over the archaic wooden building read ¡®Hakimora Resort¡¯.

    We entered in silence, the scenery doing nothing to stop the doomed atmosphere around us.

    Upon entering, the otherwise cheery employees sporting unusual clothing, all did their job around us succinctly. Actively avoiding us in the process. All have a similar aesthetic to them. The humans, elves and other races all sharing tanned skin and similar facial features such as extremely thin eyes.

    The person behind the counter who spoke to us simply explained in our language, ¡°Our resort has separate bathing and rooms for the genders¡­ So, the males get room 19 and the females get room 20, our employees will inform you when the baths are open for your use. We suggest which for the sake of sorting out room service. As only a few of us speak your language, we request you to wait upon us doing our routine services unless absolutely necessary. Unless you have any questions: here are your keys, as you have booked the rooms for two nights and one day, please enjoy your stay. Any questions?¡±

    There are none. And with the awkward silence continuing, we split by gender and enter our rooms unimpeded.

    -

    With Charles, Mask, Grey and myself setting up our bedding, a conversation eventually begins with a simple question asked.

    Grey, tapping my back, forced me to look in his eyes and asked, ¡°Sam, is the absurd story we were told through miss Serv translating miss S¡¯s recollection correct?¡±

    Unflinching, I replied, ¡°What did S¡­ Ser¡­ What story did you hear?¡± I stuttered slightly simply due confusion on how to word the question.

    ¡°I heard you were a slave, who killed your master somehow and then got smited by the high council for doing so. If you confirm the story, give me an explanation on how killing a master and causing such a big scene in the high council is possible, if you will,¡± The other two nodded with Grey¡¯s sentiment, all focusing on me with baited breath.

    On purpose, I face Grey in particular with a grin etched into my face. ¡°It is all true. I will answer your question, but I can not find it fair if I am the only one bearing my life story. So, how about you tell me about this legendary weapon I heard about from Logan, mister¡­ Jacob was it?¡±

    ¡°How do you know?!¡± Grey¡¯s face immediately turned flush as he grabbed my collar and forced me against a wall. Charles''s jaw gaped as he stared witlessly, meanwhile Mask, although intrigued, instead wore a smile as if revelling in the chaos.

    ¡°I got seanced by two gods simultaneously yesterday, so they had a fight. During which, your god basically spilled everything to me arguing with the other god for right to seance me. Has he not told you?¡±

    ¡°I¡­ I haven¡¯t talked to him in years¡­ Fine, I will discuss this after you do.¡±

    ¡°Fine, would prefer not to repeat myself again and discuss this in front of everyone, but I will bear with it for this once. To answer your first query, to shock no one, I use void magic remember this. Being a pure archer class, I was worthless to my owners, so I ended up being taught magic to my value rise. Guess what a slave collar does? It decapitates its wearer if violence is done to the owner by the slave¡­ even if it is on the owner. Put two and two together, and you get a master killed by their own collar they attributed to me after I grabbed their shirt. For your second, I was enslaved in the underrealm by a trafficking clan. And the high council didn¡¯t know which realms laws to apply. With the outcome being decided by underrealm laws even though I was born, and was released back to this one. Does this answer your questions?¡±

    Without letting anyone have a word in, Mask snapped at me, ¡°I have a few more, brat¡­ Why didn¡¯t you just say this in the first place? Why did we need to find out through Serv skeptically translating S¡¯s recounting of your story? And why did you add in so many deals now?¡±

    The rest nodded in approval at his questions.

    ¡°It was classified by the god I serve and the high council, with my identity being anonymous to a point of absurdity during the proceedings. I was not even allowed to attend. The case was about to overflow into outright war between the gods of the different realms, Mine was not the first case of the varying realms conflicting with each other unfavourably in the high court, yet it was the most egregious by far. And, to understate the drama, gods of this realm and the ¡®underrealm¡¯ do not get along. When you said to go to the priesthood, I could not allow it simply to limit the damage of the situation- which was indeed by my god¡¯s orders to minimize those who found out. So, until the situation favoured honesty and with Lithy, Logan and the other god down his throat, my god did not wish for any of this to be known for his own sake. Does this answer your questions?¡±

    Mask nodded. Through his mask of which only his eyes showed, I could tell from the fact he was staring into space that he was in deep thought. The others also showed similar reactions, contemplating the story.

    I soon snapped back to Grey, who was still in deep thought, and simply changed the topic to pressure him. ¡°So, about the legendary weapon Grey¡­¡±

 Chapter Ten: Concluding the drama.

    Upon me pressuring him, Grey faced away. The other two¡¯s view snap his way¡­

    Grey takes a deep breath, then asked, ¡°Alright, well¡­ I don¡¯t have a choice, do I?¡± Upon seeing the other two unanimously shake their heads, he recalled, ¡°I won¡¯t say anything Helen doesn¡¯t already know. But, the weapon I made wasn¡¯t that big of a deal. Basically, I was an apprentice to a forge trying to make a new material. The first, and only, weapon made from it becoming legendary one. That¡¯s¡­ the entire story.¡±

    Hearing his story, I immediately nodded as the others brooded over his succinct story in silence.

    Eventually Mask recovered, simply asking, ¡°So, you¡¯ve not told Helen much then?¡±

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Grey mutters, his eyes darting shyly away from eye contact.

    Pondering on something as the conversation died down, Mask continued his questioning, ¡°What happened to the weapon then? It¡¯d be dumb to have brought it all the way here, right?¡±

    ¡°Fine, I sold it before fleeing. Personally not wanting to know how many people I kill by proxy, I don¡¯t tend to keep contact with those using my wares. Before you ask, I used the money to make my previous base in this city, and kept most of it as well as my later profits in the transfer to here,¡± he explained. Then, he decided to ask Mask something in return, ¡°That¡¯s enough about me, so here¡¯s a query for you mister mask: why do you wear that mask?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ personal,¡± Mask complained, looking for an out whilst unconsciously lowering his posture.

    ¡°And ours weren¡¯t?¡± Grey countered, cracks of a grin revealing just how much he revelled in seeing Mask¡¯s reaction to the same pressure he¡¯d just faced.

    ¡°The brat literally had to, and you said nothing about yourself in your story.¡± Even with his mask covering his face, his body language alone showed his true emotions.

    ¡°Okay then¡­ How about ¡®why you agreed so rapidly to miss Jacqueline catching you¡¯ then? Can you answer that?¡± The blacksmith creeped forwards, physically blocking the- actually trained in fighting- rogue from view.

    ¡°Fine! You had better delve deeper into your story though!¡± He takes a deep breath, then continues, ¡°A few years ago I broke from an assassin¡¯s clan of a neighboring country¡­ unofficially. I then slipped back into crime, even though my sister was trying to help me out. When Jacqueline caught me, I just realized how much of an idiot I really was. The only way to officially leave any assassin clan is to die, hence I, on my sister¡¯s request, left the country. I wear the mask as a small precaution to not get caught. It¡¯s to make up to my sister that I work here¡­¡± He then snapped at Grey, ¡°Happy? Now, why did you flee Grey?¡±

    With a deep sigh, Grey answered, ¡°I¡­ I need you lot to keep this quiet. This is something I want to tell Helen myself¡­ Do you promise?¡±

    Knowing it¡¯d be bothersome to not, I simply said, ¡°You have my word. I genuinely do not care anyway, and, unless S finds out, I have no reason to say a word. Yours or my own patron god can punish me if I do so.¡± Charles followed with, ¡°I swear by the church, I shall not betray your trust.¡± Mask gave a smile, a gesture of brushing himself off, then commented, ¡°I¡¯m not into blackmailing anymore, so no worries.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll believe you for now¡­ My old forging guild in a foreign country weren¡¯t the only ones there. And, my invention lead to some competitors hiring a hit. They got the wrong person, my friend from the crafting branch who had a child at home, and died very publicly with me. The father and daughter was then also hunted down, and when I got there, the assassin and the father were dying- the daughter brutally wounded. You can guess the rest from there,¡± a few tears formed in corner of his eyes, which he brushed away with his sleeve.

    Waiting patiently for everyone to take in the story, Charles then said, ¡°You know, I feel bad about this. If you have a question for me, I¡¯ll answer for fairness.¡±

    Mask, although delayed somewhat, offered a question, ¡°Why did you agree to join us? Or were you with the group before miss S and miss Jacqueline?¡±

    ¡°Huh, well I was the fourth person here. When I met the group¡­¡± There was a knocking at the door, which interrupted what he was saying.

    A few seconds later, the door to the room opened, with a man wearing odd clothes on the other side, ¡°The bath is ready for your group¡­ Feel free to use the robes in the closets, or use your own items of clothing to change out of. Once you¡¯re ready, please allow me to lead you. You have an hour, so please don¡¯t feel the need to rush yourselves.¡±

    With a small delay spent non-verbally asking each other if this was real, we all got prepared and followed him out of the simplistic yet foreign room we were in. We were then lead through some corridors, down some stairs, and ended up in front of a room with the label ¡®male¡¯ above it. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    Upon going inside, it lead to a small-ish room with numerous shelves with locked woven boxes. It also had two entrances, with one from where we entered, and another with a beaded off door. So, without continuing our conversation, I picked one, grabbed a towel and stripped. Wrapping myself with the towel before heading through the beads.

    The bath hiding behind it was¡­ out in the open. A relatively tall wooden fence did surround it, but the open sky full of stars above us made me feel slight conscious. The main area had two main parts, the first being an area with benches and buckets- which I presumed were for washing- and another which was just the bath. The bath itself, rather than the ones in our base, was basically a large pond with steam forming almost a mist around it. Some magic lamps around it lead to an almost out of world experience.

    Us four were the only ones there, in a bath which could easily fit ten. I ended up being the first in, so washed myself in an area with stools, using cheap soap I brought. Then heading into the excessively large pond-like bath.

    As I step into it, my body parts genuinely hurt due to the excessive heat. It was a struggle to force the rest of myself in, but after a minute of pain, it started to feel relaxing instead. My muscles relieving themselves of their stress.

    Charles, Mask and Grey then all followed me in, respectively. And, once they stop complaining about the heat in their own ways, a casual conversation initiated by Grey.

    ¡°I must say, I don¡¯t know what I expected from you all¡­ but none you look as I foresaw,¡±

    Charles, not understanding the context, asked, ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    Grey laughed, then pointed to all of us in turn as he explained, ¡°Each of your looks. Like you, Charles. Your build is larger and more muscular than expected, I guess your normal robes and armour don¡¯t give your physique much credit. I genuinely expected you to have more of a conservative, flexible build. Then there¡¯s Sam. Now, I know he was a slave, but the frankly stupid amount of scars he has rivals how extremely thin he is. I mean, I could tell that he was skinny, but he almost challenges S for thinness. Finally, under his mask¡­ looks, kinda good. Although his nose and chin look sharper than his actual blade.¡±

    Coughing to get our attention,  Charles then continued his story, ¡°When I joined them, it was only S, lady Jacqueline and Sam. Lady Jacqueline asked me personally to help S regain her real body. For why¡­ It¡¯s a long story. Care to hear it?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve heard ours,¡± Grey immediately countered.

    ¡°Fair point. Let me explain then¡­¡± Taking a deep breath, he went into a deep explanation, ¡°I¡¯m a cleric who can¡¯t heal. Whereas most clerics spend their time in education focusing on heavily armoured combat and healing magic, I spent mine on heavily armoured combat and purification magic. Which¡­ turns out to be a mistake. Healers are rarer than tanks and paladins, so basically parties and guilds rarely need me. I should also point out, like I¡¯ve explained before, S isn¡¯t a criminal for being forced into being a skeleton. And Jacqueline summons her undead, not creating them from the actual dead. So, basically, because I don¡¯t have much choice of company, I still want to get stronger to dismiss their arguments, and at a high enough level I can indeed help S out, that¡¯s why I¡¯m here. It may not be as dramatic as Grey¡¯s or Sam¡¯s tale, with that, we¡¯re even enough, right?¡±

    We spent some time taking in the scenery. Although I didn¡¯t really understand it, Grey and Charles ended up flushed, with peaceful smiles dominating their faces. And, without his mask, Mask, trying to hide his revealed face behind his hands, his mouth also subtly curled at the edges. And, in a blissful silence, we remained like this for a while before deciding unanimously to leave. When we returned to the room, we headed to the room dedicated to sleeping where I fell asleep on the floor immediately

    -

    When I woke up, I felt an faltering balance. Unlike what I was used to, the normal firmness beneath me was replaced by an uncomfortable softness. Making me feel like I¡¯m constantly falling, and disorientating me the more I realize do so. I then open my eyes, realizing I was on one of the cushioned mats laid around the room rather than the floor itself. Everyone else asleep as well.

    I¡­ didn¡¯t really know what to do, so I ended up getting changed with being quiet prioritized over speed. Then, being as stealthy as possible, I exited the door. Making it to the other side of the room, I see the sun poking from the horizon, making a red and yellow sky. Confirming there was no point in going back to sleep, I just grabbed a few books from my inventory and start reading them.

    After the third book the others started waking up one by one. Mask, like me, tried being stealthy, Charles was too groggy to try stealth and Grey didn¡¯t need to, as he was the last awake. Smatters of conversation came from them, before, after bringing out some cards, we casually played some rounds. Using a few silver and copper each game.

    Eventually there was knocking on the door, but this time more than one set of footsteps were behind it. After we opened it, the five others raided the room. Somewhat confused to how our relationship had fixed calmed down so quickly.

    Seeing some hesitance in their conversations to us, I ended up breaking the ice, asking, ¡°So who doesn¡¯t believe the story? Just ask me what you doubt.¡±

    There was a slight pause, as everyone aside from herself and Helen, looked Serv¡¯s way.

    Once realizing the stares, she explained, ¡°I do understand Jessica¡¯s and Jacqueline¡¯s gods trust you, I also know Lithy does as well¡­ The story just makes no sense however!¡±

    She started repeating the questions the others ask, and after explaining it on my side, she eventually ran out of questions. Her expression seeming satisfied enough with the answers.

    After that was done, the rest of the trip was casually spent. We waited for the staff, who explained to us the area¡­ and we split up from there. S and I went outside, with me overseeing her general training. Mask and Jacq did their own things individually, and the rest joined the staff member shopping and enjoying what the resort had to offer.

    And with one more uneventful night to follow, we left for our guild¡¯s base on the day-long trip back. This time without the heavy atmosphere of scorn towards me, and giving me the ability to actually sleep during the journey.

 Chapter Eleven: Pre-quest preparations.

    Knocking on my door once again awoke me, and I once again arose from the floor. Unlike the times before, my body- apparently used to being forcibly woken up by this point- forgot to be groggy¡­ so I felt oddly awake as I grabbed some suitable clothes and came to the door.

    Expecting the person at the door to be S- albeit the lack of her talking was confusing me somewhat- I genuinely tilted my head seeing it to be the emotionless face of Serv as the one who greeted me.

    She- or they- simply explained, ¡°As I have yet to say this, I humbly regret my distaste for you and refusing to hear your story out.¡± There was a small pause, as she stared at me with apathy¡­ as if undermining her own point as untrustworthy. Content that I didn¡¯t make a deal, she then continued, ¡°The topic at hand, however, is unrelated. My mistress has dealings to discuss with you¡­ You are an archer, correct?¡±

    Nodding, I follow her obediently. Going through the now familiar hallways of the building, we end up in front of Helen¡¯s workshop without needless delay or any conversation.

    There, she knocked thrice and entered, Helen asking upon our arrival, ¡°Did you get him Serv?¡±

    Her response was a blunt, ¡°Affirmative.¡± Proceeding to lead me to one of the available seats, then standing in the corner as Helen- aware of where I sat probably by the noise- faced me.

    ¡°Heya Sam. Can if I see your bow?¡± she asked with a straight face, her outstretched arm and ribbon covering her eyes making her word-choice just seem ill advised.

    ¡°Sure,¡± I replied, summoning my bow and handing it to her.

    Then she felt around the bow, mumbling the things she found as she went. Eventually coming to a conclusion that it was made of Magesapper wood, around a metre in length, double-reflex bow with a simple ¡®repair¡¯ enchantment. Also concluding the string was mandrake thread from plucking it a few times.

    ¡°The material is weak, but I can tell you care for it alot. Um¡­ is this bow special to you Sam? I¡¯m asking because I can make you a new one from dragon bone if you¡¯d prefer.¡± There¡¯s no sense of rush or hardship in her words, as her soft tone passed on a peaceful question which allowed either answer.

    I simply answered, ¡°I¡¯d¡­ rather not miss Helen. Mind handing it back?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to be so distant. Here¡­¡± She confirmed me holding it by feel, then released her grip, continuing it ask, ¡°So, have you ever tried using a crossbow?¡±

    ¡°No, arrows are easier to make,¡± I succinctly explained.

    ¡°Given the quest, I¡­ may have made an automatic crossbow with the remaining dragon-bone. Do you want it?¡± Unlike the other questions she asked up to this point, her tone when asking this one made it feel only one answer was correct, and by watching her tail, anyone could confirm this.

    Instead of answering, I instead asked back, ¡°Have any bolts? I only have arrows...¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I have lots. So, want it?¡±

    Out of reasons to refuse, I agreed, ¡°Alright¡­ How much do you wish for it?¡±

    To my question she just smiled, her tail wagging with her happy mood. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, thanks for letting me use the material in the first place. I¡¯ve never worked with dragon materials before, so this was fun! Can you bring it out Serv?¡±

    Without delay or word, Serv reaches into one of the storage rooms. Faultlessly carrying a crate from within, she exited. Placing it on the table, she slotted the lid off and left back to where she was.

    Assuming it was the crossbow, I took a ponder at the contents. Inside, all I could see was bolts. Hundreds of bolts, all of which were piled on top of each other. Removing them all into my inventory, I found a smaller box inside the crate. Although, not compared to the metre cubed crate, this box was still about about as long as my arm and decently thick. It¡¯s size matched it¡¯s heaviness as I freed it.

    Upon opening the box, I saw the black and red crossbow. Although like a normal crossbow in most regards, both the black and red of the dragonbone and the drum by the handle which could likely fit twenty bolts at once inside, were both key differences from any I had seen. On the handle was also a medium slime-core, with parts of a magic circle visible around it.

    Helen, giving me a moment to examine it, simply asked, ¡°Like it?¡± Her tail stopped wagging as she anticipated the answer.

    ¡°Yeah¡­ Light and looks good,¡± I looked off to the side when I said my blunt answer.

    Hearing my answer, she blushed and laughed happily. Her ears perking up and her the wind generated from her tail¡¯s wagging pushed most of the papers on her workbench onto the floor. Serv started spontaneously picking them up as Helen continued.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    Eventually she stopped, showing me out. I then headed to the dining room, on the way bumping into S in a hallway nearby.

    ¡®Oh, hey Sam¡­ Where were you?¡¯ She tilted her skull as she asked.

    To which, I stopped in place, then summarized what just happened, ¡°I was called to Helen¡¯s workshop to receive a crossbow she made, apparently with me in mind.¡±

    It took her a second, but she then remembered something, ¡®Huh¡­ Ah, is it the automatic one? Helen talked about wanting to give it to you as thanks during our little trip. Do you like it?¡¯

    Cocking my head to the side, I simply state, ¡°I¡­ I said I did when she put me on the spot, but I do not really understand ¡®liking¡¯ a weapon made to hurt, maim and kill others. I mean, it does suit needs my main bow does not, but¡­ I can not really answer without context to what I am to say I ¡®like¡¯ about it.¡±

    ¡®Sam, you¡¯re so dense¡­¡¯ she muttered, not even giving much time before blatantly insulting me.

    ¡°I can not see that being fixed, when you just insult me with no explanation as to why,¡± I reasonably fired back.

    ¡®The point is, she made it for you. Although it seems like you answered well enough, she just wanted to know you appreciate her effort in making it.¡¯

    ¡°Huh¡­¡± I nodded as I gradually understood.

    ¡®Well then, let¡¯s go to the others outside. We¡¯re heading to the guild building for an emergency meeting between the guilds.¡¯ She changed the topic, leading me outside to where everyone else was waiting.

    -

    Once grouping up with all of the the non-crafters, we rode in Jacq¡¯s carriage to the guild hall. There were smatterings of conversation, but nothing I paid close attention to. Like this, we reached our destination in about half an hour, impeded by few, if any, other carriages sharing the road.

    Getting there, employees inside, once confirming we were a partially combat guild, ushered us to the fourth floor to which we gave no resistance. After a while, we ended up in a room dedicated to chairs, with only a small stage at the front which at max could fit twenty people crammed on. The seats were ordered so there were three main blocks, two at the sides having five seats wide and ten seats long, and one in the middle which had ten wide and ten long. Every row had a step down, so all seats could easily see the stage at the front.

    Most chairs were filled, and following the rest, we ended up sitting on a side row at the back just to ourselves. And, in silence on our part, we waited for more seats to be filled¡­ With people from the guild building itself entering from a door near the stage who proceeded to get on it.

    After a few more minutes of patiences, the speaker finally began, their voice booming from a device magically enchanted with ¡®loud¡¯, ¡°Silence!¡± With their word, the conversations immediately died down, everyone wanting to prove how they were professional and listen when needing to.

    With no competition for attention, the speaker then continued, ¡°We appreciate your patience in waiting this long, and you confusion in being sent here. To those who have yet to be told, we- with every other country in this continent- are at risk of a treant riot. Like any other mostly rural place, we are not at liberty to take such a threat lightly, so are asking you to fulfil our request to neutralize the threat. The priority being to secure the treants to safety rather than outright killing them. Due to the importance of the quest, we will put on hold any timed requests and not accept anyone taking other big quests until this one is complete.¡±

    They gave a small pause, allowing a few mumbles here and there before continuing, ¡°For the method¡­ We acknowledge bad blood between members of the Golden Cross and those who have legal necromancers or members of the undead such as the tomb queens, and other lesser dramas between guilds¡­ But as we only have around fifty combat-based guilds employed in our city, we¡¯ve had little time to organise this and four major areas we suspect treant activity, we may have missed something out. We will state our plan anyway, and if there are any direct problems, we would like to hear it.¡±

    For the most part, their plan made sense. They had a focus towards two big forest nearby, and gave smaller forces to a small woodlands and two old, deserted towns nearby. We personally were asked to deal with a dungeon nearby the largest of the forests, as most guilds, including the tomb queens and the majority of others. However, as Charles pointed out during one of their breaks, there was a small problem with a specific guild calling themselves ¡®The Guild of Silver Blades¡¯. They, like the previously mentioned golden crosses, were against necromancy of any kind. And unlike them, the silver blades were in the same area as us and the tomb queens. Although, when Charles asked if we should make it an issue, Jacq and Mask rejected, as it would be a pain. Plus, as we were dealing with a dungeon nearby rather than being on the flanks, and they were on the same flank as the tomb queens as well as two other guilds known to have the undead, it was seen as an issue that would solve itself without our input.

    Then, the questioning began, where guilds got to ask their own questions, state their ideas and so on.

    One person asking the obvious question they most forgot they didn¡¯t even answer, being ¡®When are we this?¡¯ The answer they gave was in four days, as they were sending scouts to find out more and potentially negotiate with them. With another meeting for the groups in each region separately in three. The speaker stating that this gave them time to organize and make changes on oversights.

    Another asked, ¡®How should we deal with loot?¡¯ To which the answer was: take what you can, although if we find any fighting and killing over certain drops, we will just arrest you.

    Finally, the dramas started coming through. From the guilds who simply hated each other mutually, to the supremacists of both race and religion. Including some of the guilds who hated necromancy and others who hated those who hated their undead members. We personally didn¡¯t butt in, neither did other guilds affected in our area. Most of the drama coming from the guilds heading to the smaller areas, one of which where they somehow organized three small guilds who were all supremacists for different races in the same small, desolate town. Each promising a blood bath if the plan was to proceed as planned.

    With the situation potentially turning into a fight right there and then, the staff, wisely, ended the meeting there as they deeply reconsidered. Stating that they¡¯d focus on knowing allegiances of small and new guilds, ours listed with the others that the guild employees would specifically work on.

    The meeting concluded, we left to our base. Explaining the situation to the crafters, then splitting for the rest of the day.

 Chapter Twelve: The Treantss Stand (1/3)

    Subtly, I woke from sleeping through the secondary meeting. As most of the details were stated in the first, this secondary one was simply held as to tie up loose ends and see to it that any movements of guilds which were relevant and necessary were achieved. This not affecting us in the slightest, I was awake to hear where we were, then gradually drifted off. Only awoken by S¡¯s jabs finally going through to me.

    The room was one of the side rooms to the main one we were in last time, with the envoy from the guild- who came to check on our composition and political stance- informing us to where it was when they came.

    As we: Charles, Jacqueline, Mask, Sam and I left, we were interrupted by a rather simple-looking female whose chainmail top adorned an emblem with a silver silhouette of a curved sword. She had bottoms made of the same material, and had a helmet currently resting under her left armpit. A sword poked out from underneath her right arm, nothing visible under the other although potentially hidden behind her helm. Her sharp, large ears poked from her orderly yet short head of blonde hair. Behind her was a bunch of nine people, and to describe their expressions, instead of scorn, their lack of eye-contact and general huddled-over stances indicated fear.

    ¡°Salutations, art thou these ¡®Black-sheep¡¯ I hath heard so much about? Worry nought, mine own guild and I only wisheth to speaketh with thou. We art thee ¡®Guild of Silver Blades¡¯, mine own nameth being Sybil,¡± she asked, in a natural old-fashioned tongue that completely lost me with its added syllables.

    Mask responded, adding in unnatural terms into his lexicon likely as some joke on the misses¡¯ behalf, ¡°Good morrow, we are those you ask of, Miss Sybil.¡±

    Once hearing his answer, she fired off a few more questions, ¡°Due to whispers of an independent skeleton in thy group, I simply wisheth to askesth thee: who is¡¯t the necromancer? And, furthermore: doth the gents useth real bodies in their ceremonies? The answers to both are unequivocally important to us.¡±

    Jacq stepped forwards, answering, ¡°That is me. And I do not, I only summon the souls willing rather than forcing the souls of the real dead back to their bodies under my dictation. Although I understand why you ask, it sickens me that those who do the latter even exist.¡± She paused for a second, putting her hand on S¡¯s head before continuing, ¡°Before you ask, she isn¡¯t mine. We just met, rather, our main goal- rather than enslave her, is to set her free of her undead body, using that cleric there¡¯s eventual power.¡±

    Unsatisfied, she turned to Charles and asked, ¡°To clarifyeth, humoured cleric, doth thou wisheth to confirm? [Coystrill¡¯s Burneth]¡± Small flames came from a magic circle which suddenly appeared on both of her palms.

    Watching the fires complete their dance, Charles explained in full detail, ¡°I know I don¡¯t need to swear, but with my various god¡¯s and goddess¡¯s blessings, I confirm miss Jacqueline¡¯s Story. She is unrelated to the event of Miss S¡¯s turning into a skeleton, and she personally asked me to help try to free her from the condition when I get the ability to¡­ Which I wish to fulfil when possible.¡±

    The flames then reached him and extinguished themselves. Leaving not even a small singe as the did so.

    She seemed to accept this, visibly nodding, ¡°Well enow, I shalt believeth thee, and prithee accepteth mine own deepest apologies for any offence taken from mine own words. We feared whispers may has¡¯t spread, potentially setting tensions high on the battlefield and this placing both parties at risketh. Our guild may has¡¯t stout ideals, we, however, art not zealots unlike others. Those who is¡¯t art respectful to the dead¡¯s rights, has¡¯t done nay wrong in our eyes.¡±

    She paused, now looking at me. ¡°Thee there, may I seeth thy handeth? I wisheth to checketh thee for demonic living. [Purging Flames]¡± Small fires, this time pure which, were expelled from her hand in a similar fashion before. Unlike before, however, where they simply danced; this time the flames spun in a circle around me. The others seemed concerned, but it was only blinding rather than also hot.

    I succinctly answered, ¡°Sure.¡± Then I placed my hand out as ordered. The flames encircled it before, suddenly, all flew in in sync.

    The white smoke from the fire enveloped my hand, so everyone held their breath aside from me who felt no heat or pain. Which the smoke cleared, my hand remained burnt. She, like everyone else; even S and the others, tilted their head at the result.

    Sybil eventually snapped out of her trance, stating, ¡°Intriguing, I did check as I spotted dark energies in thy aura. Yet, as nothing hath happened, I gather thee were did free. Pardon mine own bothersome questions, may we all square well on the day of ¡®morrow. May this beest valorous partings.¡±

    With that, the simple conversation ended. We, like the rest had done far earlier, left the room and headed our way back to our base. Using Jacq¡¯s carriage with little conversation if any, like normal.

    -Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    A day had passed, and having woken from the carriage ride to our goal, we- Charles, Jacq, Mask, S and myself- exited the carriage nearby a large forest. Instead of heading there itself, we found a small section of the forest that jutted out of the otherwise orderly forest line. This area encompassing a small hill. Hidden behind the trees, this hill secreted a cave entrance which lead to a chasm.

    Upon doing a quick check of the area around said cave, we entered. Having Charles, Mask and S in front, due to all three fitting spaciously in the tunnels the entrance lead to, with me and Jacq behind them with one of her skeletons simply for our line¡¯s defense. The walls of the tunnel seemed to be carved in by something large entering with a squeeze, being oddly rounded and having cracks running throughout. The risk of being tunneled in was high, although due to me, this was little concern.

    With enough walking, the wide tunnel opened up more. With combat starting which, unlike in the dungeon before, I could actually see S and Charles tanking the hits from the five orcs inside, with Mask darting into and out of the fray with fast bastard-sword attacks aimed at their joints. Due to the space and visibility, I helped using my normal bow and an on-back quiver with 30 arrows.

    Even with two people crippling the orcs, the frontmost two could only finish two of them before their reinforcements came in. These nearly tripling their amount.

    Charles and S fell back, declaring such as the skeleton helped them secure the area as me, Mask and eventually Jacqueline with low-leveled darkness magic, continued helping. All of the orc arms soon had many a scar with: limbs cut off at the joints, limb joints embedded with one or two arrows each, or both. Due to how: the area was so cramped side swings would cause friendly fire, whenever the orcs swung me and, or Mask would hit their raised arms, and how raising their arms was the only way they bothered attacking with their clubs, they didn¡¯t get any significant hits onto the vanguard.

    The fight, although slightly longer than expected, ended swiftly, clearly in our favour. Now we could see that, without including where we entered from, there was a split path. As the questions began to be asked by Charles, Mask walked up to the leftmost exit; his hand glowed as he spread his palm on the wall.

    Once the glowing had stopped, he informed us as to his results, ¡°This is a dead-end, but there is a room at the end. Want to risk a pointless fight for loot?¡±

    With a vote three to one, to one as I didn¡¯t care to vote either way, we entered the left tunnel. In short time, we reached the room Mask had told of. The room was significantly smaller than the one previous, with a central check and a single hobgoblin who held a stick.

    There was already a ball of fire the size of a head coming our way, yet as it was seconds away from striking Charles- who recklessly charged in- it vanished. A splash came from further into the room, then a confused groan from the hobgoblin.

    Using the confusion as an opening, Charles, brandishing a new dragon-bone mace, struck its neck, collapsing it in the one hit. Blood smattered from its mouth as its head, now unsupported, rolled forwards with no resistance. It fell forwards onto to the floor, its burns on its back now revealed. Seeing this, everyone looked my way and shrugged, correctly realizing this was my doing.

    The simple altercation over, I shot the chest with a basic arrow. Given there wasn¡¯t blood, Mask casually beat Charles to the chest and opened it. Unveiling a sword of a blue material which, holding the blade, he dropped unceremoniously. Before it reached the ground, it entered my storage.

    With a nod from Jacq, we headed back to the central room. With a few orcs now in the room again, we slaughtered them quickly and headed from we supposed the came from; the other connecting tunnel. With orcs dripping into our lines, they got mowed down by a bored Jacq before they could reach the front three. The signs of something big barely passing through here were as present as the tunnel from the first room to the cave¡¯s entrance.

    Eventually we reached another room, this being as roomy as the first and having only one other way out. Inside was a now deserted, small camp, with only basic and primitive supplies and a fire. Mask had already started looting the room before anyone else could even comment. Although, around one of the areas we assumed were designated to sleeping he found golden coins. And in another, he found a skull that he passed to Jacq, her verdict being a high elf or, more likely, a half-elf.

    His passion for loot temporarily sated, Mask finally allowed us to continue.This being after sharing it somewhat out to everyone although keeping the lion¡¯s share to himself.

    Through the new tunnel we found stairs, and like the tunnels before, this tunnel seemed widened by the same large creature due to having the same marks. And at the end, we found ourselves in a room notably larger than any previously. A larger camp was present, with fifty odd orcs, now alerted to our present, hanging around.

    Seeing this, Jacq quickly summoned more vanguards and began using her magic with reckless abandon. Having melted half the orcs outright with one ball of darkness each, simultaneously. Although, from her expression, even this amount of magic use had no sense of exhaustion with it. Not even a bead of sweat appearing on her brow. The other orcs put up little fight, their morale crushed due to the immediate onslaught.

    Charles and mask ran after deserters, making sure they got massacred for¡­ the crime of daring to live. No one batted an eye at the apparent ¡®holy man¡¯ going on a massacre though, so we continued on without a word spoken. Mask not even bothering to loot this area, due to the general shanty-like look of the place.

    The wide tunnels with cracks adorning the sides continued, and we quickly reached another room, this one about twice the size of the last one.

    Ten hobgoblins, some of which wielding similar sticks to the one previously and others holding clubs formed a line in front of beast which dwarfed them in comparison. An ogre. Given that the hobgoblins were a similar size to orcs, which- for context- neared the tallest humans or elves, this ogre was nearly double the height of them.

    The ogre roared, slamming his club- which was as tall as a small tree and wide as my body- to the ground. The thud knocking many a stone from the walls and shaking the room itself, meanwhile the same slam released so much mud to the sky, two of the orcs temporarily disappeared from view.

 Chapter Fourteen: The Treantss stand (2/3)

    After the ogre swang, the orcs- once recovering from the shockwave- attacked. Four balls of fire flew towards us as a crowd, which were in sync with a ground tremor affecting all of us. The others charged with weapons drawn.

    With S, Mask and Charles at the front, each had to do their own dodging amidst the ground beneath them shaking to dodge the magic. Mask¡¯s escape was simple, as he used his speed to sneak behind the melee-weapon wielding hobgoblins, slashing one of the mage¡¯s necks to a bloody pulp with his off-hand knife as he decapitated another with a single strike. S dodged it with her sword, now black with spots of crimson and using its broadside as a makeshift shield. One of the fireballs hit and exploded harmlessly in front of her, not even singing her armour due to how she spaced the swords. Finally, Charles somewhat cheated, using his own magic to summon a pillar of light, easily deflecting another.

    Out of the final two, one was directed towards where Mask was, harmlessly passing through the centre and exploding on the wall behind, the last was aimed above, causing nigh molten rock to fall with the jagged stalactites it dislodged. The only one of significance however hit S¡¯s helm and got redirected harmlessly off.

    As Mask finished off the mage with the slit throat,- stabbing through its chest, crushing its ribcage as well as most of its organs-Charles and S met the four melee-wielding hobgoblins. The ogre was just standing there, waiting for its turn to fight the weakened foe, the other two mages fruitlessly aiming everything they had at the rogue who had just murdered half their number.

    As the hobgoblins were barely stronger physically than orcs, their skin and bones weaker than their orcish counterparts, yet still were cocky enough to not wear armour. This meant that their attacks did little to charles¡¯ damascus chainmail and even less to S¡¯s mithril splint armour. Meanwhile, every attack S wasn¡¯t using to parry their blows, hit without resistance. Her dragon-bone sword slicing through their skin, bones, muscles and organs as if cutting through air. Charles¡¯ dragonbone mace leaving gaping wounds and massive dents in another¡¯s body. A bloody mess was quickly made of three of the hobgoblins, the forth only being spared by sheer chance.

    Morale broke, and as the last melee weaponed one tried to flee, one strike turned its head into a miasma of red mist. The ogre, as if looking down on its comrades cowardice, struck in with its massive club. Instantaneously crushing the head once contact between the two was made.

    The two mages froze, giving Mask enough time to throw his sword at one of their necks and Jacq enough to evaporate its head with a black orb the size of an eyeball. Both fell before reacting.

    Everyone then become redirected as the ogre screeched across the room. Once again causing shockwaves with a swing or two, which only managed to damage its own weapon. Its club now splintered heavily.

    I shot a few arrows at its eyes, getting one through its pupil before it tried actually covering them. Charles and S carefully keeping their distance, although launching an attack or two on its torso every time I successfully distracted it. Mask unequipped his sword and dagger, bringing out two handfuls of throwing steel throwing knives to help the effort. Whilst Jacq did nothing, seeing its skin as more worthwhile than saving our energy.

    It couldn¡¯t get an attack off. When it tried, no one was there for it to hit, and when it was focused on not letting me blind it, it couldn¡¯t then react to the oncoming attacks from those it could actually hit. Even with its high recovery rate, it got damaged faster than it could heal itself- and in multiple areas simultaneously. It was a sitting duck, the damage became more mortal over time so as time ticked away, the anticlimactic fight simply ended.

    Once so, we grabbed any resources remotely sellable, put them in my inventory and checked the tunnels for blockages. Regardless of the ruckus caused in the fight, the cave was stable enough that no tunnels got remotely cut off during the attacks. Calmly, we then continued down the linear path. The cracks in the artificially widened walls continuing.

    -

    Going down another set of stairs, we reached another room. This one¡¯s size comparable to the floors above, rather than the rooms. Inside was a small army of beasts and monsters surrounding a humble-looking tree which towered above even the ogres and trolls. The army was made of: five trolls which were the most visible aside from the tree, ten or so ogres, double that of orcs and a pack of wolves. Most of the wolves were about half as tall as the orcs on all fours, but the packs leader, a specific black wolf which mostly blended in with the dim room, was enormous. Dwarfing the trolls which were heads taller than the ogres.

    They were silent, and although having weapons drawn, seemed to be on peaceful terms rather than excessively aggressive one.

    ¡°We don¡¯t want to fight¡­ we¡­ just don¡¯t want to die. Please¡­ just leave,¡± a voice said. The sound coming from the back of the room where the tree was or somewhere directly around it.

    ¡°What is your race, and what is your goal?¡± Charles coldly asked back.

    ¡°P¡­ please! I-I¡¯m not a part of this! I-I¡­ I just want to live! The others may wish to kill you in rage, but¡­ I just want to be peaceful. I only have others here because I wanted to scare people like you off.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    ¡°Are you willing to be removed peacefully, or not?¡±

    ¡°Why would I? What possible upside could trusting you monsters have!? To you I¡¯m just a living drop, to be killed for a few bits of money¡­ And that¡¯s the same with the other treants, they just want to be spared the indignity,¡± they begged. Emotions, although already apart of their previous points, overwhelmed this statement.

    ¡°Are you going to surrender and leave with me, or fight now and die? You don¡¯t get another choice,¡± Charles states coldly.

    ¡®A¡­ aren¡¯t you being too cold Charles? We could just leave them be.¡¯ S asked, both audibly and visually appalled.

    ¡°S, we can¡¯t. All we know is the treant population as a whole has declared war on us all for not taking their claim to sentience seriously, and that this specific treant has been stockpiling monsters, like that.¡± Whilst explaining, she pointed to the wolf pack leader. ¡°To not fight them would fail our mission, and under the circumstances, be foolish and allow their betrayal. As they say, trusting every siren will only lead to drowning. We are at least giving them an out, it¡¯s up to them if they accept it.¡±

    ¡°We refuse. You beasts are not to be trusted¡­ if only you had just left,¡± they tone had no anger, their deep sigh as they trailed off instead pointed out disappointment.

    Jacq, who had by now summoned her multiple skeletons, made them form a line with both Charles and S included. The clanks from their metal armour when stepping died out by the chaotic roars erupting from the other side, the foe charging without second thought.

    Not holding anything back, Jacq proceeded to throw magic wherever she could. Her magic single handedly engulfing half the ogres into dark vortices.

    Orcs then rushed down the distance, being far faster than their larger counterparts. Yet, they got no time to shine as they were mowed down by mainly Jacq¡¯s summons faster than they could reinforce. Their number originally being twenty, fell to 4 before the first even got to swing at drawn blades already prepared to parry and block it. Without much more effort, the last orc fell with nought a scratch on anyone¡¯s armour.

    The larger lot didn¡¯t even buckle for a second, and through a hail of leaves blasting through an artificial wind, the remnant ogres and all of the trolls reached the front line. Each smashing the ground with their weapons, attempting to crush whoever stood against them through sheer will.

    As the fight was clustered on their side, their movements were hampered and due to being thinner in terms of width, our vanguards weren¡¯t. Even if their attacks all caused minor earthquakes, missing our side¡¯s members completely due sheer speed and space didn¡¯t bode well for their victory. The leaves, unenchanted and not thorned, also served a non-issue. Only minorly affecting vision.

    The rearguards did their job of keeping them busy, meanwhile Mask and I, using throwing knives and bows respectively, aimed for the attacker¡¯s joints, eyes¡­ and any other easily visible and exposed weak spots. This not killing any ogres, or doing serious damage, but would even cripple an attack, blind one temporarily or force them into a defensive stance due to being so packed side-by-side that dodging wasn¡¯t an option. It was more effective on the trolls however, as, although they had thicker skin, their regeneration ability wasn¡¯t as good. Meaning their joints and eyes remained unusable until after the chance for the vanguards to strike back fatally was given.

    Although one or two hits did damage armour, the battle- due to the reasons above- went quickly and decisively to us. The trolls- although large targets with great strength- not getting any chance to do anything before getting crippled and killed, and the ogres stood out for longer, but the constant harassment by Mask and I was enough for the vanguard to whittle them down. Being bigger and stronger than the ogres before doing nothing to remotely help them.

    As the final ogre died, a howl dominated the room. The floor shook, chips and pebbles from the walls flew inwards and stalagtites from all around the room crashed to the floor. The wolf now stood alone in front of the tree, baring its fangs as its legs bent.

    I shot an arrow straight at it as its legs began to quiver. Before it reached, the wolf leapt towards the frontline in a blue. The two summons unfortunate enough be in its range flew backwards. Seconds later, two thuds slightly off sync could be heard from the corridor behind us.

    The wolf simply turned, meeting a sword with its claw to its front and swatting away another with a flick of its tail with another. Blood now pouring out of the side of its neck.

    Another arrow flew towards its back-left paw, as the others joined in on the combat; pouncing on it themselves every now and then yet keeping more attention to caution than damaging it. Mask, although throwing a few knives, gave up when they started rebounding of its fur. Instead, he wielded his bastard sword and fought with the rest. S and Charles, with the remaining six skeletons, formed a crude box around the wolf; keeping their strikes precise and as critical as possible.

    With some well placed strikes, the wolf began to whimper. Both its back legs spasming as they spurted blood, and its tail not faring much better.

    Using the last of its strength, it lunged towards one of Jacq¡¯s summons who had dealt a successful blow to its snout, biting it with its jaw. The crunches of metal and bone overwhelmed other noises present, yet its neck was opened up to S and another skeleton, both swinging their blades overhead with jumping attacks.

    The latter stopped at the bone, whereas the former went right through. Minimal but noticeable resistance given the the dragonbone sword. I snuck the valuable corpses of the wolf, trolls and ogres into my storage as the others reformed their line; all knowing the fight wasn¡¯t over just yet.

    Now only the tree was left, so Mask simply shouted, ¡°Just give up, or die like them.¡±

    ¡°Nothing good can come from you, just fight me. You invaded my home and slaughtered my community,¡± they replied just as simply.

    Although the main difference from the beginning until now was the lack of leaves of the tree, the stone floor also had bumps it hadn¡¯t had before.

    The treant, now knowing its fate, revealed their face and declared, ¡°Now then, kill me or die. You have no other choice.¡±

    Cracks then opened up in the floor, and roots of the same colour wood as the tree itself poked throw, soon towering above even the height of the tree itself, and as think as a person. Barbs and thorns accosted to its roots were so plentiful and thin, seen from further away the roots would have seemed fluffy rather than jagged and painful.