Chp.29: Eliminating the adventurers' guild

The adventurers' guild was in turmoil. After hearing the explosions everyone started grabbing their weapons and getting ready to fight. While they weren't technically part of the city guard, it was still their job to defend the city if it came under attack.

"Damn! What's going on?"

"I don't know! I've heard that dangerous opponents have appeared at the royal palace!"

"Even at the Academy of Magic! They seem to be able to keep even a legendary level busy!"

"A legendary level!? What kind of monsters are they?"

"Damn! We could really use the help of the party 'One day' today!"

"Yeah! If only they had waited a few hours before leaving for their mission, now they'd be here by our side!"

The concerns of the adventurers were more than justified. Among them, none surpassed the level gold, although however with the skills and experience they had acquired over the years some of them could have stood up to a level diamond despite the difference in power. Cooperating together, they could also face a level mithril, and possibly even a level adamantium. But no one had ever heard of a group of people who were able to hold their own at a legendary level, or at least hold him or her back. Against such individuals, they would stand no chance.

To make matters worse, recently the best party of adventurers had left the capital to follow a very profitable mission: in fact, a great basilisk seemed to have appeared in the countryside not far away. Clearly, the strongest, smartest and most resourceful adventurers had immediately set out to find him, including the famous party 'One day'. Which meant that the guild had lost much of its fighting potential.

The funny thing was that, unbeknownst to anyone, there was actually no such thing as a great basilisk. What had been sighted was nothing more than an illusion created a few days earlier by Corgorin and Serengal using the rune of invisibility, with which they had frightened some wayfarers. If humans had more developed senses they would have been able to realize the deception, but since they were so mediocre they had fallen for it big time. In this way, not only had the dragons created an excellent excuse to justify their disappearance that very day, which would have otherwise been suspicious, but they had also greatly diminished the strength of their enemies.

Seeing the situation was escalating, the guildmaster got on a table and chose to take the lead. He was a rather tall elf with short dark hair. When he spoke, his voice echoed throughout the building: "Listen to me! It's true, we are inferior to them at the moment. But you don't need be afraid! The army will deal with these problematic adversaries. Our only job is to patrol the roads and protect the people. We won't even get close to the battlefield. Also, we'll have the city guard to back us up. So, don't fear for your life! We'll be..."

Suddenly the windows exploded and strange glass bottles were thrown into the guild. As soon as they hit the floor, green smoke exploded from them and spread throughout the building. As soon as they inhaled it, the adventurers began to cough and feel weak. The strongest of them used the mana to clear their lungs, but most were knocked unconscious before they could and fell to the floor. And then, something else happened; while the still standing adventurers were still trying to brush away that strange smoke, six shadows entered through the windows and rushed towards them, hitting them on the back of the neck while they were too busy to react. The blow was delivered with such force that the adventurers lost their senses and fell to the ground.

The guildmaster, who had managed to hold out, immediately realized that this was a well-premeditated attack. With a roar, he drew two daggers and lunged at the taller shadow, who parried the blow effortlessly using only his arm. It was a abnormaly big man, with several scars on his body and a horribly scarred face. "You still want to fight, mh? Well, now I'll tan you for the holidays!" he exclaimed, punching him in the face. The guildmaster channeled his mana into his feet and with that he jumped back dodging the attack.

"Who the fuck are you!?" the elf yelled, but obviously the big man didn't answer him and instead threw another punch, breaking through one of the tables. Using his agility, the guildmaster leapt and grabbed the ceiling, but the big man grabbed a leg of the table and threw it at him with such force that he nearly broke his hand. The elf fell to the ground and barely had time to feel the impact with the ground before the big man's foot struck his head, smashing it.

The big man didn't seem the least bit upset by the guildmaster's death, but he wasn't even rejoicing. It was as if he had just squashed a simple fly. Suddenly he felt movement behind him and he turned just in time to see another adventurer leap out of the smoke and try to slash at him with a sword, but he was impaled by a blade before it could reach him. She agonized a little, then fell to the ground, showing that behind her was a man wrapped in a black cloak and with a large white mask with no distinguishing marks on his face.

The big man grunted. "You didn't need to intervene, but thank you," he said. "Are you alright?"

"Don't worry. It's not the first time I've killed... although I don't remember ever killing innocents" the masked man replied. "But I recognize that there was no other choice"

The two men, of course, were none other than Rhaegal and Efren, and the other shadows who had entered with them were Corgorin, Serengal, Carlos, and Sarah. The dragons had changed their appearance using the rune of invisibility, so as to make themselves unrecognizable, and the three adventurers had instead worn masks that Sisna had procured for them from the black market which were enchanted with a magic capable of filtering the air and blocking the poisons. In this way, none of them had been recognizable: they all looked like six complete strangers. No one would be able to tie them back to the party 'One day', just like Haku had suggested. By doing so Efren, Sarah and Carlos would not have risked being persecuted by the law, while Rhaegal, Corgorin and Serengal could eventually use the cover they had built for themselves in the future. It would have been enough to hide their avatars once the mission is completed, return in the evening and pretend to have been away all that time, and then leave the capital with the excuse of not wanting to run into further possible attacks. In this way, if ever there was a need, the party 'One day' could have returned to the Jurao Kingdom without having to create a new identity, but rather taking advantage of the famous one they already had. And in the end, if by any chance something went wrong, they could continue to use their cover to stay in the capital and come up with another plan to save Haku.

Up until now, everything had gone perfectly according to plan. They'd lured away the best members of the guild using a fake great basilisk, and without them there had been few who could resist the sleeping potion they'd picked up at their sisters' shop. They could have used poison, and technically that would have been the best choice, but they didn't want to risk Efren, Carlos, and Sarah's consciences pushing them to do something stupid; after all, these adventurers were still their colleagues, and in any case they were innocent people. Even if the three adventurers were on their side, it was better to find a way to make them forget their morality, like Haku had done with Sarpa. Therefore, the dragons had decided to use a compromise, and instead of poison they had used a sleeping potion that, once inhaled, made you sleep for at least twelve hours. It had knocked out most of the adventurers, but some of them had managed to resist using mana to drive the gas away from their lungs; therefore Rhaegal, Corgorin, Serengal, Efren, Carlos and Sarah had leapt into action and had taken advantage of their distraction to hit them on the head hard enough to knock them out. Once they passed out, they too had inhaled the sleeping potion and would therefore have slept for a long time. Thanks to the masks, the three adventurers were unaffected by the effects of the gas, and the three dragons… well, they obviously weren't using their real bodies, so they couldn't be affected by the effects of the potion. Unfortunately a very small part of the adventurers had been able to react, just like the guildmaster, therefore there were now at least a dozen corpses on the floor.

Luckily, that seemed enough for Efren, and Carlos and Sarah didn't seem too apologetic either. All three had to acknowledge that the dragons had really gone to great lengths to avoid killing their colleagues, and that they had in fact had no other choice for the twelve remaining. Therefore, they could not blame them; compared with the more than three hundred casualties that would have occurred if the dragons had decided to eliminate the adventurers completely, twelve or so was an acceptable price. After all, hoping to win a battle without killing anyone was pure utopia; the three humans knew that the dragons would stop at nothing to save their brother, so they must be grateful to them for trying to make as few victims as possible.

"Well, we're done here, then" Rhaegal said. "Now let's go. We need to reunite with the others and help them keep the city watch under control"

To free Haku the dragons would have to face three obstacles: the first were the two legendary levels, Thornag and Hara, which were currently under control; the second was the guild of adventurers, which would surely interfere, which was now unable to do anything; the third was the city guard. Most of it was scattered throughout the capital and would take a long time to gather in one place, so eliminating them in one fell swoop was impossible; therefore Kialandì, Malchia and Finiar would have drawn their attention to specific points, so that the guards would leave free the very stretch of road that Maldor would have had to travel to bring the portable gate to Haku. Furthermore, given the position of the three dragons, the guards would also have been far from the arena, preventing them from acting promptly as soon as the barrier was eliminated. In this way, nothing could have prevented the escape. Rhaegal and his companions should have contributed even more to this scheme, helping their sisters and attracting as many guards as possible.

They were about to leave the guild, when suddenly Corgorin stopped and started taking daggers and swords from the corpses. "Seriously? Do you think it's time to snatch?" Sarah exclaimed.

"What's the problem? They could come in handy" Corgorin answered. "They don't need them now, right?"

"There are several ethical obstacles to robbing someone who is unconscious or even dead" Carlos commented so blankly that it was clear he didn't believe it himself.

"You just raided your guild and are helping to break out, is it time to worry about ethical obstacles?" Corgorin grumbled, not completely wrong.

"Stop now!" Rhaegal exclaimed. That certainly wasn't the time to argue. "Corgorin, throw that stuff out, they're designed for people at max level gold, certainly not level adamantiums like we are now thanks to our modified mana core. They'd break as soon as you tried to use them. Fight with your body or else use with the weapons we built with great basilisk's bones"

"Mph! What a killjoy" Corgorin grumbled, throwing away the stuff she'd collected. Rhaegal ignored her and walked out of the guild, followed by his five companions, and leapt across the rooftops to the designated points.