Chapter 32 - Guildmaster
Day 44
Sonja's POV:
Sonja was annoyed. A few weeks ago, a large mana event happened near the city. Mana users hundreds of miles away woke up that night. For her, who was mana sensitive and only living a few miles away, it was like staring into the burning sun. Never before in her life as a S rank adventurer had she felt power like that.
When they located the source of the event at a lone tower near Geldern and sent the information to the higher ups from the guild, they were ordered to stand down and that the guild would send an experienced veteran to investigate the situation.
A week later, a man from the regional headquarters arrived at the teleportation formation. He called himself the fabulous Fabién and was an SSS rank adventurer. In addition, he was a real piece of shit. She was kicked out of her own office and all members of the guild were treated like servants for the next days. Then the fabulous Fabién informed her that the owner of the lone tower was an immortal and that he planned to visit him and that she would accompany him.
She was speechless for a moment. It had been five years since she reached the S rank and became guild master in this shitty city, but she'd never even heard of an immortal living nearby. In fact, she'd never met an immortal in her whole life. She was a little bit curious and decided to give in on the asshole's demands.
The next morning, they were standing in front of the tower. It was at least 50m in height and looked like it was made from a black stone she couldn't identify. When she extended her senses, the tower was like a big black hole. She couldn't reach into it.
"So what now, the door is closed. If the immortal is at home, he probably should've already noticed us. He would've already welcomed us if he was interested in talking to us."
"You wait here! I will enter the tower."
"Don't you think that would be pretty risky?"
"Haha, do you really think some hermit would dare to offend a SSS from the regional headquarters?"
She looked after him as he marched in the direction of the tower. When he reached the door, it seemed like it was closed, but instead of coming back like she thought, a large war hammer appeared and the fabulous Fabién started hitting the door. She was close to a panic, there was no safer way for suicide she could think of, than to invade the home of a far more powerful person. She decided to step back another 200 meters while the ground was shaking from the mighty blows of Fabièn's war hammer.
Five minutes later, the door opened and Fabièn entered the tower. When he was inside, the door suddenly closed behind him. After that, it was quiet again. She didn't know what was happening inside the tower, but under no circumstances would she try to follow the idiot. Sonja decided to wait.
Three days later, she was at the end of her patience and decided to leave and report the situation to the regional headquarters. When she went back to her office, she saw a thick file laying on her desk. Fabién probably left it there and her curiosity demanded to have a look.
She learned that the name the immortal used to enter the guild was Mr. Anderson and that he used the nickname Neo. Later on, like all high ranking members of the guild, he stopped using that name and went by the Black Sorcerer. Sonja was very impressed when she saw the man reached immortality being three hundred years of age. She herself was already 65 years old and only just reached the S rank a few years ago. Under the topic specialty, she only found mage, but no element.
The rest of the file was largely mission reports and complaints filed against him at the guild. Two of them were especially interesting. In the first one, he just became S rank and was appointed as a branch guild master at a medium sized dungeon. When the local noble wanted to double the taxes on the dungeon's loot from ten to twenty percent, Neo agreed and told the noble that he needed a small fee for every adventurer they taxed.
The next day, he went to visit the noble and demanded 18000 gold coins, 1000 for every adventurer that had to pay the increased tax, from the noble. Of course, the noble didn't want to pay, so Neo single handedly defeated his army and crippled him. After that, he looted everything from the castle. The words he said to the noble before he left were noted too: "I don't know what makes you, an unimportant noble from an unimportant kingdom, think you can try to rip off the guild. If I see another tax collector at the dungeon, I will come back to kill you!" When he came back to the dungeon, he split his loot with the adventurers that had been taxed and became a hero for the dungeon divers. Since then, for 250 years, nobody ever tried to collect taxes from that dungeon again.
Sonja was very impressed by this. There was nothing she wanted to do more than to visit the disgusting scumbag who called himself count of Geldern and vent her frustrations on him. She dreamed about it a little bit, about it a little bit. It would be so good to never have that man try to get into her pants again.
The other interesting report was from a time when Neo already reached the immortal rank. He was in a small tavern where the crown prince of the local kingdom tried to rape a young maid. He intervened and castrated the crown prince. When the prince tried to threaten him, he picked him up and teleported right into the throne room of the prince's father. Again the conversation was noted down:
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"What is the meaning of this? Guards, kill that intruder!"
"I was just here to deliver your son back to you. I was curious what kind of father an animal like him had but, if you want to have a fight I'm happy to oblige you."
The fight after that was short and bloody, the kings guards had no chance, but none of them was killed. The king hadn't been as lucky. His last word was:
"Why?"
"A king that can't even educate his own son, your kingdom will be better off without you, don't you think?"
Sonja put away the file. Then she sent a report of Fabién's disappearance to her superiors. A few days later she was notified that Fabién's boss, an immortal, would pay her a visit. This was the evening he should arrive.
She was nervous, she'd had to explain this fuckup to a man who was standing very far above her. Sonja had spent a lot of time to think about what she was going to say. Just when she went through her story another time, a portal appeared right in front of her desk and a young looking man in a red robe stepped through.
She immediately stood up from her chair and greeted the man.
"Sir Firefighter I assume."
"You assume right, guild master Sonja Blade, but you can just call me Ignaeus. My visit here is more or less a formality. A SSS rank has disappeared and somebody has to look into it, even if it was an annoying piece of shit like the fabulous Fabién."
She could literally feel the sarcasm when Ignaeus called Fabién's guild name.
"Sorry, I think I got something wrong. I'd assumed you've sent him here to investigate."
"No no, you're right. I've sent him here, but mainly because he annoyed everyone at headquarters and I knew Neo had a very short fuse when dealing with people like Fabién. Seems like I've finally gotten rid of him. You must know, he had some powerful friends and I couldn't kick him out of the door without getting into trouble with people I wouldn't like to offend. I should thank my friend when I meet him again."
"Sir, shouldn't we send an army or something to the tower. Can the guild really just ignore the killing of an SSS rank, even if it's done by an immortal?"
"Who said Neo killed him? No, if he was at home, he probably just sent him somewhere far far away. If he wasn't, Fabién is probably dead, killed by the defense systems of the tower. The idiot was stupid enough to enter, I only sent him to investigate not to break into the home of somebody standing far above him. You're young and still new to this, so you probably overestimate the value of a SSS rank for the guild. Out of one hundred SSS ranks, only one makes it to the immortal level. And then there are immortals and there are immortals!"
"Sir, I don't understand."
"Hehe, I'm in a good mood, I finally got rid of an annoying idiot, so I'll take the time to explain it to you. The first time I heard from our friend Mr. Anderson, was after he went to the forbidden continent to the west, that was a little over a century ago. He and his team entered the dungeon and over the weeks and a lot bloody fights, they reached the 40th floor.
"The dungeon?"
"Oh, you probably don't know, you're too weak to go there after all. In the west, the whole continent is one gargantuan demonic dungeon. Nobody has beaten it as far as we know and it is the main reason for the existence of the guild. The higher ups decided to have a close look at the dungeons on our continent to prevent them from getting like the one to the west. Back to the topic, when they reached the 40th floor, the dungeon decided to get serious and sent dozens of immortal level creatures after them. One after one, his friends fell until he was left alone. In an desperate effort and to kill as many enemies as possible, he used his space magic to rip apart reality itself and time magic to protect himself from the havoc. Then he fled. It worked in a way, he was able to teleport 20000 miles right into the central healing facility of the mage association, while all that was left off him was two thirds of his skull, a piece of his spine and some of his heart and lung. You can imagine the surprise of the people present.
The next time I saw him was when the gate of despair dungeon on our continent went amuck. The guild offered a large reward for killing it and I was looking for a team to do it. Neo wanted the contract too, but he wanted to do it alone. I tried to convince him to wait until we were at least five immortals, but he just said he would go and it would be my choice if I wanted to go with him. If I'm honest, I hesitated, but then the reward was too good and I couldn't resist.
The week that followed was the craziest and the most brutal of my whole life. We went in there alone and fought against everything the dungeon was able to throw at us. I don't know how many immortal and SSS rank enemies we killed, but there were a lot. The most crazy thing is, when we reached the core, Neo didn't want to destroy it. He said he wanted to research dungeons, to find a weapon so we could defend if the dungeon from the west came to our continent. I don't know if you have experienced it, but if you try to remove a dungeon core from its dungeon, shit hits the fan. The way back was even more brutal then the way in. I survived the experience and my standing in the guild improved a lot, but if I'm honest, I think he could've done it alone. That's what I meant with there are immortals and there are immortals."
Sonja gulped, this was so far above her level. She learned something today. It didn't matter how high you climb, there is always something bigger. She'd always thought the power ups between the ranks were pretty constant, but from the story she'd been told, that shouldn't be the case. There would've been no way, two S ranks would've been able to fight an army of other S and A ranks themselves.
"Thanks for the lesson. So what should I do with the mana event."
"Haha, doesn't really matter, probably one of his experiments. You can visit the tower once a year and check if he responds, but don't try to enter it. With that said, I'll take my leave."
She noticed he forgot to take the file, so she put it into her personal safe. A few hours after Ignaeus left and while she still was in her thoughts, the receptionist knocked at her door.
"Sorry for the disturbance, guild master. Your deputy isn't in the building right now, so my boss said to look for you. We have an adventurer that wants to take the advanced entrance exam."
Sonja sighted, she'd just received the shocked for her life and now some newbie adventurer thought he had too much money and wanted to take the advanced exam. She stood up from her chair and walked to the receptionist.
"Good, bring them to the examination room. I'll be waiting there for them."
A short while later, a very young man entered the examination room. He was in a very good shape, it seemed like he continued to train his body in the F ranks instead of starting to cultivate mana. The man had an honest face, short blonde hair and blue eyes. By his side, an older man entered, he was probably at the C rank and he was limping.