Chương 38: The Weight of Shadows and Conspiracies

The stone streets of Ithrya seemed greyer and more suffocating. Seven full days had passed since Kuro had vanished into the depths of the Mineral Cave after being cowed and pushed down the precipice by Haruka, and the city's silence exacted a heavy toll on the minds of his allies. At the temporary base in the ancient forest, the atmosphere was far from calm. Selene and Liora walked with rapid paces toward the headquarters of the Ithrya Adventurers' Guild.

They needed immediate answers regarding the trail of betrayal. However, upon crossing the threshold of the establishment, they were confronted with a scene of pure administrative chaos, with local guards cordoning off the main office. Selene marched straight to the central counter, slamming her fist firmly against the wood as she faced the new receptionist.

"Where is the Guild Leader? I demand to know who registered the mission that caused Kuro's fall!" The receptionist turned pale, looking around in fright before answering in a trembling whisper.

"The Guild Leader... he was assassinated. A mysterious female assassin infiltrated his quarters a few days ago and slit his throat. We know absolutely nothing about Kuro; the office is cordoned off!" The shock paralyzed Selene for an instant. The entire leadership of the guild was paralyzed due to a cleanup operation. Unable to gather any information in that turbulent environment, the two stepped away and sat at a more isolated table in the corner of the hall to eat and recover their strength.

In the middle of the meal, the slender silhouette of the elven sorceress Hina quietly emerged from between the tables. With absolute discretion, she made a sign with her eyes, calling Liora over to talk in a secluded corner near the stone columns of the exit, far from Selene's eyes and ears.

"I have a confidential elimination job for you," Hina whispered, extending a sealed note.

"These two specific individuals within your current circle must be killed. No questions asked." Liora furrowed her brow, taking the paper without opening it in front of the elf.

"What is the price for these heads?"

"Fifty gold coins." Hina gave a corner smile, vanishing among the adventurers immediately after. Liora tucked the note beneath her garments, maintaining absolute mystery regarding who the two victims in her party were. She tactically decided that she would not act now, freezing that secret mission for after they resolved the crisis of the abyss. She returned to the table with a clean face, finishing her meal alongside Selene. Meanwhile, at Ithrya's central inn, a silent operation was taking place.

Taking advantage of the fact that Selene and Liora were away at the guild, Aurelia had decided to investigate Kuro on her own to understand what he was hiding. In the corridor, her sister, Lyra, kept strategic guard near the stairs, feigning to polish her blade to ensure no one appeared by surprise. Aurelia infiltrated Kuro's room and began to rummage through the environment. Upon minutely inspecting the rustic wooden floor right beneath the bed, she noticed an unevenness.

Forcing her fingers against the flooring, she found a small hidden structure that looked like a custom-made secret mini cellar door, strictly fitting a black bag. She pulled the backpack out from inside and opened the clasp, inspecting the inventory. At the bottom of the compartment, her fingers brushed against two bizarre objects she had never seen in those lands: a modern analog wristwatch and a broken cell phone with a shattered glass screen.

The instant her hands held those technological artifacts from Earth, a violent snap occurred in her mind. Heavy blurs of ancient, blocked memories from her past life began to burn through her consciousness. Aurelia envisioned a distorted image of someone coldly killing her in the past, but she could not see the murderer's face, only the trail of blood. Immediately after, the memory of a girl from her school on Earth surfaced clearly: Kaede.

She perfectly remembered Kaede's appearance, but since the current Mireya was reincarnated into an entirely different body on the surface, Aurelia could not connect the dots that her alchemist friend was the exact same person. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Still trembling from the trance, Aurelia turned her attention back to the backpack and pulled out bundles of confidential papers.

They were the detailed guild reports on the lives of Liora, Selene, Mireya, and Commander Kaelia, which Kuro had stolen by manipulating the former receptionist before she was killed. Aurelia leafed through the data, feeling her chest tighten with disillusionment.

"I knew there was something wrong..." Aurelia whispered to the empty room, stowing the papers away with trembling hands.

"As it turns out, he truly doesn't trust the party. I imagined that at least with Selene, he trusted her for real... But we are all just data to him." She closed the hiding spot and stepped out discreetly with Lyra, returning to the temporary base in the ancient forest's clearing. Later, Liora and Selene also returned after conducting a frustrated sweep of the cave's upper borders, concluding that descending through there without committing suicide was tactically impossible.

To expend the frustration accumulated over those seven days, the clearing turned into a training arena. Liora drew her katana and summoned Lyra to the dirt courtyard, engaging in heavy, tense sparring, clashing metal without any mercy to test each other's vanguard reflexes. A silent paranoia grew with each strike in Liora's mind due to Hina's fifty-gold-coin note. Away from the dust, Mireya remained seated near a rock organizing her vials.

At the end of the training, Liora sheathed her blade and walked over to the alchemist, sitting exhausted by her side.

"Kuro hides a lot of things from us," Mireya commented, cleaning the reagents and observing the movement in the clearing.

"His mind operates on a logic that I cannot fully decipher."

"I only slept with him for real... in that most intimate sense, in that same cave from the beginning, because there was a feeling," Liora revealed, wiping the sweat from her neck with her arm and looking at the ground.

"But even so... he barely talks about the past. Kuro only mentioned once that he was a tyrant king in a past life, in a place called Valtherion. I didn't quite understand what he meant by that, but the weight he carries makes it seem true." Mireya sighed and organized the wooden bench, deciding to focus on the group's military strengthening. She distributed the tools she had spent the last seven days forging in a surgical manner.

She handed the young Neko a special dagger engraved with containment enchantments and a small staff capable of channeling external mana from the environment to create and mold stones out of nothing. Mireya also displayed a new molecular-alloy dagger she had made for herself and organized potions in her pouch. Selene approached and actively trained Akari in the center of the courtyard, teaching the young Neko to manipulate earth magic so she could activate the compact staff in perfect combat synergy.

While observing the small Neko exert herself, Selene entered an internal psychological crisis. She, who had always fervently adored the Goddess Ariana, was beginning to feel the first tremors in her blind faith upon perceiving the net closing in and the absolute lack of divine answers regarding Kuro's whereabouts. Selene looked at the alchemist, trying to shift the focus from her anguish.

"What about Kuro's weapon, Mireya? The materials we brought and the minerals in stock... can't we craft it all at once?" Mireya pulled out a mechanical design parchment, spreading out the blueprint of a high-pressure compact ancient musket on the stone table.

"The blueprint for this five-shot compact musket requires resources we don't have here, Selene. The body of the structure needs Black Steel to withstand the mana pressure without cracking the barrel. The inner barrel requires Black Mithril to conduct energy precisely. These green and purple lines in the drawing are veins of embedded Liquid Mana Crystal to act as circuits that push mana from the crystal to the projectile.

The stock requires Black Yggdrasil Wood as to not interfere with magical circulation, and the rear requires a Rank A or B Mana Core to feed the system and fire empty runic cartridges with elements like Fire, Ice, or Darkness, eliminating the four-second chanting time." Mireya pointed toward the incomplete stock boxes in the corner of the rock.

"We obtained ten raw iron stones, about three common mana crystals, one Orichalcum, the seven tree trunks, and we have some pieces of Blacksteel stored... but the rest of the rare components and the liquid mana are still missing. The project will have to remain paused on the table until we collect the rest."

The scene cut sharply in the clearing, plunging directly into the dark depths of the subterranean abyss, where Kuro and Reina, maintaining her imposing adult human form with pink hair, forced open the immense, heavy purple door that locked the end of the floor. Upon crossing the entrance, the environment revealed itself to be a monumental Gothic hall.

The floor was made entirely of black and white stone blocks in a perfect chessboard pattern, surrounded by imposing columns that lost themselves in the upper penumbra. At the back of the hall, sitting majestically on a dark throne, the Shadow Queen awaited them. The Boss's appearance was terrifying and contrasting: she possessed long black hair, a face and body of beautiful human features, but her eyes were entirely black and opaque, devoid of luster.

Furthermore, her hands and legs were made purely of shadow, a mist of living darkness that constantly contorted. Kuro flexed his knees and drew his Black Steel sword with a single hand, feeling the shadow mana circulate through his fingers. He kept his tone of voice completely linear and cold due to his face being paralyzed by the sixty percent of lost humanity.

"Reina, you know how to fight, right?" Reina puffed out her chest with absolute self-confidence and a proud dragon expression, staring at the queen on the throne without backing down.

"Well... I've never trained in my life, but I possess raw power. That's what matters in the end, isn't it?" Kuro furrowed his brow, feeling a deep irritation at his partner's amateurism and lack of strategic preparation.

"What the hell were you doing this whole time for 137 years to not know the basics of fighting?"

"Sleeping, eating, and hunting some smaller monsters on the slope!" the dragon-woman grumbled, stomping her foot on the ground in anger at the demand.

"Just that!" Facing the shadowy sovereign who was beginning to rise from her throne while the chessboard floor began to distort their shadows, Kuro tightened his fingers around the hilt of the black blade.

"Do exactly everything I tell you from now on. That woman in front of us... is actually quite beautiful." Reina's face boiled with rage, and she yelled out loud in the middle of the Gothic hall, baring her claws.

"Focus, Kuro!" Kuro took his first tactical step over the chessboard floor, delivering his final punchline as the first copycat shadows gained life.

"Wars cannot always be won through brute force alone, Reina."