Glen fell silent for a while, as if hesitating to speak, but eventually, he slowly parted his lips. “The fourth Sage.”
“The Sage? Of the Four Saints…?”
Once, when the continent of Helcacia had been a dangerous place overflowing with monsters, there were four adventurers who dared venture into this hostile land.
They defeated the monsters, creating an opportunity for people to settle there. Eventually, they brought together the adventurers who had poured into Helcacia and had created the basis for what would become the Adventurers Guild. The descendants of these four adventurers became known as the Four Saints.
Those with the blood of the Four Saints were seen as holy, and though they weren’t directly involved in administering Helcacia, they safeguarded its history as rulers. However, the fourth generation of saints had a problem.
A decade ago, one of the Four Saints, the Sage, suddenly vanished.
“The Sage disappeared right after I was appointed as the guildmaster and started searching for hidden quests. That was right as I was thinking of looking into the Four Saints. It’s always bothered me that he disappeared right at that moment.”
“…Could it be that the Sage knew something about hidden quests…?”
“It’s possible. The Sage was a wise man. I could imagine that he picked up on what I was doing and forestalled me by disappearing.” Glen took a breath, then quietly continued. “That’s why I’ve decided to go look for the vanished Sage. He’s also the one who compiled Libri, the book that details the history of this continent. He might know about dark gods, too.”
“But the searches for the Sage have turned up short, even with the full effort of the Adventurers Guild behind them. How do you plan on finding someone who might not even be alive…?”
“I’m relying on the Dark Guild’s information network.”
“The Dark Guild?!” Jade’s eyes widened at the words that left Glen’s mouth, and he was struck speechless for a while. At the same time, now he understood what Glen was trying to do and why Fili was so openly angry with him.
“It couldn’t be… Do you intend to go to the Dark Guild headquarters?”
“I do.”
Jade heard Fili sigh. There was not even the slightest hesitation in Glen’s eyes, and this unnerved Jade, too. “It’s too dangerous. At the very least, they’re not an organization that the guildmaster of the Adventurers Guild should be negotiating with directly…!”
The Dark Guild—it was an ancient guild, with just as long a history as that of the Adventurers Guild.
It was the most powerful force in the underworld, and it would take on all sorts of requests of ill repute—intelligence gathering, slave trafficking, kidnapping, anything that could be bought and paid for, regardless of legality.
The Dark Guild was composed of mages who admired magic and had a distaste for skills, an unusual stance on the Helcacia continent, where skills were thought to rank the highest. The mages who had been left behind by the Age of Skill Supremacy had devised their own unique powers, secretly constructing a force in the shadow of society—the Dark Guild.
“I hear that the knowledge and information in the Dark Guild’s possession encompasses depths that even the Information Brokers Guild can’t reach—things that they can acquire precisely because they live in the underworld. They’re the only ones we can turn to.”
“Maybe that’s true, but still…”
There was a major problem with Glen’s proposal: The Dark Guild held a sincere antipathy—a hatred, even—for the Adventurers Guild, which held skills in high regard.
The Adventurers Guild tacitly permitted the Dark Guild to exist, as a necessary evil. No—they had been forced to do so. The Dark Guild’s inferiority complex about skills had given rise to unique spells, their “forbidden techniques,” which were said to rival even Sigurth skills now. Since the Dark Guild had expanded its influence using that power, it would be difficult to eliminate.
And that wasn’t even getting into the fact that Glen was now missing an arm, and so could no longer wield his superheavy two-handed greatsword like he had back in his prime. Just what would become of him if he waltzed into the Dark Guild?
“That’s why I’m against this.” Fili, who had been listening patiently, furrowed her brows severely. “Even the past guildmasters avoided direct involvement with the Dark Guild. At the very least, you should contact them through a messenger or a letter.”
“No. The guildmaster going in person will be quite the statement. If I hesitate in the face of danger, we won’t get anywhere.”
“But—!”
“Fili.” Glen cut Fili off, looked her right in the eye, and said, “Li’l miss and Silver Sword have been fighting with dark gods despite knowing the risks—no, I made them fight. Let me do this, at least.”
“…” Faced with the firm determination of Glen’s gaze, Fili dropped what she was about to say. After a moment of silence, she sighed in resignation, pushing up her glasses as she presented one condition. “…Understood. However, you will let me accompany you to the Dark Guild.”
“No, I can’t—!” Glen panicked.
“What’s that?” Fili’s silver-rimmed glasses instantly flashed, a cold brutality emanating from the eyes behind them. “Without your arm and your ability to wield a greatsword, you’re just an old man with some muscle. Wouldn’t you say it’s too late to make a fuss about not having a guard? But if that’s how you want to be, then from now on, your meals will only consist of the green beans you hate so much, and with my authority as your private secretary, I’ll put together a nightmare schedule with a total break time of five minutes per day—do you have any complaints?”
“…” After Fili rattled that off in one breath, Glen’s mouth hung open, like that of a fish. “………S-sorry…I’d love to have you come along as my guard,” he said. Was Jade seeing things, or had Glen gotten smaller?
After processing that Fili was capable of silencing the guildmaster, once revered as the strongest adventurer of all, with a frigid glare and a threat of green beans, Jade muttered earnestly, “You’re scary when you really get angry, Fili…”
“Did you say something, Jade?”
“Nothing.”
With a sigh of disappointment, Glen turned to face Jade once more.
“…Well, that’s how it is. I’ll be away from Iffole for a while, since the Dark Guild headquarters is far away. I plan to come back for the day of the fighting tournament…but take care of Iffole until then.”