The mess hall of the Adventurer’s Guild had rarely been quiet, but this was something else entirely.

  Gone was the usual clamor of clattering tankards, of exaggerated boasts, of boisterous laughter. In their place surged a cacophony of panic and fear. Shouts, groans, frantic orders. All kinds of voices piled over one another until they blurred into an overlapping chorus.

  Gone were the smells of bubbling stew, of roasted meat, of sour ale. They had been drowned beneath the stink of blood, the reek of sweat, and the nose-stinging bitterness of hastily prepared medicinal herbs.

  Tables that were normally crowded with meals and cards had been dragged from their usual places, shoved against the walls to make space for the broken and the dying. Wounded adventurers were everywhere. Some lay still, faces pale and eyes unfocused. Others writhed and cursed, clutching bandaged limbs or blood-soaked tunics. A man screamed every time someone touched him. A woman sat slumped against a pillar, staring blankly at nothing.

  Near the center of the hall, Lloyd knelt beside one of the wounded, sleeves rolled up past his elbows as both of his hands pressed firmly against the adventurer’s stomach. His jaw was clenched tight as he muttered an incantation under his breath, the words completely swallowed by the din. Sweat streamed down from his temples, tracing paths along his cheeks before dripping onto the floor below. Viktor could barely recognize the Emerald Mage now. It was hard to reconcile this grim, exhausted man with the perpetually self-important idiot he knew all too well.

  Under Lloyd’s hands, the wounded man’s shallow, frantic breathing began to steady, each breath drawing a little deeper than the last. The flow of blood seeping through the bandages slowed down, then stopped altogether. The man didn’t regain consciousness, but the corpse-like pallor receded just enough to suggest he might have pulled through the ordeal.

  For a moment Lloyd remained kneeling there, his eyes unfocused and distant, as though silently weighing whether he still possessed enough strength to continue, before he swallowed hard, wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist, and finally lifted his head.

  “Next,” the Emerald Mage murmured.

  And there was already another being dragged forward, someone with a leg bent at an unnatural angle, his friends’ faces etched with panic as they hauled him toward their source of hope.

  “How could this have happened?” said a voice at Viktor’s side. He turned to find Rhea standing there, pale as a ghost, her fingers knotted tightly in her clothes.

  They had rushed to the Adventurer’s Guild after hearing that Guild employee’s message, along with Lloyd, who immediately leapt straight into action once they arrived. Tobias, on the other hand, told them that he needed to take care of his remaining patients first, and promised he would follow as soon as he could.

  Rhea had been struck motionless by the sight before her since the moment she got here. The shock had rooted her to the spot so completely that she did not join the fray as she normally would have. Well, it was not like her help was particularly important anyway. A lot of adventurers and employees of the Guild were already hurrying back and forth to tend to the wounded. Helpers were plentiful. What they were short on were Emerald Mages.

  As if the thought itself had called them forth, the doors of the mess hall burst open with a crash, and several figures in green robes strode inside, accompanied by armed guards. They were affiliated with the caravan station, Viktor supposed. They had rushed here after learning about what had happened to the outpost.

  The last one of the group to enter was a tall, broad-shouldered man with unkempt black hair. Viktor recognized him at once, if only because the man’s appearance had always been difficult to forget. Also, he had been in and out of the Adventurer’s Guild often enough in the last month.

  One-eyed Wulf.

  Captain of the caravan guards, who was also appointed as liaison with the Guild during the establishment of the outpost across the river. Many of his men had been stationed there, and many of his men were now lying helplessly among the wounded. Moaning, bleeding, dying.

  Wulf’s single eye swept the hall, hardening as it took in the bodies scattered across the floor. It stopped in one corner. He headed there without hesitation.

  That was where Isadora sat, flanked by her two gnoll bodyguards. One was a female with reddish fur, standing nearly a head taller than most humans, holding a heavy glaive, the other a male crouching low, leaner and wirier than his counterpart, his fur mottled gray-and-brown. Nearby, Calyssa and the rest of the staff hovered like nervous birds.

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  “Guildmaster,” Wulf said. “What happened? I heard talk of a monster attack.”

  “Captain.” Isadora nodded at him. “You heard it correctly. There was a large-scale monster attack on our outpost. The camp has been overrun, and we’ve lost the other side of the river entirely. As for the casualties, well, you’re looking at them right now.”

  Wulf’s brow furrowed deeply. “A large-scale attack? How many were there? Where did they come from? How could something like this happen without anyone noticing anything at all?”

  “They came from the river,” a man said hoarsely from nearby. One of the survivors. Viktor wouldn’t have called him unhurt by any stretch of the imagination, but he was definitely in far better shape than most of his friends. “There was no warning. None at all. They just... came out of nowhere. Too many of them. I couldn’t give you an exact number, though. I wasn’t mad enough to stay and count. But... a lot.”

  Everyone present had gone pale, and Viktor could hardly blame them. They all remembered what had happened the last time monsters crawled out of the water near Daelin.

  “We need to warn the town council,” Wulf said grimly. “And we need to start preparing the town’s defenses.”

  “I’ve already done that,” Isadora replied. “Messengers are on their way. I also sent a pair of aeromancers to watch the site from a distance. They are to assess the situation and alert us immediately if the monsters make any move toward the—”

  The doors swung open once more.

  This time, there was just a single man who stumbled inside, his chest heaving as his gaze darted wildly across the hall. He made his way straight to Isadora the instant he spotted her.

  She stood up, and for the first time, Viktor saw a crack form in her carefully composed expression. “What happened?” she demanded. “Did the monsters move?”

  This must be one of the aeromancers she had dispatched. Needless to say, seeing him come back like this, breathless and visibly shaken, had an immediate effect on the room. Everyone tensed, bracing themselves for whatever news had sent him into such a panic.

  “No.” The man shook his head. “I don’t think they can pose any danger to the town anymore.”

  Huh?

  “What do you mean?” Isadora frowned. “Explain.”

  “They’re all dead,” the aeromancer replied. “Every last one of them. Their corpses are scattered everywhere around the outpost.”

  A ripple of stunned murmurs passed through the hall.

  “Who killed them?” Wulf asked.

  “A large group of adventurers who have just arrived. At least a hundred of them, maybe more. All heavily armed. All knew what they were doing. They made short work of the monsters.”

  “And who are these people supposed to be?”

  “I approached them,” the aeromancer said, “as carefully as I could. I asked who they were and what they were doing there. And they told me they came from Iskora. Apparently, they were hired to establish a camp of their own, to prepare for their project on that side of the river. They said that when they arrived, they found an abandoned outpost crawling with monsters, so they wiped them out and claimed the camp for themselves.”

  Viktor couldn’t believe his own ears.

  Alright, let’s get this straight.

  Iskora was planning to pop up a new settlement across the river, which was precisely why Daelin had thrown together an outpost there in the first place. Suddenly, quite by coincidence, a horde of monsters appeared out of nowhere, overwhelming Daelin’s men and chasing them from the outpost. Then, almost immediately afterward, Iskora’s hired blades arrived, butchered the monsters, and settled themselves neatly into the abandoned camp. Again, pure coincidence. Two miracles, back to back, within a single day.

  Viktor had seen more subtle maneuvering from his own Cyclopes. The sequence of events was so banal that he found himself at a loss for words.

  He had never harbored any illusions that Clovis would simply give up on that stretch of land, but this was definitely not the sort of solution Viktor had ever imagined him resorting to.

  The Guildmaster of Iskora had always struck him as a careful, calculating man. He had tried to buy the dungeon first. When that failed, he attempted to take it by force, but at least he kept the whole affair a secret. In fact, no one in town had ever learned about the Dungeon Reavers’ failed invasion. Then, when he negotiated with the caravan station, he threw out very generous terms in the hope of getting Rennald to his side.

  This heavy-handed move is so out of character.

  Was this the real man, finally done pretending? After one setback too many, he had decided to drop the mask?

  Or perhaps, Clovis was merely the face of something much bigger, not the true architect behind the ambitions toward the dungeon. Now, after his approach had failed too many times, he was replaced by someone far more aggressive.

  “What should we do, Guildmaster?” Wulf asked.

  Isadora weighed the question for a long moment. “I’ll send a representative to speak with them,” she said at last. “I doubt they’ll pack up and leave just because we ask nicely, but we should try to talk this out first before anything else.”

  Wulf nodded. “I’ll go as well. My men and I will escort your representative.”

  “You think they’ll attack us?”

  “I doubt it. If they wanted open conflict, they would’ve attacked the outpost directly instead of letting monsters do the work for them. So at least they’re still trying to keep up appearances.” Wulf let out a humorless chuckle. He didn’t bother to hide his accusation, and judging by the mood of the room, he wasn’t alone in thinking it. “Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Then I’ll have some adventurers accompany you as well,” Isadora said. “Now then... who should I send?”

  Viktor watched the discussion from the side, all the while formulating his own plan. He wanted to go with them, but he hadn’t figured out how to convince them to let him yet. Well, he could always sneak along and observe from a distance. He surely had some Thauma at his disposal to manage something like that.

  “You’re thinking of tagging along,” came a voice.

  He turned, scowling. “How do you know?”

  “I am your sister.”

  “Are you going to stop me?”

  “No.” Claire shook her head. “I already gave up on that. But I’m not letting you do it alone.”

  She stepped toward Isadora, raising her hand.

  “Guildmaster, please allow me to go as your representative. I’ll speak to them on your behalf.”