章 60: Conspiracy, Part 1

Knock, knock!

A person lightly knocked at the door in the Warrior's Guild. From inside came a deep and powerful voice, saying, "Come in!"

The door opened and a giant man lifted his head from the desk to look at the arrival. He had a nicely trimmed beard and short brown hair that pointed to the sky. He was currently frowning as he was holding multiple papers in his hands.

However, when he saw the person coming in, the frown on his forehead relaxed and even a slight smile came to his face. "Luna my dear, you finally took some time to visit your father. We work so close to each other but it seems like we live worlds apart," he laughed.

"Hello father," Luna smiled and lightly bowed when she came into the room.

The Guildmaster quickly smelled something wasn't quite right and frowned again, "You didn't just come to see your old man, did you? What is it? More bad news?"

Luna sighed and nodded, saying, "Unfortunately it's something like that. Many weird things happened…"

"Damn!" the Guildmaster slapped the table, complaining, "Why can't I ever get any good news? Sigh… Go on my dear, I'm listening."

"Yes, father. The first thing that happened was that Gerald told me about the Goblin nest…"

Guildmaster's eyes lit up and he asked, "Oh, that promising young man that can use all of the Elements? What did he say?"

"Yes, that's him. I wrote down everything he told me about his encounter," she handed him a few pieces of paper.

The Guildmaster scanned trough it and his frown only depend, especially as he came to the last part. His mood worsened and he quietly cursed.

"Well, you said this was only the first news? What else do you have?" He placed the papers on the table among the rest of the recent reports.

With a wave of her hand, Luna placed a vial on the table. The vial had a cylindrical shape with an expanded and flat bottom so it could stay vertically. Inside was the black goo that Gerald collected.

"Gerald gave me this and said that it's a poison and that someone tried to kill him with it. Twice."

The Guildmaster leaned closer to observe the vial and said, "Twice? How on earth did he figure that out? And how did he get his hands on a poison that was meant to kill him? Suspicious..."

Luna helplessly sighed and shrugged her shoulders, saying, "That's what he told me, he didn't elaborate more than that."

The Guildmaster rubbed his chin and then said, "Well, either way, we need to test it. Get our alchemist Andimont. He should be able to tell us what this is."

At the same time, a person quickly entered the room, bowed, and said, "I'm already here, sir! Luna already invited me before coming here."

Indeed, a middle-aged man in a long light-gray gown entered the room.

"Excellent!" The Guildmaster exclaimed. He looked at his daughter dotingly, "My little girl is so smart, you will replace your daddy soon, hehe."

"Farther!" Luna blushed.

"Hehe, sorry." The Guildmaster then turned to the alchemist, "Andimont, how long will it take you to examine this poison? I need results as soon as possible."

"Certainly!" the alchemist replied quickly and stepped closer to pick up the vial.

He removed the cork and took a light sniff of the poison. His eyes immediately enlarged and he quickly closed the vial. A few beads of sweat formed on his forehead. "Bloody hell, I nearly made a fatal mistake…" he whispered to himself.

"Take your time Andimont, don't choke on the fumes, it's not a contest," Guildmaster blandly commented. "Just report back when you are done."

The alchemist vigorously shook his head and carefully placed the vial back on the table, saying, "There is no need for that. This is an extremely well-known poison in the alchemical community. It's the Purple Frog Saliva, a signature poison of Green Fang, an alchemist from Blood Sun Viper sect."

"What!" The Guildmaster stood up in shock, "Are you telling me that we have people from Blood Sun Viper just walking around our city and poisoning our warriors?!"

"I'm not saying anything, I'm just stating the facts," the alchemist quickly said.

The Guildmaster sat back down and rested his arms on the armrest and tapped with his fingers on the wood. After a while, he asked, "My dear, you said Gerald got attacked by the people of Blood Sun Viper because they recognized the sword he took from them?"

"Yes, that happened." Luna quickly confirmed.

"Hmm… This can't all be happening just because of one sword. There has to be something else-"

Knock, knock!

Everyone turned to look at the door when they heard the knocks. A soldier dressed in metal armor came in and saluted. "Guild Master! A report just came in."

He handed the papers to the Guildmaster and let him read it in peace.

"What?!" The Guildmaster roared even louder than before and banged the wooden table with his fist. The poor wooden table cracked under the pressure and almost collapsed.

Luna got frightened by the sudden sound. She stepped to her father's side and asked, "What happened, father?"

The Guildmaster held her small hand and slowly calmed down. He sighed and said, "Another group of our warriors disappeared."

He threw the papers on the now almost collapsed table and continued with a gloomy voice, "First I thought it was just a coincidence and that they met some danger. But then about a month ago, that friend of yours, what's her name…"

"Sera?"

"Sera! Yes, Sera. Well, her group got ambushed and if that guy, Gerald didn't help her, we probably wouldn't even know about it."

He sighed again and then said, "Now, a few weeks ago another group of young warriors disappeared and just now I got the news that the Children of War group was also nowhere to be found. Even after a thorough investigation, they found nothing."

Everyone present had gloomy expressions. They knew that something was happening in Geldern, but they didn't know how bad it was.

"What should we do? We can't let this continue," Luna said with concern.

Guildmaster sat in his chair and tapped on the armrest with his finger before finally coming to a decision. He straightened his back and slapped his table before speaking in a loud voice and pointing at the warrior, "Soldier-"

Before he had the chance to continue, the table finally couldn't continue resisting the constant abuse and it collapsed to the floor, sending the papers flying across the room.

Everyone looked at the collapsed table as they felt awkward about it. Nobody spoke a word though.