Nyx stared straight ahead at the obsidian, which flickered with the reflected torchlight. Just as Silarias opened his mouth to break the silence, she placed her finger gently but firmly on the edge of the table. Silarias froze, swallowed his opening words, and took a small step back.
“I am Nyx Mawu, Lisa,” she began, her voice icy calm yet carrying a heavy, regal resonance. “My father is King Solomon. My mother… my mother was betrayed by her own blood. But with a little help, she’s restoring everything in the background. Returning to the old rule. As it should be.”
She fell silent and looked around the circle. The breath caught in everyone’s throats. The suffocating weight of her heritage hung tangibly in the air, but she didn’t allow a single tear to fall.
“Mm… I hope that with this group, we can build something where we don’t just survive, but actually experience life,” she added softly.
A razor, sharp silence descended upon the long black table. Balamore looked back and forth in confusion between Nyx and Izamaro, while Nicola pushed his glasses a little higher up his nose, searching for the deeper layer behind her words. She had revealed everything about who she was, but absolutely nothing concrete about what kind of guild she actually envisioned.
Silarias cleared his throat to shatter the oppressive atmosphere. He spread his hands over the cold stone. “Mmm… where to start. I’m cursed. A curse that feels to me like a blessing.”
Nicola furrowed his brow. Simultaneously with Aurelius, he blurted out: “Sil… wait, what is your curse, actually?”
Silarias stared at them with a completely blank expression. “You guys know that, right? I’ve told you a thousand times already.”
He abruptly went quiet when he saw that literally no one at the table was nodding. Zax and Bonk stared at him with open mouths, and Kaelid leaned forward nervously. Nobody had a clue.
Nyx let out a deep sigh and took the floor with a theatrical, shadowy undertone in her voice. “We met Luci in the past. A very proper, sinister man, but deep down you can tell he carries a good heart somewhere.” She half, closed her eyes and dropped her voice to a ghostly whisper that echoed through the entire hideout. “THE CURSE IS… TO GIVE EVERYONE FREEDOM AND TO SIGNAL WAR TO THE SUPREME AUTHORITY. I read later in the ancient texts that this curse is pinned down per birth. It never changes its objective. Never.”
Silarias stared at her with wide eyes. “Wait… why are you suddenly telling it so dramatically? Why did you do that?”
Nyx dropped her ghostly posture instantly and poked her tongue out for a split second. “Hehe… to find out a bit more about my hydra lion cub.”
Silarias rolled his eyes so dramatically he was almost staring at the ceiling.
Nyx quickly looked at him with big, guilty eyes. “Sorry Sil… was I maybe a bit too fast?”
Silarias relaxed his shoulders and looked at her with a warm, unconditional gaze. “Doesn’t matter. With me, you can always say anything. And be anything.” He turned back to the room and puffed out his chest. “Alright people… I’m a Void Hydra Beast Human. My mother descends from the long, lost nomads of Mu. As far as I know, I’m the very first specimen of my kind. And about my father… I don’t dare say anything, except that I owe my life sacredly to him.”
At the side of the table, Faustus winced. His jaws clamped together so hard that the muscles in his neck strained tight. He fought against the rising tears burning his eyes, clenched his fists under the table, and abruptly turned his head toward the darkness of the corridors to hide his emotions.
Among the rest of the group, an explosion of whispers erupted.
“Pohh…” Aurelius muttered, shaking his head. “I honestly never knew that…”
Nicola stared at his own hands. A Void Hydra Beast Human… A prophet from a lost lineage…
The heavy atmosphere was shattered in a single instant when Vulkan leaped up, roaring!
“HAAAHAHAHA! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT RIGHT AWAY!” Vulkan bellowed, overflowing with adrenaline. Without warning, he grabbed his sister Valeria by her waist, lifted her effortlessly into the air, and started dancing around like a madman! Valeria shrieked in surprise as he set her down, instantly grabbed Miki by her hands, spun the little girl three times through the air, and landed back in his own spot with a massive thud. He whipped around toward Silarias with a wild look. “So! How well did I actually do against a half, god?!”
Silarias burst out laughing so hard he folded double over the obsidian. “Haha! Yeah, yeah, Vulkan! You almost did better! You know… almost! I’m still a half, prophet, my friend!” he added to tease him a bit.
Nicola watched the spectacle from his seat with a deep frown. His analytical brain was working overtime. What is actually happening here? he thought to himself. Everyone just laid out their absolute worst, most dangerous, and deepest secrets on the table. Secrets that could collapse entire kingdoms… and nobody cares in terms of judgment. In fact… they tolerate each other. Despite all the bloodlines, debts, and dark pasts.
He leaned forward toward Apollo. “Apollo… is this what you meant back at the tournament? When you said there were certain things I’d better not say?”
Apollo turned his head calmly toward him. “What do you mean exactly, Nic?”
“Well,” Nicola began, his fingers tapping nervously, “instead of backfiring and making everyone clam up or distrust each other… this goes completely against all my calculations. Everyone sees the flaws and risks, the ‘errors’ in each other’s origins, but they don’t just tolerate it… it actually makes them work together harder! I couldn’t have calculated this by any means.”
Lyn, who stood just behind Nicola, watched his agitated face with a soft smile. Her heart skipped a beat. He really needs to let go… she thought to herself. He’s finally starting to feel what it means to have friends.
Apollo looked Nicola straight in the eyes with a calm that was almost philosophical. “You have to look at it like this, Nic… and I’ll say it in your language. Ninety percent of the things that happen and that you can influence are just variables. You can apply formulas to them, make calculations, and design strategies. But that remaining ten percent… that ten percent we’re experiencing right here? Those are friends. By now, we’re family. With that ten percent, you shouldn’t even want to calculate. That’s a foolish idea. How can life ever surprise you if you try to calculate everything about your friends beforehand?”
Nicola stared at Apollo speechless for a few seconds. Then a broad, genuine smile broke across his face. “Haha… mm… That’s a damn fine saying, Apollo. You keep surprising me.” Nicola relaxed his shoulders, leaned all the way back, and gestured to Lyn. “Come, sit with me for a moment. I really need to catch my breath from all this.”
Lyn closed her eyes for a brief moment and let out a sigh of relief. She was so incredibly happy that Nicola was slowly starting to thaw and dare to show his human side. In that moment, she knew for sure she had made the right choice by coming with him, and she sat down beside him with a warm smile.
Silarias clapped his hands twice hard to draw attention back to the center of the hall.
“Alright! GOATS! Listen up!” he shouted enthusiastically. “Since I’ve now heard what everyone wants, and everyone wants something totally different but somehow also the exact same thing… a decision is going to be made! But remember: it’s completely optional. We’ll reach an outcome together, and I have a plan.”
With a swift motion, he summoned two heavy chests and slammed them down on the obsidian with a hard thud.
“I’ll propose the idea. In the meantime, I’m placing two boxes here: a green wooden box and a red stone box. I’ll give you all a stick in a moment. Let the idea roll around in your head. You throw your stick in the red box if you hate it and don’t want it to happen, or in the green box if you’re going all in for it. Then we count them.”
The entire hall slid in unison to the very edge of their stone chairs. The tension was razor, sharp.
“The idea is…” Silarias paused for maximum effect, “an Adventurers Guild! A club for adventurers! This way we can all get stronger. We get access to tougher missions with ranks from F to S+. All the loot we collect goes into a central chest, and at the end of the week, we split it fairly among everyone who was present and put in work. You do nothing, you get nothing! But think about it: with an Adventurers Guild, we can see other parts of the world, grant everyone the freedom they deserve… We can track down the best doctors and heal the world! We can achieve so much, and the best part is: we become a voice for the people who can’t be heard!”
He beamed with pride, took a deep breath, and quickly added: “As for the location… I haven’t the slightest clue, honestly. I hope we find something. But it has to be a place that chooses us. What that entails, I’ll get back to later.”
While Silarias was still completely lost in his own heroic speech, gesturing wildly with his arms, Miki leaned toward Nyx. “May I?” the little girl whispered.
Nyx looked at her and nodded with a playful glint in her eyes. “Go ahead. I think the signal will be clear enough.”
Miki extended her hand. A fierce, orange flame shot from her fingertips and set the red stone box ablaze on the spot! The stone cracked apart from the heat, turning into a smoking pile of ash within seconds.
Silarias panicked completely. “WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! What if someone wanted to vote against—”
He looked wildly around and saw that literally everyone at the table was staring straight at the green box with a broad grin. Silarias slapped a hand over his face. “Man, man, man… I really need to pay better attention sometimes.”
The hall erupted in thunderous laughter. The ice was permanently broken.
Until suddenly, from far up the spiral staircase, a squeaky, panicky little voice sounded.
“Eh… ehm… GUYS?! It got so quiet down there all of a sudden that I—”
BAM. THUD. CLATTER.
The figure tripped over his own feet, flipped head over heels, and tumbled down the stone spiral staircase like a runaway barrel. With a massive dull thud, he shot out of the stairwell and flew meters through the air, landing flat on his stomach on the hall floor.
“Pfiew… ahh… WOAH!” The figure scrambled up, rubbed his head, and stared with wide eyes at the immense hall. “You guys actually upgraded the hideout?! Who even are you guys?! What happened here?!”
Nicola raised his hands pacifyingly. “Yeah… they tend to have that effect on rooms.” Nicola looked at the figure sitting confused on the stone floor, his eyes narrowing slowly in recognition. A huge smile broke across his face. “MY MANNN!”
Silarias turned around and saw the owl mask lying on the floor. Fukarou was sitting there looking around in bewilderment. A broad, arrogant smirk appeared on Silarias’s face.
“My man… What are you doing here at this beautiful… well, I don’t even know the time of day… time of day?”