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“The guild master’s assistant and associates will probably sweat geysers when they hear that,” my father agreed, and Zinal nodded. “But why spread that kind of rumor?”
“The guild master’s seal is nowhere to be found,” Zinal explained. “We want to search his office to look for it, so we’re going to do a little burglary.”
I didn’t know there was a guild master’s seal… Wait a minute, did he just say “burglary”?
“What?!”
From the way my father gasped just now, he must also be shocked by their burglary plans.
“The seal is gone?”
Huh? That’s the news that shocked him? Hmm. Maybe the seal is actually quite important.
“Yeah, it disappeared when the guild master died,” Zinal explained.
Did the guild master hide it? But why would he…unless he knew people were trying to kill him? That would be a good reason.
“But it wouldn’t just disappear,” my father argued. “It can never leave the guild master’s office.”
That was confusing. The seal couldn’t leave the guild master’s office? Was it under some sort of spell? If it was, then nobody besides the guild master could hide it.
“You’re quite right, of course…” Zinal tilted his head thoughtfully.
The mystery perplexed me, too, but more importantly, what even was a guild master’s seal?
“Um, what’s the guild master’s seal?” I finally asked.
“It’s a stamp that can only be passed down from one guild master to another, and you can’t use it until you’ve been approved as guild master. Without that stamp, you can’t make a single request adventurers will feel comfortable with.”
Zinal’s explanation made it very clear just how important the guild master’s seal was. But what did he mean by “requests adventurers will feel comfortable with”? Was there such a thing as requests they weren’t comfortable with?
“Any request with the guild master’s seal is guaranteed to have gone through the adventurer guild. Without it, adventurers will usually turn down job requests. That seal also ensures adventurers will still get paid, even if something happens to the original job requester.”
Okay, so the seal was like a form of financial insurance. Since it pledged the adventurer guild’s protection, that explained why adventurers would be comfortable with a job.
“Wait a minute—then what’s happening to the job requests right now?” I asked.
Were there any?
“Oh, they’re still coming in. They take half the payment up front and the rest after the job is done.”
I guess when you can’t guarantee payment, that’s the obvious compromise.
“That’s one way of handling job requests, but it’s not ideal,” Zinal said. “This payment method is only used when the adventurer guild doesn’t have the adventurer’s trust.”
I nodded in understanding. If they were trusted, they could always pay once the job was complete.
“But I really do wonder where that seal went…” Fische looked at my father and Zinal, but they both shook their heads. They were just as clueless as he was.
“If we knew that, our task would be much easier,” Zinal said.
Fische smiled. “Sure, but it really is strange that the seal just disappeared from the office.”
The guild master’s seal supposedly couldn’t leave the office, yet it wasn’t there. That would have to mean it was removed. But what sort of conditions would let that happen? The seal disappeared after the guild master died… I guess that might mean it disappeared when there was no guild master.
“Why can’t the guild master’s seal leave the office?” I asked.
That was the first mystery. Maybe it was magic, but what sort of spell would prevent it from leaving a room?
“Whenever a new adventurer guild is formed, the first thing they build is the guild master’s office. The whole room is enchanted with magic, and one of the enchantments is a spell that keeps the guild master’s seal from leaving the room. One of the guild master’s duties is to imbue the office with magic energy once per day to sustain ownership. There’re more to it than that, but only the guild master knows everything.”
My father’s explanation made sense. But after I thought for a moment, another question came to me.
“What happens when the guild master stops imbuing the room with magic energy?”
“If that happens, it’s rigged to alert the adventurer guild in the royal capital of an anomaly. That’s because a guild master would never neglect the daily magic-imbuing unless something was wrong. If the guild master dies suddenly, somebody else imbues the office with magic, but if anyone other than the guild master does that, the royal capital is alerted automatically.”
Now that made sense. So someone couldn’t exactly cut the magic energy supply and remove the seal that way. But as long as the spell on the guild master’s seal wasn’t canceled, the seal couldn’t be removed from the office. Unless there was some way of cutting off the magic energy flow just to the guild master’s seal and nothing else? Was that even possible?
“Is there a way of cutting off the magic energy flow just to the guild master’s seal?” I asked.
Zinal looked surprised. “I guess there is a way…but only one person is able to do that. The guild master’s seal is used every day, you see.”
Only one person could do it—the former guild master. It was becoming increasingly clear that he was the one who had hidden it.
“Do you think that the guild master knew his life was in danger?” I asked. “And that he also knew he couldn’t trust anybody in his circle?”
Everyone in the guild master’s circle was bought and paid for. If he knew his life was in danger, and he had nobody to turn to…
“That’s definitely possible,” Fische said. “But whenever the guild master can’t handle something alone, he can always contact the adventurer guild in the royal capital for backup.”
Zinal nodded.
“And what if he can’t ask for backup?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische fell into thought. If the guild master wanted to call for backup but couldn’t…what kind of situation had pushed him into such a desperate predicament?
Oh, that’s right…he was a tamer.
“Where is the guild master’s tamed monster?” I asked.
“Er—when the tamer dies, the covenant bonding him to his monsters disappears, so I assume it wandered off somewhere.”
Is that really what happened, though?
“Don’t you think he was famous as a tamer because he had a good relationship with his monster?” I suggested.
“Could be,” Fische said. “His monster always came with him whenever he went to deal with problems, and they were always in sync… You know, yeah, now that I think about it, they did have a great relationship. They were always together, and I saw them chatting happily now and then.”
Zinal nodded in agreement.
“If they had a great relationship, then they must’ve been very angry if the guild master was murdered,” I said.
Mrrrow!
Everyone’s gaze shot toward Ciel, whose tail was standing straight on end.
“Are you trying to say you’re angry?” I asked.
Mrrrow.
So I was right. My creatures do know about this village’s guild master. How did they know?
“Maybe his monster got taken hostage?” my father suggested.
The monster, hostage?
“You know, I remember hearing the guild master accepted the position because his tamed monster was getting on in years. People said he should just tame some younger monsters, but he said something like ‘No, I will never have family like this one again.’ And people thought that was a strange thing to say, since they didn’t think the monster-tamer relationship was all that important in those days.”
Zinal looked at me meaningfully. I stared quizzically back.
“But now, everyone understands just how important the monster-tamer relationship is, which just proves the guild master was a true tamer at heart.”
Fische nodded in agreement.
“As much as I want to know what happened, talking about it here does limit us. Anyway, we’ll check first to see if the guild master’s seal really is gone from the office. So we’ll spread the rumor as planned, right?” Zinal asked Fische.
“I already tipped off the innkeeper, so it’s probably spreading as we speak,” Fische said.
So the rumor is already spreading? Dang, that’s fast.
“We’ll be heading to the dump to pick up all the things we need,” my father said. “We’re almost out of potions for everyone.”
My mind jumped to the contents of our magic bags, and indeed, we were low on essentials.
“Got it,” Zinal said. “If the bad guys go on the move today, it won’t be until this afternoon, so you should go to the dump in the morning.”
My father looked at me, and I nodded back. Since we didn’t know when we would have to leave this village, we had to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Our problem was getting more and more complicated, and that worried me.