B2 Chapter 188: Looking Forward

Kaius sat around a table laden with the most delicious food he had tasted in his life. His armour was damp, soaking the cotton and leathers of his traveling clothes beneath. Thankfully, it was also blessedly clean.

Picking up the dainty silver fork in front of him, Kaius cut through the hunk of roast duck in front of him. It was…divine. He had no other words for it—perfectly cooked and spiced, juicy, with crispy skin.

It was far and away the most refined meal he had ever had—the poultry being paired with delicately charred vegetables and a sweet citrusy sauce.

Taking another bite, he felt the meat all but dissolve in his mouth and struggled to bite back a moan. It wasn’t enough to stop Rieker from meeting his eyes and giving him an easy grin.

Kaius smiled back, but didn’t stand on propriety as he shoveled another mouthful in.

The meal had been a long affair, starting with breads and jams, then some sort of spiced scorched beef skewers, and now the duck. Whenever he thought it was about to be over, Rieker just pulled more unimaginable acts of gastronomy out of his storage artifact.

The guild master had been plain in his intentions. He wanted them fresh—which meant time to rest, ready themselves, and top off their resources.

Rieker had even gone so far as to supply buckets of water, clothes, and soap—giving him and Porkchop the chance to properly clean themselves of the filthy remnants of their battle with the infernus hound. Thankfully, it seemed the guild master was in no great rush. When Kaius had informed him that he would need extra time once his mana had fully regenerated to prepare his spells, Rieker had only waved him off. Though, there had been a shine of curiosity in the man’s eyes.

Evidently not enough to press him on the specifics—but Kaius got the sense that was mostly because he wanted them to have an edge in their upcoming confrontation, and the guildmaster seemed to have a propensity for trying to figure things out for himself.

No doubt the man had some sort of mana sight—most people got it at some point from their general skills, at least if they had some sort of sensory one, which was almost all delvers. With that he’d be able to see much of the process anyway.

The conversation so far had been rather casual, discussions of their fight with the spider and the hound, what they thought they did well and similar. Kaius didn’t expect that to last too much longer.

Afterall, even if Rieker did want to save some suspense for their massively unequal spar there were far too many things of import to discuss as it regarded their plans for the coming months.

“So.” Rieker said, looking between him and Porkchop as he broke the silence. As he spoke the guildmaster placed his cutlery back down on the table with immaculate and refined precision. “I know that Ro already sourced a couple of Masking artefacts for the two of you, but they are not going to cut it, and Ianmus needs one as well.”

“Sounds expensive.” Porkchop cut straight to the point, leaning on the advantage of his mental speech to continue to chew through some duck.

A booming laugh filled the hall as Rieker leaned back in his chair. “Normally, it would be. Luckily for all of you, as members of a special guild initiative—which this whole Aspect thing firmly counts as—you get plenty of advantages that others do not.”

“So we all get them for free?” Ianmus asked hopefully.

“Yep.” Rieker said simply. “It’s necessary. If we’re going to be getting you to do appropriate levelled missions in an effort to level you as quickly as possible, we’re going to need to hide some of the changes in your status. It’ll be too obvious something’s up if you’re shooting up in level every time you leave on what should be a routine hunting mission.”

“Now, we’ll call the debt on the old artefacts even, but these new ones will remain property of the guild. They’re going to be too valuable to just straight up give them to you. Once you’re strong enough that hiding your strength is pointless, you’ll need to give them back.” the guildmaster continued.

Kaius nodded at the man’s words. He could accept that—after all, they were getting them for free, and it sounded like they would have free and exclusive use of them until they were no longer needed. He just hoped it wouldn’t take long. Artefacts of the kind of calibre that had those sorts of stipulations were expensive, hard to make, and lengthy to procure.

Guts twisting at the thought of having to wait weeks to get back in the field, Kaius couldn’t help but frown.

“Don’t worry,” Rieker said, grinning at his expression. “Ro’s working on my orders; she’s using the guildhall’s link network with head office to requisition some—they should be here in a couple of days at worst.”

To his right, Kaius saw Ianmus’s eyes widen in surprise. “That quick?”

“What? You think you guys are the first we’ve needed to nurture in secrecy?” Rieker responded with a shrug. “You might be the most ridiculous, but the guild has a stock of potent masking artefacts on hand for all sorts of uses.”

That was…suspicious. Kaius doubted that their use case would be the primary thing they were given out for. It seemed even the honourable Delver’s Guild had some level of cloak and dagger to it—though he shouldn’t be totally surprised given the warning he had received on his first step through the threshold.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Still, they were benefiting, and he wasn’t one to bite the hand that was feeding him. It was mostly the missions he was curious about. While there were plenty of beast hunts available at the moment, before the shift they were by far the minority of tasks that delvers took.

Most were sanctioned delves looking for specific monster parts, reagents, and more from within the depths. Hells, even just delving without a specific job was common—and encouraged by the guild. Thanks to the accords, the guild managed all delves within a city’s domain of control, and oversaw taxing the income drawn from it—to be split between them and the local powers.

“Why not delves? It’s easily the most expedient way to get us up in level if you can get us into a delve over the tenth layer.” he asked, the question itching at him too much to keep to himself.