Chapter 154

The Adventurers’ Guild contacted me.

It was news that the item I had requested earlier, Wisterium, had arrived.

Wisterium is a mineral found in Ground Zero, and in Candela of Judgment, it’s a material used to craft endgame-level equipment.

It was going to be used to make a birthday present for Josephine, and it seemed to have arrived just in time.

Considering the distance from the Kingdom of Laurencia to Ground Zero, it had been a remarkably swift delivery.

Adventurers, by nature, aren’t like chefs who go out to pick herbs from their backyard when an order comes in.

Once they embark on an expedition with their lives on the line, they tend to stuff anything that catches their eye into their packs.

Then, from what they’ve collected, they stash away anything that looks valuable at their base, and when a chance to sell it arises, they deliver it to various guild branches.

An adventurer like Cats-Eye Lieka, who took on my request and holds an “S-rank” might even have a private storage space allocated by the Adventurers’ Guild.

In any case, I headed to the city branch of the guild to collect the goods.

Even from the entrance, several staff members were lined up and waiting.

It was a commission with a deposit of 2,000 Blanc.

In total value, it was equivalent to the amount embezzled in the recent academy scandal, so it was only natural that I’d be treated like a VIP for this one transaction.

When I reached the reception room, there was a wooden crate, about two meters wide and one meter tall, with hinges.

“Is this the package Lieka sent?”

“Yes. Miss Lieka sent a crate full of what she assumed to be Wisterium. However…”

The staff member trailed off with a troubled look on his face.

“Is there a problem?”

“I’ll explain as I show you the contents.”

The staff member, wearing gloves, opened the crate and then I understood why he had been so uneasy.

“This is disappointing.”

First of all, among the pile of rocks filling the box, not a single one looked like Wisterium.

There wasn’t even a hint of Wisterium’s distinctive light-purple sheen. It was just a heap of irrelevant minerals like magnetite and pyrite.

Each of them might be useful in its own way, but none were what I needed.

“I thought she’d at least send something similar-looking… she just picked up every random rock she could find by the roadside.”

“We apologize. We didn’t expect this from Miss Lieka either. Until now, she’s always completed her assignments excellently…”

To be granted an S-rank as an adventurer, you need more than just exceptional skill. Many other things must be verified as well.

That’s why even the Adventurers’ Guild seemed quite flustered by the outcome of this commission.

“What would you like to do? We can relay another request to Miss Lieka to resume her search, or we could transfer the commission to another adventurer. However, in the latter case, it would be difficult to refund the deposit and intermediary fees you’ve already paid.”

The staff member spoke with an extremely apologetic look on his face.

“I took on this transaction as a light test to gauge the capabilities of the Adventurers’ Guild, but perhaps I expected too much. If things go like this, I can’t trust you with any serious commissions.”

I let my words hang, deliberately hinting that there was more money to be made down the line.

The guy immediately broke into a nervous sweat.

“P-Please wait just a moment! I’ll speak to the branch manager right away!”

He dashed off, supposedly to consult the branch manager but ended up bringing the branch manager straight to me.

“Oh dear, Baron Winslet. We truly are sorry about what happened. As an apology, we’d like to connect you with another high-ranking adventurer. Would that be acceptable? Of course, we won’t charge a single coin in brokerage fees. So please, we ask you to continue doing business with our branch…”

They should’ve done this from the beginning.

I gave them a half-hearted nod and left the Adventurers’ Guild.

Now I had to consider whether to prepare a different birthday gift for Josephine.

In Candela of Judgment, the gifts Josephine liked most were combat-related gear or support tools.

But I wasn’t interested in common items that could be found anywhere in Lambart.

And flowers or chocolates? Far too cliché.

Truthfully, I had taken out some “insurance” in case something like this happened.

After all, when it comes to what women like, who would know better than a woman herself?

So I had quietly asked Rose Bly to pick something she thought would be “the most delightful gift to receive from Winter Winslet”.

Sure, asking your mistress to choose a gift for your fiancée was horrible, no doubt…

But I trusted Rose Bly’s sense that much. That’s why I asked her.

Since I was already out, I debated whether to stop by her newspaper office to pick up the gift.

That’s when I suddenly felt someone’s gaze and turned my head.

Far off in the distance, one person was staring directly at me.

They were wearing a dust-covered cloak and hood, concealing their identity.

I turned my head as if I hadn’t noticed and continued walking.

The person started following me.

A tail?

But if it was a tail, they were being way too obvious. Not just in appearance but in how they followed.

It was like they weren’t even trying to hide their presence.

Well, I’d figure out what this guy was after once I saw his face.

So I ducked into a side alley and waited at the corner for him to catch up.

The cloaked figure, still trailing behind me without an ounce of caution, soon came face to face with me and stopped in his tracks.

Then he let out a snorting laugh.

“What, you knew I was following you? I heard you were some noble living in the capital, so I figured you’d be some hothouse flower. Guess you’ve got good instincts, huh?”

I could tell who it was just from the voice.

I reached out and gently lifted the hood hiding the person’s face.

Tanned, healthy skin and pale yellow eyes resembling cat’s-eye gemstones.

A named NPC from Candela of Judgment revealed her face from the shadows.

“Cats-Eye Lieka.”

“Hahaha, you even know who I am? Now that’s something. I’ve only been to this city a few times….how’d you recognize me? Has my face gotten that famous? Well, that works out. Saves us time. Come with me for a bit.”

“Where exactly are we going?”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

Without warning, Lieka hooked her arm around mine and pulled my hand to her waist.

“Hey, hey, smile. Act like we’re close. Don’t tell me you’ve got a face like that and you’re still a virgin? Is this your first time touching a woman’s waist?”

Spouting that kind of punk-like nonsense, Lieka dragged me to a rundown inn.

She must’ve spoken to the innkeeper in advance, as she led me straight to a room she had rented.

As soon as we stepped inside, Lieka let go of my arm, walked to the window, and drew the curtains.

“Close the door. Lock it too, if you can.”

“Since when do kidnappers ask their targets to lock the door? The world sure has changed.”

“Kidnap? Please…have you ever seen a kidnapper this pretty?”

With that, Lieka flung off her heavy cloak.

What emerged was a woman dressed like she’d skinned a wild beast and worn it whole.

Her boots, trousers, and tight jacket were all made of sturdy leather.

Around her waist was a belt with more than ten metal loops, each holding a different size and type of exploration tool.

Her arms and shoulders looked like they could scale any cliff with ease, and her dark brown hair was braided thickly like a scorpion’s tail, swaying behind her like a pendulum.

She was the very image of a seasoned adventurer.

“And why would I kidnap someone, anyway? Maybe for a griffon chick or a wyvern egg, sure, but not for you.”

“Then what? Dragged me here because you needed someone to warm your bed tonight?”

“Ha! That’s a good joke. Let’s see if you can still talk like that after seeing this.”

With a fierce glare, Lieka pulled a tool from her belt.

It was a sharp dagger, about a foot and a half long that was obviously useful for exploration.

She drove it into the bed with a hard thrust, and with a ripping sound, split the thick quilt clean in half.

From inside, glittering stones of a beautiful hue spilled out.

Lieka scooped up a handful and let them fall with a clatter.

“This stuff…you said you needed it, right?”

A metal with a pale violet sheen.

Wisterium.

“Well. You sure had plenty, and yet you still sent the guild that pile of garbage.”

“Of course I did. I wanted to mess with them. Didn’t you get that?”

“……”

“Ground Zero is basically my backyard. You really think I couldn’t get my hands on something like this?”

It was obvious why Lieka had taken it upon herself to pull this stunt.

“Is this your way of protesting because you didn’t like the price?”

“You should’ve dismissed me within reason. I’ve got this old dwarf friend I met while traveling all across the continent. He knows everything there is to know about what comes out of the ground. According to him, this is a mineral rarer than gold.”

An old dwarf friend?

Is she talking about an actual dwarf?

Her connections are seriously something.

To humans of this era, Wisterium is an unknown mineral.

Even the most experimental-minded mages in Karaf have probably only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding Wisterium.

“So how much do you want?”

“How much are you willing to pay?”

“I’m not planning to offer a single coin more than what I quoted the Adventurers’ Guild.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Lieka tossed her knife in the air and caught it again, like a vendor haggling over fruit at the market. Only far more menacing.

“For something like this? I want gemstones of equivalent volume. And I’m not talking about some trash like amber or opal….only top-grade.”

I frowned.

That was still way below what I had offered the Guild.

“Gemstones worth four times the volume of the Wisterium you brought.”

“What?”

“That’s what I offered the Adventurers’ Guild.”

Lieka’s eyes went wide.

“Seriously? That much?”

“What did the Guild tell you?”

“They said they’d exchange it for the same weight in gold. Those bastards! They were trying to scam me!”

“I already paid over 2,000 Blanc as an advance. Did you at least get that?”

“Never heard of it!”

Figures.

I knew adventurers didn’t have the best reputation, but I didn’t expect even an S-rank elite to get treated like this.

Suddenly, Lieka turned her anger toward me.

“And what were you thinking, trusting a place like the Adventurers’ Guild with that much money? You got that much lying around? Huh?”

I do.

Because I’m Winter Winslet.

Lieka looked me up and down and it seemed like she finally realized that.

“Uh… yeah, you do look rich. Okay, forget what I said about the gemstone trade. Just pay me what you originally offered the Adventurers’ Guild.”

I didn’t mind.

But her attitude was seriously irritating.

Even if I let it slide that she broke faith with the Guild and came to sell the goods directly to me because the Adventurers’ Guild had stabbed her in the back first—

Is this really how you treat your employer?

“This isn’t going to go down easy.”

“You’re the one who ordered this because you needed it. Don’t need it anymore? Then I’ll just take it back.”

“Go ahead.”

“What?”

“If you can.”

The unique property of Wisterium is that it’s lighter than steel, yet harder than steel, and its mass changes when infused with magical energy.

Infuse it with positive mana, it gets heavier.

Infuse it with negative mana, it gets lighter.

The more mana you pour in, the greater the shift in mass.

And who is Winter Winslet?

An S-Rank magic user.

Crack!

The chunks of Wisterium, soaking up my mana like a sponge, crashed through the bed and slammed into the floor of the inn, snapping the frame clean in half.

“Uh……”

Cats-eye Lieka could only let out a blank murmur as she stared at the scene.