I Was a Sword When I Reincarnated (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 3.5

Side Story:

Klimt

There was a knock on my door.

“Yes?”

“You called for me, Uncle?”

“Aah, Furion. Come in, come in.”

My nephew, Furion, had come to my office. It was the first time in a long while that someone had actually bothered to knock on my door. Recently, it felt like everyone had just been barging in, as if forgetting the fact that I happened to be the master of this guild. Compared to those brutes, Furion had perfect etiquette. Some people could learn a thing or two from him.

“Have a seat.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You did well out there. Despite things happening which made it far from a normal supply run…”

“I almost lost my life, sir. Multiple times.”

I had read his report earlier. Trick Spiders multiplying to the point that a Trickster Spider would be spawned from them. The occurrence was cause for worry, but I had a hunch who was behind all this.

“Uncle, those spiders…”

“Yes. A parting gift from one August Allsand, I presume.”

An adventurer who used to be one of Allsand’s lackeys had come clean. They wanted to take control of Alessa’s dungeon from the Guild, so they went and fed the monsters in the dungeon with chemicals loaded with mana to beef them up.

Failing to harvest Magistones from the dungeon, the Knight Brigade would then have a case against the Guild, and could easily take over. Once the Knight Brigade was under Allsand’s control, they could then make bank on the black market.

Still, I couldn’t believe that they were able to convince one of our members to sell us out. We had only allowed a select few adventurers whom we knew were strong and trustworthy enough to enter that dungeon… I would have to review our whitelist.

But even they didn’t expect the appearance of a Trickster Spider. They had prepared for the eventuality of some strong Trick Spiders coming into existence, but the appearance of a Unique was not part of their plan. The Unique must’ve evolved by eating up the Trap Spiders around it. Very unfortunate.

“I can just about see the Kingdom of Raydoss’ fingerprints on this incident.”

“The country to the north.”

The Kingdom of Raydoss was a large military nation to the north of Granzell. Monster-strengthening chemicals were quite rare in themselves; even the higher nobles wouldn’t be able to get their hands on them with mere money and connections. But if they had asked old Raydoss for assistance…

“But Uncle, I just can’t believe that Raydoss would go so far as to make enemies with an adventuring guild.”

“They don’t have adventuring guilds over in Raydoss. I’m sure they detest the very concept of one.”

Although Adventurer Guilds were spread all over the world, they were not bound to any particular government or nation. If Raydoss and Granzell were ever to go to war, the guild was under no obligation to side with either of them. If the government attempted to force adventurers to go to war for them, said adventurers would sooner leave the country they are in; an adventurer’s duty was to protect the people from the ever-looming threat of dungeons and monsters, after all. This was the unspoken agreement between all adventuring guilds and their host nations.

But once upon a time, Raydoss betrayed that contract, and forced its adventurers to go into war against Granzell. All who objected were punished and labeled as traitors. The guilds moved out of Raydoss, then, its members becoming stateless. A little over ten years after the incident, Raydoss became overrun with monsters. Its soldiers and knights were barely enough to contain them and they were no longer able to wage war with their neighboring countries. In the end, they suffered a loss at the hands of Granzell.

“Do they have no need of adventurers? Perhaps they think a guild is far too restricting?”

“Not exactly. They’ve simply gotten used to dealing with everything without adventurers.”

To Raydoss, adventuring guilds simply got in the way of their daily business.

“The possibility of our nobles conspiring with their royals… Troubling.”

I wouldn’t have sent out our weaker members to the dungeon if I had known there was a conspiracy lying in wait. I should compensate them for that.

“You’ll find a bonus waiting for you. For all the close shaves with death you’ve had today.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“All right, let’s hear your report.”

“Yes, sir.”

I had given Furion a special side mission: The observation of D-Rank Adventurer, Fran.

“So what do you think of her?”

Furion was an adventurer and a full-time employee of the Guild. He wasn’t so much a spy as he was a plainclothes observer.

“A moment, sir. Tahlua, come.”

Aah, it’s been a while, Klimt.

“You look brilliant as ever.”

Furion extended his arm and summoned an owl, which perched on it. This was his Guardian Spirit, Tahlua.

We elves were a race beloved by the spirits. There were some among us whom the spirits take an immediate liking to as soon as they left the womb (I believe the statistic was one in every ten).

An elf’s guardian spirit would usually be affiliated with a Wood, Water, or Earth element. Furion’s spirit was special in that regard. Tahlua possessed the Mind Element, a rare affinity even among the spirits. I had formed a contract with a Mind Elemental, myself, but it was nowhere near as strong as Tahlua. I had once told Fran that the spirits could sense the presence of evil in a man. That was only half true. The ability was limited only to Mind Elementals.

Tahlua was far more powerful in that capacity compared to the elementals I had under my aid. It was able to detect a man’s motives, see the true meaning behind his words, and so on. That was why I gave him this special assignment.

I couldn’t feel the heart of evil in the girl called Fran. In fact, I had never seen less malice towards others as in her.

“How does she feel about the adventurer who went with her, this Krad?”

Mild curiosity, at best.

“Curiosity?”

The creature called Krad would rouse anger and frustration from those around him every time he spoke. But it wasn’t so for that girl. She looked upon his tantrums with deepening interest.

We had high hopes for Krad and his party, Dragon Roar. They were already scratching at D-Rank at such a young age. They were far and away the fastest growing party we had at the guild.

Well, aside from Fran, that is.

Their personalities were a problem, however. They caused trouble not only with fellow adventurers, but with clients as well. If not for this fault, I would’ve been happy to promote them to D-Rank.

Dragon’s Roar must’ve seen Fran’s capabilities firsthand on this mission. I had hoped that going on a raid with people who were clearly were their superiors would make them realize their conceit, but my plan might have worked better than I’d hoped… 

Realizing their lack of strength, they had refused their promotion before they could be told they had failed; afterwards, they had looked down, then nodded solemnly. On the road back to Alessa, Furion asked them if they agreed with the result; they did.

Their inflated egos had completely burst into pieces over the course of a single day.

“Thank you, Tahlua.”

Indeed.

“Unsummon.”

“So, what did you think of Fran, Furion?”

“She’s… an amazing girl.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Yes. But it’s not just her physical strength. How can I say this… She always seems to consider every move she makes before she makes them. It’s almost as if she was having a discussion with herself. Not to say she’s the conspiratorial type, but she does take her actions into consideration. So analytical at such a young age. I can learn a thing or two from her.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’re very welcome, sir. If you don’t mind me asking, why do you take such a great interest in that girl?”

“Does it seem that way to you?”

“Yes. There have been rumors going on about how you prefer them on the younger of the age spectrum.”

“Quiet, you.”

And here I thought you were the picture of politeness, Furion. How you’ve disappointed me. To make it clear, I was not a lolicon.

The reason why I took such great interest in Fran was because there wasn’t much information regarding her to begin with. As a Guildmaster, I had to keep my eyes on this girl whom constant trouble seemed to follow. Yet there was surprisingly little talk circulating about her beyond the recent praise. As the head of the guild she registered to, this was part of my responsibilities.

“All I know about her is that she has a magic sword and Identify.”

“The magic sword was obvious enough, but Identify?”

“Yes. I’m quite certain of this.”

I had deduced it when I was giving her down payment in crystals. Out of twenty, she had managed to select the only two C-Rank crystals mixed in on the table. The rest were rare sea-dwelling monsters. It was far too convenient to be considered coincidence.

Having Identify would allow her to have Identify Protection, as well. This skill was surprisingly useful in combat. Having it was enough to raise a red flag, but on a warrior of her strength, her opponent might as well give up the fight while he still had the chance.

“By the looks of it, she also has the Advanced Weapon Skills. Blade Mastery, judging by the looks of her fighting style. She also has Fire and Flame Magic, Wind, Shadow, Thunder, and Healing Magic. Her Magic stat was also above 100 for sure.”

Before heading home, Fran had changed her class to the advanced form of the Spellsword: Blademage. It had better stat growth compared to Spellsword, and it also came with the Class Skill, Focus Mana. To be a Blademage, one needed to have the advanced skill of Sword, Axe, or Spear Mastery. Moreover, they needed to be able to use more than two advanced elements, and have over 100 Magic.

Alternatively, she could have chosen to be a Shadow Mage, Storm Mage, Thunder Mage, or Healing Mage. All classes you couldn’t pick unless you had advanced magic skills. 

She couldn’t choose them when she first came to the guild. She had grown so much in such a short period of time. Such strength and she was barely in her teens. “Prodigy” would be an understatement. “Divine providence” would be more like it. Honestly, she scared me a bit.

There were two more reasons why I took such an interest in her.

She was a nobody who came out of nowhere who was growing at an impossibly fast rate. Of course I needed to monitor her.

“I expected her shrewdness from the way she picked her crystals, but for her to let her guard down…”

I didn’t think she would take up my offer to change classes at the guild. She could easily have gone to the local temple, where no one would be able to look at her personal information. Was she all right with us knowing her stats and skills, or did she simply not know the mechanics of changing her Class? My guess was the latter.

“Amanda seemed to like her a lot, as well.”

I hadn’t expected Amanda to go along on the mission, to be honest. She probably only did it because Fran was there, but I didn’t expect her to be so taken with the girl… Although there was the possibility that Amanda had caught on to my plans.

“Is Amanda a good judge of character?”

“When it comes to children, yes. If she were faced with a long-lived race who looked like a child, then she would talk to them as an adult. I suppose it’s one of the functions of her title.”

Which meant that Fran was really a twelve-year-old. I had suspected her claim to be a Beastman and thought of her as one of the long-lived races.

“Uncle, I don’t understand. What is she exactly?”

“I don’t know, either. Perhaps she is nothing at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have been suspecting her of hiding something. But what if she isn’t hiding anything at all?”

She must have her reasons for being an adventurer at such a young age, just like everyone else. But it didn’t seem like she was part of any conspiracy that we needed to be wary of. That was my conclusion.

She was a little twelve-year-old girl who liked to fight and get in trouble, who owned a Unique Darkness Wolf, who was probably brought up in an exceptional way, who belonged to the least of the Beastmen tribes.

Nothing more, nothing less. Her looks were all we had to go by, but did it tell her whole story? No, stop that. I’d only become more suspicious of her.

“I’ve relied on Identify and the spirits for so long that I’ve lost my eye for judging people.”

Nell, who befriended her on the day she came to us, knew more about her than I did.