17 Chapter XVII - The Odd Verah Thunderbird

Verah opened her mouth to speak again, but couldn't remember what she was about to say, so she ended up awkwardly glancing at Troy, hoping he would take the hint and take over the conversation.

Fortunately, Troy was quite reliable, and he cleared his throat sharply, drawing everyone's attention to himself. "Ah, yes, what my friend here meant to say, was, there's no need to go looking for the leaders of Guild Ouranos, as we are already here,"

"Indeed, you are," Ultio said, brushing the small indent with Verah aside.

'Everyone is weird in their own way.'

If Verah could hear Ultio's thoughts, she would have most likely dug a hole and buried herself deep within the earth out of embarrassment. Even now, just from the worried glance Ultio gave her, she felt her face turning red from embarrassment.

"Well, I have spoken to these two here, Miss Veronica and Miss Rena, about a very important matter, which now requires your attention," Ultio said and put his hands into his pockets.

If it wasn't for the rune inscribed on the outfit, which made use of Ultio's manager to repair it, the jacket would have already disintegrated from Ultio's touch, as he retracts his shadow gloves whenever he puts his hands into his pockets.

Troy nodded. "I understand. Well, I guess it's time for the introductions, then," He said and stretched out a hand toward Ultio. "Troy Achillescio. One half of Guild Ouranos' leadership,"

Ultio shook his hand firmly and nodded. "Ultio V. Please, just call me Ultio,"

"I will," Troy said and let go of Ultio's hand then secretly nudged Verah.

The young lady shook herself out of her stupor and slowly extended a hand. "I'm Verah Thunderbird, a pleasure to meet you, Mister Ultio," She said, utilising all her willpower to remain calm and brace herself as Ultio reached for her hand.

Ultio nodded and shook her hand, totally oblivious to Verah's reaction. "The pleasure is mine," He said with a smirk.

Verah suddenly went limp and crumpled to the floor without any warning.

The four people present all remained silent for a while, confused by what just happened and why it happened, before Troy sighed and facepalmed. Rena and Veronica also sighed, then Rena carried Verah's unconscious body.

"Well this is embarrassing," Troy said and itched the back of his neck. "Ah, Mister Ultio..." He trailed off, not sure how to apologize for Verah suddenly passing out. Even more so, he wasn't sure how Ultio would react to it.

It would take either a retard or a very oblivious person to not understand what had transpired, so it was obvious that Ultio would know. Troy didn't know much about Ultio, so he couldn't tell how he would react to this.

However, fortunately for Guild Ouranos, Ultio was one of the latter, hence he just shrugged. "I understand. She probably had a long day and had most likely been exhausted from your travels."

Rena and Veronica stared at Ultio with expressions of intense shock and disbelief.

'Wow. This guy must be the most oblivious or indifferent man on the planet... Or he's just dumb as rocks.' Troy thought as he eyed Ultio with a worried expression. He truly worried that Ultio might not be the sharpest tool in the shed.

Luckily for him, Ultio didn't have access to his thoughts, and neither could he read his expression because of his custom Corinthian Helmet which had narrow slits that revealed very little of his face.

"Now, shall we move to somewhere more conducive for a private chat?" Ultio asked with a relaxed smirk.

*****

Ultio ended up following the small group back to the inn Veronica and the other members of Guild Ouranos had lodged. It turned out that Guild Ouranos had indeed booked down an entire half of the building because they didn't want others hearing what they discussed or how they behaved when they were not being scrutinized by the public eye.

Also, Ultio found out that Guild Ouranos was a very, very popular and wealthy guild. Matter of fact, their reputation was such that they received international jobs and missions, and were treated like nobles during meetings hosted by royalty. And their reputation, as a guild, was matched only by Guild White's own reputation.

He also learnt that the two guilds didn't like each other very much, and some of their members had even switched sides. One of such members was a pale young man named Kuro, who left Guild White for Guild Ouranos.

And unfortunately, the other females in the guild had similar to reactions to Verah when they first met Ultio, but fortunately, none of them passed out.

He couldn't care less.

But it was quite irritating when people shied away from you or did all they could to avoid meeting your gaze.

Anyway, he had been led to one of the rooms in the inn, which had been cleared earlier and been turned into a sort of meeting room.

It only had a small round table and some couches and chairs around it.

At this moment, Ultio was seated in one of the chairs, waiting to be attended to by the leadership of Guild Ouranos. He was also informed that Rena and Veronica would be attending as well, as they were the ones he had discussed with at first.

It seemed as if the guild couldn't attend to him because they had very important matters to attend to, but Ultio had easily guessed that they were actually waiting for Verah to wake up. Although he didn't care, he was truly curious about what could have made the lady pass out, as he could tell that she was very powerful.

But that was a mystery for another day.

What he was focused on now, was the meeting that awaited him in his nearest future.

He had proposed this deal as a way to reduce all the stress and problems associated with travelling to a tomb that was only recently discovered, even though he had already known about the tomb long before. He knew everything would work out find, though, as he could tell that the guild will most likely accept his offer.

It might be difficult to explain to them how he knows so much about the tomb, when it was only discovered a week ago and had not even been explored yet, but he already had a way to handle that.

But there was one thing that worried him, though. And that was...

"What's taking them so long?"