Mages Who Hunt Mages
Guildmaster Laorio. Once again, I found myself sitting across from him in his office.
The despair that had crushed me the last time we sat like this was gone. Back then, my life had been nothing but hardship. Debt and a death sentence — those two things had stripped me of everything I had. But it was different now. I had more reasons to keep living than I knew what to do with.
"Guildmaster, please tell me about Dreygan."
That was why he had brought me here. He'd said he had something to tell me about the man.
Laorio steeped a pot of tea before he spoke.
"Haren. You've become a mage."
He'd picked up on it immediately. I hadn't expected that to come out before anything about Dreygan.
"In this line of work, I meet with mages quite often. You develop an instinct for these things."
Monster hunting was a profession that couldn't survive without relying on mages. When a beast too powerful to handle appeared, you had no choice but to call one in — and summoning a mage was the guildmaster's job.
"More than that, I was well aware of your remaining lifespan."
Mana Stone Sclerosis. An incurable disease. The only way to survive it was to become a mage. Most people hadn't thought twice about the fact that I was still alive. But Laorio, who knew more about mages than most, had understood. Back then, I'd had a few months left at best. The fact that I was still breathing could only mean one thing: I was a mage.
"Not just anyone can sit in the guildmaster's chair, I see."
"It's a living you make by reading the room. So yes, I suppose that's true. Congratulations on surviving Mana Stone Sclerosis."
"It isn't fully resolved. I still need to climb higher."
"If anyone can do it, Haren, it's you."
More encouraging than I'd expected. Was he saying that to stay on my good side now that I was a mage? Or was it simply how he felt? He'd always been a hard man to read. I couldn't say for certain.
"That's enough catching up. Let's get to the point."
Laorio set a teacup down in front of me.
"The mage organization Dreygan joined as a disciple is the Dawn Constellation."
He looked me in the eye and spoke quietly.
"What?"
For a moment I thought I'd misheard. But Laorio's expression made it clear I hadn't.
"An organization like that exists?"
"It does. Mages prefer not to speak of it among themselves, but it's been around for a very long time. Being a mage doesn't mean they all get along, after all."
I'd become a mage myself, and to me, mages were still people. Just as different schools of magic existed among them, different groups pursued different ends.
"If Dreygan joined that organization..."
"It means he has made himself the enemy of countless mages from this day forward."
And the same would be true of me, now that I was a mage. Dreygan had chosen to become the enemy of every mage alive in order to protect his granddaughter. A sigh escaped me, but it was his decision. It wasn't my place to argue.
"Guildmaster. Just one question."
Something else was bothering me now.
"How do you know all this?"
Even Dreygan's own disciples didn't seem to know where he'd gone. So how did a guildmaster, of all people, know a thing like that?
Laorio regarded me in silence. Something alien stirred in his eyes — something I couldn't place.
Don't tell me.
"I am not a mage."
He denied it before I could ask.
"But there is far more hidden in this world than you know, Haren."
He had risen from his seat at some point, and now stood with his back to me.
"You can unearth that once you've climbed higher. For you as you are now, it's too soon."
It was a warning. Dig any deeper here and I could find myself in real danger. Laorio had never shown me any malice. He always stood one step removed, delivering nothing but the truth and the occasional piece of advice. I held no ill will toward him either.
How had others treated me once they learned I was a mage? Every last one of them had recoiled in shock or fear, then fallen over themselves to show respect. Laorio showed none of that. He saw through me completely, and he treated me as Haren — not as a mage. He had the confidence to stand on even footing even when the person across from him wielded magic.
Just what kind of man was he? Looking at him, we couldn't have been that far apart in age. And yet the years he'd lived felt like they belonged to an entirely different world.
"Is that also why Dreygan set up his training center in Laoren? Not just because it was his hometown?"
"Nothing in this world happens without a reason."
He didn't deny it. He also didn't elaborate. There was no point in pushing against a warning he'd already given me.
"I understand."
That was as far as the conversation needed to go. I stood to leave, and Laorio turned back as if something had just occurred to him.
"There's one more thing I should tell you."
One more thing. I looked back at him.
"Frendal Laoren. I'm sure you know the name."
It had been a long time since I'd heard it. More precisely, it was a matter I'd pushed aside the moment I'd caught Zorbanof's eye. The spoiled youngest son of the Laoren family — the one who'd been bankrolling the drug-dealing Muddy Hand. I hadn't expected to hear that name again after two full years.
"Is he looking for me?"
"Word is that you're the one who burned the Muddy Hand's headquarters to the ground."
"And what did he do about it?"
Laorio looked at me as if the question itself were absurd.
"You vanished. What was there to pursue? As far as anyone was concerned, you were dead."
Fair enough. Word had already spread that the Troublemaker Trio had chased me into a pack of monsters and that I'd gone missing. For all practical purposes, I was a corpse. What could anyone have done?
"News of your return hasn't circulated yet, so if you leave Laoren now, there shouldn't be any real trouble."
Two years had passed. Even if someone heard my name, it would take them a while to place it. Laorio was advising me to leave before I got tangled up in something I didn't need.
But I had no intention of following that advice. From Frendal's perspective, I was some nobody who'd shown up out of nowhere and wrecked his operation. From mine, he was a pest.
"Has Frendal changed?"
Even back then, he'd been a spoiled young master stirring up trouble wherever he went — and he'd crossed lines that even a brat had no business crossing.
"No. If anything, it's worse. Lord Frendal has personally established a new branch, something in the same vein as the Muddy Hand."
The pest had nested in Laoren and was still gnawing the city from the inside — larger now than the vermin that had come before it. Laorio had told me this as a warning. All he'd done was throw another log onto a fire already burning in my chest.
Frendal Laoren. This pest was going to be exterminated.
"Understood. Come to think of it — my debt."
I still owed the guild money. That, at least, I intended to pay.
"That's been taken care of. The hunters pooled their money and paid it off."
What? I stared at him, too stunned to process it, then found my voice a beat later.
"I'm sorry — what?"
"Exactly what I said. The people who joined the last expedition, along with the Troublemaker Trio, put the money toward paying off your debt."
My eyes widened. Of all the things I'd expected to hear today, this hadn't even been on the list.
"They called it the price of a life."
The price of a life. A hollow laugh slipped out of me. I'd paid back what I could, but a considerable sum had still been outstanding. They must have turned over every last mana stone they'd taken from that expedition.
Those bastards. They'd given me a gift I never saw coming.
"Looks like I've taken on a new debt."
"Debts have a way of never running dry. That's a hunter's life for you."
Among hunters, there were men like Trenba — creatures worse than the monsters they hunted. But they weren't all like that. There were those who kept to a code.
I finished with Laorio and walked out through the door. Beyond it, the guild hall was as loud and raucous as ever, packed with hunters. A rough-mouthed bunch, every one of them. And yet, in their own way, they thought of me as one of their own — even me, a man who'd spent far more time as a monster corpse cleaner than as a hunter.
"Meryl."
So I decided to ask a favor of the staff — of Meryl.
"I'll cover the food and drinks for every hunter eating and drinking here tonight."
"What? Are you serious?"
Meryl's eyes went wide. Fair reaction. Those hunters didn't exactly eat light.
But it was fine.
Thud. I set down the bag I'd brought with me. It was packed to the brim with monster materials of every kind. On the road here, I'd hunted every beast I'd come across. There'd been no mana stones, but I'd collected the materials all the same. I'd originally gathered them to pay off my debt to the guild. Looks like they'd be going toward something else.
"Use this to cover it."
"A-all right. Then, to the hunters, should I..."
"Yes. You can give them my name."
That would do it. One of the hunters with ties to the back alleys would carry my name straight into those streets. Gratitude settled over me — and a savage smile crept onto my lips along with it.
Frendal. I hope you still remember the name Haren. Of course, it doesn't matter if you don't. I'll make sure it reaches your ears again tonight — the same way it did before.
"Got it!"
Meryl answered with a bright face. She was happy I'd come back, and I was grateful for that.
She hurried off to spread the word among the hunters.
"Hey, Haren!"
"You come back and suddenly you're throwing your weight around!"
Sure enough, the hunters bit down on the offer and cheered. I tossed them a rough greeting and left the Laoren branch guild behind.
I already knew where I was headed.
Laoren. It felt good to be back in this familiar, beloved city. I'd barely arrived, and already I had more than enough work waiting for me.
Frendal had built himself a new playground. Tonight, I was going to make that day happen all over again.