XLIX

  Kaz felt relief once he was able to get inside the walls of Sarus. The Guards knew Orjal, and promptly let them through the gates, with Kaz not even needing to flash his Adventurer’s Badge to them. Orjal came to a stop, and motioned for Kaz to hop off, to which Kaz did. He turned back to the friendly Dwarf Merchant, thanking him, “Thank you for the ride, sir Orjal. Once I get my rewards from the Guild, I will come visit your stall.”

  The Dwarf gave him a wide smirk, which made Kaz feel a bit uncomfortable, but waved at him and yelled out as his horses started moving again, “Was a pleasure young one, see you soon!”

  Kaz chuckled and waved back to the Merchant, then set course straight to the Adventurer’s Guild. He had to ask a few people along the way to help him get to the building, and he had mixed responses from the people. A few of them were friendly and casual with him, pointing him the way to go. A couple of them knew who he was, and warily gave him directions, briskly walking off before he could thank them.

  That caused him to scratch his head, but soon enough, he reached the Adventurer’s Guild and walked into the main area of the building. The space was a bit busier than the last time he was there, but the upbeat mood was a change. Several of the Adventurers smiled at him, a few raised their drinks, and he got a few pats on the back. He was confused by this reaction, wondering what he did to receive such praise, making him feel uncomfortable. To his relief, Laelara was available, so he quickly made his way to her desk, and once they locked eyes, her eyes shifted from joy to concern, to joy again.

  Once he approached the desk, Laelara couldn’t help herself and started sputtering, “Kaz! Where have you been? You know it’s been over two weeks, almost three, right? Are you alright? Do you need any help?”

  He shook his head, her concern warming him up inside, causing him to smile warmly at the Elf. He soothingly assured her, “Yes I am aware, I actually underwent something in the Manashroom forest and that took up a lot of time,” and then he lowered his voice, seriously telling her, “And I discovered something very unsettling about the ‘monsters’ that I had investigated.”

  With that, he took out the bag with the Manashrooms, and put it on the desk, along with his Adventurer’s Badge. Laelara looked like she wanted him to explain himself, but with a deep breath to calm herself, she took out the Manashrooms and put them on the black and gold tray. She then put his Badge, and a golden light shone through the Manashrooms.

  “You know you gave fifteen instead of ten, right?” She asked him.

  He nodded, explaining, “Yeah, you mentioned that people rarely take that Quest, so I thought I’d bring as much as I could just so that there would be more Manashrooms for the Craftsmen to use.”

  She nodded with a small smile, then put the Manashrooms back in the bag, and stored them somewhere behind her desk. A small number of Tokens appeared on the tray, and she hastily picked them up, giving them to him, revealing, “Here is your reward for the Manashrooms, 15 Silver Tokens. Now tell me about the new monsters.”

  With a deep sigh, he began explaining, “So those monsters weren’t actually monsters.” Laelara tiled her head in confusion, but before she could ask, he continued, “They were a Race of people, which my [ Archive ] revealed to be Kobolds. So, I followed another group back to their—”

  Laelara’s eyes widened, gasping loudly. Her hand shot out to stop him from talking, exclaiming, “Hold on, let me arrange a meeting with the Guildmaster. He needs to hear this.”

  With that, she urgently stood up, and stormed off somewhere, leaving Kaz there dumbstruck at what caused such a huge reaction. He briefly looked around, and noticed a few people looking at him questioningly, but he plainly shrugged back at them.

  Guildmaster Vikto POV

  Another dull day at the Guild, with mountains of paperwork to go through. He itched to get back out there, to complete Quests like he used to back when he was younger, but he knew he wasn’t cut out for that life anymore. He knew he had an important job at the Guild, besides being the Guildmaster, with everything going through him, unfortunately in the form of papers to sign, with the occasional important parchment that needed to be sent to the Capital. People assumed he just sat in his office all day, doing nothing and acquiring wealth from the Adventurers who did all the dirty work. Well, they weren’t wrong completely, only about the doing nothing part.

  He was concerned when he heard someone running down the hallway to his room, yelling out his name. Due to the enhancements made to his walls, it was hard for him to distinguish who it was, but he didn’t have to wait long to see a young Elf bursting through the door. Laelara. One of his most trusted and reliable Clerks, and to see her react like this, immediately put him on high alert.

  “Guildmaster, sorry for the rude interruption, but you need to hear this out. A new Adventurer was recently on a Quest to investigate a new monster, but it turns out it was actually a Race of people!” She frantically blabbered, which was a bit hard for him to understand. He walked over and gripped her shoulders, speaking in the calmest way he could, “Laelara. Calm down a bit. Is the Adventurer here and able to talk?”

  She nodded, and he looked past her to the open door, not seeing anyone behind her, to which he looked at her questioningly. She paled a bit, and then muttered, “Yes, but I didn’t bring him with me to make sure you were available.”

  Unable to help himself, he chuckled at her, and told her, “Go get this Adventurer and bring him to my office.”

  Laelara immediately spun around and went to go fetch the Adventurer. He was a bit concerned about the information that she had just revealed to him. He would wait for the young Adventurer to explain, as making assumptions right now would be foolish. He sat down behind his desk, pushing away the stack of papers. So much for a dull day.

  A couple minutes went by before Laelara knocked on his door, and they walked in. Behind her was a very young looking Gnome and from the looks of it, fresh from his adventure. The poor kid was in a rough shape, the shaft of his weapon broken, and his robe torn in places and full stains that he knew all too well. But his face was a different story, especially his silver eyes. They shone with an ominous glint, and he knew that look. This kid gave off that dangerous feeling, making the hair on his arms stand, and he only hoped he would be dangerous in a good way. And he was only a Wood Stage Adventurer?

  Laelara wasted no time, and introduced him, “Guildmaster, this is Kaz, a Mage in the Wooden Stage. Kaz, this is Guildmaster Vikto, the man in charge of the Sarus Adventurer’s Guild.”

  Both nodded to each other, and Vikto immediately liked the kid, feeling that he was the serious type and mature for his age. Also, that name did ring a bell, although he couldn’t place where he heard it from. Vikto motioned to the chairs, and they both sat down after he took a seat himself. He decided to go first, prompting Kaz, “So, Kaz, Laelara informed me you had a Quest where you were supposed to investigate potentially new monsters, but instead ran into a Race of people?”

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  Kaz nodded, and then cleared his throat before explaining himself, “Yes sir. When I approached the area for the Quest, I searched for the new monsters and ran into two of them strolling around. I took them down with some difficulty, but when I did, I noticed their bodies remained after some time, not vanishing into the air as monsters did.”

  Vikto winced at that, knowing the shock the poor kid must’ve gone through when he experienced that. Kaz continued on, “After realizing that they weren’t disappearing, I decided to take a look at their gear. They both had polished leather gear, and each contained a symbol of some kind.” As he said that, he dug into his bag, and brought out a roughly cut out leather piece, and on there was an emblem he did not recognize. But he was already dreading to hear whatever was coming next.

  “My [ Archive ] then notified me that these were a Race of people called Kobolds, and that I should investigate further for a bonus reward. I obviously accepted and after waiting for another group to come by, I followed them back to their settlement. Their settlement was hidden underneath a massive cliffside, pretty much hidden from plain sight. There were little shacks being built, and they were bringing large crates from deep within the cave.”

  Vikto’s heart was racing, as he knew where this was going. This was so much worse than he thought. And he couldn’t help but close his eyes and sigh, which caused Kaz to pause his recollection of what he saw. He waved at him to continue, then leaning over his desk, rubbing his temples.

  “What confused me, is that they would disappear from view behind a wall. I know that sounds weird, but the wall shimmered weirdly whenever someone passed through it. So, I sneaked through it, and once I was past the wall, I was put into a very hot space, with what seemed like giant window with a purple border at the end of the space. I saw mounds of reddish dust, and this hot and dry heat was coming from it, but on the other side, these Kobolds had another camp with even more crates.”

  Vikto raised his hand to interrupt the young Gnome, needing to ask a few questions before he continued, “First off Kaz, roughly how many of these Kobolds were there?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that, but if I were to roughly guess, I’d assume at least over a thousand from what I could see,” he replied.

  Vikto felt the cold sweat going down his back, and he asked the next question, “This wall you mentioned, the one you had to pass through, along with the ‘window’ like thing you saw inside the space” Kaz nodded, prompting him to continue, “that was most likely an illusion paired with a gateway to another Realm. Which leads me to this next question, were there Mages present keeping this gateway and illusion open?”

  Kaz pondered that, not answering immediately. He finally responded to him, revealing, “I don’t recall seeing any Mages or people present keeping the wall and gateway open. It was just there, and it was a large gateway, like the width of your office walls.”

  Vikto closed his eyes and looked down, head in his hands. This was all very bad, but bad couldn’t even describe the severity of this information. He asked one final question, “You also mentioned crates, what were in those crates?”

  Kaz shrugged, immediately replying, “I did not check any of the crates, I only used them to hide myself.”

  Vikto nodded, not surprised by that. He was a young Adventurer, and he couldn’t possibly know the many things one should do when conducting such an investigation of something like this. He then told Kaz, “You can continue your recollection, unless it ends there?”

  “On my way out, a Laborer spotted me and alerted to the Kobolds, who came rushing over,” Kaz explained, wincing when Laelara gasped loudly, unable to contain herself. Kaz continued once she muttered an apology, to which he just waved off casually, “I managed to escape back into the forest, and defeated a couple of the Kobolds who were tracking me as they split off. I then ran through the forest to my next Quest in the Manashroom Forest, and I wasn’t followed there.”

  Vikto nodded once Kaz fell silent. He asked Kaz, “Kaz you are a Wood Stage Adventurer, right?” To which he nodded and responded, “Yes sir, I am almost at 30 Resonance.”

  Laelara looked at him with wide eyes, to which made him curious, but he instead asked, “At what skill level do you think these Kobolds were at?”

  Kaz tapped his chin as he thought, and then he assumed, “I believe around my Resonance, as the battles were difficult but not so much to the point I was overwhelmed.”

  Finally, Vikto asked him to point out the general location on where he found the Kobolds on a new fresh map, and after getting the general location, he rolled up the map, deciding to ask Treyre or some other available experienced Rogue to scout the area to confirm what Kaz saw was real. It’s not that he doubted the Gnome, but it was better to have more than one source.

  Vikto processed the answers presented to him, but he needed to speak to Laelara privately to confirm a few things about Kaz himself. He then informed Kaz, “Kaz, thank you so much for this information, and I will make sure you are very well compensated for this. I need to contact the Capital with this, as this is very concerning. Would you please go back to the main lobby as I do some paperwork with Laelara here?”

  Laelara tilted her head in confusion, but thankfully Kaz didn’t notice and immediately stood up with a small head bow. He exited the room and closed the door behind him, causing Laelara to immediately ask him, “What do you need my help with, Guildmaster?”

  “I need to know about Kaz himself, anything you know about him. I believe I heard that name before, but I can’t place where I heard it,” he requested.

  She took a second to collect her thoughts, and then listed everything she knew, “He is a one-star Mage who got Awakened this year.” Vikto raised his eyebrow, noting that it wasn’t that long ago, and he was already approaching thirty Resonance. That was three-star pace, not one-star, but the [ Archive ] never lied.

  Laelara continued, “He journeyed from another town, I don’t recall which one, but I have heard rumors that during his Awakening he had a silver beam. When he was here, he gained the interest from Elder Aelon of the Mage Academy, and also got into an altercation with Nahan Faedusk, which Nahan started.” Like most people in this town, he knew about the Faedusk family, but fortunately for him, he didn’t have to deal with their antics, as he was technically higher in the hierarchy than them.

  “And finally, probably from where you heard his name, he was involved in the capturing of the Bandits with Broff Underhorn’s group. Although Kaz himself requested Broff that his involvement was to be kept a secret, but you know Broff,” Vikto nodded, finally realizing where he heard his name before.

  “You know, Laelara, this Kaz kid has gone through more in half a year than most people in their lifetimes. Also, before I forget, make sure to give him this financial reward for this information,” he took out five Gold Tokens and handed it to her. She took the Tokens and held on to them tightly, which confirmed the fact that this Kaz was someone special to her.

  “And finally, make sure to keep an eye on him, and report anything that stands out. And if he needs anything, make sure to accommodate him, as I feel we should invest in this young talent.”

  With that, Laelara said her goodbye, and vacated the room. Vikto sighed heavily, knowing that the real work was yet to come. He sent an emergency message through the [ Archive ] to the Grand Guildmaster in Aros, this Realm’s Capital. The message read:

  Potential invasion from another Realm. Need to schedule a meeting with you and the Royal Court. Making my way to the Capital shortly, should arrive within the week.

  ? ? ?

  Kaz waited for Laelara at her desk, and when she approached the desk, they both stood there in an awkward silence. Kaz decided to break the tension by pulling out his bag and putting it on the table. Laelara looked at him questioningly, but he brought out the crystals and Kobold ears he acquired from his journey.

  Laelara also slid five Gold Tokens towards him, whispering, “This is from the Guildmaster for bringing him the information about the Kobolds.” Kaz stared intently at the Gold Tokens, frozen as he had never seen a single Gold Token in his life. While his gaze was locked on the Gold Tokens, not daring to touch them, she gathered his crystals, secretly disposing of the Kobold ears, unable to hide her disgust, and used the [ Archive ] to tally up his total from the crystals.

  Breaking him out his trance, she slid him more Tokens, revealing, “And here is 47 Silver Tokens, and 15 Copper Tokens for the… drops.” He absentmindedly grabbed all the Tokens, before remembering to pay for the room. Kaz slowly counted out thirty Silver Tokens, and gave them to Laelara, simply saying, “I want a room for a week, please.”

  She weakly smiled and gave him a key, and without another word, he grabbed the key and went up the stairs to his room. Before he ascended up the stairs, he looked back and waved to the Elf Clerk, giving her a tired smile. He approached his room, dropped off all his gear, including his robe and clothes, and fell asleep before his head even hit the pillow.