Chapter 4.5: Wing Break⑤
Just as we stepped off the teleportation circle and returned to the ground.
It was a blissful sight.
The sudden quietness, contrasting with the earlier commotion, was comforting. The adventurers silently watched us. Some looked at us with disdain, while others with envy.
Serves them right, I thought.
They had praised him, insulted us, and thrown stones. Yet, they themselves had no power and took no action, only to criticize those who did.
There was a crackling sound near my ear.
It seemed a communication spell had been activated.
“How do you find the view? I hope it meets your expectations…”
“Yes, I’m satisfied. For now.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“But don’t talk to me on the surface. It’s unsettling.”
I cut off the communication.
Honestly, you never know when he’ll contact you. He’s useful, so I can’t complain too much.
That man, Geleon, was quite resourceful. His methods fit perfectly with our style.
What the Dragon’s Wing lacked was the know-how to manage a large group. With that, everything fell into place.
As a result, we continued to achieve as we had before. We just hadn’t known how to harness our abilities.
So, his contribution was minimal. We were merely borrowing success in advance.
“Chronos!”
“…We did it!”
Nikura and Meris, who had returned late from the teleportation circle, ran towards us. The new members followed suit.
Our party still had room to grow. We’d keep expanding. Someday, we’d be renowned as the executives of a grand party in Villeborn.
Everyone was smiling like they used to. It made me happy too.
“…Where’s Sophia?”
“Oh, um, she said she was going to the guild to submit a report.”
Meris answered.
“I see.”
Sophia was really reliable, but she still worried too much.
Thanks to Geleon’s communication spells and strategies, Sophia’s burden should have lessened… I wondered if she was getting any rest.
Still, I appreciated her taking care of the detailed procedures.
I didn’t understand such difficult matters, so I was probably being helped without even realizing it. Her importance to the Dragon’s Wing remained unchanged.
She had joined us at just the right time.
I stepped outside the guild.
The gazes from the residents of Villeborn felt nice.
The faces of those who complained bitterly were amusing. Those who flipped sides were equally entertaining. Recently, there were more people genuinely supporting us.
We had revived here.
The frontline A-rank party, the Dragon’s Wing.
And I was its leader.
We had proven ourselves with results. No one could complain.
The Conquest Festival was approaching. There, we would receive the highest honor an adventurer could achieve. Once that happened, no one would have any complaints.
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On my way back from the guild, I took a different route from Chronos and the others, heading to a certain place.
I walked from the central square to the west—opposite direction of the Dragon’s Wing party house—down a few streets, descended a five-step staircase, and entered an alley.
It was a dim alley. The buildings on both sides were patched together and stacked high, poorly maintained. Half of the yellowed plaster on the walls was peeling off. The cobblestones below were crumbling in places, collecting water, making it easy to trip if you walked like on the main street.
The blue sky above was narrow and distant.
Along the way, I saw children sitting on tattered cloths. They were probably waiting for their parents to finish work.
This was a district where the poor residents of Villeborn gathered. Like many cities, this labyrinth city also had places that bore the disparity between rich and poor.
I reached my destination, a general store.
I slipped through the tilted door and glanced at the storekeeper sitting at the back. After nodding to him, I took a section of the daily report stacked on a shelf behind the entrance and sat on a nearby round stool.
I spread out the daily report and read it. Though I didn’t need to read it, it was better to actually do so for the sake of appearances.
As expected, the report prominently featured the achievements of adventurers.
Recently, there were only two parties attracting attention. First, the ever-righteous Night dragonfiles, and the Dragon’s Wing, which I currently belonged to.
The Dragon’s Wing was said to have successfully reformed and regained its former glory.
Chronos, Nikura, and Meris had high potential to begin with. If they managed it well and increased their numbers, achieving some success at the front line wasn’t impossible.
But this felt too perfect.
There were too many unnatural points.
The day Chronos embarked on reforming the party, I was abruptly removed from strategy planning and map creation. Chronos declared he would handle it all alone.
I apologize if this sounds rude, but I can’t believe he can do that without any study or training.
There must have been someone pulling the strings behind the scenes. Chronos was always communicating with someone else using a different kind of transmission magic, even though he tried to hide it.
Nikura and Meris also noticed something was off, but everyone trusted Chronos. They blindly believed his words that everything would work out if they left it to him.
And when the results actually improved, any doubts or suspicions they had were blown away.
Chronos led everyone with his usual forcefulness and an overwhelming sense that even the goddess of the labyrinth was following him. His figure was enough to captivate any adventurous boy or dreamy girl at a glance, and in fact, all the new girls who joined the “Dragon’s Wings” were captivated by him.
My suspicions turned into certainty when I noticed that an unnatural amount of money had disappeared from the party’s account.
It was an enormous sum. Such a large amount of money couldn’t be withdrawn without the leader’s blood seal.
Of course, I confronted Chronos about it.
But all he said was, “Sophia, don’t worry about it, leave everything to me,” and I couldn’t get any information out of him.
The shopkeeper approached me, holding a bundle of papers.
“Here’s your order,” he said.
“…What are the results?” .
“Why don’t you read it and see?”
the shopkeeper said, handing me the bundle of papers and returning to his original seat.
I quickly opened the cover of the white paper and began checking the contents.
This was a report on the investigation I had done on my own
to track the flow of the missing money, just in case. I hoped I was wrong.
But what was written there matched exactly what I had imagined.
I was stunned. My worst fears had been confirmed.
I had made up my mind. But this was different. I didn’t join the “Dragon’s Wings” to get involved in something like this.
“…He swindled you,”
a low, sympathetic voice reached me from the back of the shop.
“Yeah, he really did,”
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose and looking down.
“What are you going to do? They’re telling you to hurry up,”
“…The decision itself can be made at any time,”
There was plenty of time. And with this report, my preparations were complete.
This was the original plan. It wasn’t comfortable, but…
Chronos and the others, they weren’t bad people. I was able to talk to them to some extent, and they taught me various things, sometimes by force, for the sake of the goal.
I even felt a little attachment to them.
…No, this won’t do. This is exactly why they say you’re not cut out for this.
It’s about time.
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Geleon, Twilight Owls black maps and Sophia originally joining Dragon’s Wing as infiltrator… Chronos is a horrible leader and his inferiority complex doesn’t help.