"Okay, I'll go with you." The guild hall collectively holds its breath as I follow the Count into the back rooms.
He guides me through the hall to a small room with only a table and a couple of chairs in it. He motions for me to take a seat. I comply, but he remains standing.
"How do you like your new armor?" he asks. A knowing smile hangs from his face.
"It's very good, thank you. We wouldn't be able to grow as fast as we have without it."
"Good, I'm glad. That makes my next request easier." Count Richter walks up to the table and pulls out a map of the town. He points to several locations to give me a better understanding of what I'm looking at. Not many maps exist in this world, and this is the first time I am seeing one in the area. Once I've got a grasp of the layout of the town, he explains what he wants me to do.
"So, there won't even be any guards there?" I ask suspiciously.
"No, at least not if everything goes as planned."
"This is much less dangerous than I was expecting."
"True, but this is far from the last favor I'll ask of you."
"Very well. I'll explain this to my team and Inari." I move to leave after accepting his proposal.
"Actually, I was hoping to have you do this alone. Having more people get involved will only increase the chance of you being discovered, and if my step-daughter is found at the crime scene, it will be fairly simple to trace it back to me."
"Very well, but I'm still going to tell them the plan."
"I can't stop you, so do as you please." The Count slides out of the room as he finishes speaking. I take a moment to go over everything he said. After taking a moment to collect myself, I head back to the guild hall.
"What'd he say?" Sakura asks, uncomfortably close to my face. I lean back in my seat to create some distance between us.
"I'll explain when we get back to our house. There are too many people here right now."
"Then let's hurry up!" Sakura jumps out of her seat and pushes her way to the front of the line at the counter. There's some complaining, but no one dares confront the rumored demon girl.
Having easily gotten her way, Sakura trots back over with a guild staff member in tow.
"We want to sell all of this. How much?" Sakura demands.
"I'll need to calculate based on the–"
"How much?!"
"Sakura, calm down." My attempt to calm her down only redirects her aggression toward me. She glares at me before looking at Josh and then retakes her seat at the table.
[I thought things were about to get messy there. I think I dodged a bullet.]
Everything we brought in is collected onto a cart and wheeled into the back. There's some awkward tension at the table between Tyrion and Shinobu as well as Sakura and I, but it isn't long until we start talking again. Most notably, no one can stop thinking about our fight with the Ursamor. Excited chatter fills the table, and even Francis gets involved. He and his sister may not have participated, but they certainly had front-row seats.
I keep out of the discussion while I think about my encounter with the Count. There are many moving pieces with his plan, and I want to be sure I execute it properly. From the corner of my eye, I notice the crowd of people forming around our table. The tales of heroism and the literal bags of loot make for an enticing sight. I'm not sure if I should tell them to leave. I don't want to kill the room's energy, but having this many people eavesdropping could definitely lead to problems in the future. Loose lips sink ships, as they say.
"What the hell is going on over here?" Jezabel bursts through the crowd before I can act.
"We're sitting, mostly," I snidely remark.
"Don't you start with me? Why is half the hall crowded around you?"
"They're eavesdropping," I reply.
"What the heck?" It appears Shinobu only just now realized the swarm of bodies looking down on us.
"What did you do that half the guild could be so interested?" Jezabel's eyes narrow. I can feel her ratcheting up the tension.
"It's probably the Ursamor we killed." The room goes silent. An Ursamor isn't that much lower than a Dracoterra on the tier list, so defeating one is fairly impressive. We may have had a few advantages on our side; we had plenty of backup with the fairies behind us, we were fresh and fully prepared for the attack and the skills we had worked well against this particular opponent. For example, Flash Step really turned the tide of the battle as I fully occupied the Ursamor's attention and forced it to waste all of its magic. If a few things had been different, then the battle may not have ended in our favor.
"You better not be fucking with me again." If looks could stab, I'd be Swiss cheese right now. I can almost feel the heat emanating off the Guild Master's body as she glares at me.
"He's not. I saw it myself," Francis speaks up in my defense. Jezabel slowly walks over to the boy until she's standing directly behind him.
"I added you to their party as a favor, so I need you to be honest with me here." He flinches as one of her hands engulfs his left shoulder. "Tell me what happened."
Francis stammers out his perspective of the battle. A few things were out of place, such as the skills used, but overall it's an accurate interpretation of the battle.
"But they had some help, no?" Jezabel's grip tightens as she continues her interrogation. The boy audibly gulps from the sharp pain. She's obviously referring to the fairies who were standing by during the fight but didn't actually get involved.
Over the course of our battles in the main cavern, we've developed a strategy of using the fairies' magic only as support. They have such small mana reserves that only Foof can cast more than one or two spells in a row. By remaining away from the action, they can better understand the situation and apply their magic more appropriately. One example would be when Rom launched a fireball into the center of the first squad of goblins to disrupt their formation or when Hai used her wind magic to force one of the Griffiths to pause its attack. During prolonged fights, it is important that we rely on our SP, which can be used much more efficiently than our MP. One spell may use up half of a person's mana pool, but I can keep moving for hours as long as I don't use too many skills. It should also be noted that stamina recovers faster than mana, so it's preferable in that regard as well.
"Not against the Ursamor."
"Who was involved in the fight?"
"Those five right there. Kelly and I just watched."
"God damn, mother…." Jezabel's voice trails off as she storms away. She disappears into the back rooms, leaving us looking around at each other in confusion.
"Why do I feel like we did something wrong?" I break the silence with my question that's arisen out of my annoyance.
"Are we in trouble?" Sakura asks. A low hum creeps up from the crowd that's gathered around us. No one is willing to speak very loudly, but we're all curious about what's happening.
The door to the back room swings open, revealing the Guild Master, who is now holding something. She swiftly walks up to our table and drops a single silver coin down in front of Josh, Sakura, and I. It doesn't appear to be money which only raises more questions.
"Those are temporary markers designating your rank as silver class adventurers. I've been planning to promote you to bronze rank for a while now but got held up due to circumstances. After confirming with the appraiser that those were genuine Ursamor claws, I think it's appropriate to just go straight to silver rank." We're all pretty stunned by the news.
"Are you serious?" I ask out of sheer astonishment.
"Sure, I actually just received your bronze rank plaques from headquarters, so I guess that whole ordeal was a waste of time. I'll have the silver rank plaques in the next month or so."
"Wow, thank you. That really means a lot. What about Shinobu and Tyrion? They were instrumental in our victory."