While Teto and I were resting in our caravan, the group from Liefe investigated the mansion and its surroundings. Even though most of the mansion had burnt down during Fauzard’s rampage, the mages still managed to discover the entrance to the basement. Unfortunately for them, this was the part that had suffered the most from Fauzard’s attack—perhaps because he resented that place the most after having been trapped there for centuries. Because of that, all that was left was debris of the tools the mage had used to experiment on him. This lent my earlier testimony some credibility; even though there were no traces of the weapon I had mentioned, the extent of the damage in the basement proved that it had indeed been the epicenter of the incident.
They interrogated me several times; each time, I repeated my cover story, not mentioning a single word about Fauzard. I wasn’t too worried that they would catch me out; the only proof of Fauzard’s existence were the documents Teto and I had gathered before the seal broke. In the end, they couldn’t find any contradictions in my story, and all of us headed back to Liefe together.
“Miss Chise, Miss Teto, welcome back! I’m so, so sorry for sending you on that quest!” the guild’s receptionist exclaimed when we stepped inside to give our report. It seemed that they were already more or less aware of what had transpired, which I wasn’t too surprised about; the mansion wasn’t that far from Liefe, so the soldiers and mages had more than enough time to send a couple of messengers back to town to update them on the situation.
“Oh, and the guildmaster has requested a meeting with the two of you.”
I nodded. “That’s fine. I wanted to talk to him directly as well.”
“Let’s go now!” Teto said.
The receptionist threw a confused glance at the lantern in my hand as she led us to the drawing room. I couldn’t blame her; not only was it the middle of the day, but I hadn’t been holding a lantern when we left the guild that morning. She didn’t ask any questions, though; she just served us some tea and excused herself from the room. When she had left, Fauzard talked to us telepathically.
“Are you sure you want to proceed with your plan? You have lied to the others, yet you plan on telling the truth to that man.”
Fauzard wasn’t wrong. We’d talked about my plan before, after all; but now that we were here, he seemed to wonder if it was really necessary.
“I won’t show him the mage’s research documents, but if we explain your situation, he might deign to lend a hand. Maybe he could even act as a mediator between us and the elves.”
“Will it really go that well, though?” Fauzard asked skeptically.
“Trust Lady Witch! She’s done her research!” Teto chimed in.
Teto was right: I hadn’t decided to tell him the truth just because he was the guildmaster. I had actually spent the past year building a profile on the guy, and I had a pretty good idea of how he’d react. If I’d had any doubts about his character, I wouldn’t even have picked Liefe as our base in the first place.
“It’ll be fine. After all—”
A knock at the door interrupted me.
“Sorry for the wait. You two are Miss Chise and Miss Teto, yes?” the newcomer said as he entered the room. His pale green, shoulder-length hair was neatly kept, and his features, while delicate, were well proportioned.
He seemed to be around thirty, which was quite young for a guildmaster. But what stood out the most were his pointy ears—though they weren’t as long as a regular elf’s.
“It is our first time meeting in person, I believe. I’m Phealos, Liefe’s guildmaster. I know I don’t look the part, but I actually used to be an A-rank adventurer.”
Fauzard’s voice echoed in my mind. “A half-elf. I understand now.”
When the guildmaster was done introducing himself, Teto and I handed our guild cards to him.
“First of all, I’m going to put a soundproof barrier around the room,” I said, doing just that. “Now, please check the hidden symbol on our cards.”
“The hidden symbol? No way...” Phealos gasped in shock.
His eyes fixed on the engraved symbol on our guild cards, he traced it with a mana-infused finger. Slowly, the C on our cards turned gold, and our real rank appeared.
“You two are...S-rank?” he let out.
“Sorry for deceiving you,” I said before canceling my Makeover spell. I returned to my preadolescent shape right where I stood.
For a while, he simply stared at me in shock, unable to find his words. Teto and I patiently waited for him to come back to his senses.
“I... I’m not sure I understand what’s going on,” he ended up saying after a few seconds, bringing a hand to his face and covering one of his eyes.
“Well, I can imagine this is all quite sudden to you.”
Between our revealing that we were S-rank, me turning into a child in front of his eyes, and the fact that my guild card stated that I was over ninety years old, I couldn’t blame him for being overwhelmed. I felt a bit sorry for putting him in that position.
“I have...a lot of questions,” he finally managed to squeeze out.
He took a few deep breaths; once he seemed to have calmed down slightly, he started to ask us questions.
“Um, your guild card states that you’re the Carpet Riders. If I remember correctly, that’s the name of the party that put an end to the stampede in the northwestern reaches, right?”
“That’s actually what promoted us to S-rank,” I replied.
After the stampede, my friends Gyunton and Arsus had pushed for Teto and me to become S-rank, along with King Alberd—Selene’s father.
“Are you two really the Witch of Creation and her guardian?” Phealos asked.
“Is there any way we can prove our identity to him?” I muttered, deep in thought.
“Lady Witch, show him our flying carpet!” Teto suggested.
“Oh, good idea. That’s what got us our party name after all—he’ll definitely believe us if he sees it.”
I took the flying carpet out of our magic bag, spread it on the floor of the drawing room, and made it float into the air. Thankfully, this little demonstration was enough to convince Phealos we were telling the truth.
After that, Phealos hit us with another barrage of questions: why were we pretending to be C-rank, why did we reveal our true identity, et cetera, et cetera. He struggled to accept some of our answers; fatigue took over his youthful face, making him look much older all of a sudden.
“You said that you wanted to report what happened during your quest to me, yes? The magic tool that suddenly exploded. I’m assuming that since you chose this moment to reveal your identity to me, you must have been hiding something from the others.”
“You’ve guessed right. Fauzard, can you come out?” I asked, and Fauzard did just that.
Phealos sensed his presence and whipped his head in his direction, his body shaking like a leaf. “That presence... A high-ranking spirit?!”
“I am Fauzard, a greater fire spirit. This human saved me from my prison.”
Elves worshipped spirits. To them, high-ranking spirits were akin to gods, or at least messengers of the divine. Phealos swiftly sank to his knees, bowing deeply before Fauzard as I told him everything that had happened at the haunted mansion.
“Forbidden arts that abuse spirits’ powers... I cannot believe there was a victim of such dark practices right under our noses,” Phealos said between gritted teeth, his body shaking in anger.
I tried my best to calm him down before continuing, “Anyway, the real reason we’re here today is because of Fauzard. He got separated from his contractor when he was abducted three hundred years ago, and he’d like to know what happened to him.”
“I am aware that he most likely has passed away. However, he might still have relatives in the elves’ great forest. I want to meet with them,” Fauzard explained.
“As the guildmaster, I can contact the great forest,” Phealos replied, his expression serious. “However, it might take some time for me to confirm everything. Would that be all right?”
“I do not mind. What qualifies as ‘some time’ to you is merely a fleeting moment to us spirits.”
“We’ll stay in town until you’ve received a response from the elves, then,” I said before leaving the room.
On our way home, we stopped at the guild’s reception counter to collect our compensation for tearing down the haunted mansion. I’d considered refusing to take the money, since Fauzard had pretty much taken care of the job for us, but I decided to treat it as reparations for having been sent on such a dangerous quest.
With all that behind us, we headed back to our caravan.