The group entered the administrative building and was met by a clearly disgruntled clerk, but whose complaints regarding the intruders’ nonexistent appointments and business hours quickly got stuck in his throat when recognizing the half-giant before him.

Not half a minute later, they found themselves standing in a cozy office, led inside by a now very courteous young man.

Behind the large desk sat an even larger man, one who, a surprised Severin suspected, hadn’t actually seen a dungeon from the inside in quite some time - if ever.

Much like his clerk, the man called Gillion, initially seemed quite displeased when, without prior announcement, his office door opened, and a bunch of supposed strangers were led inside. Until, also much like his clerk, he took a closer look at the man at the front, at which point recognition swept over his face.

Still, as excited as the man was by the [Berserker’s] surprise visit–he too, just like Rania the blabbermouth, appeared to be an old friend and of the same generation - even while exchanging pleasantries, his eyes kept flicking over to Severin and Emily.

That was until Samuel once again made some introductions, at which point Gillion’s suspicion towards Severin turned into interest and friendliness.

Overly and annoyingly so. To the point where Severin wholeheartedly regretted his choice of tagging along.

Instead of meeting an old acquaintance, namely Markus, he felt he would be forced to play politics. Even on the best of days, that wasn’t something Severin particularly enjoyed, much less on this day.

Repeatedly the man let Severin know about the great pleasure it was meeting him, how impressed he was by his products, samples of which the [Prince] had brough him, how, regrettably, they had long since run out of them, and how, before long, he would have paid him a visit on his own if he wasn’t just so swamped with work, that he looked forward to their future cooperation -especially since both had such strong ties to the Malconean royal family-, and so on and so forth.

It was tiresome.

Luckily Samuel was determined to time and again steer the conversation to the topic of the brats as he called them annoyed but affectionately, a term which this time around also included Markus, and thereby saved Severin some of the hassle dealing with a man who, at the moment, was obviously more keen on talking business with him than anything else.

It was clear that while the man in charge also agreed that Markus seemed somewhat overzealous as of late, he didn’t think it especially concerning and deemed there was no real danger to either him, the [Prince], nor to Samuel’s two mentees. Not on the early floors, that was.

In fact, he made it clear, much to Samuel’s displeasure, that in his opinion these two very promising youths, future recruits and basically already unofficial members of the guild- if simply by virtue of being Samuel’s disciples- might even benefit from not having the overprotective Hero of Malcos overseeing every one of their moves.

As the guild leader his highest priority was for the guild as a whole to flourish, and from the moment he understood Severin’s identity it became very clear that this above all else meant taking the greatest possible advantage of the impossible products that had just been delivered to his doorstep. And quickly, before the other guilds could catch on.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The man wasn’t so delusional to think he could realistically monopolize Severin’s products and keep them a secret from their competitors forever- reminding himself that Ringald would have done so already if possible, and a simple look out the office window and towards the flying colossus above, dispelled any of the notions he might have harbored in that regard- but he would be damned if he didn’t at least try to exploit the small advantage he had as much as possible.

Which ultimately led to a compromise all parties involved could be satisfied with.

It was decided that it would fall onto Samuel himself to delve into the dungeon, locally referred to as simply The Garden, meet up with his disciples and Markus’ group, and order them back outside; the raid would have to be postponed.

In the meantime, Gillion would busy himself by rallying the other troops and instructing them to, as inconspicuously as possible, head for Severin’s Emporium without drawing attention from the other guilds who hopefully still considered the rock to be a random floater.

If they acted fast enough and played their cards right, it might just be possible for the various groups of the thus newly equipped Eagles, in an orchestrated effort, to claim multiple first clears at once. Thereby securing the respective mining rights before their counterparts from Rhenia and the four smaller regional nations could even realize what was happening.

Samuel seemed happy enough to oblige, and though Severin didn’t have much say in the matter, he too was rather satisfied with the conclusion of that meeting.

Not because of the promised profits- between all the local guilds, sooner or later those would inevitably be coming his way either way, and in the grand scheme of things the business of just a single guild’s worth of customer wasn’t all that much to begin with-, but because it meant he could soon head back. There was nothing that kept him here. Nothing more for him to do.

Unless…

“I’m so sorry, Sev. Em.” As soon as they left the office, the half-giant began to profusely apologize.

“That wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned when I asked you guys to tag along. I hoped to let you meet Markus and the guys. Maybe show you some of the local flora and fauna; it’s crazy how those are shaped by the nearby dungeons. But I really have to go see to this. Feels like I’m abandoning you, but you heard what Gil said. Honestly, I shouldn’t even fly you back before heading to the Garden. Better if there was no more observable traffic between the outpost and your store before everything is set in place. I hope you understand. And I assure you, it won’t take too long. If it’s the first floor, I’ll make it in and out in less than two hours. Closer to one, probably.

Though if you insist…”

“So one to two hours, huh.” Severin thought aloud.

“But anywhere else should be fine, though, right? For you to drop me off, I mean.”

“Sure, I guess?” Samuel said, not quite understanding where this way going.

“Well then, how about you drop me off at one of the local Societies first?”

“Oh? Oh!” Came the realization.