Sylas let the quill fall from his hand as he finished writing another report about some minor misdemeanour or another, massaging his hand in order to get rid of the cramp that was beginning to form after hours of writing nearly non-stop. He’d been Guard Captain for 24 years now and still struggled to write for so long.

Of course, he could have taken the Advanced Paperwork skill like most Guard Captains tend to do, or at least the regular Paperwork General Skill, but his slots were already filled with more widely useful Skills by the time he’d realised how annoying it could get, and there was very little chance of him managing to Merge any skills any time soon.

He sighed and let his head fall onto his desk, a loud bang resounding throughout the room but not leaking out thanks to the privacy Wards that prevented any sound from getting in or out. Being a Guard Captain was not what he’d hoped it would be. Instead of going out and dealing with high level criminals like he’d dreamed of in his youth, and planned for with his Path Skills, the job was mostly management and paperwork.

Of course, there was the occasional lawbreaker that the regular Guards couldn’t handle, but there were very few people that could stand up to a Guard within the city they swore to protect.

A pang of guilt went through him at the thought that he was taking this opportunity for granted. His family had worked arduously for generations in order to have the sway to get one of their own the Guard Captain position before their awakening, and even then he was only chosen because the previous Captain had died with no heirs just a few weeks before his awakening.

Because he had such an important and influential position, his Path options were much grander than most. There were a few strange ones, such as the often joked about Farm Protector, but the most powerful one was Guard Captain. Since it was a Rare Path its Skill options were generally more powerful or versatile versions of those offered to Guards, but it was also able to branch out more into the management side of the job, which meant that most cities tried to have someone with the path on hand at all times.

He sighed once again and sat back up straight in his chair, the rigid posture that he’d had beaten into him making him look intimidating and ready for action. The job wasn’t usually quite so bad, but the recent string of murders weighed heavy on his conscience, and he wasn’t any closer to finding the killer after nearly half a year.

It didn’t help that Lord Ironhold himself had forbidden him from officially looking into the matter, stating that the adventurers would handle it and- though this made him seem rather stone hearted- that the influx of adventurers was boosting the economy significantly.

Despite his best efforts, a grimace worked its way onto his face. He didn’t like to think bad of the Lord, but he sincerely doubted this decision of his. People were being killed in his city, under his watch, and he wasn’t allowed to do a thing about it. Not that that stopped him from helping a little, or course.

Many adventurers came to him asking for information on the killer, and he’d been investigating as much as he could whilst off duty, so he had a lot to give. He didn’t want to contribute to a rookie getting themselves killed, so he only gave this information to those he thought showed promise, and he’d yet to see any actual results from his assistance, but surely they would be brought to justice soon.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Well, there was nothing more he could do about that situation at that moment, so he instead looked at the paperwork he had just finished filling. A new adventurer had supposedly disappeared from the basement of an alchemy store whilst on a job to hunt some rats, on his first job apparently, and it was quite a strange case.

His first suspicion was that the Alchemist had killed him to use him for some nefarious potions (it’s more common than you’d think), but the person to report the disappearance was the alchemist himself, so that was less likely. Personally he still believed it was him, but most of his subordinates seemed to disagree so he was allowed to roam free. For now.

The Guards he sent to investigate found a pile of bizarrely coloured dead rats next to an empty crate and a strange hole in the wall. All evidence pointed to the boy having crawled through the hole and into the sewers, but no one could figure out how he thought that could be a good idea. He could have at least told the person that was paying him, even if it was to negotiate a higher price for a job that would have gotten much riskier if there were more rats down there, but the Alchemist claimed he did no such thing.

A small search party was sent out and they found a few more rat corpses but no adventurer, not even a body.

It’s been nearly 24 hours now, if he hasn’t found a way out then he’s most likely been killed by the other problem I’m not allowed to deal with.

No one could figure out how it happened, or when, but an unaffinitied Rat King had appeared in the sewers. Diviners could see that its level was only 22 at the moment, which could easily be handled by even a couple of rookies, but they had to be careful about who kills it.

For some Gods-forsaken reason, the System treats the Rat King as actual royalty, so if anyone kills it they’ll be given the King Slayer feat, which effectively negates a lot of the benefits royalty get from their Path. It’s basically an Assassin's dream, and if anyone with revolutionary inclinations gets the kill we’d be in big trouble.

He’d probably get demoted for even allowing it to happen, never mind the fact that he has the Guard Captain path.

So he’s left waiting until the Queen has an opening in her schedule so that she can come and deal with it, which could take months if they were lucky.

Before his internal grumbling could continue, a Guard barged through the door without even knocking, yelling “Sir!” as he did so. After a moment of inspection, he saw that it was one of the newer Guards sent to guard the sewer entrance, what was his name again?

“Phillip, you’d better have a Godsdamnded good reason for barging in here like this, whilst you’re supposed to be at your post no less,” He didn’t raise his voice at all, but even still sweat broke out on Phillip’s forehead and he scrambled into a salute before closing the door.

“Someone came out of the sewer entrance we were guarding, we haven’t checked in case it’s still alive, but we think he killed the Rat King!” He spoke louder than was necessary, perhaps out of nerves, and after a moment hastily said “S-sir!”

“...” Sylas remained carefully silent, steepling his hands below in front of his head as he thought.

What are the chances that this happens right as I’m thinking about how bad it would be. I suppose it’s true what they say about the Gods having a sense of humour.

“Alright, where are they?” They were either some adventurer who somehow found out about the Rat King and wanted some experience, or one of the other nations had decided that they didn’t like the tenuous peace and planned to raise someone as a weapon to deal with the Queen.

The first was infinitely more likely, but you should always consider all the options.

“They fell unconscious as soon as they left the sewer, so we took them to the closest Healer, Sir!” They seemed to hesitate for a moment before adding on, in a much quieter tone of voice, ”They looked quite young, so it’s possible that they’re the adventurer that went missing in the sewer,” As it turns out, he had not considered all the options.

Although, the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. The Rat King had only had the chance to fight one human, and they were a Stonemason that was supposed to be repairing the sewers, so it likely had no actual combat experience. Plus, the missing adventurer claimed to have a Path called Lightning Adept, which is not one that Sylas had ever heard of but was undoubtedly a Rare variant of the much more prolific Lightning Mage Path.

He sighed once again, things just couldn’t be simple could they? “Alright, lead me to him,” Now he just had to figure out how to deal with this mess.