Gryphon City 4

"Uh, all right." Eli turned back. "I think I just saw someone I know." Oh, right—the ranger had directly ignored the mage.

"Come on, hurry up. Is your acquaintance a resident of Ata Town?" The archer Winnie had only joined the group this year. She was a lively young girl, but her archery was no weak point. Her pointed ears were slightly different from ordinary people's; according to her, it was because she had elven blood somewhere in her ancestry.

"No, she's someone I only recently met." Eli spoke as he walked. "She's a very powerful divine caster."

"The divine caster you mentioned, the one who lifted Ata Town's curse?" Nagg, the greatsword wielder, asked.

Winnie hopped in front of the two and walked backward. "Hey, hey, hey? What curse? What divine caster? How come I don't know anything? I want to hear the story too."

"Have Eli tell you when we get back." Nagg slung his greatsword across his back.

The three returned to their base amid laughter and teasing. The Lionheart Guild was one of the top hundred mercenary guilds in Gryphon City's Adventurer's Guild. It was an old-established guild. Its former guildmaster had been a greatswordsman who broke through to level eight. Later, seeing no hope of reaching level nine, he devoted all his efforts to developing the guild. The current guildmaster, Nagg, was his disciple.

The Lionheart Guild did not have many mercenaries, but every one of them had been carefully selected. Those currently at the headquarters were Guildmaster Nagg, Ranger Eli, Archer Winnie, Knight Charles, and divine caster Gwendolyn.

When Eli and the other two entered the three-story house that served as their base, Eli, who was always responsible for scouting, keenly sensed that something was wrong.

He glanced at Nagg, who signaled everyone to head upstairs. Faint sounds of an argument came from the room at the end of the second floor.

"Are you crazy? He can't stay here!" That was Charles's suppressed roar.

Then Gwendolyn's tearful voice rang out. "If you insist on throwing him out, then I'll go with him. Oh, please, Charles. He saved my life. I can't abandon him."

Charles seemed to let out a deep breath before lowering his voice again. "Gwendolyn, that's an Arcane caster! Do you really know what that means? No, you're a divine caster. You understand the Edict of Heresy better than anyone."

Eli's hand paused on the door. He looked back at Nagg and Winnie and, without a doubt, saw shock in both their eyes.

Nagg stepped forward and pushed open the door. Charles and Gwendolyn turned at the same time; one wore an expression that said, "Thank goodness, you're finally back," while the other burst into even more tears.

Eli saw a disheveled man lying on Gwendolyn's bed. His hair was very long, and though it had been tidied, the strands were still visibly matted together. The beard on his face covered more than half of it, while a bloody gash on his right cheek continued to seep blood.

The man had many more such wounds on his body. That was obvious from the pale sheets beneath him, which had already been stained red with blood. He was unconscious. Gwendolyn had likely already given him preliminary treatment, but his injuries were too severe; her healing spell was not enough to heal him at once.

"What exactly is going on, Gwendolyn?" Nagg asked in a low voice.

A sudden premonition rose in Eli's heart. Something was about to interrupt their lives as adventurers.

Gryphon City 4

Under everyone's grave gazes, Gwendolyn tearfully finished telling them about herself and the unnamed Arcane caster. It turned out this was not their first meeting. Gwendolyn had known the Arcane caster named Eugene years ago.

That time had been a simple escort mission. Gwendolyn was an experienced mercenary who had gone through quite a few such jobs and handled them with ease. Unfortunately, they ran into a Drow night hunt.

No one knew just how vast the undercity was, but encountering a Drow night hunt at Raven Hill, so far from Duskwood, was still an extremely unlikely event.

They were exceptional assassins in the dark, with unparalleled advantages in both ambushes and reconnaissance. Although Gwendolyn immediately used a Holy Light spell for illumination, it was useless. The other mercenary team on the joint mission had already scattered, while her own teammates withdrew first with the cargo on her orders. Gwendolyn herself stayed behind with the rear guard.

The divine caster, with assassins closing in on her, struggled frantically to resist. For the first time, a divine caster who had always been protected felt the threat of death.

At the time, the Drow leader's dagger had been less than half an inch from plunging into her back. She rolled across the ground in a desperate dodge, and several fireballs appeared before her.

The man who emerged from the shadows carried a huge bundle on his back. In the faint moonlight, Gwendolyn saw that it was stuffed with medicinal herbs. He wore a tattered short robe, and if not for the obvious staff in his hand and the massive fireball that drove back the Drow leader, Gwendolyn would have almost mistaken him for an ordinary herb gatherer.

The Drow leader let out a shriek, calling more members of the night hunt. Frowning, the Arcane caster pulled Gwendolyn into the forests of Raven Hill. They fled for an entire night and only managed to shake off the Drow at dawn—because daylight had come, and they returned to the undercity.

The Arcane caster barely spoke except when necessary, but before leaving, he warned Gwendolyn that night hunts had been appearing frequently near Raven Hill lately and told them not to come seeking death carelessly.

"His tone was harsh, but I felt he was a gentle person. I'm a divine caster; he did not have to save me at all. Afterward, whenever I passed near Raven Hill, I would bring him things—sometimes ale, sometimes specialties from other places. I asked his name many times, and only recently did he finally tell me that his name was Eugene."

Gwendolyn recounted how they had come to know each other. "I didn't dare tell anyone that I knew an Arcane caster, but I truly couldn't forget him. I witnessed his power with my own eyes. An unremarkable fireball could instantly blow apart a frenzied porcupine, but he had never hurt anyone. I saw him trade daily necessities with villagers near the Andorhal River. He was nothing like the cruel, evil figure described by the Holy See. I was so conflicted. Everything I had been taught was completely contrary to what I had seen with my own eyes. I tried not to think about him, but I couldn't do it. I think... I may have fallen in love with him."