DAY 121
MIDDAY
If the guild master weren’t so darn stingy, that board might update for a change!
OMUI CITY
THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD MASTER'S OFFICE
IT WAS AS THE SONGS said. As if the city itself was a giant flower in bloom, color seeped into the streets, laughter crept into the people’s voices, and joy populated every face in the form of a smile. Ah, fortune had come home to stay.
The local lord, Duke Omui, was still away on his journeys, but his delightful daughter, the lady Merielle, had recently returned to us from her sojourn in the Beast Kingdom. Her companions, fair young maidens with signature ebony locks, were likewise home. Thoughts of peace and presentiments of new wealth quickened in our peoples’ bosoms. Smiles spread across the faces of our kin and countrymen, for the return of the battle maidens meant the dungeons would be eradicated even faster.
But a smile, I thought, was inherently a meaningless thing. I watched the boy return and just as quickly vanish underneath a pile of crying, hugging children. To seek meaning in their tearstained smiles—or, more precisely, to search for logic in this action—was a boorish task. These smiles were simple expressions of pure joy that someone had arrived, and let that be enough.
It was well known and never spoken that this group of black-haired children were the benefactors of our fortune. We felt their absence as a palpable thing, and upon their return, the whole frontier found reason to celebrate.
The bustling city streets were now lined with shops selling goods of every variety and color. Merchants strolled the streets dressed in the garb of every foreign land imaginable. With so much foreign trade, an ordinary stroll in the streets captured the eyes and rendered one giddy and confused.
The only mar on our happiness was a nascent bandit problem. We had never before struggled with would-be adventurers turning to robbery and pillaging. With our ever-swelling ranks and ever-increasing strength, we’d thinned out the monster population of the nearby dungeons and forest, which had enabled us to curate a force of only the most elite adventurers…but this had done little to stop the problem.
Then, the local housewives formed a women’s union and assembled, with startling speed, an enormous, weblike information network stretching across towns to villages—this, finally, had done much to quell public unrest and let us sleep safe in our beds at night. No bandit or monster dared attack these fearsome women. At long last, we had enough resources to patrol our lands as we ought, and our rescue teams could now keep pace with the demand.
However, the surge in new adventurers brought other issues. Our once-overflowing weapon stores could not keep pace with the demand for equipment. Our lending system was stretched to its limits. We could not complain much—too much peace and prosperity was hardly an evil—but we were forced to rely on the boy yet again.
Yes, the boy—the boy who could not even have become an adventurer had he wanted to, the boy who took on the deepest dungeons and the most harrowing risks. We had the effrontery to make him craft more weapons and armor for us. He was a mere level 28, and we demanded the world of him. Truly, there was no way we could ever make amends for this grave injustice.
The city rang with songs of dungeon destruction—great feats, yes, but our adventurers could as of yet only eliminate the smallest of dungeons. We made forays into larger lairs, but it was all we could do to hold our own. We never slew the bosses in the deepest of dungeons, and as much as we hated to admit it, we could not even slow the growth of those dreadful pocks upon the landscape.
Despite the kingdom’s army swelling our ranks, and stouter weapons in our hands, we still could do so little. We were exposed for the powerless organization that we were. Even with all the riches we could never before have so much as dreamed of, we still lacked the strength to hold onto our new way of life. The guild was alive like never before, and yet we could only throw ourselves against the wall that was the dungeon system. We could not hold it at bay, nor could we so much as dream of eradicating it entirely.
“Mr. Hakiess, sir? Please don’t let it trouble you so. An entire country’s forces would not be enough to slay a dungeon emperor. The legends say as much. ’Twas a continent-wide crusade that finally toppled one such foe. We live in troubled times where deep, dark dungeons riddle our land, and no one expects us to be able to hold our own against them. Just please write a request to the boy, sir. It’s your duty as our guild master.”
“My hand will not move, child. Why must we continue to trouble this boy? My head understands, but my heart cannot. We cannot pay for this fortune! He has given us the world, and we think to send him back into some bottomless hell?”
The pen trembled in my hand. The pen itself was a symbol of everything the boy had brought, every bit of trade and wealth, from all across the continent. And with this treasure bestowed upon the frontier, I would send the boy to his sure death.
To petition him was no request. It was as sure as an order. The boy never refused any requests, readily accepting even the most rushed and inconvenient solicitations. Writing a request was equivalent to ordering the boy to march into hell.
“Even if you don’t send him, sir, it won’t stop him from going on his own. He was back here again this morning, badgering me to give him a dungeon that would earn him lots of money. You should have heard the racket he raised about the lack of dungeon missions on the information board. Frankly, if we had all the wealth of every kingdom on the continent, we would still lack the funds to pay him for his dungeon diving exploits. But there’s no reasoning with him, sir. Just give up and please write the request.”
Yes, I know. I know. I hear you. I know what I must do.
“If not for him and his companions, we would never have been sent dungeon-slaying task forces from the Theocracy and the Beast Kingdom. Long has it been since other kingdoms have raised banners in service of Omui. Too long. I never thought I would live to see the day when Diorelle was made whole once more and the rest of the world came to our aid. And you would have me sentence the boy who made this happen to hell? Can you not understand why I hesitate, why I cannot bear to pen the message that shall send him straight to a dread dungeon king?”
I could not conceptualize, much less count, all the blessings he had brought us. Every scrap of happiness on this frontier, every day that peace reigned, belonged to him. And I would repay it with this? This perfidy?