A Rather Suspicious Employee (2)
"Hey, Celestine!"
I called out loudly, and Celestine whipped her head around, startled. She quickly hid what she'd been eating behind her back. But I'd already spotted it—a fried doughnut absolutely covered in sugar.
"Uh, wh-what brings you here...?"
With sugar smeared all over her mouth, Celestine flashed an awkward smile and shuffled over timidly.
"You hadn't come back for so long, I got worried you might've gotten lost and came looking. What's that you're hiding behind your back?"
"Eh...? I just got hungry.... I bought one doughnut."
"You put up all the posters first, then buy one, right?"
"Well...."
Celestine kept hesitating, so I grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. Sure enough, one hand clutched the doughnut, and the other gripped a few posters.
"Huh? You haven't finished putting them up? A hundred should go pretty quick."
"It's not that. I put up posters in the wrong place and got chased off."
"What do you mean by that?"
According to Celestine, she'd been walking along, mechanically slapping posters up on buildings, when the residents came out and said something to her.
"What'd they say?"
"They said, 'What do you think you're doing putting up another guild's promo posters?' I didn't see the sign, but it must've been a guild building like ours."
Leana nodded knowingly at that.
"Sounds like the Monteny Guild. It's in the area you were assigned."
"Yeah? Monteny—the mid-sized one with a standing squad?"
"Exactly. They grew huge after our guild collapsed and they scooped up the spillover."
Having a ready-to-deploy squad was a big deal. It meant paying salaries to twenty or thirty people whether requests came in or not. Unless you were a major guild, maintaining a standing force was a pipe dream. But once you crossed that threshold, scaling up got easier. Just having that squad boosted your credibility, drawing in more requests. That's why most guilds resorted to tricks like ghost members to claw their way to mid-sized status.
"Wasn't there another guild besides Monteny?"
"Drepenner. They're a small one with under ten members. Latecomers, but they've carved out a niche like an info broker."
"Info broker, huh...."
If a big player like Monteny was holding down the fort, punching into other markets wasn't a bad strategy. Operating like an info broker meant handling the dirty jobs—assassinations, kidnappings, thefts, background checks. In other words, thieves' guild. I remembered wiping out a few of those back when I was playing.
But now that I was living in this game world, doing the same would've brought the hammer of the law down on me hard.
Monteny and Drepenner. Add our Lucas Guild, and that's one mid-sized and two smalls. Schlessi was a big city, but it was saturated. No matter how I sliced it, Monteny was blocking the path. They'd absorb all the big requests. Even City Hall would feel safer handing routine jobs to them over our one Demon Hunter. Clemence? She handled guilds, but at her level, she couldn't sway decisions much.
Same for nobles or merchants shopping for guilds. Even I'd pick a reliable big name over a Demon Hunter for sure things.
To compete with Monteny, we'd need to grow more, but Drepenner was wedged in between. If we could merge with Drepenner, we'd have a shot. But from what Leana said, they sounded like thieves. No way they'd play nice with my pitch—they'd scheme to stab me in the back.
I'd have to visit the Drepenner Guild sometime, check out the leader and get a read on the vibe.
"By the way, Celestine."
Leana pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sugar from Celestine's mouth as she spoke.
"You can't just eat whatever whenever you're hungry. You'll turn into a pig."
"I won't, Guild Leader. They starved me so much under the church's ascetic rules, I need to eat a bit. Otherwise, I might collapse."
Leana's eyes drifted to Celestine's chest. Celestine was borrowing Leana's clothes right now. Leana favored deep-neckline tops, and on Celestine's bigger frame, her breasts were practically bursting out.
"Hmm, fair enough. Gotta eat to keep these up. But don't overdo it. If they get any bigger, no clothes'll fit."
"Got it. I'll eat just the right amount."
With that, Celestine went back to munching the half-eaten doughnut.
"Tasty?"
"Super tasty. Want some, Chief?"
"Nah, I'm good. You eat up."
The three of us walked back to the guild side by side. The sun was setting, painting the sky red, and white smoke rose from chimneys as families prepared dinner. Late summer early evenings in Schlessi weren't hot—just pleasantly mild with a cool breeze. Compared to the perpetually foggy, clammy Grangtest Empire, it was paradise.
The Empire was like... a washed-up whore lost in psychosis and self-loathing. Give it the slightest emotional opening, and it'd cling on, obsessively, like a deranged bitch. Schlessi, on the other hand, felt like a bright, lively beautiful girl. Like the guild leader humming cheerfully on my right, or the dumb saintess on my left, smiling happily with her doughnut.
No matter how many times I thought about it, moving to the duchy was the right call. Even if I'd been exiled and couldn't stay in the Empire anyway.
I wondered what my old party was up to. The Knight Commander was probably living it up. Curious if the rest had snagged positions too. Maybe they'd been dumped like me, but I'd rather they were up high. Falls from the top hurt the most.
When would that Great Demon bastard revive, smash the Empire, and bring us a ton of requests?
"Why're you grinning, Chief?"
I'd been chuckling to myself, and Leana smiled back as she asked.
"Just in a good mood. Walking with you two."
"Ugh, so cringey."
Leana shuddered dramatically and stepped a bit away from me.
The posters started paying off—requests trickled in. Mostly from ordinary city folk, so mostly small stuff. But a client was a client, and we were a guild that took and completed requests.
Leana sat at reception, handling simple ones that needed no consultation. I took the ones in the consultation room that required more discussion. Celestine kept busy cleaning, brewing tea for the room, that sort of thing. Occasionally, Leana would call her over to hand off a request.
Usually super-easy solo jobs. Like this one.
"A cat?"
"Yeah. Lost cat. Go find it with the owner."
"The kid?"
"The owner. Details from them at this address."
"Oh, okay."
"And this."
Leana pulled a silver coin from the reception desk drawer and handed it to Celestine.
"Thanks. I'll grab a snack on the way."
"Not a snack—buy some catnip."
"Catnip? What's that?"
"Herb cats go nuts for, like a drug. Market's got it."
"A drug?!"
Celestine kept asking, not getting it, so Leana sighed and brushed back her hair.
"Not a real drug—just something cats lose their minds over. Hurry. Promised to find it by sunset."
"Right. Be back soon."
Celestine pocketed the silver and headed out. Leana sighed and turned to me.
"Think she'll find the cat?"
"Who knows. If not, oh well. It's a no-big-deal request."
"True. Early days—we take 'em all now, but later we'll filter."
Then the door opened, and the mailman came in.
"Mail for the Guild Leader!"
"For me?"
Leana tore open the envelope. A gold coin dropped out onto the floor.
"What the—? Whoa?!"
She picked it up, eyes wide, and handed it to me.
"Huh? Isn't this a Pallion coin?"
A Pallion coin was premium gold—worth ten regular ones. Why was something this huge stuffed in a letter envelope?
I was about to ask, but the mailman was already gone. The envelope had only the recipient—no sender.
Let's see what's inside.
Besides the coin, there was a neatly folded white paper. A letter.
"What's it say?"
"Dunno. Gotta read it."
I unfolded it and read carefully, then spoke up.
"It's a request. A big one."