Weeks flashed by as I settled into a relatively normal pace of living. After registering as an adventurer, I'd been taking my time to adjust to something resembling a regular life—practice for when I truly retired once I'd finished all the shitty stuff waiting for me over the dark, bleak metaphorical horizon.
Codex kept insisting this was a waste of time, but I disagreed. I was diligently increasing my rank through the guild, and after a whole month of constant hunting while maintaining a low profile to avoid revealing my actual strength to my prey, I'd reached C rank. That was 96 days later—that's right, a month on Gaia wasn't divided by weeks but simply counted as 96 days. Why? I had no idea, but I suspected it was tied to faith and the number of celestial bodies orbiting the planet. The triple moons—one azure, one amber, one emerald—combined with the three suns of varying sizes and colors, created complex astronomical patterns that likely influenced the local calendar system.
According to Codex, my current strength was more than enough to take the empire by storm and directly get the answers I sought. But this mysterious, all-knowing cosmic entity didn't understand the flair a person seeks in getting what they want in style. I didn't want to simply barge in and demand answers, since in the end, I'd still wind up alone—save for the remaining family member who had yet to respond to my blood call. I wanted to understand the situation and the reasoning behind it all. I wanted to hurt everyone where it hurt most. Tit for tat was and always is a fair game.
"Food for thoughts, my precious protégé?" A cute female voice broke me out of my reverie.
Standing before me was Melia, who had been helping me complete the commission I'd taken from a village far south near the empire's borders. The villagers had been plagued by what they described as spiritual-like monsters, which I recognized as lower-ranked forms of undead. Why they'd been left behind was anyone's guess, and frankly, I didn't give a damn. I'd simply completed the task and returned.
"Nothing much, Melia. Once more, thanks for sticking with me to the point of even changing your shift," I said with a gracious smile.
"Baaaah, I told you not to sweat it!" she replied with a smirk and slight irritation at my constant expressions of gratitude. I knew she wanted to keep in closer touch, not due to romantic feelings but mostly because she sensed something hidden about me and wanted to capitalize on it.
The adventurer's guild reception system worked hand-in-hand with adventurers—the more frequent and higher-ranked you became, the more likely you were to be assigned a personal receptionist who acted as your liaison to the guild, fetching and selecting quests, missions, or commissions based on your skill set.
To Melia, who actually hailed from the Escofer Kingdom and was working on her senior attachment at the imperial branch, I was a premature golden goose she was waiting to lay golden eggs. Despite being an attachee for just a short period, she was eager for me to take the B and A rank tests.
'Though from what I know of her, the moment I pass my B rank, she'll apply for a permanent attachment while enlisting to be my personal receptionist. Honestly, what kind of guts and sixth sense does she have? It's kind of freaky!' I thought before answering aloud: "Let's get serious here for a minute, Melia. You don't even know if I want to get into the higher ranks. Personally, I'm finding it very comfortable being at the peak of C rank, which I should have gotten after completing this last mission."
"And that's where it interests me even more, my dear Ryan," she said with a gracious and charming smile, as she placed her head on her hands, batting her eyelids, which I studiously ignored along with her attempts at flirtation.
"You know what, as much as I appreciate the faith and goodwill, I'll just drop it," I sighed in exasperation.
"Suuuure, whateeeever you saaay," she replied with a giggle as she turned back to fetch some missions—mostly new personalized ones she had used her connections to acquire. I had a gut feeling they'd be B-ranked.
As she bustled away, I took into account the few glances and quiet murmurs from other guild members. It was almost the middle of the night, with noticeably fewer people taking on missions as they continued their grind.
To others, I'd been an enigma since I entered almost two months ago. I barely socialized except with those who wanted help on their quests after learning my rank. No one had seen me fight. No one had ever seen me in a team (and they probably never would—I didn't do well in team fights).
All anyone knew, both those who worked at night and during the day, was that a certain newbie had joined and caught the attention of Melia, the senior attaché. This was surprising in itself since, aside from handling newcomers, she hardly gave anyone else the time of day beyond normal relations as a receptionist.
So the fact that a newbie with an eerily perfect track record had gotten onto her radar and had all his quests handled by her? Not a common occurrence, to say the least.
I'd gathered all this information by eavesdropping on their hushed conversations that immediately began whenever I entered the building.
There was also the time when some brave souls had confronted me, wanting to know "my deal with Melia," clearly intending to get close to her and having miserably failed. Back then I was a newly promoted E-rank, and they were C-rank. Thinking they were superior, they confronted me during a commission submission, deciding with their hot-bloodedness to intimidate me into submission. Unfortunately for them, one very slight and completely diffused release of my aura from a single sub-core was more than enough to force them onto their knees. Considering I was using less than .001% of my aura, and that from just a sub-core, they crashed hard—literally destroying their kneecaps and passing out while frothing at the mouth.
I believe it was at that point that Melia came to her own freakishly accurate conclusions, which led to our current situation.
I quickly returned from my wandering thoughts as Melia came back with a small stack of papers—weird compared to her normal bunch of C-ranked ones. Of course, my hunch was right, but I let her explain herself first.
"Listen here, mister," she began, her tail swishing with barely contained excitement, "I know you're holding out on me, and sadly, I can't do anything about it. So here's the deal: I spoke with a good friend of mine who works with an A-rank to help me out with a few B missions. Normally, it would be a breach of protocol unless the receptionist in question is okay with it alongside their partner, the adventurer they're assigned to. Luckily for you, said adventurer got caught up with something in an archdukedom and won't be back for a while, so their backlog has increased, and here's our brief window to shine..."
She didn't even address why she'd done this without asking me first, despite knowing bits of my personality that I'd shown her.
"What's the catch?" I asked directly.
"Simply, you'll get the credits but not the recognition. All of these..." she said, gesturing to the three separate quests, "were already assigned to said A-rank guy, but since they're not around, they technically need assistance from "trustworthy friends"... namely you." She finished that last part with a bit of a happy voice, while quoting the last part, quite pleased with her achievement.
"Haaaaah, I won't even ask why you thought this would work," I said as I grabbed all three and began reading.
Melia, on the other hand, was literally celebrating in her mind. She had done this all on assumptions and guesses from the little tidbits she understood about her protégé, and clearly, she had scored big time. Even that "friend" of hers was a colleague she had once done a favor for, and this was her calling it in. In her line of work, such favors were rare since a lot was usually at stake: money, power, and a whole lot of reputation. In this particular situation, she desperately wanted to know the peak strength of her golden goose. Considering how fast I seemed to clear C-ranked missions and quests, which usually involved monster extermination and miscellaneous odd occurrences, she had a hunch I wasn't revealing what I could truly do.
So these three missions would be a test to see how much her gamble would pay off.
The first quest concerned sightings of demonic scout activity in a nearby town. The second was about a dungeon appearance that needed investigation and possibly clearing—since the dungeon was small, probably C-ranked, it would be relatively easy for a normal B-ranked adventurer to solo clear. The disparity in ranks existed because in a dungeon, the final boss at max could be a peak B-ranked creature. The last mission involved hunting down a group of dangerous road bandits who had sprung up and had been avoiding capture. They'd become an annoyance to the local lord, who wanted complete elimination by a well-ranked adventurer, no matter the cost.
"Sooo... demons, dungeons, and thugs? Is that all?" I asked, while reminiscing on the popular nerd game "dungeons and dragons" from back on earth; as I glanced back at Melia, seeing the gears turning in her head after my nonchalant response.
"Yep, piece of cake, right?" she asked with a smile, but I could clearly see the nervousness on her face. Was she actually worried about me? I was oddly touched not knowing how mistaken I was.
"Fine then. I'll take 'em all. See you later," I said and left her with my card to continue with the procedures. Since I had memorized everything in the mission details, I decided to get started immediately rather than waste time with procedures. I trusted Melia to some extent, considering this was a normal thing we'd done numerous times—me taking a quest and letting her complete the legalities while she later received proof of completion.
As I walked outside, I was also grinning because I had noticed a group of adventurers who looked normal to anyone else in the room—just a team of buddies enjoying a late drink as they relaxed after a mission well done.
But to my keen, trained soul senses, I saw the unmistakable trackers I had placed on their souls. These were members of the hunting team who had locked onto my actual identity once I had become active in my search without hiding much of who I was.
Back when they had discovered who I was after dropping numerous hints here and there, they were visibly mortified and shocked that I was even alive. In my previous life back when my family and clan were alive, I had been the great-grandson of the patriarch of the clan. Since I was of direct descent and bloodline, I was ideally the next heir to the clan if things had proceeded normally. The fact that I, a direct descendant, had survived was very bad news for them.
In response, they had increased their surveillance, following me discreetly on my missions, learning everything no matter how long it took. I knew they had even called for backup from their organization. So now, aside from the original five, what I had estimated to be a whole battalion of more than 100 members of their organization had arrived in Koladar secretly and quietly. How did I know? I tagged anyone who entered their base, talked about the mission, and received orders on a constant daily basis. For a whole ten days, 100 such people had done exactly that.
So when I left the city proper, heading east to the town that had reported unusual demonic activity, I felt more than ten of these operatives discreetly following me in whatever disguise they could manage, not knowing they were all puppets dancing in the palm of my hand.
I was just waiting for them to make a move, possibly after a few more months to gauge my strength, probably waiting to see if I could rise in the guild ranks as they assessed my abilities.
The poor bastards were in for a nasty surprise, to say the least. When the time came, my actions would be swift and quick, without the slightest mercy.