Protagonist Knows Everything - Chapter 21

The next morning.

“The mails are here!”

As always, I heard the voice of Limer, one of the most reliable the best receptionists with a slightly lazy voice.

He walked in with a pile of paper almost as big as himself.

Then, Elena moved in reflexively to help him with the mail.

“Gosh. You don’t have to. Ms. Elena.”

“No! Of course I have to help.”

“Huh. cute! Oh, it’s cute.”

“Speak comfortably. You are my senior after all.”

Elena responded with a flustered but composed voice and began sorting mails with Limer.

If she had been in the army, she would surely be a beloved recruit. I can bet.

Sain muttered in a faint voice when she saw the mountain of mails.

“That’s a lot of requests…”

“These come in twice a day. Ms. Sain. We’ll receive more eventually.”

“Ah.”

“Are you kidding me?”

I genuinely thought that these weren’t enough but everyone except me thought otherwise.

Anyway, while organizing the requests Limer called out to Sain.

“Uh? Sain. I think you should see this right now!”

“Yeah? What happened?”

“This is an official letter from the Northeast Branch of the Guild Association.”

Sain received the letter with a strange expression on her face.

‘Guild Association.’

The guilds are basically autonomous organizations which function under their respective masters. But they were still organized under the Guild Association.

The guild association binds all the guilds on the continent. Along with recieving a monthly fees, various informations to help manage the guild is provided and a general meeting of all guild leaders is held once a year to deal with big cases.

It might not be followed by the guilds, but the rewards rates were set by the Guild Association.

‘But enforcing them is another case.’

“This…”

Sain read the official letter and put it down on the counter.

That means we should check it out too.

-Quest request from the Guild association.

-Quest difficulty: S-class.

-The minimum party is considered to be 200 adventurers of A-class or higher.

-Rewards will be distributed to each guild after a fair evaluation.

-Scheduled to hold a briefing session at 10 am on 12th at the Northeast Branch. Guild incharge or Guild masters are reqeusted to attend.

“S-class quest?”

The Northeast Branch of the Guild Association was half day away from here on a carriage.

“Guess the journey will be quite long.”

Though, sending Sain and one escort adventurer would’ve been enough, but in this case, I asked that I wanted to follow.

‘If it is an S-class quest then guild masters from every region will attend the meeting.’

If I meet them then I will be able to acquire their information without much effort.

‘There’s no way I am missing this chance.’

“Ehehe.”

I heard a laugh at my side.

“So who’ll hold the reins?”

“I you don’t want to then why are you smiling so much?”

“It’s just… It’s good to go on a long trip together.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kasha spoke using her obscure words while starting out the window. Then Sain spoke up.

“Sorry. I am making follow me on this trip.”

“Oh no. I like it.”

“Still…”

“As you know, when a guild general meeting is held, everyone always asks A-class adventurers to escort them.”

I didn’t understand what she meant so bluntly asked.

“Why? Is the meeting dangerous?”

“No, not that, A -class adventurers are like the guild’s most prized resource. They are showcased in the meeting as a symbol of their prestige.”

“It’s somewhat of a protocol that everyone followed.”

“The guild leaders from all over the continent are also very useless, so much that they make my head hurt.”

‘Both in the past life and here, the higher class people seemed to be unbearable.’

Sain said while smiling vaguely, “It’s… it’s rather impressive.”

“Huh?”

“Because last time only me and some of the receptionists attended the meeting.”

“……”

“After the meeting, there is usually an exchange meeting among the guild masters or the guild incharges.”

“Nobody talked to me.”

After hearing that Kasha replied, patting Sain’s back.

“It won’t happen this time. Believe in me. I am with you this time.”

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

‘Many guild master will be present there. Along with Von’

A faint smile hung around my mouth while I was thinking so.

****

After quite a long journey we arrived at our destination.

The association fee that they took from us each month went into this building the building of the northeast branch was truly elegant.

Apart from its size, it seemed like a lot of decorations were put into it.

“Someday we too…”

Sain muttered while admiring the building.

Come to think of it, if the Hagnut Guild grows bigger, we will need to expand it right? That’d be annoying.

Sain showed the official letter from the Hagnut Guild at the reception desk and registered.

The receptionist recorded it in the guestbook, and said:

“I’ve heard rumours about the Hagnut Guild. Seems like you’re doing really great these days.”

“Yeah, so far.”

“There aren’t many guilds that show such rapid growth. Congratulations.”

“Oh, thank you.”

It would be nice to say hello but my hard work actuall paying off was enough for me.

After that the staff led us to a huge conference room. Even though we were on time the conference room was already full. A lot of guild masters were gathered in one place.

‘Human Resources.’

I checked everyone’s faces one by one and then called out the personnel record.

‘Wow. It’s gotten really stuffy.’

Basic information of all people was recorded in the personnel register.

It’s good to have more information, but I’ll have to decide which information to use and how to use it.

When I go back, I’ll have to analyze ad sort it out.

It was then.

“So you’re here.”

With a heavy voice the Wyvern Guild’s master called out to Sain

‘Finally I can see his face.’

“Yeah. It’s been a long time.”

I’ve seen Sain speaking coldly a lot of times. But this time her vioce was too cold.

Like enemies who met on a wooden bridge, they were staring at each other, so much that the rest of the guild masters began flinching.

Well… my work comes first. I opened the records to view his info.

[Name: Von Lebeck]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: 35]

[Occupation: Guild Master]

[Equipment: Small dagger]

[Family relations: Nortel Rhime (Father).]

‘Something is weird. In family relations… Your father is Nortel Rhime?’

‘That’s Sain’s father’s name.’

‘Are these two brothers and sisters?’

Then it is even more weird. In the family relations of Sain, only her father was registered. The same goes for the Von’s family relationship. There’s no mention of his sister.

‘They share the same father but aren’t family?’

Von Lebeck also has a different surname from his father.

‘What were you doing? Nortel?’

‘Anyway, so Sein and Von are half siblings?’

‘If I think about it, even I didn’t note anything about half siblings when I was writing the register in my previous life.’

‘This seems more complicated than I expected.’

Anyway, I looked at von Lebeck’s concerns.

[Concerns: Afraid that he will lose the bet due to the unexpected growth of the Hagnut Guild.]

……

‘What bet?’

Then I heard the Von’s voice.

“Are you Kasha?”

“Huh.”

“You’re just a kid.”

“……”

“Maybe its because you’re so young that you don’t know which place you should stick to.”

‘Is he trying to make Kasha cry?’

Kahsa replied to his remark in a cold voice, “I’m pretty sure it’s not the Wyvern Guild at least.”

“You’re getting this full of yourself just after completing a few A-class quests?”

“…”

“Are you done talking?”

“No.”

Von slowly rose from his seat and approached Kasha. This guy is a huge.

Von was standing in front of Kasha, a little kid, he was so huge that he covered Kasha’s whole body with his shadow.

“If you talk to me like that once more, I will kill you.”

His ‘I’m going to kill’ did not just sound like something one would say to intimidate someone. He just seemed to be quietly reciting what would actually happen.

It sounded like ‘I’m going to eat eggs this morning with soft-boiled eggs.’

‘Does he just goes around killing his competition like this?’

Kasha couldn’t say anything back after that.

‘Ah. This is it.’

I remembered the time when the largest shareholder of our company came to attend the business presentation.

At that time, he told Marx-lee the manager under me to go and pull out his car.

He had a driver, but he wanted our staff do that. I just grabbed them and gave the car keys back to the shareholder.

On that day, the CEO was mad, but I did not regret my actions one bit.

Because the salary given to Marx-Lee did not include the task of being the shareholders personal chauffeur.

“So you’re one of those idiots who goes aroung throwing death threats publicly.”

Hearing my remark, Von turned around.

“You. It’s you.”

“Yeah. It’s me. What will you do about it?”

“I’ve always wondered what kind face you’d have. It seems to be a rather boring one. Fitting for someone stupid like you.”

“You are arrogant, foolish and selfish how did you become the guild master?”

“What?!”

“You are arrogant, foolish and selfish how did you become the guild master.”

As I recited it twice, the atmosphere in the room tensed up.

It seems that the Von was a celebrity among the guild masters.

“Who is that guy?”

“Haven’t you heard the rumor? That guy’s the reason why the Hagnut Guild grew so rapidly.”

“Even someone like that shouldn’t be able to say something like that to Von Lebeck.”

“You must have multiple lives to do that.”

Von gave out an arrogant laugh and said.

“Tay. Taylor Mason. Maybe you’re unaware of a few things.”

“Then care to enlighten me?”

“Guilds are classified depending on the number of A-class adventurers contracted to it. The Wyvern Guild isn’t the top guild in Kelk but it is one of the most powerful guilds on the whole norhteastern part of this continent.

The expressions of the guild masters said that it was true.

“Originally, when a quarrel between guilds occurs, the association intervenes right?”

“But they won’t intervene if they didn’t knew that the guilds were actively at war right?”

As I was reciting the Wyvern Guilds behind the scene shenanigans, Von was silently staring. In the end he just shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s great.”

“……”

“Please enjoy it now. Soon, our hierarchy will change.”

It seemed as if a big rock fell in the conference room.

The faces of the guild masters who were watching us with little interest soon turned into amazement.

Von looked around, agitated.

“Dirk. What did this guy say just now?”

‘Oh Dirk was here as well.’

Dirk Perchen was sweating cold sweat.

With a trebling voice he told me.

“Mr. Tay. Withdraw your remarks. It’s for your own good…”

“Dirk!! Can’t you hear me. You ask what this guy said!!!”

“I’ll answer. Why do you keep bugging your subordinate?”

“I said that the hierarchy would change.”

“You insolent fool!”

Suddenly, after just this much provocation Von clenched his fist and aimed it at me. Before it connected to my face, I slowly spoke.

“I understand that you are nervous that you might lose the bet.”

After hearing that Von started cowering. His body stopped as if someone had cast petrification magic on him.

“Bet? What bet?”

I don’t know.

I don’t know, but you better shut up or I might get to know.

“The bet that’s your main concern as of now.”