Eat It

'Dear me, I doubt there is a need for so many pillars, how does one find out the ones that are okay to break and those that truly support the foundation rather than supporting other pillars?' wondered the wretch, the space underneath the guild was quite big as he had guessed, the 'ceiling' stood at about half of the monster's height.

Many things could crawl under there and there were, mice, rats and a bunch of insects, so he could live under there for a very long while, he wasn't planning on bringing this place down too fast, couldn't make it seem like he was eager to fulfill the orders given to him and he could perhaps catch some conversations from here.

He also needed to check a few other things, destroying pillars was certain to completely make this place crash down but there could always be a better alternative than simply destroying, perhaps making it so the guild would sway in a certain direction would be best, any one that would be killed by this building would count as full kills for him after all.

How populated where the nearby buildings? What sort of people were inside of them?

When it came to humans, the XP value they granted could vary greatly, even if they were always XP bags for how weak some of them were.

Those that were weak, the peasants, the useless masses, the young ones were worth more, the elderly and shitlings had lesser value.

'The XP they give reflect their usefulness' smiled Axio, trying to listen to a conversation above him.

"Really? You think so? I don't know man, what if she-"

'Useless garbage, do you people ever have interesting conversations?' he wasn't interested in the soft-skinned mating rituals or whatever.

They were adventurers! They should speak of adventuring things, monsters, information on gathering spots, bandits and such but for the first few days, Axiolypito only heard them speaking of meaningless nonsense.

"It's really weird, the presence is strongest when we are in the guild, as if..." the wretch caught some guy speaking in a weird manner, just from his voice, he could tell that his arms were flailing around.

"...As if they were hiding amongst us! We should check with the recently arrived adventurers and investigate them" spoke the man, this sounded logical to the wretch.

"How could you have not found them out by now? This is starting to seem fishy, maybe it's one of the higher-ups?" said a woman in hushed tone, pointing at the ceiling above her, something the wretch couldn't see.

"Let's not start with the conspiracy theories please, maybe the person we're looking for can just hide whatever scent their letting out that Feuman is trying to track, they very well could be leaving false tracks behind to confuse us" another woman said, making a noise similar to a snake before speaking.

"Yeah... I guess that makes more sense but do you really have to instantly shoot down my theories Lolianth?"

"Yes"

"Wait!" the man suddenly said, slightly jumping up, making the floor creak.

"The feeling is as strong as ever! As if they were right there... Our murderer linked to the heretical flame is close!" he managed to shout in a low voice.

'Ah, they're talking about me' calmly assessed the wretch, crawling further away, he didn't believe there were that many murderers that they could be looking for and the man's next reaction proved him right.

"Ah, it's going away..." he sounded disappointed.

"Didn't you say the heretical flame could corrupt anything? Perhaps the user just used it and some bugs or rats are just carrying it around?" remarked the woman that didn't make snake noises.

"I did say that Cinla, however, even for someone with experience, maintaining the flame for more than thirty seconds is nearly impossible, there is no way anyone could spread it to other living beings and even if that was possible, those beings would be consumed in full way too quickly..." replied Feuman.

"...Although, the feeling I get might be due to some beings being burnt away by the flame nearby! Yes... That doesn't help us at all..." for someone that was definitely missing a few cases up there, this Feuman was making quite a lot of sense.

The wretch started crawling away, he didn't know whatever that heretical flame was and had no clue why that guy thought he smelled of it, his only fiery ability was some sparks that had nothing heretical about them.

As it turns out, the floor he could listen in was only the first one, all he heard was gossiping and adventurers speaking to some attendants behind some counters.

It seemed like few spoke of adventuring stuff, in the place that had adventurer written in big on it, he did hear of the ample bounty on the head of the 'children murderer' also known as himself and could only think that the sum was too little for him.

Apart from eavesdropping, he spent his days eating anything that was too close to him and studying the surroundings by poking his head out at night.

On the right of the guild, there was some sort of potion brewery, few people in it at a time.

On the left, it was another street but one where plenty of people would set up their shops, some sort of market, where some adventurers would sell resources, specifically the sort of the highest end, as the guild itself had a better base value for things that were worth less but the same wasn't true for anything that wasn't common.

He guessed that the guild only betted on those resources anyways since they were abundant, one couldn't simply rely on great materials if they didn't have a good supply chain.

In any case, the street in front of the guild wasn't to be considered and behind was a small and sturdy building made out of stone, which was also awfully close to the guild, so close that Axiolypito doubted anything that wasn't as flexible as him could get in between.

'The market it is then, time to let those guys do their work' he produced a few spawners, this time of the small variety, from which small bugs came out in atrocious numbers.

It was important that the place was supported by wooden pillars, otherwise no termites he could spawn from his spawners would have been able to eat through them.