Quiet. That was the only word Matthias could use to describe the guild at that time.

It was only him and Manna occupying the restaurant area. No other party was there, even in the waiting area. Soleil was still stuck in the interrogation room, but she was part of his party, so that did not count.

There were still about four hours before lunchtime, which was over six hours since they had breakfast. Absurd numbers, but it was normal for that world which worked on 40-hour days.

Soleil was still isolated inside the interrogation room.

It was unlikely that the investigation had already progressed so far as to require her to be interrogated for several hours again. Likely, she was just being isolated for safety reasons; both for herself, and others.

As expected, the town guard had come again early in the morning and demanded for Soleil to be handed over. The guild feigned ignorance and told them that they haven’t seen her at all. At that point, the news had already spread about what she was accused of. However, when the adventurers learned about who had died, they suddenly became much less cold around them. The members even voluntarily formed an intimidating circle around the town guards until they were forced to return empty-handed once again. Soleil’s three former party members must have not been popular and may have even been infamous.

And just in case, isolating her was also to protect others. If it was true that she did kill them, then who knew if she would do it again?

But for her two party members, their worries only grew the longer they were separated.

Well, not really.

“Aren’t you the least bit worried?” Matthias asked while chewing on salad. “We haven’t seen her in several hours. I thought she’d at least get a break for breakfast.”

“She’s probably had her food taken to her. Didn’t she say she’d leave the new member to us?”

Manna was casually eating a piece of boiled chicken with potatoes. Her voice and appearance were completely devoid of tension and concern. Matthias wondered how she could be so unflappable considering the circumstances. Then again, that was also very much like her.

“Don’t worry. As long as the guild doesn’t find any fault in her, she won’t be surrendered to the guard. After all, they also want to protect the promising adventurers who defeated an undead drake, right? That would be us. That’s why the guild also ordered us to sleep here temporarily.”

Matthias thought about it. As much as he wanted to continue worrying, she did have a point. The guild absolutely adored talent. Heroes typically arose from among their ranks; history proved that time and time again. “Makes sense. How can you be so sure, though?”

“Gut feeling.”

“Hey.”

She laughed and roughly hit his shoulders with her hand.

“Don’t worry! If things get really bad, you can just get your old man to intervene, right?”

He really didn’t want to, but he would if things came down to it.

They hadn’t left the guild at all that day. They had some funds saved up besides the money Matthias had from his family. Those were saved up in case of emergencies. Considering that they didn’t have to pay for accommodations, for the time being, he estimated that they had enough money to last them for a couple of weeks.

Times were tough, especially for low-ranked adventurers.

Most of the money they had earned from selling the undead drake’s horns had already been spent purchasing new equipment, such as Matthias’ brand new backup sword, several quivers’ worth of arrows, and clothes for Soleil. The remaining money was used to buy an embarrassingly large amount of holy water, which Soleil consumed like it was fruit juice.

It was a weird thing, considering that holy water was typically used for external applications.

Then, one of the guild staff ran towards them with an alarmed expression. Seeing the young lad in a hurry, Matthias’ heart jumped. Did something happen with their “demon lord”?

“We’ve got a situation!”

“Shit. Are those town guards here again?” Manna spat. Her glare caused the kid to shrink back.

“Oh, uhh, no…”

He struggled to form his words under Manna’s reproachful gaze. Matthias had to cover her eyes just to let the poor guy speak.

“We… we just got a report that there’s a carriage being attacked to the east. A runner came to the guild to ask for help.”

It was probably bandits, Matthias thought. There was an entire region full of them to the east, and multiple teams of high-ranking adventurers were usually hired to guard merchants crossing that area. That was the reason why there were numerous high-ranking parties like Nail’s in that town despite only having low-ranked dungeons.

“And you’re approaching us, why? Bandit subjugation commissions are at least C-ranked. We’re D-ranked.”

Manna kept intimidating the staff, which wasn’t helping the situation. He recalled the apothecary, whose name he had already forgotten. She was also quite scared of Manna.

“Nobody else is at the guild right now. You’re the only ones we can turn to.”

“What about the knightage? Isn’t external security their job?”

“Well… We’ve sent messengers there already, but considering they’re knights…”

“They’re going to take their damn time, huh. Damn lazy pieces of…”

An ill-humored grunt escaped Manna’s chest as she crossed her arms in dissatisfaction. After that, her face slowly changed from a sneer to a look of resignation.

Matthias wanted to take over the conversation considering he was the one the guild staff talked to in the first place, but honestly, he was much too entertained with watching Manna throw her weight around. So he just sat back, drank his ale, and watched the exchange.

“Look. The guild requires at least three people to act in a party, right? Can we go and get our party member now?”

“Y, you mean the beastk—I mean, Ms. Soleil?” his words were cut short as Manna’s glare intensified, sending a piercing chill from his foot to his spine.

He looked around nervously before he replied with a soft voice.

“The guild master won’t allow it. I can’t.”

It was the expected reply. A day hadn’t even passed since she was placed under house arrest. Manna likely just wanted to give it a shot, as her face showed no change in response to the staff’s answer.

“So we’re fine to move out as a duo?”

“Yes. It’s an emergency…”

“How about the security here? We’re the only adventurers at the guild right now. What if the town guardsmen showed up again?”

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At this question, the staff brightened up and answered, “Don’t worry. The two sub-masters are here.”

There was a glimmer of respect in his eyes as he told them how strong the sub-masters were. Apparently, the three of them, including the guild master, were former A-rank adventurers. In terms of experience alone, all of the town guards combined wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

Despite all of Manna’s troubles, they wouldn’t be able to refuse an emergency commission anyway. Such were the guild rules. Since they were the nearest available party, they were the first to be ordered to take the task. After that, they would likely be sending runners to places other parties tended to hang out, while at the same time making the announcement at the dungeons and waypoints.

As for the new party member they were supposed to meet, they had no choice but to make him wait.

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And so, they found themselves walking through the forest to the east without Soleil. Though they were used to each other’s company, it still felt rather peculiar without the boisterous self-proclaimed “demon lord” with them. She had the kind of personality that forced other people to conform to her antics. And so, without her, something felt missing.

But they didn’t have time to think about that matter. Because of the nature of the emergency, they had to run as fast as they could toward their destination. Despite that, Manna, who was technically guilty of wasting their time arguing, looked unhurried even while she kept pace with Matthias’ full sprint.

As a hunter, she could easily outrun him even while jumping through the canopy.

“Nobody can say we didn’t do our job even if we arrived late, right? Besides, since it’s just the two of us, we should stick together.”

It was the kind of excuse that was intolerable to the nosy Soleil who had a burning sense of justice. If there was someone in need of help, she would immediately rush to the rescue. But since she wasn’t there, all Matthias could do was run as fast as he could.

Their destination wasn’t that far away from the eastern gates. It was on a part of the road that ran parallel to a river off a shallow drop. To get there as fast as possible, they had to first go through a narrow expanse of grasslands past the gates and then through a relatively wide forest. Anybody else would have elected to follow the road as the added distance wasn’t that large, but Matthias also had a decent experience running through dense woodland, so he just went at it straight.

But, at a good distance away from where the carriage had supposedly stopped, Matthias noticed something weird.

It was too quiet.

There were no sounds of battle that he had expected. Of course, to achieve that through the time it took for the runner to arrive at the guild, Manna’s incessant complaints, and their run to the location of the carriage, then the carriage guards would have to be strong enough to withstand an assault from however many bandits needed to sustain the attack.

Considering the location, the guards must have been adventurers as well. Matthias’ gut cramped slightly. He had a bad feeling about their fates.

“Shh--!”

Manna suddenly placed herself in front of him and stopped. Her eyes turned from their usual lively state to one of vigilance. She looked around and frowned.

“Walk slowly. Keep low,” she whispered. Then, she leaped from the ground and jumped off a tree trunk to settle on the branch. In an instant, she disappeared from his sight.

He did as he was told and kept a low profile. Unlike Manna who could even walk through a field of dry leaves without a sound, Matthias only had warrior training. The best he could do was to try and muffle his footsteps using wind magic.

It took him a good minute to arrive at a place where he could see the carriage. There wasn’t any good news to take from it.

Bodies littered the ground in a mess of blood and carnage. Furthermore, there were more bandit casualties than adventurers, which spoke volumes of how strong the latter were even against what should have been an ambush. Judging from the corpses, the battle involved all manner of weapons such as swords, maces, bows, and magic. There were even scorch marks on the ground, which should have been caused by fire spells. The carriages had been destroyed from the battle, and none of the goods could be spotted in the wreckage.

They were too late. But, they weren’t alone.

A lone figure stood in the middle of the bloodstained soil. It had a large build, though hunched in stature. From the side, Matthias could see it had a snout, with a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. It had a pair of canine ears protruding out of its hood, and golden slit eyes not unlike Soleil’s.

“A beastkin?”

The fur on its back was a very dark shade of gray, which brightened to a white at the end of its furry tail, hands, and feet. It had on a tattered brown cloak with a hood and a loose black robe. On its back was a staff… which was strange.

Beastkin were physically-capable warriors who often relied on their bodies as weapons, similar to Soleil. At first, he thought it was some sort of combat staff; some eccentric beastkin preferred using weapons and trained themselves in those arts. But considering the gemstone attached to one of its ends, it was obviously a mage’s staff.

He shook the questions out of his head. Regardless of what it looked like, it was a suspicious character. He gave a signal with his hand. There was no doubt in his mind that Soleil understood what he meant. There was no way to determine where she was if she intended to hide, so he didn’t bother to look for her. After waiting for a few seconds, he drew his sword and shouted at the shady beastkin.

“Don’t move!”

The beastkin froze where it was, crouching near a body and inspecting it.

“Raise your hands above your head and turn around.”

It quickly understood what he meant and obediently turned so that Matthias could only look at its back. When it did, he adjusted his position slightly so that he was more to its left. That way, if it retaliated, then he wouldn’t be in the same place he once was.

That done, he pushed on.

“Are you with these bandits?”

“No, no. I am simply a wanderer who came across this place,” the beastkin replied in a deep, calm voice. That was when he realized that it was a male; a difficult thing to ascertain since certain beastkin looked quite similar between genders. “I was walking around the forest hunting for animals when I heard a commotion here. By the time I arrived, nobody here aside from these bodies was left.”

Despite its imposing and ferocious figure, he talked formally with a steady tone. Matthias could even describe the voice as soothing and gentle. But he knew better than to relax, as the other party looked to have a robust build and could very likely tear him to pieces if he was caught unaware.

“Can you prove it?”

“Hmm… that would be difficult. I don’t have any papers with me. As you can see, besides my clothes and this staff, I don’t have many possessions in the first place.”

Well, that was true. It was a stupid question on Matthias’ part if he didn’t trust the other party to say the truth in the first place. And since he said he didn’t have papers, they were left in a conundrum.

“… What’s your name?”

So he decided to approach the matter differently.

“My name is Tolg, sir. I’m a Dire Wolf Beastkin on a journey.”

“What are you doing here, then? Looting the bodies?”

Tolg’s shoulders sagged and his jaw jolted upwards slightly as if he was hurt by Matthias’ accusations.

“No. I was simply closing their eyes.” He turned his massive frame slightly so he could look at the bodies more comfortably. There was an unmistakable look of pity in his eyes. “The dead should not continue to look at the world. They might feel a lingering attachment to it. If they become jealous of the living that could still walk, then they might rise and become the undead.”

“And besides,” he continued. “The carriage owners and guards have already been completely looted. These hooligans do not carry any money either. Plus, swords and armor are useless to me.”

Matthias looked to the bodies and noticed that, indeed, on the section where Tolg hard turned to, every corpse had been turned to a supine position with their eyes closed. He had even taken the time to fix up the bodies of the adventurers and carriage drivers such as they looked at peace, with straight bodies and their hands on their chests. There was no way anybody would do that without meaning to. But, why?

“I assure you, I mean no harm, sir. So if you’d please, could you tell your friend to stop aiming at me? There are more concerning targets around us.”

The moment he said that, an arrow whistled above Matthias’ head and went straight through to the woods on the other side of the river. A scream of pain resounded, sending birds out of the treetops.

Two other figures came out from the shrubs and ran away. Tolg immediately burst into a sprint towards one of them. The thought that the latter was also escaping passed through Matthias’ mind. But, if that happened, then Manna would surely also shoot him down. So, he turned his attention to the remaining person and ran towards him.

A week of spending time with Soleil allowed him to copy some of her techniques; one of which was physical augmentation. While he was far from being able to replicate her explosive speed and destructive strength, he was still able to run at a speed that was much faster than he could before.

The “battle” was over quickly. It was a fundamental mistake to turn your back on someone faster than you. While the spies might not have realized that latter fact, the result was the same.

Matthias tied the three men to a tree. They were all wearing mismatched armor, and they all looked like they hadn’t taken a bath in weeks. It was the kind of condition that bandits typically lived with. Surprisingly, all three of them were still alive. Manna’s arrow had hit the first one right on his knees. Matthias only used the hilt of his sword, and Tolg, despite having massive claws on his hands, apparently only knocked the other one out with his staff in the same way.

But what was more surprising was that some of them were carrying gold coins with the insignia of the church.

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“Enviable. I wish I had gold coins.”

“Why does that sound so out of character?”