Chapter 30

Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PazjBDkTmW

You can buy coins here to unlock advanced chapters: https://gravitytales.com/coins-purchase-page/

“Strange behavior from the monsters?”

A week had passed since the incident with that adventurer company. While I was chatting with the usual adventurers, a small report reached me.

“Yeah. They’re acting jumpy—agitated, like they can’t settle down. Feels like the whole forest’s on edge. I figured I should report it to you, Yulg.”
“Got it. Thanks. I’ll keep an eye on it from this end too.”

I pressed a silver coin into his hand with a “go grab a drink,” and watched him walk off. Then I turned my gaze toward the forest, looming beyond the wooden palisades. I hadn’t been able to head into the forest much lately, so I hadn’t noticed anything—but now that I think about it, injuries had been increasing lately.

Damn desk work really isn’t my thing.

“Hey, Katie. I’m stepping out for a bit.”
“Ehh!? Where are you going, Guildmaster? We’ve still got a mountain of paperwork left!”
“Stop calling me that! I’m just the acting master!”
“There’s no getting away from it anymore, you know? All the adventurers coming through here already think of you as the Guildmaster.”

At her words, I let my shoulders slump. Thanks to that conniving strategist, I’d been roped into being the acting guildmaster for the adventurers. I still hadn’t fully accepted the role.

But I couldn’t just abandon the adventurers in the new district either, so here I was, stuck sitting at a desk next to Katie every day.

“I’m going to check on the forest. Something feels off.”
“…Because of what that guy said earlier?”
“Yeah. You’ve heard the story behind why this place was settled, right?”

Katie nodded slightly at my question. She was one of those who had come here fully prepared, after all.

“Want me to issue an investigation request?”
“I’ll scout it myself first. Don’t forget, I am a scout, you know?”
“What!? No way… you really don’t look the part.”

Her honest reaction made me let out a wry laugh. Yeah, I get it. The image everyone has of me—Yulg the Skysunder—is more of a heavy-armored warrior type.

“I’ll be back by noon. If anyone comes by, let them know where I went.”

Hoisting my war mace onto my shoulder, I headed for the door.

“Geez… Fine, fine. But you owe me a drink!”
“A drink alone with a pretty lady? Sounds great. I’m all for it.”

With a grin, I stepped out of the makeshift guild headquarters. Sooner or later, we really need to build a proper guild building here. Saran said he’s arranging it, but the current place is cramped… and we’re short on staff too.

“Oh, Yulg! Heading into the forest?”
“Thanks for your work. Just going to check on something.”

I waved at the gate guard atop the palisade and headed into the unexplored territory. I passed a few adventurers along the way and asked them about the situation. Sure enough, they all felt something was off. If this many people are saying it, then it’s probably not just in their heads.

I made my way through the trees, weaving between trunks as I went deeper into the woods. The further I went, the more I felt a clinging presence… and a faint sense of killing intent. Not directed at me—it felt like the whole forest was tense and on edge.

“Yeah… something’s definitely wrong.”

A forest boar—without even having any piglets—was aggressively stabbing its tusks into a tree trunk. Even iron beetles, which usually hide at this time of day, were crawling around in plain sight. Now I could understand why the adventurers all said the forest felt “restless.”

And there were a lot of them. Despite not being too far from the new district, the monster density was way too high. We’re gonna need to call a meeting about this. Might even be time to reconsider accepting some adventurer companies.

Maybe beating the hell out of that Zogachi guy was a bad move?

…Nah. He was useless anyway.

Even if he had been around, he wouldn’t have been much help. And he had a real sweet attitude, to boot.

“Let’s head back for now. Gotta issue a proper investigation request.”

Muttering to myself, I turned my back on the unnervingly restless forest.

♦

“I figured it was about time.”

Saran greeted me in his office when I came to report, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. So, he’d already sensed it to some extent.

“I went in myself and checked. Monsters that shouldn’t be out during the day were roaming around. This is bad.”
“Yes, quite bad. That’s why we’ll take the initiative.”

Saran’s response caught me off guard.

“I’ve borrowed a few units from Hirte and the neighboring McCall territory. I’ve contacted the Adventurer Guild and reached out to two adventurer companies. And the adventurers living here in the new district should have settled in by now.”

He laid out several documents in front of me, speaking casually as he rattled off plans I hadn’t heard a word about. See, this is the problem. Share your damn intel.

“Remember when the Zogachi Adventurer Company came through? Honestly, them showing up here was a good thing.”
“How so?”
“It means Marhas is now recognized throughout the kingdom as a profitable place to be.”

Saran’s eyes narrowed with satisfaction as his lips curled into a smirk.

Ugh… he’s got that evil smile again. The “everything is going according to plan” face.

“Dungeon resources flowing outward, the gold flowing back in, controlled recruitment, calculated rumors… From all that, we determine the forces we’ll need, the threat level, the crisis. It took some time, but we finally have all the pieces in place.”
“So all that roundabout crap… was actually the most efficient route?”
“I don’t like waste, you see.”

Right. This scheming strategist has always been obsessed with time-to-efficiency ratios. Guess I just couldn’t see the bigger picture.

“––We’re going to take down Scarr.”
“Finally, huh.”
“Of course, Mercia will lead the charge. We’ll use the successful subjugation as grounds to nominate ourselves for a State-Sanctioned party.”
“You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

At my exasperated smile, Saran pushed up his glasses and gave a rare, subtle chuckle. For someone who usually wears a stone-faced scowl, that was almost charming.

“This is who I am. I’ll send the details later.”
“Got it. I’ll leave the timing to you.”

I told him what I needed to, heard what I had to.
Now, all that’s left is to pick up my war mace when the time comes…
…and crush the enemy, just like always.

––Because that’s all I can do for this hometown of mine.