After we’d secured an inn, the three of us headed for the Guild.
Aramsus, scholarly city and labyrinth, had us asking passersby for directions on the way to the Adventurers’ Guild.
The streets were clean, the passersby clean-cut.
But the city itself was a cluttered tangle either way — easy to get lost.
I used Skills to confirm the location. The fact that the Guild sat in a tucked-away spot and lacked convenience seemed to be the Aramsus Guild’s defining feature.
“Carts are coming from this side — meaning the other side is hard to get through.”
Out of the maze, at the Guild, the building was smaller than Darion’s. Small relative to the city’s size.
The first floor was the same everywhere — almost a market.
Adventurers and carts came and went, selling monster parts and mana-stones.
Sometimes merchants bought in bulk, loaded carts, and headed out.
“The Guilds look the same anywhere.”
Aria murmured. Novem agreed.
But—
“From the outside, the same. But location-dependent, the atmosphere shifts. Vise was the same.”
Vise — House Walt’s territorial seat.
A metropolis-tier city; the Adventurers’ Guild was there.
I didn’t know much about the relationships, though.
The Seventh.
“We accommodate them, but they’re a pool of would-be criminals. Kept for mana-stone supply… in my time they weren’t particularly necessary even so.”
Most adventurers were ruffians. Mercenaries and bandits, calling themselves adventurers, were adventurers.
The distinction was: what the person called themselves.
The Guild policed criminals, of course, but whether it managed everything was doubtful.
Criminals who shifted home base and got away existed.
Adventurers who hunted such adventurers existed too — bounty hunters, specializing in person-on-person.
The Sixth concurred.
“Send soldiers and you get materials and mana-stones. Plenty of work, too… but the types who don’t fit any box, you’ll always get those. Inevitable, maybe.”
Against the Sixth and Seventh treating it as a bottom-tier receptacle, the Third dissented.
“Pretty severe. Use it because it’s useful — isn’t that enough? They hold the mana-stone-rights anyway, and they’re effectively a mercenary clearing house. No point making enemies. Watch them and keep an appropriate distance.”
The Third had a use the Guild mindset, apparently.
The Second filled in.
“Right — it was your era when we got a Guild at home.”
The Guild had been set up in House Walt’s territory in the Third’s time. The territory hadn’t been that large yet — surprising they’d set one up.
The Third caught my question.
“Frontier with monsters everywhere — environment was good for mana-stones and parts. I didn’t tie them down with strict rules either.”
Some lords taxed Guilds heavily.
That dropped buy prices for mana-stones and parts; adventurers couldn’t earn even working hard.
But that drove adventurers away. Earnings dropped further, problems compounded.
“Novem. The Vise Guild — what kind of vibe? I’ve never been.”
When I asked, Novem’s face went a little troubled.
Not in a bad-news sense — explaining was complicated.
In short—
“Not particularly good, not particularly bad. Quite strict on criminals, but the tax isn’t heavy or light. A Guild where you can make a living — so there are quite a lot of adventurers, I think.”
The Seventh was pleased.
“Same as my time. Good.”
The Seventh, who disliked adventurers, had been put through it by mercenaries.
The cause was the Guild, apparently—.
(Maybe I’ll hear that story in detail sometime.)
We entered the Aramsus Guild.
Different from Darion: there were several enormous bulletin boards.
Both sides of the big boards used, hundreds of requests posted.
Content: gather these monster parts.
Clean this room.
Be an experimental subject.
And more — a stunning volume of requests.
“What is this… not in Darion’s league.”
I was bewildered. Aria the same — frowning at the boards.
“These requests are weird. Room cleaning — the location is an academy research lab. They put adventurers in places like that?”
A pile of incomprehensible requests.
At the counter, more clerks than in Darion were working in partitioned bays.
Young to old, all of them dryly moving the work forward.
Working cramped in narrow spaces.
The Fourth watched and said:
“Quite a distinctive Guild. — Well, no lord here, so the leash is probably looser… that said, requests adventurers would find satisfying are thin on the ground.”
Specified-parts recovery, you could call adventurer-y.
But the locations were dungeons managed by the scholarly city, with specified monster’s parts to be extracted.
A bit rough for the three of us.
(Dungeons — three of us, a shallow one is workable, but a managed deep one is tough.)
Hunting monsters in the vicinity for living expenses might be the better plan.
We submitted home-transfer paperwork. The clerk explained, dryly.
“First time in Aramsus?”
A bespectacled, parted-7:3-haired male clerk. Unlike Hawkins, no warmth.
Maybe Hawkins had just been the exceptional one.
Novem answered.
“All three of us, first time. Our objective here is learning, so we don’t plan to do many requests.”
The clerk ran my Guild card through a device.
”…Your request-evaluation is passing. You completed an emergency request, evaluation A. Darion… the quality of adventurers there is poor, so it’s hard to say, but please handle Aramsus’s requests properly. If you can’t, please say so clearly. That helps.”
A slight look-down attitude — but getting angry was pointless. I took the Guild card back and nodded.
The Second, snorting:
“This type’s everywhere. We are superior. If you don’t match us, we treat you as lower.”
The Third reproached him.
“Scholarly city, so they’ve got confidence in their knowledge. Cut them some slack. No actual harm yet.”
The way the Third stressed yet — but I just answered the clerk.
“I’ll do my best.”
”…I see. Then I’ll keep these Guild cards. Need an orientation? It’s an additional fee if you do.”
You charge for it? — I thought, and shook my head.
We greeted the dry clerk, finished the paperwork, and left.
Outside, we griped about him.
At a café near the inn, post-meal, we let off steam.
Mostly Aria.
“Bad vibes.”
The attitude — and the look-down on Darion, was what she didn’t like.
To Aria, Darion was the town where Zelphy lived.
And the town that had taken them in. Aria’s family — court-nobles in Central — had had their rank stripped in one generation due to her father’s misdeeds.
Driven from Central, Darion had taken them in.
Novem understood that, but covered for the clerk too.
“Different from Darion. — But if he works dryly, that’s actually easy in some ways. With a clerk like Hawkins-san, requests are hard to refuse. With one like him, refusing is easy.”
Less cover, more a touch of black-humor.
But not having to keep watch on our manners was, in a sense, easy.
I shifted to the next agenda.
“Enough of that — what about lodging? Unlike Darion, there aren’t easy house-rentals here. It’ll be an apartment. Three of us in one, or three small rooms separately. Need to decide and start looking.”
Given the city’s character, Aramsus had more apartments than houses.
Students cycling through; fewer people setting up houses.
In Aramsus, where many young people came to study, apartments were the standard.
“If possible, the three of us. Money’s not an issue for a while, and we could decide after looking into earning potential here.”
Taking Novem’s suggestion, I figured we’d head out for monster work tomorrow.
The ancestors agreed. Only the Third—
“Library, library. We’re fine for a while — find good-paying requests, knock them out, and we should be set for a while.”
His heart was in the library already.
I wanted to go too, but daily earnings were a serious problem.
The Fourth, money-mad, shouted.
“Investigate income here first! That’s why your domain’s finances—”
The Fourth, generally a financial-and-administrative talent, looked like a bespectacled intellectual.
For inward-facing things, he was a pillar.
But we had no domain to administer, and Novem handled money — he had nothing to do.
The Third, exasperated.
“Too tight on money. Who’d he take after?”
The Third — the Fourth’s father — said that. The Fifth wrapped it up.
Usually the Fourth’s role.
“Easy. Lyle’s mana pool has grown, sure, but the First’s Skill is also stockpiling mana daily. Making a fuss to push Lyle now is pointless.”
Previously—
I’d been thought to be a type who didn’t gain mana with Growth.
Using two sabres made it look like dexterity-Growth type.
(Two arms — of course you can use two sabres.)
I hadn’t found it strange at all, but the ancestors had said—
“You’re abnormal!!” — in unison.
And, to push my mana up, they’d run me through use mana to the limit training, forcibly.
Without telling me, no less.
The result: I wasn’t a dexterity type but a late-bloomer type — broad Growth jumps requiring twice the experience.
(My Skill [Experience] grants more experience, but always-on means high mana consumption, same as before.)
I was good at magic too. With my use-limits, mana consumption was a big problem.
“Tomorrow’s monster work outside; today we gather local intel. Looking it up in the library, or asking someone — either—”
A voice landed on our table.
”…Aria?”
Aria turned at the voice.
Her expression: shock that the speaker was here.
“It is you! Aria Rockward! It’s me — Miranda Sirclay! We played together a few times in the capital — I thought it had to be you.”
The speaker was a slightly mature-feeling young woman.
Our age, give or take.
Distinct features: green eyes paired with light-green wavy hair.
Eyes that turned up at the corner with a touch of mischief — part of her charm.
A mature impression with a lively, somewhere-still-childlike streak — that was Miranda Sirclay.
“Miranda? Why are you here? You’re the eldest daughter of the Sirclays!”
Aria, exasperated.
Second or third daughters at the scholarly city — normal. Eldest daughters — different story.
The eldest position usually meant marrying into another house or marrying a husband into the family.
“We’re four sisters, so two of us are basically free. — Anyway, if you were here, you could’ve told me…”
Miranda looked slightly lonely. Aria, awkward:
“Arrived yesterday. Was in Darion until then.”
A flat explanation. After that, Aria avoided Miranda’s face.
Miranda gave a wry smile.
“I don’t mind, really… we used to play with Shannon, you and I.”
A name — Shannon — appeared. By the flow, a friend or Miranda’s sister.
Aria stayed silent.
”…Sorry. I’ve been here at the academy three years. I’ll give you my address — come by if you want. Shannon will be happy.”
She wrote the address on a slip and, since Aria wouldn’t take it, handed it to me.
“Excuse me — your relationship to Aria?”
I started to say party member clearly—
“He’s one of Lord Lyle’s lovers.”
Novem cut in from the side.
Miranda blinked. I scrambled to clarify; she started laughing.
“Ahahaha, sorry — that was funny. Aria, a boyfriend? — One of his lovers — plural? You’re fairly good-looking, but — getting after it, are you.”
I was elbowed. I held a hand out toward Miranda as she walked off.
Before I could clear it up, she was gone.
Head drooping, I looked at Aria.
“She seemed nice. Got an issue with her?”
Aria sighed.
“Not that. She is nice. Year older, looks after people, defended me when there were bad rumors about my house… but — she’s the good-natured loses-out type. Soft-hearted, won’t speak ill of anyone.”
Aria’s read: the nice-and-loses-out type.
Novem agreed.
“No backside to her, you mean. Or — the endures-it type, maybe? — Surprising to run into your acquaintance, Aria-san. They did say many students come from Central.”
I’d felt the same. Aria was holding her head.
“Miranda’s fine. But if I run into the rest…”
Slumped.
I asked.
“Why did you ignore her? If she’s nice, you could’ve talked, no?”
Aria answered: that’s why.
“She is nice. Which is why people whispered about her too. So I stepped away. — And right after that, I got expelled from Central.”
She had her own things going on.
But here, you could go back to being close, I thought.
(Friends should be valued… especially the ones who don’t leave when things get rough.)
Aria having same-sex friends like that — slightly enviable.
To me, Novem was a romantic interest, not a friendship.
(Latest example — Rondo and the others. How are they doing now…)
I looked at Miranda’s note and worried whether Rondo’s group was getting on all right.
◇
Back at the inn, before sleeping.
I was in the place I called the council room, with the round table.
At the table’s center, a large blue Jewel shone.
The circular room had six doors, each an ancestor’s room.
Seven chairs total.
Today, unusually, only the Sixth was in.
“Huh? Alone today? Where’s the Fifth?”
I scanned for him. The Sixth gave a wry smile.
“I’m not always with Pops, you know.”
The Sixth’s Skill, [Search], was developed on top of the Fifth’s. Senses friend-and-foe and trap locations.
Used together, it became an absurd Skill.
A map surfacing in the mind, enemy and ally positions visible — terrifying from the enemy’s side.
“Then you called me here, Sixth?”
“Yeah.”
The Sixth often aligned with the Fifth — a rarity in House Walt, a father-son generation that got on well.
He didn’t quarrel much with the Seventh either, my grandfather.
Hair swept back, wild impression, the Sixth — but he was tame in front of the Fifth.
Since he and the Fifth came as a set, that had started to feel normal.
“Actually… I know about House Sirclay, so I figured I’d pass it on.”
“Miranda-san’s family?”
The Sixth was a man with many black rumors.
Sending bribes, connecting with capital court-nobles, working things in his favor — that kind of rumor.
As such, House Walt’s biggest black-hearted one… though he didn’t really come off that way.
The Third was more black-hearted.
“We had ties back then. My younger sister married into the Sirclays.”
First I’d heard.
Or — maybe just first I’d heard. The family might still have had ties.
But by my father — that is, the Eighth — that’s two generations back.
By Banseim noble standards, the marriage tie was practically gone.
“You’re saying she might still be connected to the family?”
“Probability’s thin, but keep it in mind. I don’t really want to doubt either… look. I had few sisters I was close to.”
Hearing that, I remembered something.
The Sixth’s brothers and sisters were legion.
The Fifth, with wife and mistresses combined, had had five women.
And all five had cleared House Walt’s precept.
That he’d found five was a surprise — but the bigger surprise was—
”…You had, what, thirty siblings below you?”
”…Yeah.”
The two of us, awkward faces.
The Fifth was famous as House Walt’s biggest womanizer, but in person he came off dry.
He didn’t look like a man crazed by lust.
“There’s a big gap between what I’d heard about our ancestors and what they’re actually like…”
“Right? — When I heard I was supposedly House Walt’s most black-hearted, the shock.”
Continuing small talk with the Sixth, I considered the possibility that Miranda was still connected to home.