Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: A Pact in the Shadows
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A dark room with the curtains drawn.
Amid the faint flicker of firelight, a man with blue hair opened his eyes.
His name was Rafila.
He was the guild master of the Steel Wolf Guild.
Even after regaining his senses, he didn't immediately lift his head.
Instead, he quietly took stock of the situation.
In his slightly opened field of vision, he saw two legs still fully attached.
Legs that had clearly been on the verge of being devoured by shadows just moments ago.
But now, they were perfectly intact.
Flutter—
In that instant, the sound of pages turning came from somewhere.
The repetitive noise from earlier tickled Rafila's ears.
There was a presence right in front of him.
His two arms were unbound and free.
The opponent had clearly let their guard down.
Should he seize this chance to attack?
The brief hesitation flashed through his mind, but he quickly reached a decision.
Slide—
Rafila raised his head.
There sat someone reading a ledger in the sliver of sunlight filtering through the curtains.
Skin not much different from a human's.
Yet the inside of his black hair shimmered blue.
And the pointed ears on either side.
Proof that he was a Half Dark Elf.
Unlike before, his eyes were now a dull gray.
Moreover, his features were so refined and noble that even Rafila momentarily lost himself in admiration.
He had removed his mask.
He leisurely scanned the ledger with his eyes.
The stamp embedded on the front of the ledger was unmistakably the Steel Wolf Guild's.
Only then did Rafila realize where he was.
A guild master couldn't abandon his duties forever.
So this must be the Steel Wolf Guild's temporary building in Sahā Village.
He sensed a few presences outside.
His guild members, still unaware of the situation inside the room.
If he shouted now, they would hear him, but Rafila wasn't foolish enough to do something so stupid.
"You're awake?"
His eyes turned this way.
Gray irises like ash-filled embers.
The eyes of a necromancer.
"......I got taken down clean."
"Even if I did hear it was a dirty trick."
Leyzon smirked and tossed the ledger onto the table.
"I took a look at what you've been up to."
Rafila bit his lip.
"You're more serious about growing the guild than I thought."
The Steel Wolf Guild.
Though it had bulked up to the fringes of a major guild.
A major guild was still a major guild.
Rafila had contributed the most to getting it this far.
But one mistake today had ruined it all.
All because he had tangled with the monster standing before him now.
"And after climbing into major guild status, you've been gradually cutting off loose ends."
Though the Steel Wolf Guild was branded a criminal outfit.
Rafila hadn't just let it slide.
He had steadily cleaned up internal issues.
Eliminating guild members who crossed the line, quietly and without fanfare.
Of course, coming from the back alleys, his methods were crude by Leyzon's standards.
And among those he had dealt with was his own brother, Liren.
"I get it. You're serious enough to cast out even family."
Of course, Rafila hadn't intended to kill Liren.
He had just planned to give him a good thrashing and ship him off to some rural outpost.
But now, even that was impossible.
Liren had been killed by the man standing before him—Leyzon.
Leyzon tilted his head slightly.
"Do you resent me?"
Leyzon asked Rafila point-blank.
Rafila quietly swallowed.
Did he resent him?
Did he not?
Rafila was sharp.
This wasn't about emotions at all.
'He's making me choose.'
Curse Leyzon and walk the path to ruin?
Or hold no grudge and grasp at the thread of life?
Rafila was a back-alley survivor.
He had done whatever it took to live.
Becoming a pioneer, ascending, earning a name, founding a guild.
For a man like Rafila, who had clawed his way through life, if presented with two options...
"I hold no grudge."
He seized the lifeline with even a sliver of possibility.
From this moment, Rafila declared.
He harbored no resentment whatsoever over Liren.
Leyzon smirked.
Stab!
In that instant, shadowy tendrils burst from Rafila's throat.
The insect-like shadows fell to the floor and vanished.
Cold sweat beaded on Rafila's back.
He didn't know what those shadows were.
But he knew they were tied directly to his life.
"Rafila, personally, I quite like you."
From his methods to his mindset and tenacity.
Rafila checked all the boxes for what Leyzon favored.
Leyzon had a keen eye for people, honed by his own harsh life.
As long as the rewards were generous.
Rafila was a man who wouldn't betray and would serve faithfully.
"Honestly, I could just turn you into a familiar right now."
Familiarization.
Rafila gulped at the word.
The moment he became Leyzon's familiar, he would lose his free will, reduced to a puppet.
He knew that much.
"But I didn't. Do you know why?"
"Because I'm useful?"
"Right answer."
Rafila was a major guild master.
He naturally appeared in public often.
If he were familiarized, some necromancer out there might notice.
That would spell doom not just for Rafila, but the entire Steel Wolf Guild.
So he was too valuable an asset to waste on familiarization.
More than that.
Leyzon saw one possibility through Rafila.
'Nation-building ending.'
An ending where he created a nation independent of the empire.
The key was recruiting major factions.
'With a major guild like Steel Wolf...'
It would open doors to other major guild masters.
The foundation for nation-building would take shape.
'Maximize the chances.'
Whether dungeon ending or nation-building.
Leyzon aimed for both.
"You want to grow Steel Wolf, right?"
Rafila's ambitions were lofty.
He dreamed of Steel Wolf reaching the top spot someday.
A man bold enough to aim for the heavens himself.
"I could help with that."
Rafila's eyes slowly widened.
A glint sparked in his gaze.
Leyzon was strong.
Rafila had felt it firsthand in their clash.
His power seemed bottomless.
And the cards Leyzon kept hidden were beyond counting.
For such a being to back him.
A smart man like Rafila knew exactly what kind of opportunity this was.
"In return, Steel Wolf will be run jointly by you and me."
Rafila fell silent.
For him, it was tantamount to handing over the major guild he had painstakingly built.
But Rafila knew this world's justice better than anyone.
Might makes right.
The weak get trampled.
"......I grew up in the back alleys."
Back in those days, Rafila had learned one truth in the alleys.
"Greed can be the ace up your sleeve that changes your situation, but sometimes it's the worst poison that takes your life."
Steel Wolf was the guild Rafila had built with his own hands.
Yet he had felt its limitations.
The blood he had shed to reform it was proof.
If Leyzon solved that, it wasn't a bad deal for Rafila at all.
"In the back alleys, I learned how to keep greed from turning fatal."
Leyzon smiled faintly, understanding Rafila's intent.
"As expected, I didn't like you for nothing."
Leyzon tapped the table with his index finger.
In that moment, everything around them began to melt away.
Rafila's eyes widened at the sight.
Too late, he realized this wasn't the Steel Wolf building.
This was a shadow.
A shadow cleverly disguised as a room.
A black forest reflected in Rafila's eyes.
Here, the only real things were Leyzon, Rafila, and the ledger in Leyzon's hand.
A chill ran through Rafila.
He couldn't tell where reality ended and illusion began.
That fact terrified him even more.
"I figure you'll uphold our deal properly."
Leyzon didn't need to say more.
The quick-witted Rafila understood it all.
Whether Leyzon had done something to his body or not.
Rafila realized Leyzon could take his life anytime.
Leyzon stepped in front of Rafila.
And extended his hand.
"Let's do well together?"
Rafila wiped his hands on his clothes.
Then clasped Leyzon's hand with both of his.
"Yes. I'll keep it in mind."
A pragmatic response befitting a realist.
Leyzon smiled in satisfaction.
A hero-grade pioneer and an entire major guild at his feet.
Leyzon planned to make full use of it.
The first stepping stone for nation-building was set.
"Now, let's build the greatest guild together."
Someday, one so vast and mighty even the empire wouldn't dare touch it.
An independent nation.
A strange rumor had recently been circulating in the Steel Wolf major guild.
The Steel Wolf Guild that caused a ruckus in Sahā Village not long ago.
People who saw it showered them with criticism again, calling them Steel Wolves.
But the Steel Wolf Guild issued a grand apology for the incident and repaired the damages.
People were baffled by their actions.
However, the rumor was soon overshadowed by talk that the guild had gone too wild and finally received a warning from the Pioneer Association.
After all, causing open chaos in a village warranted a warning.
In truth, the Pioneer Association found the rumor baffling.
They had never issued a warning to Steel Wolf.
Thus, three people had gathered in the Pioneer Association's capital headquarters conference room to discuss it.
"Guild Manager, what do you make of Steel Wolf spreading rumors that we warned them?"
A middle-aged man with a long golden beard reaching his chest spoke up.
His face showed clear displeasure.
He was the head of the Pioneer Association.
"Uh, um."
The petite woman standing beside him fidgeted nervously.
She was the association's intelligence officer.
"It feels like they're deliberately dragging the Pioneer Association's name into this to cover something up."
Just as she said.
The Pioneer Association had never intervened with Steel Wolf Guild.
Yet this rumor had spread.
Rumors could happen, of course.
But the problem was their clear origin.
"And the rumor started from former guild members who left Steel Wolf. Guild Manager, what do you think about that?"
The middle-aged man pressed again.
The man in the same uniform as him shifted his languid gaze.
"No particular thoughts."
The head's eyes narrowed in fury at the response.
He could no longer hold back his anger.
"That's why I told you earlier!
Steel Wolf is a bunch just begging for trouble—clean them up before it's too late!"
Despite his outburst, the guild manager's expression didn't change.
"If the higher-ups hear we've supposedly intervened when we haven't, what will they think!
They'll judge the Pioneer Association's authority as weak enough to be tossed around so casually!"
"This hardly qualifies as an incident. At worst, they just name-dropped us."
"That's the problem! The problem!"
"So many problems in the world."
The guild manager remained utterly indifferent.
"Ugh, argh! If it weren't for that guy's father, the marquis!"
The middle-aged man clutched his neck as if about to collapse.
"H-Head, please calm down!"
The fidgeting intelligence officer hurried to soothe him.
Meanwhile, the guild manager kept reading his report.
It detailed Steel Wolf Guild's roster.
"U-Um, from what we've looked into, there was some internal organization issue in Steel Wolf Guild."
The intelligence officer shared the info to lighten the mood.
"Some members of their elite unit, Wolves of the Wasteland, grew dissatisfied with Rafila.
They used his brother's death to target him!"
But Rafila single-handedly wiped out the Wolves of the Wasteland and their allied members.
This reaffirmed the stature of a hero-grade pioneer.
"Steel Wolf was set to go through a purge after losing so many elites.
But since that going public would be trouble, they're using the 'warning and reflection' story during the cleanup."
"Hoo."
The head, catching his breath, let out a deep sigh.
"In that case, Guild Manager, keep a close eye on Steel Wolf from now on. The higher-ups are on edge for some reason lately.
Any talk involving the association won't end well."
The head finished and left.
The intelligence officer hurriedly followed.
But the guild manager was still reviewing the report.
'Cleanup, huh.'
The Wolves of the Wasteland, Steel Wolf's elite unit.
The guild manager knew their temperament well.
They were the type to die if Rafila ordered it.
Traitors emerging from such loyal ranks?
Without catching the eye of the cautious Rafila?
He might seem lax and arrogant, always half-assing things.
But he actually scrutinized his guilds meticulously.
Thus, quiet doubts sprouted about this incident.
'Something happened.'
The guild manager had good instincts.
He slowly stroked his thin chin.
Then turned to gaze out the window.
'It went down in Sahā Village.'
Normally, he'd just warn Steel Wolf and be done.
But he was the type to latch onto anything suspicious.
And for some reason, this case hooked him deeply today.
Almost inevitably.
"Sahā Village......"
The Guild Manager.
Second son of the renowned Fernante Marquis of the empire.
Begris Fernante.
Once called the Sword Saint.
Now a man who had set aside his blade to serve as the Pioneer Association's Guild Manager.
An unexpected ripple began in unforeseen quarters.