NOVEL NEXT Chapter 72: Conflict in Riles and “Meeting”
Narrator POV
At present time;
At the central office of the adventurer’s guild located at the capital of the Country of Dragonutes in Marizen, Yvrys.
An old geezer with long gray hair with bushy facial hair walked beside a large round table.
This old geezer has the image of a wise old man and the aura of a person who had accumulated enough life experience to be an individual with amazing insights.
This old geezer's name is Yrganth Edrintyss, the guild master of the Capital city of Marizen.
He is also the topmost leader of all adventurers around the continent, the adventurer's guild's "Grand Master".
He had been a "Grand Master" of the adventurer's guild for 103 years.
A hundred years is a pretty long time, but for an individual such as himself, the period was not that long.
After all, Yrganth Edrintyss has lived for 631 years.
As to how he was able to live for so long, it is because he is not a human.
Yrganth Edrintyss is a dragonute.
Dragonutes are said to have a lifetime of 500 years.
Yrganth Edrintyss is considered one of the oldest dragonute around.
Most probably there is only a handful of beings who is older than he is.
The old man then activated a crystal placed over that round table.
This magical device is capable of contacting all of the major guild masters of the adventurer’s guild around the continent.
As he activated the crystal.
Static images started appearing amongst some seats at the round table.
He patiently waits and shadows images of people started appearing in each seat around the table.
There are 14 seats around that table.
Each one of the 14 seats is reserved for the top leaders of the adventurer’s guild.
Those leaders are as follows:
Firstly, as the “Grand Master” and the guild master of the capital city of Marizen, Yrganth Edrintyss takes one seat for himself.
Another 4 seats are reserved for each of the guild masters of the capital cities of the other nations of the Great Nation Alliance excluding Marizen. (Triana, Claren, Pheono and Riles)
2 seats are bestowed for the Guild Masters in the Great Forest of Giah, each was given to both of the guild masters of the elves and the dark elves adventurers.
2 seats are given to the guild masters in the Marchial Kingdom.
2 seats were given to both the Arc duke's (Azurearosi) dukedom and the Grand duke's (Beaumount) dukedom in Artesia Empire.
1 seat for the Guild Master of the Glacies Kingdom's Capital.
1 seat for the Guild Master of the Fuyotochi Kingdom's Capital.
And lastly a seat for the guild master of the Artesia Empire’s Capital City.
A total of 14 seats.
Continuing on the matter at hand.
As soon as the images of those individuals appeared one after another, the seats around the round table are now being occupied by semitransparent figures of those important personalities.
As the top leader of all adventurers around the world, the Adventurers Guild “Grand Master” Yrganth oversees all of the adventurer guilds' important matters.
And as the Overseer, he is responsible to contact the leaders of the adventurer’s guild whenever major trouble involving the adventurers is upon them.
Today, Yrganth initiated a meeting to notify the leaders of the adventurer’s guild to discuss important matters at hand.
The old geezer looked around and found out that 9 out of those 14 seats are occupied.
After waiting for a little more he decided to open his mouth and spoke seeing that the 9 guild masters are starting to get bored.
“humu, the guild masters representing Glasies, Fuyotochi, the 2 Masters of Giah Forest, and one of the two masters of the Marchial Kingdom is absent. Humu, I guess it's alright as the matters at hand do not involve their territories that much. I guess we can start the meeting.” <Yrganth>
One of the guild masters in attendance reacts after hearing this.
One of the static images moved and raised its arm to ask permission to speak and said.
“As one of the two guild masters of the Marchial Kingdom, I am here to represent the Marchial Kingdom’s adventurer’s guilds. As such I, Kodduc Lavagrog am here to also represent Guild Master Jorrag Lightmace in his absence to represent all of the adventurers of the Marchial Kingdom.” <Kodduc/GM-Marchial>
“Humu, I understand. I expect you to inform guild master Jorrag about the things we will discuss today.” <Yrganth>
“Leave it to me Grand Master-sama.”<GM-Marchial>
The blurry image of Kodduc bowed his head slightly toward Yrganth as if asking for some understanding.
Yrganth nods in recognition of his apology.
A giggle of an old lady sounded in the room as she reacts to Kodduc's situation.
The one who made the sound was the guild masters of the dukedom of Beaumount in Artesia.
"I guess, you have to cover for Jorrag once again?" <GM- Beaumount>
"Haah... I can't refute that I wish he takes his job more seriously." <GM-Marchial>
"Aaa~ seems the leaders of Marchial are having it hard." <GM- Beaumount>
"You don't say." <GM-Marchial>
The two joked with each other.
“I will not waste your time as I know that each one of you is busy with your rights. I am here to discuss the conflict in Riles.” <Yrganth>
“Aa, so it’s about that… how troublesome…” <GM-Claren>
Aside from the guild master of Claren, it seems that all of the guild masters also felt the same when they hear the word "Riles".
It seems that the guild masters had an idea about these matters beforehand as no one ask what was going on there.
Yrganth continued speaking after confirming that all of the individuals here already have an idea of the topic for this meeting.
“Humu, All of you must have heard about the aggressive push of the Ecclesia Empire to cause conflict against the non-human races. After many years of only causing minor troubles, it seems that the Ecclesia Empire is now trying to make a large-scale invasion once again. Normally the adventurer’s guild should not be involved in this kind of political strife involving the nations around the world but this is quite a special case.” <Yrganth>
“Hah… Ecclesia huh… those crazy bastards…” <GM-Triana>
A wild angry voice came from the guild master of Triana.
“Guh… those guys from Ecclesia huh… how troublesome.” <GM-Triana>
The guild masters at the round table gave almost the same reaction after hearing about the “Ecclesia Empire”.
Deep frowns were drawn on each guild master's face.
It is the only country in this world where the adventurer’s guild has no interaction.
Ecclesia Empire would send a troupe into the continent and hunt down demi-human all the time.
Those troupes sent by the Empire of Ecclesia call themselves “Inquisitors”.
Their sole purpose is to exterminate all creatures they consider monsters.
They know that Ecclesia Empire has no regard for the lives of those demi-humans and would even act cruelly just to prove their point.
Normally problems involving political troubles are not in the jurisdiction of the adventurer’s guild.
Their main focus is to protect and assist the citizens from monster activities and do all tasking jobs that can be dangerous for the non-combatant member of the society.
Adventurers are usually prohibited to join in political strife and if they would like to personally help in such a problem, the adventurer’s guild should not be involved in any way.
Adventurers’ purpose of existence is to provide protection, help, and security for all people who cannot fight.
This is why it is no surprise that the adventurer’s guild does not approve of Ecclesia’s ways.
Even after many warnings, from the adventurer’s guild towards the Empire of Ecclesia to stop their indiscriminate killing of non-human beings they continued to insist on their ways.
In the end, Ecclesia continued to exterminate demi-humans despite their warnings.
Time passed and the adventurer’s guild had given up persuading Ecclesia.
Ultimately, the adventurer’s guild classified this act of the Ecclesia Empire as unacceptable.
Thus, the adventurer guild labeled the “Inquisitors” as monsters similar to how they treat “Bandits”.
Why would the adventurer’s guild not treat “Inquisitors” like "bandits"?
Like bandits, Inquisitors cause harm to other people on the land.
They will not hesitate to cause harm to other people just to satisfy their needs and wants.
They are no different than monsters.
No, in truth, they are much viler than those monsters as monsters do not torture their prey, they won't strip away their pride, and they won't do humiliating and cruel acts towards their prey.
In the eyes of the adventurer’s guild, individuals from Ecclesia are treated and are classified as "monsters" if not worse.
In the same way, the eyes of the Ecclesia Empire view adventurer Heretics because they protect those despicable beings.
Thus, conflict was unavoidable.
The Guild Masters continue to discuss the situation in Riles.
Most adventurers are not willing to risk their lives in this dangerous situation.
This is why soldiers coming from Artesia Empire and the Great nation Alliance would be sent to deal with them.
In the first place, Adventurers are more adept at fighting actual monsters, not humans who are trained to fight and kill.
You can say all you want that those Inquisitors are monster-like but they are also intelligent individuals, unlike monsters they are smart, and dealing with them can be a little bit tricky for adventurers.
"Inquisitors" are trained to fight and kill people.
When faced with such an opponent adventurers would struggle against them as they are not accustomed to facing such foes.
This is why most of the time the soldiers of the Empire or the Nation Alliance are tasked to deal with them.
[So, we must issue a “Protection” request for the adventurers around the country of Riles.]
[Since this can involve some political issues with some nobles, I think we have to inform the leaders of each country to give exemption for adventurers to help in the troubles in Riles.]
[Don’t you think it’s too early for us to get involved?]
[We have to be prepared for what could happen.]
[At the very least we must be ready to evacuate refugees from the country of Riles.]
[Should we go public on this matter? I think that rumors had already been widespread that this is no longer a secret amongst the people in the south.]
[What do the leaders of the Church of Life thinks about the current situation?]
Such arguments are lifted during the meeting of the 9 guild masters around the table.
“Humu, Ultimately I think we need to send one of us to Riles to know the situation better. We also need an influential adventurer in that place to show our presence, it might help alleviate the situation. I just hope that Ecclesia’s forces would back down after seeing that we the adventurers would not tolerate their action if things escalate further.” <Yrganth>
“Hahaha, Grand Master-sama do you think those guys would be intimidated? We’ve tried so many times but each time we try we fail. Don’t you think doing things such as intimidating them would work?” <GM-Pheono>
Asked the Guild master of Pheono in a sarcastic tone.
“Huhuhuhu, I don’t, but for now it’s better than doing nothing.” <Yrganth>
“Grrr… I hate those bunch. I wish I could just go to their country and wreck them good.” <GM-Triana>
Growled the guild master of Triana.
“Hahaha, if we attack and start killing the people in that nation we are no different than them. Not all the citizens of that country are at fault after all.” <GM-Claren>
“Hmnn… I get what you mean but what can we do? We can either destroy them thoroughly or let them bother us forever.” <GM-Marchial>
“The question is, how long and how much do the people and the leaders of the great Nation Alliance and the Empire of Artesia persist on not waging war against Ecclesia.” <GM- Beaumount>
The guild master of the dukedom of Beaumount said in her frustration.
In actuality, she wanted to wipe the existence of that Empire from the map of all the problems they caused in this continent.
All of a sudden one of the guild masters gave off a serious tone as he spoke some words.
It was the guild master in Azurearosi dukedom from the Artesia Empire.
All of the other guild masters noticed this change and attentively listen to his comments.
“I guess things will change if something major occurs…” <GM-Azurearosi>
“Major? Like what…?” <GM-Claren>
The guild master of Claren probes for more.
He thinks that the guild master of the Azurearosi dukedom has some kind of information at her disposal.
“I’ve heard that the Saint is being targeted by Ecclesia's Assassins.”<GM-Azurearosi>
With this statement, the guild masters around the table became vigilant and attentive to his words.
After all, each of the Guild Masters presented here has reliable information sources.
None of them would say a baseless warning without actual proof from their intelligence sources.
This was the Guild master of Azurearosi saying that he has gathered intelligence that this might happen.
The topic was the saint of Riles.
The "Saint" is the most important figure of the Church of Life.
A religion that most of the population in this world believes in.
Originally Gaiah was the goddess worshiped by the Elves and Dark Elves in the Giah Forest.
After the awakening of the saint named "Calm Eastertale" the number of people who believe the goddess Gaiah flourished by an impossibly significant number.
The presence of the Oracle the goddess of life has boosted the religion's popularity 11 years ago.
And of course, the Empire of Ecclesia did not approve of this as they follow a different god, Luminos.
“The saint… you mean Calm Eastertale?” <GM- Pheono>
He asked to confirm.
“Exactly, the saint of Riles. Calm Eastertale.” <GM- Azurearosi>
“I think that if somehow, the Empire of Ecclesia succeeds in Assassinating the saint, I don’t think that the Nation Alliance and the Artesia Empire would stay silent. After all, 80% of the population is a member of the Church of life, they believe in and revere that saint. I could only imagine how would the people react if the saint was assassinated.” <GM-Marchial>
Said Kodduc finding this revelation to be a stupid act on Ecclesia's part.
“Hahaha, don’t be stupid! If Ecclesia assassinates the Saint then all hell will break loose on their country.” <GM-Claren>
Despite these words, there was doubt clouding the eyes of the guild master of Claren.
“Those guys are that "CRAZY" after all, you’ll never know.” <GM-Azurearosi>
Silence envelops the room.
----------------------
Kazue POV
A day had passed since I arrived in Riles.
Yesterday I managed to have an unexpected reunion with Reno, Akemi, and Emika at Shaina’s Weapon and Armor Workshop in the Scale Atelier building.
I was surprised to meet them there as I did not expect that Shai’s shop could be linked through space via the “Gate Portal” Magic of the Atelier.
I got angry at the fact that Shaina did not even offer me such an option when I told her that I want to go to Riles.
Well, in all honesty, I think that even if she did tell me I might have chosen the same route of manually traveling from the Artesia Empire Capital to Riles.
After all, I have some issues with money and no doubt that if I asked Shai to let me use the Gate Portal, she would find a way to somehow rip off money out of me.
Shaina is such a person.
Anyhow, yesterday the three girls told me about the current situation here in Riles.
There had been a commotion involving the Empire of Ecclesia and the southern regions of the continent.
I had been informed before that the Empire of Ecclesia had been causing trouble for the Great Nation Alliance people because of their human-centric beliefs.
There had been rumors circulating that the Empire of Ecclesia is preparing for a large-scale attack soon.
This is nothing new as the Empire of Ecclesia had been threatening the great nation Alliance in such a manner all the time in the past.
But after some close investigation by my former classmates, they have concluded that these rumors circulating this time are not just empty talks.
The situation here is quite bad, the question is not IF the war started, but rather one must ask WHEN will it start.
This must be the reason why the atmosphere in this city is really heavy.
The people of the town must have heard this news and they are on the edge of their seats waiting when the war breaks out.
After hearing about the matters happening here in riles from the three girls I spent my time chatting with them.
I told them stories about what I experience these past four months.
My experiences on the road
The monsters I encountered.
My experiences inside a dungeon.
The unique cities and villages I visited.
And in the same way, the three also shared their experiences as merchants with me.
I also informed them about my meeting with our former classmates, Yoshiaga, Daisetsu, and Naonobu whom I met and traveled with this past 3 weeks.
I also told them about the peculiar high and mighty lady who travel with us, Lady Alicia Cliffe Azurearosi.
As I was telling them about her, I came to know that Miss Alicia is a bigshot noble as well as a big-shot Adventurer of the Artesia Empire.
She is the one and only daughter and heir of the most influential family aside from the royal family in the Artesia Empire.
As an adventurer, miss Alicia is also known as the Blue Rose Duchess, and she is known to be one of the most powerful A-rank Adventurers on the continent.
There are around 300 A-rank Adventurers around the world.
Miss Alicia is amongst the strongest among all of those A-rank Adventurers.
She is the cream of the crops, not to mention she was only 16 the same age as us.
I realized that Miss Alicia might be the strongest among the people I have met so far.
And back to the present.
After bonding with the three girls and Shai they went back and went back to their usual work.
They cut off the connection of the workshop from the Scale Atelier’s Riles branch as it was a dangerous place for non-combatants like them.
Also, their only reason for coming here was to warn me about the situation in Riles.
Since they have done their peace, they have no reason to stay here in Riles and so they left as soon as we said our goodbyes yesterday.
Right now I am roaming around the town in hope of meeting the Saint of Riles.
As I heard before, the saint would often visit the church to pray.
And so I wandered in the plaza waiting for the saint to appear.
Just like yesterday, the atmosphere in the city is still heavy.
As I was waiting.
“-sigh-… it seems that the saint won't be coming here today too.” <Citizen A>
“so it seems, -sigh- It can't be helped ever since the rumors about the war breaking out started circulating it seems that the church had been tightening the security around the saint. As a result, she can't even visit the church to pray.” <Citizen B>
“I guess, if it’s for the saint’s safety then I can understand. I know that she will still be praying for us even if she’s not here in the church.” <Citizen A>
“Right? The saint is that kind of person after all.” <Citizen B>
I heard the conversation between the two people as they both left the church.
[Hmm? So… according to what the two were saying, I can’t meet the saint here after all? That’s a bit troublesome how could I meet the saint then? Should I inform someone in the church that a fellow oracle wants to meet her? No, no, no, that would be stupid if I do that, I feel that I would end up in a situation I would not want.]
I imagined getting accused of being Blasphemous by the members of the church.
“Hmnn, this is a bit problematic…” <Kazue>
[Should I use miss Alicia’s name to persuade them? No no no… my instinct tells me that doing that would be a bad idea too.]
‘Uwah…It can’t be helped.” <Kazue>
I gave up to meet the saint temporarily.
As I was stuck on what to do I decided to go to the adventurer’s guild to find some intel and look for some quests.
I couldn’t just wait for nothing and so I decided to look for a quest to kill time and earn some money.
“Oh, come to think of it…” <Kazue>
I took out my guild card.
Different from a status card, a guild card is a type of identification card that records your guild-related information.
Specifically, it records your criminal status, basic information about yourself, the quest that you’ve completed, your adventurer’s rank, and lastly, how much money you have in your guild bank account.
I took out my guild card and looked at the information printed on it.
“hmnn?” <Kazue>
Somehow tears flowed down from my eyes.
I read the information printed on the card.
I checked my balance and the number "-83,500,000".
It is a large amount... but it was NEGATIVE.
Seeing such a large amount of negative numbers printed on my card, my mood fell.
After 4 months I could not even decrease my debt by 10,000,000 DAL.
Sure, I do have enough time to pay for my debt, but realizing that I have to give up most of my earnings from the quest I complete for a longer time in the future, I could only pity myself for having such large debt.
[Uhgg… I need to do requests that pay a lot .]
The average earning you’ll get from an F-rank request is around 10,000 DAL
While the average reward for an E-rank request is around 25,000 DAL
On the other hand, the average reward for a D-rank request is around 300,000 DAL.
If I want to pay off my debt faster, I need to take up a higher-ranking request since the higher rank it is, the more reward I receive.
Unfortunately, as an E-rank Adventurer, I could only accept up to D-rank requests.
I manage to earn more than 5M DAL after submitting all the quests I completed this past 3 months.
I also sold a lot of monster materials that came along through my adventures for the past 3 months to be able to earn that much.
[If I subtract my living expenses, lodging, pet maintenance… Ughhh…. I could barely even pay my monthly quota of 1.5M.]
More tears flowed from my eyes.
I got lucky during my time in Luron when I participated in the dungeon exploration event.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen any quest or opportunity for me to earn a lot during the past 3 months of travel.
Plus, I was able to participate in that event because of some special considerations from the guild.
-sigh-
I came to the guild and took on 3 E-ranked quests and 2 D-rank quests from the bulletin boards in front of the guild building and presented it to the guild receptionist.
A piece of good news entered my ear.
“Oh! dear adventurer! It seems that you are now eligible to become a D-rank adventurer.” <Receptionist>
"D!" <Kazue>
When I heard these words my mood rose, I could not help but smile.
[I am eligible to become D-rank now! This means I can now take up a C-rank quest that can reward up to millions of DAL!]
Yes, I know…
I’ve realized this for quite some time now.
Before I realized it, it seems that after receiving a large debt I appreciated the importance of money.
Although I don’t want to admit it, it seems that some of Shai’s money-lusting mentality had rubbed into me.
[Hmmph... Whatever…]
I know that many people are like me anyway so what’s so bad about that?
“Alright, I have updated your guild status, congratulation miss adventurer you are now a D-rank adventurer. Although you can't have your guild ring just yet you are now officially a D-rank adventurer. If it’s okay we will have you wait for 3-5 days before you receive your bronze guild ring, does that sound fine with you miss adventurer?” <Receptionist>
The cat-eared receptionist said with a smile that seems to congratulate me.
To be honest I am not that interested in the rings so it’s fine even if I receive them a month later.
I nod.
What’s important is that I can now take up a C-rank quest!
“That’s fine. Also, I would like to take up another quest can you wait for me a Lil bit?” <Kazue>
“Uhh… sure…” <Receptionist>
I went out and took another request form posted on the bulletin board outside.
This time I took a C-rank quest from the bulletin board.
It is a C-rank Extermination quest that has a 900,000 DAL reward.
“Please add this request together with those.” <Kazue>
As I was too overjoyed, I did not notice but I unconsciously slammed the request form on the receptionist's table making her jump in surprise.
I pointed out the request forms I handed the cat-eared receptionist from a while ago with an excited look on my face.
.
.
.
I went into the field to work on the request I took from the guild.
Requests such as the ones that I took are quests that require one to explore deep into the forest.
I expect that to reach my destination I have to travel for at least a day to locate the monsters I need to slay.
Just like in the capital, the monsters near the city are relatively weak, the monster I need to hunt this time lives deeper in the field.
The place I need to go to was also a place that is quite dangerous for lower-ranked adventurers.
I traveled by foot together with my reliable assistants, Isamu, Hayate, and Kaori into the fields near Vestir.
Before I knew it was already nighttime.
At the moment I haven’t even progressed with any of the requests I took from the guild aside from the low-paying E-rank quest I took.
At this point, I already quit taking up the F-rank quest as there is little to no merit for me to complete them.
As I was relaxing in the camp I made with my familiars, A certain presence had incited Hayate as it approached us.
Without delay, we came on guard as we wait for the presence to show itself.
We heard the sound of something approaching us.
We hear the twigs and grass rustle caused by their movement.
Soon the figure reached us.
“Eh?” <Kazue>
A figure appeared from there but it was not a monster.
What appeared was a figure of a beautiful blonde girl with unnaturally long hair.
She was wearing a dark-colored robe over her beautiful white gown.
She seems to be on the run and was covered with dirt.
It seems that something had caused her to bleed from her forehead as I noticed that there was blood flowing from a wound on her forehead.
“Adventurer… oh… thank god… please, PLEASE, PLEASE, HELP…” <Girl>
The girl seems to be very agitated and scared.
She was breathing profusely and her eyes were unfocused.
“Calm down! What do you mean by help? How… can… I --” <Kazue>
I tried to calm her down.
“Ugh….” <Girl>
The girl staggered and touched her head all of a sudden, and the light in her eyes faded.
Suddenly the beauty fell on her feet as she lost consciousness.
I reflexively supported her on my arm as she fell.
[Whoa she's so light.]
Her skin was so white that it looked almost pale white.
She looked like a frail princess from fairytales.
[Uwah… what a beauty… I could even say that this girl is even more gorgeous than Chiho. But… why… why do I feel that this girl is bad news?]
I looked at the girl's face with an intense feeling of hesitation.
“What should I do now?” <Kazue>
I said as I thought of leaving the girl behind.
