Merchants Guild

Rhode arrived at his destination for this trip, the Free Professional Merchants Guild.

Unlike the Thieves Guild Rhode had visited previously, the interior of the Free Professional Merchants Guild was extremely vast. Aside from a few main buildings used to handle various affairs, the rest of the area was divided into merchant group encampments.

Naturally, not every merchant group could obtain an encampment within the Free Professional Merchants Guild. Unless they made significant contributions to the Free Professional Merchants Guild, merchant groups wanting an encampment had to consider both gold coins and the rank and strength of their members.

Just as Rhode entered the hall of the Free Professional Merchants Guild, a waiting attendant hurried over and asked Rhode about his intentions.

Rhode said, "I wish to travel to the City of Wailing and hope to accompany a merchant group there."

Upon hearing this, the attendant asked, "Respected professional, do you have an identity verification from the Free Professional Merchants Guild?"

Rhode understood the attendant's meaning. With the merchant group's identity verification, one could join a departing merchant group and become a temporary guard for them. When a situation requiring combat arose, the guards were responsible for protecting the safety of the merchant group.

After reaching the destination, the merchant group would pay the guards a sum of money, but unless they were permanent guards of the merchant group, the compensation for temporary guards was usually not much.

Regarding an individual's identity verification, the Free Professional Merchants Guild had a dedicated set of rating criteria. As the number of guard missions increased, along with the guard's success rate, the rating would become higher and higher, ranging from F-rank all the way to S-rank. The higher the rating, naturally, the easier it was to be accepted by merchant groups, and the compensation the merchant group needed to pay would also increase.

Rhode recalled that in his past life, players all targeted the S-rank evaluation of the Free Professional Merchants Guild, but very few actually managed to reach S-rank. Reaching S-rank required not only spending a massive amount of time on escorting merchant groups, but also a certain degree of opportunity, as well as one's own formidable strength.

Rhode replied to the attendant, "I don't. I only wish to go as a passenger."

Passengers were different from guards. Guards required identity verification to confirm their own strength and past guard records, and an experienced merchant leader could often confirm whether a guard was worth hiring with just a single glance at the identity verification. If a guard's mission failed, they would also face certain punishments from the Free Professional Merchants Guild.

Passengers did not need identity verification. Passengers only needed to pay gold coins to be taken to their destination by the merchant group. When encountering combat, passengers did not need to fight at all.

Passengers were merely travelers led by a merchant group to another city. Therefore, the Free Professional Merchants Guild did not exact any commission from merchant groups carrying passengers, nor did it exercise any management; it relied entirely on negotiations between the merchant group and the passengers themselves.

The reason Rhode chose to become a passenger and follow the trade caravan to Dya instead of setting off alone after acquiring the map involved his own considerations.

Just like looking at the map Alot had drawn earlier, even knowing the location of his current city, Rhode could not simply move directly in one direction. Instead, he had to find a river as a reference and compare it with the map to finally locate this town.

Even with a detailed map, without the guidance of Pathfinding, it was easy to get lost in the densely forested areas where the scenery repeated.

What was more, various situations might be encountered along this journey. Whether it was marauders on the road, lurking thieves, or the encampments of various creatures, avoiding these required not only Pathfinding, but high-level Scouting was equally indispensable.

Therefore, choosing to follow a merchant group to the destination, although it required more time, was much safer than setting off alone.

As a passenger, Rhode only needed to wait inside the carriage provided by the merchant group. Rhode could also use this time on the road to perform several sessions of deep meditation. The only drawback was that the gold coins required as a passenger were slightly expensive.

After hearing this, the attendant led Rhode to a side parlor nearby. After making some inquiries, the attendant informed Rhode of the situation:

"Respected professional, just a short while ago, a large merchant group already headed toward the City of Wailing, transporting a massive amount of goods there. Because the urgently needed goods have been replenished, it has caused very few merchant groups to be willing to go to the City of Wailing again. Currently, there is only one merchant group within the encampment that chooses the City of Wailing."

Upon hearing this, Rhode seemed to think of something. When a large merchant group wanted to go somewhere, to ensure the journey was foolproof, it required a tremendous amount of manpower and resources. Under such a massive display, the movements of a large merchant group could not be hidden from the Thieves Guild in the city at all.

Without much hesitation, Rhode said to the attendant, "Take me to this merchant group's encampment."

Carrying passengers would bring all sorts of variables to a merchant group. Moreover, this practice was not necessarily safe for the passengers themselves.

Whether it was a merchant group extorting passengers on the road, killing lone passengers in the wilderness to acquire their wealth, or passengers colluding with thieves to trap and slaughter a merchant group in the dead of night, these were common occurrences. The Free Professional Merchants Guild ignored these matters entirely, leaving it up to the choices of the merchant group and the passengers themselves.

Therefore, whether for the merchant group or the passenger, mutual investigation was necessary before making a confirmation. This was also the reason why passengers needed to pay high fees to join a merchant group.

Hearing Rhode's request, the attendant led the way ahead, guiding Rhode toward the merchant group encampments in the rear.

The attendant led Rhode to the encampment in the rear, walking deeper inside. By this time, the sky was gradually growing dark. When Rhode had just entered the city, he could still rely on the daylight to make out the surrounding scenery, but now he could only rely on the candlelight along the road to see.

Along the way, Rhode inquired of the attendant about this merchant group and obtained some information.

The name of this merchant group was the Silver Seal Merchant Group. The core members of the merchant group numbered between six and eight, which included the merchant group's managers, policy makers, and professionals cultivated by the merchant group. The rest were simply responsible for transporting goods and hired guards, bringing the total membership to around twenty.

The intelligence provided by the attendant seemed extremely rich, telling Rhode the situation of the entire Silver Seal Merchant Group, but in reality, these were merely the most basic pieces of information. As long as Rhode entered the encampment and observed for a short while, he would be able to see them, and there was no critical information contained within.

Seeing that they were about to arrive at the encampment of the Silver Seal Merchant Group, Rhode took a gold coin from his Space Ring and called out to the attendant ahead.

"Tell me some truly useful intelligence." Looking into the eyes of the attendant, Rhode said.

The attendant took the gold coin, smiled, and said:

"The leader of the Silver Seal Merchant Group is named Yusuf, a veteran warrior whose strength is close to high-tier. The remaining core professionals also possess veteran strength. In particular, you must note that there is a mage in the party whose strength is unknown."