Dividing the Spoils
Hobart first went to Blanca Street 192 and used the bestowal ritual to retrieve the Secret Supplicant's Beyonder characteristic from the Country of Disorder.
Only then did he take the Beyonder characteristic to the Mercenary Club. Just as he had the previous week, he practiced shooting for a while before having lunch in the club's dining room.
People in the dining room were discussing the ambush battle in the Southern Continent, but they seemed to know only that it had ended in victory. The specific results were still unclear.
At one in the afternoon, Hobart went to the Beyonder Gathering in the underground theater as planned.
Unlike last time, Hobart did not sit in a corner. He took a seat near the front of the middle section. After the elderly man in the Golden Mask arrived, he did not rush to make a trade, instead waiting for those seeking teammates to speak first.
This time, Hobart was much closer to the elderly man in the Golden Mask. The pressure he felt from the old man seemed more like the sensation given off by a Beyonder of the Arbiter pathway.
It was highly likely that the old man was a member of the Royal Family or some great noble, because the Royal Family kept strict control over its own Beyonder characteristics. There was no way a wild High Sequence Arbiter could appear.
If one had appeared, it would have been like delivering a fat prize right to their doorstep. The old man would surely have been hunted down and would have had no leisure to host a gathering here.
After the gathering began, Hobart was surprised to see that the person who had sought teammates to explore ruins the previous week appeared again. "We've encountered a new situation.