Assimilate All Talents

Chapter 53: A Quest?

Unsure of how he could help while pretending to be a prisoner, Sol let her continue.

The guildmaster began by confirming his suspicions, "You’re correct in thinking nobles have played a hand in this. We’ve known this since we launched the investigation years ago. It’s because every month, all the noble families of the city requested the monthly rank report. It was a record of all the adventurers who had ranked up in the last month. When the nobles received it, they sifted through and compared last month’s report to find the recent youths who had rapidly risen in the ranks.

"Originally, this wasn’t a problem. It’s a common way for noble families to find promising talents and recruit them. It was until 5 years ago that from that list they targeted youths and kidnapped them. We checked everywhere in the city and even sent investigators to nearby towns and cities to search, but we simply couldn’t find any of the missing adventurers. We even checked every slave we found and verified their identities and after months of searching, no leads turned up."

Sol couldn’t help but interject, "Why didn’t you stop giving them the rank report? Or remove any possible targets from it?"

A sigh escaped her lips as she shook her head, "I wish we didn’t have to give it to those nobles, but their influence is too great to ignore. Near the beginning of the investigation, I did attempt to change the report to remove those who could be in danger, but they quickly found out." As The Guildmaster recalled the events, she had a pained expression. "That year, the guild was forced to cover half of the quest reward nobles put up, and they got their damn list in the end."

’Why do you look more pained over the loss of money than the missing people...’

This brought his opinion of the Guildmaster down a bit, but he understood why. Running a guild wasn’t cheap, and to be forced to cover half of the quest reward might not be a lot for one quest, but it quickly added up. The nobles would also likely take advantage of this by doubling the reward for the quest they planned to request, increasing the likelihood of a better adventurer taking it while not impacting their bottom line as the guild will cover it for them.

Compared to the giant loss in gold, losing a few adventurers doesn’t seem as big of a deal. Sure, they were up and coming rookies, but adventurers die every day in this line of work. The reason she seemed so invested seemed more likely attributed to the fact that such crimes are happening consistently under her watch. Her reputation had most likely taken a big hit, leaving this case unresolved.

She then signaled to Trevor, "Go grab one of the spatial rings from storage and fill it with dungeon raid set C and add a rare sword as well."

Not expecting to be suddenly ordered, Trevor’s eyebrow twitched, ’You said "I" but I gotta do it?’

Holding back his inner thoughts from showing on his face, he replied, "On it Guildmaster."

It only took Trevor 5 short minutes to come back to the room. He appeared out of breath from rushing around the guild. He presented a plain gray ring to the Guildmaster, which she accepted with a simple nod.

"Thank you, Trevor." She brought the ring closer towards another more expensive ring that was on her right hand. A gentle glow emanated as the two rings made contact. Once the glow ended, she handed the gray ring to Sol.

"In addition to food, tools, and a weapon, I added a few things you will need for the quest. The most important being a memory crystal which I want you to place wherever you believe their leader resides, a meeting place would be a good place as well. The second item you should keep in mind is a short distance communication gem. Whether you believe it’s time to start the raid or you have something important to report, don’t hesitate to use it."

Sol received the ring knowing that was not the only thing received. He felt a heavy weight of responsibility of not only his life and Rebecca’s but of every future victim these criminals set their eyes on. With a determined expression, his gaze moved from the ring to the Guildmaster.

"I will do my absolute best."