SIDE:
The Guild Master’s Memories
GUILD MASTER ULIGA’S PERSPECTIVE
FOR SOME REASON, I was worried for everyone who was standing outside the summoning circle. Why was that? The image of a woman keeling over flashed into my mind. What’s that? Who was that? There’s a blue line of light between my eyes…
“Augh! Run! If you touch that, you’ll die!”
That’s right… The blue line affects everyone outside the summoning circle. The day I chased after Vice-Captain Twill, I lost sight of her. Yes, and I found the summoning circle while I was looking for her. Then I got pushed inside of it. She reached out to save me, but then…before her hand could reach me, the blue line of light attacked her. And she died. I can’t remember how she ended up being declared missing several months later, but she died then and there. How could I have possibly forgotten?! Why wasn’t I more careful? History is repeating itself!
“Get away! Now! Run for your lives!”
Nalgath and his men tried to turn back, but it was too late. The rope of blue light picked up its momentum and began to penetrate my body—and I could see it shooting toward Nalgath’s party at the same time.
“Please, stop!”
I tasted bile, remembering the revolting feeling of the foreign body trying to enter my flesh. But…time ticked on, and that disgusting feeling never came. Why?
“What’s this? What’s going on?!” the white-haired clergyman protested frantically.
I looked over to see him staring at my legs in shock. I followed his gaze to see that the blue beam of light was being swallowed by my trouser pocket. What was happening?
“Ouch—it’s hot!”
As I stared, captivated by the scene, the blue beam made my right trouser pocket burn. I plunged my hand into my pocket and felt something hard, but it wasn’t hot like before. I quizzically removed the hard item from my pocket.
“Wait a minute…”
The blue beam of light had been rising from the summoning circle all the while. But that hard item in my hand—the black magic stone—was swallowing the light just as fast as it rose.
“Guild Master? Is that…?”
From the way Nalgath and his men were staring in shock, they clearly knew about the black magic stones. The blue beam of light gradually waned and the glow of the summoning circle faded with each passing second.
I heard a thud. Looking toward it, I saw the blue-haired clergyman, his face drained of color and his lungs violently gasping for air. The white-haired one pointed soberly at the magic stone.
“How? How did you… Why did the summoning circle… Why…?” He was clearly distraught and not making any sense.
“Guild Master—are you all right?” Arly asked worriedly.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered with a smile, casting my gaze down to the jet-black magic stone in my hand. I’d heard that Sol had made it. Ivy had given it to Appas, then Appas gave it to me. Sol’s magic stone. Ivy had given it away without much of an explanation. I didn’t understand what it was for, but I’d put it in my pocket because I sensed something special about it. But until that very moment, I had forgotten I was carrying it.
“Wow… So that’s what it can do.” The party of four nodded solemnly. “They saved our lives yet again.”
That tamer and her monsters really had saved our lives too many times to count. I could never repay them as long as I lived.
The light disappeared completely from the summoning circle. I looked the circle over again before cautiously stepping outside of it. The white-haired clergyman was shaking, his face drained of color.
“Tough break, Bishop Gupinus.”
Now I remembered. The white-haired clergyman was Gupinus, a bishop of this church, and the blue-haired man was Father Salify. The deceased man was another priest—I seemed to recall that his name was Miche.
“You’re finished, Gupinus.”
Bishop Gupinus fell to his knees on the floor, mumbling under his breath. I strained my ears to hear what he was saying.
“Why… Why did I fail? This summoning circle was perfect… The experiment was…”
Experiment? What experiment?
“It couldn’t have failed… Th-that magic stone… That’s it! The stone!” Bishop Gupinus looked up with a start. His eyes met mine, then darted down to my hand. The next thing I knew, his hand was flying toward the magic stone. I jumped back a step and clutched it in both of my hands. I would never let him have it.
“Haaand iiiit oveeeer!” Bishop Gupinus howled maniacally as he charged forward.
Nalgath wrapped his arms around the bishop’s neck and knocked him unconscious.
“Phew… That’s the last feral bishop I ever wanna see!”
“Agreed.”
Piarre and Juggy sighed heavily in a release of adrenaline.
“Don’t relax yet—they might have buddies lurking nearby.” I stepped out of the confessionary and looked around the church. The multicolored light shining through the stained-glass windows was a beautiful sight.
“You mean there’s more sick clergymen like them?” Juggy asked.
I frowned. One of the faces in my memory was familiar, but I wasn’t sure if he was our enemy. After all, he was the one who pushed me inside the summoning circle.
“Chemanta—the former guild master.”
Nalgath and his party froze when they heard the name. Chemanta was a world-famous adventurer. He was never formally decorated, but many adventurers—myself included—worshipped him. I was deeply honored to take on his mantle. At least I used to be…
With a tired sigh, I said, “Juggy, sketch a copy of that summoning circle.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nalgath, Arly, come with me. We’re searching the church.” The two nodded. I ordered Piarre to guard the two clergymen we’d caught. “This church has three floors, right?”
“I think so, sir. Do you want to search from the top down?”
“Guess so.”
We climbed up to the third floor and looked around the rooms up there. That floor probably wasn’t in use—all its rooms were empty. We climbed down to the second floor and found signs that two of the rooms were lived in. These were probably Bishop Gupinus and Father Salify’s quarters. Once we made sure nobody was hiding in them, we searched their contents. We found many letters and pieces of paper containing sketches of summoning circles.
“What have we here…?” Nalgath picked up a piece of paper and squinted harshly at it.
“What’s that?” I took the paper from Nalgath and looked it over. It outlined the types of the summoning circles they used, as well as their effects.
“It looks like they were running experiments, sir.”
“I think somebody was giving them orders,” Arly added, handing me some letters. Sure enough, they contained orders to Bishop Gupinus about which summoning circles to use. The letters were unsigned, so we had no idea who had sent them.
“Any leads on who sent these letters?” I asked. I looked over the letters and papers with Gupinus and Salify’s handwriting while Nalgath and Arly searched beside me. They were instructions for the same types of summoning circle experiments that had been performed here. I looked at the results column and found that many subjects had died.
“Um, sir…” Arly held up a piece of paper. When I saw it, I stopped breathing. It was about me: How to brainwash me with a summoning circle, just how much I could be controlled—everything was written up in detail.
“It looks like we were all lab rats, sir,” Nalgath said. The weight of his words hung in the air.
“We sure were. We’re taking all this evidence back to Appas.”
“Yes, sir.”
I somehow managed to swallow my feelings and get busy stuffing the letters and papers into a nearby wooden box. Once everything was packed up, we looked around the room again.
“They might still be hiding something with magic items… What should we do, sir?”
Nalgath’s question reminded me with a jolt that it was indeed possible. And magic items could sometimes only be deactivated by their owners. I thought of the priest and bishop for a moment, but I knew they couldn’t be convinced to cooperate.
“We have a magic item that helps us find magic items, right?” I asked.
Arly nodded. “That can help us find any magic items that might be here…but we still wouldn’t be able to open them, sir.”
Damn…I guess I’ll have to convince the bishop and priest to help after all. Argh… Here goes nothing.
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