Old Guard Faction (1)
The expedition party, having just arrived at the guild house, hurried to unload their bags and headed downstairs.
They’d decided that checking the guild master’s body came first. I hesitated for only a moment, then decided I should go down as well.
I did want to speak with Lee Jihye right away, but it wouldn’t be too late even after I’d taken stock of the guild’s internal situation.
When I gave her a slight glance and nodded, she nodded back too.
She seemed to understand perfectly well what I was thinking without either of us needing to say a word. I could more or less guess what Lee Jihye was thinking, too.
Soulmates?
Maybe what the system had called a soulmate was exactly this.
We do communicate well, after all….
Our thought patterns were remarkably similar.
In truth, failing to bring her into Blue had been one of the worst mistakes I’d made.
I should have kept her close and made use of her a little longer.
Tch.
Of course, the position she held now couldn’t exactly be called bad.
“……”
In any case, for the moment, it was time to part ways with Lee Jihye, who could be considered an outsider to the guild.
After passing her by as she gave me a small farewell, I descended into the basement of the guild house and found a space that had been arranged with almost unnerving neatness.
In the middle of a room filled with white flowers, a man lay inside a coffin.
He looked a little old, and the many scars on his face made it easy to guess what sort of life he’d led.
A beard covered his chin, and gray hair threaded through his head in patches.
In his forties?
Maybe even his fifties.
Because magic slowed aging, it was impossible to tell his exact age, but he certainly looked old enough at a glance.
His face was peacefully closed in death, and sure enough, I could hear sobbing all around me.
“Huuuuuk….”
“Master….”
“Huuuuuk… Sir, sir. You said you’d live to the very end. Sir… huuuk….”
It was a sorrow I couldn’t share.
I simply stood there watching in silence. I didn’t think it was a bitter sight, but the tears filling the room made it clear how deeply the others were grieving.
Sir?
Among them, the person reacting most fiercely was Lee Sanghee.
She’d seemed calm before entering here, but once she came inside, it looked as if she could no longer keep herself under control.
I didn’t know what had passed between the two of them, but it was obvious their relationship had been anything but ordinary.
The sight of her clinging to the already dead body and continuing to cry reminded me of how people reacted when they lost family.
Or perhaps a lover.
The age gap didn’t make that especially convincing, but the way she was reacting made it look as if she’d truly lost someone she loved.
It was only natural to think she should be left alone for a while.
I could see several members of Party 2 quietly moving to comfort her from a distance.
Our Party 7 did the same.
In Kim Hyunsung’s case, he still seemed intent on staying by Lee Sanghee’s side to comfort her, but Park Deokgu, who had already broken into a flood of tears, and Kim Yeri, who had silently bowed her head, also began to move upstairs.
“He’s surely gone to a peaceful place.”
After offering a prayer of respect for the deceased and sending divine power toward the body, Sun Heeyoung began heading upstairs.
So did I.
With Jung Hayan clinging tightly to my arm, I moved upstairs as well.
“Hayan.”
“Y-yes? Oppa?”
“Did you notice anything strange?”
“Anything strange…?”
“Something like the flow of mana, or traces left on the body. I’m not very sensitive to mana, so I thought I should ask.”
“Ah… no. I didn’t find anything strange. If we wanted to figure something out, I’d probably have to look more closely, but… I only got a brief look from a distance, so….”
“Hmm….”
Her face was full of guilt.
When I slowly patted her head, she finally seemed to brighten up and began humming to herself.
For some reason, my thoughts grew more complicated.
Jung Hayan was sensitive to mana.
Regardless of her current mana stat, it was one of those passive abilities that came with potential beyond the legendary rank.
If even she couldn’t sense the slightest movement of mana or any lingering residue left on the body, then at the very least it meant the guild master’s death was not a murder committed through magic.
Ugh….
When I reached the upper floor, the members of Party 2 who had gathered there came into view.
They were each sitting around the guild tavern, and when I approached the group clustered around Hwang Jeongyeon and casually opened the conversation, they welcomed me.
That alone was a point in the expedition’s favor.
“Ah, Lee Kiyoung.”
“Yes. This must be hard for you.”
“No… as hard as it is for us, compared to Lee Sanghee-nim….”
“You two must have been very close.”
“Yes. She must be devastated. She said she’s been with him since the tutorial….”
“Since the tutorial?”
“Yes. Come to think of it, you Party 7 members wouldn’t know much about it. The Blue Guild was founded by Lee Sanghee-nim and the guild master, Ju Seungjun-nim. The two of them started together in the tutorial, and after entering Lindel, they finally established their place here. At the time, Lee Sanghee-nim said she wasn’t yet an adult, so that must have been a very long time ago. By years, it would be about fifteen years.”
Considering that Lee Sanghee was thirty-three now, she must have been eighteen back then. If you took into account that the otherworlders first arrived here around twenty years ago, they were practically founding members.
“That’s a long time.”
“Yes. We haven’t been in Blue for very long ourselves, so we don’t know the details, but Lee Sanghee-nim followed the master as if he were her father. In fact, when the master was struck by a curse, she tried to go into the dungeon herself.”
“Ah….”
“They were always together, if I remember correctly. When they first founded the guild, too… and when they first went out hunting or into dungeons. I’m not trying to belittle Lee Sanghee-nim at all, but if the master hadn’t been there, I don’t think the Lee Sanghee of today would exist.”
When I turned slightly and looked at Hwang Jeongyeon, she nodded as if agreeing with me.
“I’m feeling a little bitter too. Not as much as Lee Sanghee-nim, of course, but I’ve been with Blue for quite a long time as well. Ju Seungjun-nim was….”
“Yes.”
“A wonderful man. He knew how to sacrifice himself for others, and above all, he cared about us deeply. The reason he didn’t expand the guild’s scale too much was because once a guild grows too large, it becomes difficult to pay attention to each and every guild member… and he really did like every one of us. In Party 5’s case, they transferred here just because they wanted to see the old man. Of course… he’s gone now.”
“……”
“Still, I thought I’d gotten used to saying goodbye to people, but I’m not adapting at all.”
I didn’t know much about Ju Seungjun, but it was clear he’d been a man of excellent character.
That wasn’t all.
“He was strong.”
Competent.
He must have been a highly capable man.
I was already harboring some suspicion about Blue’s condition, and this only strengthened it.
Lee Sanghee was strong, but she wasn’t an ideal leader. She might have been a good person, but that alone was not enough to lead a group.
Blue had been a centrally organized guild revolving around Ju Seungjun.
Now that the head was gone, it was only natural for the body to wobble.
It made perfect sense that old guard like Lee Seolho was running wild.
“Was Lee Seolho there from the beginning too?”
“Yes.”
As expected.
“I heard he was there from the tutorial too. He was very active as a combat member and contributed greatly to Blue settling down here. Of course, he and the master butted heads all the time, but I understand the two of them still got along well. The same with Lee Sanghee-nim, too. At least, that’s what I was told. Not so much these days, though….”
“Ah… I see. He must have been highly trusted.”
“Yes. As you can see… I’m sure even Seolho feels heartbroken.”
“Well. Whether it really hurts or not….”
“Pardon?”
“It’s nothing.”
As I tapped the table lightly, Hwang Jeongyeon looked at me with a slightly tense expression.
“Um. Could the rest of you go upstairs for a moment? I’d like to talk to Lee Kiyoung a little more….”
“Of course, Hwang Jeongyeon-nim. Please, take your time.”
It seemed she had quite a few things she wanted to ask.
When I glanced at Jung Hayan, she looked at me with a pitiful expression, as if asking whether she should go upstairs too. I shook my head slightly, and her face brightened at once.
“What were you just talking about, Lee Kiyoung?”
“Nothing. I just… thought you might be dismissing the possibility of murder.”
“Murder?”
“Yes. Though of course, that’s only my imagination.”
“……”
“I thought you might have been thinking the same thing as I was, Jeongyeon, but I guess not.”
“No. Actually, I was thinking the same thing. I haven’t ruled out that possibility, but… after seeing Ju Seungjun-nim’s body….”
“You couldn’t find anything?”
“No.”
“Neither could I. At a glance, there were no external injuries, and I couldn’t detect any trace of mana either. Right, Hayan?”
“Yes, Oppa.”
“But the way to kill a person on this continent isn’t limited to magic, is it? I think we should keep the possibility open. There may be no obvious motive for murder, but if the guild master and the rest of us disappear together, there are a few people who stand to gain from it. Ah, that itself can count as a motive too.”
“Yes. That’s definitely true.”
“Whatever the case, if we examine the body, there’ll definitely be something to find. Jeongyeon, it would be best if you could persuade Lee Sanghee-nim….”
“Yes. I’ll speak to her, of course, but….”
“The sooner the better. If any residual mana we failed to detect disappears completely, that could be a problem. If we’d arrived just a little later, we might not even have had time to examine the body. The murderers might have rushed the funeral. I’m truly glad we got here before that happened.”
“Yes.”
“And since we might discover something else, I think it would be best if Sun Heeyoung and I were present for the autopsy as well. Alchemy or divine power may have been involved… in any case, we should keep every possibility open.”
“Huu… this is a little hard to take in.”
“Pardon?”
“The fact that we may have to suspect someone who was in the same guild as us. Lee Sanghee-nim will feel the same way, I’m sure.”
If anything, she’d probably feel even more strongly than Hwang Jeongyeon did.
If she’d shared life and death with that old bastard Lee Seolho since the tutorial, then the problem would only become more complicated.
There’s no way.
The moment I told myself that, the matter was already settled.
The situation had become one in which I didn’t want to suspect anyone.
Ironically, the person most capable of viewing the situation objectively was someone like me, an outsider.
Sometimes, you can see much more clearly from the outside than from within.
I was still tapping the table, running through possibilities in my head, when it happened.
“What are you discussing?”
It was an extremely unpleasant voice.
When I turned my head slightly, a face I had no desire to see entered my field of vision.
“Well.”
It was Lee Seolho, along with the lackeys who followed him.