Cyborgs at the guild. The new guild master. Lisette. Melina. The volcano realm and the other, unknown one about to open. His not-dead wife. The multiverse. Was Mekano alive? Was Albert watching him?

One thing was clear: Ishrin needed more power than a mere Tier 2. However, it was also true that he could not blaze through the tiers, not only because he wanted to do it properly, but also because he needed some time to get used to the advancement and to stabilize his magic before he could perform another Death Stealer ritual. Besides, he did want to do it properly—within reason given the circumstances—which meant that he needed to fetch some rather rare materials for a whole slew of rituals that he would use throughout the tiers. Which, in the end, would make him much more powerful than someone of the same tier who had a weaker foundation.

Many thoughts swirled around Ishrin’s mind as he paced across the fields. Melina had given him a rendez-vous point outside of town as she handed things over to the new guild master, insisting he doesn’t meet the guy yet, just to be safe. He would have to, sooner or later, but he wasn’t against postponing such an encounter indefinitely. But it also meant that out here, alone, he had time to think. He didn’t fear his own thoughts, he was an experienced meditator and his mind was not his enemy, but there were things he had to consider.

He took out a sheet of paper from his inventory. It was that strange quest he had taken from the quest board at the guild a few days earlier, written in some sort of strange rhyme that didn’t make much sense. He read it, just to pass the time.

A new spell Ishrin had access to now that he was Tier 2, was the—officially at least—Tier 4 spell Appraisal. Using it yielded information about a target up to Tier 5, currently, but using it on the quest paper turned out no information about it. Either the paper had no hidden lore about itself, or there were forces stronger than Tier 5 at play.

Ishrin paced. As he did so, he felt some sort of nagging feeling in his mind, something a less experienced person not well versed in meditation could call a gut feeling. It was intuition at work, he knew, his subconscious making connections.

He let it do its thing, trying not to interfere with his rational mind. As he did so, he noticed a figure emerging from the forest and slowly making her way towards him. It was a girl, dressed in full black leathers with hints of red here and there, sporting two massive blades sheathed on her back. Her dark hair was ruffled and unkempt, but her red eyes shone bright under the loose locks.

“Lisette, hello!” Ishrin waved at her.

“I got them.” She stated, panting slightly, “the ingredients for the Death Stealer ritual. We can go to the dungeon right now.”

“Eager to reach peak Tier 4? I was actually waiting for Melina, though. I don’t know if you know or care, but the new guild master is supposed to be arriving at the Guild right about now.”

“I do know,” she said with a slight frown.

“Which means that Melina is resigning from her job as guild master.”

“I also knew that.”

“Right. She told me that she would like to form a party.”

The girl looked away with a slight pout. “She mentioned it. Good for you.”

Ishrin shook his head theatrically, stifling a laugh. “With you too, dumbass!”

Lisette’s face brightened up like a kid in a candy shop. “Oh. I, uh, I appreciate the invite. I accept.”

He suppressed the urge to laugh, but a loud chiming noise could be heard from his pocket.

***

Melina sighed. This was her last day sitting at the long, heavy desk made of mistwood and tricket leaf of the Guild Master of Noctis. Her last day. Her room was tidy and spartan, just like the day she first arrived at this strange town. It was a lower tier danger zone at the time, more than enough for her to manage. The few adventurers began to arrive shortly after she took her assignment, fresh recruits and new faces, all Tier 1s and 2s.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Oh how things changed. Now the city was in the middle of a danger zone well beyond the fifth tier, with not one but two realms surrounding it. She, on the other hand, had first set foot in this town as a Tier 6, and Tier 6 she still was. She had not grown in power in all the years she had served as a guild master, the strange bottleneck of connecting her soul to her body somehow still eluding her best efforts and grasping it.

She felt like she had been… left behind, in a way. Like the world had moved on without her.

She never thought she would be given the opportunity to catch up with it.

Her little cramped office was so spacious without all her things to clutter it up. Without all the piles of paper. Without the trinkets and ticking little magical tools of no purpose beyond looking very cute on her shelves. It felt bittersweet. With a sour aftertaste.

And yet.

Had it not been for her falling out with the guild, she would never have snapped.

A knock on her door.

“Come in.” She said.

The heavy door creaked as it opened, slowly revealing the tall figure of a bald man covered in bronze. In truth, it was his skin that was bronze, with deep set eyes that were bloodshot and alert, like far away flickers of mad light and determination hidden away by the impossible brass skin.

The man corrugated his non-existent brows. They gave the impression that something ought to be there, where the bones of the face demanded some hair to cover them up, but there was nothing. Just brass skin, as if someone had decided to paint the metallic color over someone’s real, sweaty skin. With all its blemishes and imperfections, translated into metal.

“Melina.” He said. His voice was that of a snake, a viper, insidious and treacherous. His lithe figure moved up and down with his fast breathing, but his head and arms didn’t move. They stood still as if they were not connected to the rest of the body. His gaze was as unmoving as his head, dead set on Melina and her chair, almost like telling her that where she was sitting was not her place to be anymore.

The man studied the room with slow, controlled movements. Like an apparition of ethereal magic condensed in humanoid form, the new guild master’s presence expanded.

“Syrma.” Melina said. “I hope your journey here was pleasant.”

Syrma tilted his head. “It was.” He said.

The silence stretched.

“Well,” Melina smiled, making her way to the door. “If there’s nothing else. I will be going.”

She was about to cross the threshold when a powerful hand grabbed her arm. She felt the cold touch of the metal skin on her soft flesh, as if the heat of life itself was being sucked out of her.

“Don’t think that I don’t see the way you ran this Guild. Your methods, a failure. Your attitude, a disgrace. You were an embarrassment, Melina. It took the Central Nodes long enough to finally act, but now your disruptions will finally cease. I will begin by personally going over each and every one of the rank promotions that you so recklessly handed out these last few years, and especially as of late… obviously to spite me. I know of your tinkering. Of the special tokens you crafted, thinking nobody would notice how you modified them to give extra benefits to those who had them. I will personally retrieve them all, one by one.”

Melina jerked her arm out of the tight grip, suppressing the wince that would have shown on her face. This was going to bruise. The man was two full tiers stronger than she was, and she was acutely aware that the only reason she broke away from his grip was because he had allowed her to.

She also suppressed her grin. There were many records of tampered guild tokens in the database, but not due to her sloppiness. The one token she really did tamper with was Ishrin’s, and there was no trace of that anywhere. Let’s see how long it takes him to figure out he’s been duped.

“The guild is yours, Syrma. Run it as you see fit. But you should know that I got the special tokens approved by the very same Central Nodes you value so much.” She smiled, and left. There, that should throw him off a bit.

Leaving the guild, she felt like a great weight had been lifted off her chest. The weight of responsibilities, the weight of failure, the weight of… everything. There was a fire smoldering in its place. Anger, rage. The realization that the ideals she had tried to pursue this whole time were just a pipe dream. Propaganda.

The guild only showed its true colors above a certain Tier. She should have seen it sooner, but Paradise’s Guild Master had her move to Noctis when it was still a safe haven, and her illusions were allowed to live a bit longer. Looking back, the seemingly idyllic times of the low tiers, back when she was only a weak fox trying to make a living, were not that idyllic. There had been telltales. Fights, ambushes, betrayals. Teammates who left her to die just to save themselves. Party members who backstabbed her at the first occasion.

All tolerated. Not encouraged, but not punished either. As long as the status quo was preserved. She tried to be an agent of change, but she ended up working for the agency of the status quo. Now she could see it.

The hell with them. There was no meaning in trying to fight a lost battle. There was no nobility in dying, being silenced and ostracized, and being mocked just for trying to do better. She will use their own methods against them, and she will only be nice to those who deserve it. Ishrin, and Lisette were the only people she could think of right now who deserved true kindness. And they were waiting for her in the forest, at the rendezvous-vous point.