Amon and Personia both stood in front of the door to the hall of the crests, the two wings carefully spread on the two doors. Amon admired this piece of art and could not help but look at it in all its splendor.
Personia was the first to approach the door, put her hands on top of it, and try to push it open with all the strength that her small body could muster.
The door swung open, revealing all twelve coats of arms gathered in the room. Amon looked around and saw Arthure, Vlad, Meng, and Cedric.
"Ouch! Personia, watch what you're doing. The door hit me on the head."
A woman with tanned skin, brown eyes, and brown hair was lying on the ground in a dress that was decorated with gold. The woman was rubbing her head at the spot where she had hit the door on the head, in all probability. She showed that she was far from happy about the situation.
Personia realized her mistake and bent down to the woman, who was still rubbing her head on the floor, and apologized to her.
"I'm truly sorry, Jeanne; I'll be more careful next time." Like an arrow of pure adorableness, Personia's puppy-dog eyes hit Jeanne.
Jeanne's face turned red and was filled with guilt. She wondered if this level of cuteness was even legal, jumped up, and twirled her hair around her finger. "Forget it; I'm an S-rank mage, so I'll take it easy, and it was a little bit my fault too. I shouldn't have stood so close to the gate as I did."
Jeanne was proudly beating her chest so hard that her E-cup breasts were starting to jiggle. Amon, Vlad, and Arthure attempted to avert their eyes. While Meng and Cedric tried to burn the image into their brains as accurately as they could.
She was fully visible in her buty, standing at 170 cm tall. She was blessed by the god Goldborne, the richest being. She inherits the blessing called a rich man's world.
This was Jeanne Isandra. The twelveth and last coat of arms
She and Meng were the two of the twelve coats of arms that were always out on missions they got from the guild.
A mission contrasts with a quest. While a quest involves an instruction dispatched to a guild by an individual, a mission is a task specifically assigned to a guild member by the guild master or their foremost deputy.
Meng and Jeanne consistently stood out as the pair who handled such missions. The most recent task assigned to Meng came from Leon. The directive was to journey to Bruna's homeland and gather all possible information about her.
Jeanne, on the other hand, received an entirely different mission from Amon, which she abandoned upon receiving news about the war.
Clap, clap, clap.
"Okay, now that that's settled, let's get started." Amon clapped his hands to avoid the awkward situation. All of the others present agreed with him.
Amon, Personia, and Jeanne went to their respective places, sat down on the comfortable chairs, and put on a straight face.
"Arthure, give me the medical report on Niles, Dorothea, and Roxanne's wounds." Amon was the first to speak, and Isabell's department specialized in healing; her blessing wasn't the best to cure wounds, but her medical knowledge was on the level of a professional. Was the reason she wished for a department for healing.
Spellbander was a guild that specialized in completing quests, many of which involved killing monsters. In the process, there would be injuries to members who were not part of the twelve coats of arms, and someone had to take care of those wounds. This department was vital, especially in this war. If it had not been for this department, Niles and the other two would probably not have had access to a doctor in time.
Without missing a single detail, Amon read through the report. The report might give them some clues as to who they were fighting and might help them figure out their exact tactics.
Amon noticed that Roxanne had many burns on her body. When she had first come in, her body had been covered in sweat, and that could not have come from a fight. Roxanne had incredible stamina; she could do several hours of fighting without even breaking a sweat.
Niles had many wounds on his body, but most of them were physical wounds from weapons or punches; he had only a few wounds that were caused by magic, and the ones that were magical in nature were all melee attacks. Dorothea was conscious for a short time when she was brought in, and she testified that she was fighting in a cave that was too small for her, making it almost impossible for her to use her blessing.
Amon gave the report to Personia, who read it at high speed and then handed it to the next The reprot made his way around the table and came back to Amon.
"I think it's clear their plan was for you to fight the opponents in the territories where you are at the greatest disadvantage." Personia spoke her thoughts at the moment when everyone had finished reading. Everyone else agreed, except Cedric.
"Maybe that was the case for you, but I only had to fight a mass of opponents with a few mages who had annoying blessings."
"No, you are wrong with what you said, Cedric. With your blessing, you are able to fight in any possible situation, no matter the circumstances or the enemies, and my blessing is known to be an instant kill. They could not plan a scene where both of us were at a disadvantage, so the only thing they could do was let us fight a huge amount of soldiers with some guys that have nastie blessings."
Vlad corrected Cedric; he was smart enough to think about that and brave enough to correct Cedric, which was something only a few people did without having to think twice about it.
Cedric didn't want to make more trouble; he was not stupit, but he did not have the patience like the other once to sit here and make plans.
"I have to say something, and this is going to take some time. A few things still don't match, and I want to discuss them with you." Persona spoke and got all the attention.
"First of all, the plan was to teleport us away and let us fight against their advantage. But in this case, why didn't they port everyone who was present? If they had done that, the war would have been over, and they would have gotten the guild. Yes, the maid squad is not weak, and we also have strong guild members. But the chances for them to win the fight wouldn't have been that bad. They were the highest once they had."
What Personia said made sense; if they had done this, why not port everyone?
Arthure picked out a cigarett from his pocket and lit it on with a small flame that appeared on the tip of his thump.
"Talking about that. I think I found something interesting that could help us." All the attention switched to Arthure, who began to explain, "I went through Leon's notes and things he did before he disappeared. It looked like he found out how they ported themselves into guildbuilding for the first time. I found a notebook, and in this notebook was this."
Arthure reached into his pocket and pulled out a notebook with a piece of folded parchment.
"In his notes, he wrote something about an item that was found in a dungeon raid. It appears that however he did that, he got a few details about it and wrote them down in this notebook."
A dungeon served as a monster settlement, an unconventional base under their leader's ownership. These bases, scattered unpredictably, were unique hubs where monsters held dominion. More than mere bases, dungeons stood as customizable domains. Monsters could shape them freely, embedding rules, puzzles, and mechanisms of their choosing. This transformation was achieved through a ritual involving numerous creature sacrifices, culminating in the ascension of the mightiest monster as the leader, empowered to reshape the base according to their desires using a bestowed orb.
A dungeon raid was simply a person or group of people who got into the dungeon, killed the leader, and destroyed the orb. The stronger the dungeon leader, the better the reward. It was a part of the ritual; it was a punishment that happened when the monster who used this power still lost.
Dungeon raids were a good thing, and the price of a high-ranking dungeon always included many valuable items.
"And on this parchment are a sketch and notes on the item that allowed them to port themselves into the castle and later on port people away. Personia, what do you think about this?"
Personia grabbed the notebook with the parchment and read it. In the notebook, there was all kinds of information, but it was hard to read. The information of high value was written in code.
"Amon, I can't read this; translate everything to me that stands in this notebook from this page onwards."
Persona marks the notebook on the page where Amon should translate the code. While she looked at the parchment with the sketches and notes of the item.
Amon asked Arthure for a few pieces of parchment, which Arthure pulled out of his pocket in seconds. Either way, he always had a fountain pen with him. Ever since he became guild master.
He began to write down every single word that was written in code on the parchments.
The members of the coat of arms looked at the words to figure out how the code worked.
Translations from the notebook:
Research and investigate new weapons.
Send Meng to Zephyria.
The item the Verdan Kingdom conquered is called the Scorle of the Trevelor. More information is missing.
Have Aiko and Hiroshi gather information.
The scrole of the trevelor is to teleport or bring people, items, and magic to places.
Countermeasures: Mana shields around the guild building prevent teleported magic from destroying or attacking the castle.
For everything else, there are no known countermeasures.
"Here is everything you wanted me to translate. Leon always had massy handwriting, but I figured everything out." Amon handed the parchment on which he wrote the translation to Personia, who read it faster than she had in all her life.
"Now that I think about it, I haven't seen the two of them in quite a while. I hope they and Leon are all right."
---
Meanwhile, in Castle Verdan
"I hope that you are pain-resistant. Because from now on, I will use torture to get everything out of you."