The Guild Master's Challenge
In a silence thick with shock and terror,
Clack!
The sound of an empty cup settling onto the table rang out with crystalline clarity.
Yet the roaring cheers of moments before never came. Instead, the shock and fear steeped in that silence only swelled larger.
“What the hell. What is this?”
If the Guild Master—who had been slacking off in an empty room near the central plaza—hadn’t found the unnatural hush blanketing the guild strange enough to come investigate, that silence might have stretched on for quite some time.
“...Insane.”
Even she, a veteran of countless battlefields, had joined the stunned quiet for a beat once she grasped the sheer absurdity of what Jun had done.
In any case, her arrival snapped everyone back to their senses. Having finally performed something resembling actual Guild Master duties for the first time in ages, she sauntered off toward the sparring arena prepared in the basement—
—with Jun, who had been trying to bolt after sensing impending doom, forcibly tucked under her arm.
“Guild Master! What exactly do you think you’re doing, dragging Jun-nim down here?!”
“I heard the kid’s ridiculously strong. As Guild Master, I’ve gotta check that out myself, don’t I?”
Carol, who had rushed after them in a panic, glared daggers at her and protested. The Guild Master dug a finger into her ear with a look of pure annoyance as she answered.
For someone of her station, her manners were pure back-alley thug.
“Since when have you ever been so diligent about your duties as Guild Master?! You always dump the work and do nothing but loaf around!”
“Geez. Fine, fine, I’m sorry. From now on I’ll actually do my job properly as Guild Master. Happy?”
“Hmph! Do you even know how many times you’ve said that already? I don’t believe you anymore.”
“Always so picky. That’s why, even with that face and those skills, you still can’t get a boyfriend.”
“(Grind!) What (grind! grind!) did you just say?”
Had the Guild Master struck a nerve? Carol ground her teeth and snarled like a beast whose rage had hit its limit. One more push and she looked ready to bite.
Jun, I’m scared.
Same here, Fortuna.
Faced with that genuine fury, Jun and Fortuna clung tightly to each other, trembling. To them—who took each other’s presence as a given—Carol’s anger wasn’t something they could empathize with; it was simply incomprehensible.
“...Ahem, ahem! I-I didn’t... I didn’t say anything.”
Even the Guild Master couldn’t casually brush off that reaction; she flinched and avoided Carol’s gaze.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh-fwoosh!
“Right? You know I didn’t.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
When Carol still refused to let her anger die down, the Guild Master decided she couldn’t handle it alone and tried to drag Jun into it for backup.
Of course, Jun—whose escape skills rivaled any hero’s—didn’t fall for it.
“Haaah∼. Please be more careful from now on. Understood?”
“Of course. Leave it to me.”
Whether she pitied the Guild Master’s pathetic display or simply decided further anger would only hurt herself, Carol let out a long sigh and extinguished her rage. At the follow-up warning, the Guild Master nodded eagerly.
Even though they had only just met her, the looks Jun and Fortuna gave the Guild Master had already gone ice-cold.
“So what’s the real reason you dragged Jun-nim here? If it’s just to skip work and slack off, I’ll make you pull overtime no matter what it takes.”
“I already told you. As Guild Master, I’m going to verify this kid’s skills. How else am I supposed to decide whether the guild should actively back him?”
The Guild Master’s tone turned serious for once. Carol’s attitude naturally followed suit.
“Is that really necessary? Jun-nim’s evaluation was already completed by the Church. He’s clearly a hero who will save humanity alongside the Hero.”
“There you go again, judging everything from a single speck of dust. That’s the problem with you and the Church. You spin wild fantasies at the drop of a hat, just like some virgin who’s never even spoken to a man. Is it because the Church is packed with virgins and pure boys?”
“Guild Master! You said you’d watch your words! That was seconds ago, not minutes!”
“Sorry, sorry. Anyway, I’m going to confirm with my own two eyes—well, one eye—whether this brat becomes a hero or not. If you want the guild to push him, don’t get in my way.”
With that, the Guild Master crossed her arms as if to declare there would be no compromise. Carol heaved another deep sigh and turned to Jun.
“Jun-nim, I’m sorry, but please humor our Guild Master for a little while.”
“That’s fine, but if my skills don’t meet her standards, I’m not going to take some kind of loss over it, right? If Special Protection Status gets revoked, I’d be in serious trouble.”
“Don’t worry. Special Protection Status is provided by the Church. The support the Guild Master is talking about is purely guild-level assistance. Still, please do your best so we can secure as much guild support as possible.”
“Are the benefits that good?”
“Yes. Priority on excellent commissions, discounts on purchases, access to the item vault and the guild library—there are a great many benefits. I’d love to grant them immediately, but unfortunately I can’t. The Church holds most of the guild’s shares, yet the Council, the Three Empires, and various kingdoms each hold small stakes as well, so we can’t simply decide on our own.”
“I see. What’s the guild library, though?”
“It’s where the guild stores all the information, secret manuals, and magic tomes it has collected. As a benefit of Special Protection Status, you can borrow one volume, so we’ll visit later.”
At Carol’s words, Jun’s eyes lit up and he nodded vigorously.
Magic tomes, huh. I wonder if there are any related to space magic. I hope so.
Five years earlier, after buying a Distortion magic tome from Lawrence, Jun had never again obtained a space-related grimoire.
It wasn’t for lack of money—there simply were no goods on the market. Space magic was so finicky and dangerous that it rarely appeared for sale.
If there had been a school or magic tower specializing in it the way other attributes did, he could have gone there to acquire tomes. Sadly, no such school or tower existed.
So for the past five years, while Heni freely devoured fire-attribute grimoires, Jun could only sit beside her, green with envy, sucking his fingers.
That long-held frustration now set his will ablaze.
Fortuna, buff me.
You’re going all out?
Yeah. This is basically the only supply source left. I’ve got to secure that support somehow.
Huh? Isn’t there one more place?
That one’s off-limits. Restricted zone.
As Fortuna said, there was one other possible source for space-related magic tomes.
The Imperial Academy library.
A place that collected every book in existence would almost certainly have space magic texts.
But using it required enrollment in the Imperial Academy—
—that powder keg where the strongest bombs in history might detonate in synergy at any moment.
Jun had no desire to die just for one magic tome.
Hwaaaah!
Click! Click!
Fortuna, nestled within the Stigma, bestowed her blessing upon Jun. He swiftly drew armor from his subspace and donned it.
The time it took him to enter combat mode was a mere few seconds.
The Guild Master, who had already put a suitable distance between them, watched and gave a small whistle of approval.
“You can use Divine Possession if you want. No—personally, I’d really like to see it once.”
“It’s on cooldown.”
Fusion (Divine Possession) had been engraved into Jun’s Stigma as a holy art alongside Heal. He could use it whenever he wished, but unlike Heal it had a cooldown and required time before it could be used again.
The cooldown was exactly thirty days. Four days had passed since the first Fusion, so twenty-six more days remained.
“Well, that’s a shame, but can’t be helped. What are you waiting for? Come at me already. You’re all set. Didn’t Leonard and Robin teach you? The best attack is a preemptive strike.”
The Guild Master grinned and crooked her fingers at him like a back-alley punk, goading him.
So she has ties to those two.
Curiosity stirred, but Jun set it aside for now. He narrowed his eyes and observed her carefully.
Worn black trousers and combat boots, a half-unbuttoned dress shirt, a coat simply draped over her shoulders with nothing fastening it, empty hands holding nothing at all.
No matter how he looked at it, she was completely unprepared for a spar.
Yet Jun did not let his guard down.
The information flooding in through his radar told him everything. That appearance itself was her full combat readiness.
The trained body hidden beneath her clothes declared that middling armor and weapons were unnecessary, while her remaining blue eye sparkled playfully even as it dissected every twitch of Jun’s body.
She kind of reminds me of someone, though.
Sharp eyes that evoked a predator, and a thick mane of golden hair.
She bore a striking resemblance to a certain animal. Thinking of that animal naturally dragged up someone he would rather not remember for a while.
For some reason—really, for no clear reason at all—he began to feel reluctant about her.
“Ah, Jun-nim. For reference, the Guild Master’s surname is Lionzer.”
Carol’s timely warning reached him. Jun nodded as if he understood, while privately wondering whether he and that family had somehow made mortal enemies of each other in a previous previous life.