The female Sorcerer Shirley chatted with them for a little while longer, mostly about recent happenings in Grayrock Town and news from the Adventurer's Guild.
Only after quite some time did she rise gracefully and leave, her red hair swaying like flames.
The door closed behind her, and the invisible pressure in the room seemed to dissipate with it.
Gauss and Alya let out sighs of relief in unison, then exchanged smiles.
"Who'd have thought we'd end up with a windfall by pure coincidence?" Gauss said.
"We really were lucky this time. It's the first time I've run into something like this since becoming a Bronze Adventurer," Alya added.
"Your first time? Is it that rare?"
"Yes."
This somewhat dashed Gauss's hopes of earning hefty bounties by hunting down the Evil God's minions.
But then again, if evidence of the Evil God were lying around everywhere, ten gold coins a time, the Adventurer's Guild would have been stripped bare by bounty hunters long ago.
Besides, situations like this came with greater danger.
So it wasn't necessarily a bad thing that he couldn't make money this way.
After leaving the meeting room, the two collected their reward for the special information at the mission hall counter: ten gleaming gold coins. Like the commission payment, they split it on the spot.
As they entered the public lounge in the Guild's courtyard, Gauss noticed that it was much more crowded than usual—and unusually quiet.
Many people were holding identical copies of the Kingdom's emergency special edition.
The bold, black headline on the front page was almost searing to the eyes.
The Sword-Drawing Trial! Who Will Be Chosen as the Next Sword Saint?
The two found an empty table and borrowed a copy from the newspaper stand.
It would be terribly out of touch