The Sariel church wasn't as large as Naya expected it to be, given that it was a place dedicated to the worship of a god. It was still a grander place than the surrounding area, but it wasn't enough to make a lasting impact on her.
It looked like it had once been a large cathedral, with spires coming from the tall roof, but in disrepair, as it appeared, the tips had fallen off. Though construction signs were evident around the building.
--The churches have fallen somewhat, but that's because of Aleria's rise to prominence. It's easy to follow a verifiable god. I do wonder just how vast Aleria's influence is now, though.--
[I wasn't aware she was worshipped by the mortals until recently.]
Naya walked hand in hand with Rula up to the church's double wooden doors. It seemed quiet, but she could hear some footsteps from below, who she assumed was a guard for the bodies so they didn't get stolen.
"Am... am I about to see dead people?" Rula looked terrified, and her grip on Naya's hand tightened.
"They are likely covered; leaving them in the open would be barbaric, even for humans."
"Still..." Rula took a deep breath. "Being around them is... it doesn't feel right."
"You can wait outside." Naya understood the aversion, and while she does think Rula should get used to it, she would not force it on her this soon.
"No, I will go."
Naya stared down at her for a moment, and Rula met her gaze with one of determination, though with a fear mixed in, she couldn't hide.
It was admirable.
Naya nodded lightly. "Good. Conquering your fears is a step to becoming stronger."
Rula didn't respond, so Naya pushed the doors open and stepped in.
It was a long room with seats lined horizontally on both sides, leading up to an octagonal alter with a stone statue of a woman holding her hands out welcomingly. On her back was a long scythe that was as tall as she was.
--Sariel and her scythe, the gateway to the afterlife. --
[Regardless, it's an odd feeling to see how the mighty have fallen.]
--Even I don't know why.--
It felt solemn just to be in the dark room, but Naya pushed forward anyway toward the altar.
A short distance behind it was a man with a lantern on the wall beside him lit up. He wore leather armor with bits of steel mixed in and had two longswords strapped to his side. He had long blonde hair tied into a ponytail and emerald green eyes.
He did not look like a standard guard.
"I take it you're Naya?" The man turned his head toward her and said. He sounded in his middle age, showing some signs of age on his face. "I was informed an Elf would arrive to investigate the undercroft." He pushed off the wall he was leaning on.
"Adventurer?" Naya asked.
The man reached into a pocket and pulled out a ruby-colored card.
"Woah!" Rula exclaimed. "You're Jewel-tier adventurer."
--After the metal tiers, you go up to the jewel tiers, which means precisely what the name implies: the adventurer guild jewels, their most valuable members. --Luckily, Lia was able to pick up on Naya's confusion. She realized she had forgotten to ask back when she joined about the ranks.
The man smiled but seemed disappointed at the lack of response from Naya. He put the card back into his pocket. "Normally, I wouldn't be here, but everyone else has been killed guarding the undercrofts throughout the city, and the quest was upgraded."
[There's more than one?]
"How many dead?" Naya asked gravely. That would mean they were all with the Witch now, which meant she had corpses of some power that were relatively fresh.
He shrugged. "There are a few places like this throughout the city, but I'd guess around ten."
"How high ranked were they?"
"Gold was the highest, but that rank should be enough for most things in this part of Cornelia." The man frowned. "Whatever's here, it's strong."
Naya wasn't sure exactly what the Necromantic Witch could do. The name sounded straightforward, but necromancy was not a studied field, and to even mention it was a great sin. She assumed it meant she could use the undead to fight, but she didn't know how much strength they kept from when they were alive.
--She has to have something that gives her the confidence to settle in Rozen.--
"I'll stay up here and keep watch; corpses give me the creeps." The man moved to the side and took a spot, leaning against the wall again.
"You're Ruby ranked, right?" Rula asked dubiously.
"Sure am. But I was paid a lot to guard, not investigate corpses. Good luck down there."
What stood out to Naya was that she also didn't seem to be bothered by her being an Elf. In fact, she didn't even catch a surprised stare at all during their short interaction. Even those who had seen an Elf before still stared for a moment.
The only time that had happened was with her first mortal interactions, with Thrain the Dwarf and Alyssa the Beastkin at the Silent Forest.
"We don't need him." Naya nudged Rula.
"That's right, you got an Elf with ya, little lady; the emperor wouldn't be a threat to you." The man chuckled.
"I guess..." Rula still seemed disappointed. As if she had a lofty vision of the top adventurers in her head and just had it shattered.
[It is surprising that a high-ranking member is on guard duty.]
--He's probably getting paid a lot. And although its guard duty, there is the expectation that he will get into a fight with the culprit.--
Naya pulled Rula along and moved through the door. While it could be some kind of trap, and the thought was in her mind, she felt no threat from the man and had the confidence to kill him if he did try something.
She welcomed it.
But contrary to what she expected, the door gently shut behind her. "Good luck. I'll still be up here when you're done."
--That was anticlimactic.--
Naya continued down the stairs, lit with small blue spheres lining both sides spaced a good distance apart. It made the mood less solemn since it wasn't all that dark down there.
"That wasn't what I expected high-ranking adventurers to be like," Rula mumbled.
"They join for money; ranking up is just a bonus."
She wasn't sure how Rula could have gotten such high expectations since it was made pretty clear the primary reason most join the guild is to get money without being beholden to a master.
Eventually, they reached the bottom, where lights scattered around lit up a vast underground area with pillars and intricate designs. Dug into the walls on all sides were openings that held wooden coffins of all shapes and sizes.
"So... what now?" Rula asked.
Naya didn't respond; she actually didn't know what the next step should be. It was a spur-of-the-moment plan because she didn't want to wait to play investigator to find the Witch.
She figured they'd just run into her stealing corpses.
"We wait." Naya moved forward.
"You're hoping for a fight?" Rula's eyes widened, and she summoned her sketchbook from the ring.
Naya didn't say anything and continued forward.
She stopped once she reached the center of the large room. She didn't expect the odd feeling she had now to know that she was surrounded by the dead.
--All around you are the corpses of people who, even in the best of times, wouldn't live nearly a fraction as long as you. Outside of battle, you've never been around the dead like this before.--
[I did not need to hear that.]
Time passed by in silence, Naya patiently waiting for any signs of movement and pointedly preventing Rula from sparking conversation, much to the halflings' dismay.
Naya wanted to pick up on even the slight sound of someone entering the undercroft. She didn't believe the Witch was using the front door; that seemed foolish. She would not be surprised if the Witch somehow had hidden access somewhere else.
During the waiting time, she thought about the situation, and it was also a possibility the Witch wasn't the one collecting the corpses. An idea Naya had time to muse about while they were waiting for signs of movement. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was. It was difficult to believe that the Witch was stealing bodies from all over the city alone without getting caught even once.
With that idea in mind, Naya pulled Rula behind one of the pillars. Her curiosity at how the corpses were being transported made her resist the urge to just go out and kill the thief on sight.
"What's going-"
"Shh!"
Rula moved a hand to her lips, exaggeratedly closed it like a zipper, pretended to lock, and then threw away the key.
Naya found her antics amusing, even if it was just to take her mind off the nervousness Rula likely felt being in the undercroft.
As if on cue, she heard the faint sound of a distant door opening minutes later.
It was so subtle that the person who opened it did so with as little movement as possible. If there were any other noises in the undercroft, Naya wouldn't have heard it at all.
Naya placed her hand atop Rula's head to get her attention, and when Rula looked up, she pressed a finger to her own lips to signal her.
Rula nodded with an apprehensive look.
She heard them speak.
"How many this time, Boss?"
"Shh! Shut yer damn mouth, a ruby adventurers up there!"
"Sorry!"
Both voices came from men, though one sounded much younger than the other.
[I knew it.]
"Dumbfuck... Lady wants us to nab all of em today."
"A-all? There's so many!"
"I know."
"What if we get discovered? The guild-"
"Shut up already. Paragons in town; lady needs ta lay low for a while after this."
"Why would the guild-"
The sound of a smack rang in the silent hall. "We don't question the guild, ya hear?"
"S-sorry."
--The Thieve Guild... --Lia didn't sound shocked, but she did sound disappointed.
[Tell me quick.]
--The Thieves Guild was a band of... chivalrous thieves that got its start stealing extremely valuable items from corrupted military leaders during times of war. They then moved to corrupted nobles, and all the wealth they made was from selling to the Western Lands to avoid detection. For them to stoop so low as to work with a witch...--
[Hearts dance for gold.]
Naya only hoped Rula wasn't so obsessed with money that she'd end up the same way.
The voices continued speaking in hushed whispers.
"Take the coffins, too; no need to be discreet this time."
"Finally, we don't have to handle corpses!"
"Blah, start pilin' 'em up."
Naya heard enough and dashed out from behind the pillar.
Both men wore black clothing, with their heads covered by a hood and their faces covered by a mask.
"Run!" The man shouted the moment Naya appeared and was already moving.
He moved faster than Naya, shocking her as she moved to her top speed.
To no avail, the man was a blur; Naya instantly decided to change targets.
Though the other man was fast, his subordinate was not faster than her, and she easily caught up to him.
"Aaah!" He screamed as Naya caught the back of his shirt, pulled him to the ground, and dodged his falling body.
The momentum nearly made her stumble, but she caught the trapdoor shut, built into a fake coffin by one of the unassuming walls of the undercroft.
[Damn it!]
A human had managed to outspeed and escape her, the thought of which filled her with shame. He disappeared so quickly that Naya would have needed Arcana to keep up.
Rula ran up to the other man's fallen body, who was injured during his stumble, and clutching his foot.
Though to his credit, the man made no outward noises to show his pain.
However, Naya saw the brief fear in his eyes when he stared at her, as if he realized his life was forfeit.
"Speak, now." Naya's voice was cold.
The man glared defiantly.
Naya considered her options. She didn't want Rula to witness her beating information out of someone, and she herself was not inclined toward such brutality.
"We were told about you, Elf."
The man suddenly spoke.
"You were told about Naya, and you came anyway?" Rula asked.
The man turned his gaze to Rula, and it became gentler, though not entirely without venom, "We go where the gold tells us. And we didn't think a noble Elf would be hiding in an undercroft."
"Why are you stealing bodies?" Rula pressed.
The man didn't answer.
"You will die along with your Witch if you remain silent." Naya squinted slightly.
"MY Witch? You insult my honor, Elf!" The man hissed and clutched his heel again. "Damn it, I didn't sign up for this bullshit!"
"Speak." Naya thought of a method, "...and I will not deliver you to the humans."
The man looked at her dubiously.
"Naya isn't lying, Elves don't lie!" Rula exclaimed and moved to block his view of Naya.
The man chuckled dryly. "Gold can move my lips."
"I'll rip them off." Naya instantly replied.
"Fine, fine!" Rula pulled out a small pouch of gold from her ring. "Here!" she tossed it over to him, but not without a look of extreme loss as if the man had just stolen her child.
--Killing in and out of battle is different; she doesn't want to see it happen needlessly. I wish more people were like her...--
The man's eyes widened, and even he had a look of shame in his eyes. He reached up, pulled down the mask covering his face, and then pulled his hood back.
He had a rugged head of brown hair and brown eyes, but he looked no older than 20. A nasty scar covered the right side of his face, from the corner of his lip, curving upward to his ear. It looked intentionally made.
Rula flinched.
"I feel terrible now. Feels like I'm robbing a child with that look."
The man picked up the gold pouch and tossed it back. "You look like you want that more than me." He smiled at her.
Rule caught it, and it instantly went into her ring. "Are... you not gonna tell?"
The man looked at the ceiling and released a long sigh. "I wasn't aware we were working for a Witch until last night." He spoke without looking down. "The gold was too good, so I can't say I'd have rejected even if I knew."
"You aided a Witch in gaining power," Naya said.
"She gains power from Corpses?" The man looked at her in shock. "How is that even possible? I thought she just used them to test her necromancy spells."
"Which is just as bad!" Rula shouted at him with a glare.
"I am not a good person, little girl."
Rula opened her mouth and then closed it.
"I don't care about your reasons. Just tell me everything you know about the Witch." Naya commanded.
"I got a condition."
"I will kill you." Naya glared.
The man shook his head. "Listen, I'm dead either way just from being caught by you. The guild has a rule to prevent things like this; even if I didn't tell you anything, I'm dead as soon as I leave."
--How ruthless. I guess that's how they survived this long, even in this part of the world.--
"Speak." Naya kept her glare and gently pushed Rula to the side.
The man stared into her eyes, "I want you to kill this city's Branch Master."
"What?" Naya's brow raised slightly. It was such an absurd condition that she struggled to believe it was a genuine request, yet the man's face showed he was serious. "Do you really think your life-"
"The Branch Master is the only one who knows exactly who the Witch is." He hastily added.
Naya paused.
She had to admit this was a possibility, that the grunts doing the dirty work wouldn't be privy to the identity of someone trying to keep themselves hidden.
--That would mean the Branch Master knew from the beginning, and I highly doubt gold alone is enough to make them work for a Witch. Either way, I'd say we need to pay this Branch Master a visit.--
Naya didn't want to trust the man, but she doubted they could lay a trap down for her, given their meager strength, and they didn't seem to expect her. Though she recalled the man from earlier moving far faster than she did, as shameful as it was, if they had more of that caliber, it could be dangerous for her without Arcana.
--We let Sophia know; that way, we eliminate all risks. I doubt any being other than a Witch could cause any problems with the two of you in this part of the world.--
[I don't need her help... but fine. ]
"I will kill this branch master, but you will lead me to him directly."
"Her, actually." The man nodded. "Okay, but I won't be stepping foot inside. Bitch is terrifying. I wouldn't even bother asking if you weren't an Elf."
"Why can't we just have one peaceful day?" Rula sighed.
"You will get your castle." Naya russled her hair. Then, she looked down at the man. "If you attempt to escape or I catch a hint of a trap, you will be the first to die."
"Can't exactly run right now." The man smirked at her threat. "But understood, boss."