Chapter 31 – Familiar Faces

When Mark entered the room, the voices stopped abruptly.

“…”

All heads turned, fixing their attention on him.

If it were his previous life, Mark definitely would have felt a bit intimidated by so much attention, but not today.

He heard the door closing behind him as Mila left. And his eyes began scanning the room.

Isolda was seated at the head of the table, maintaining her usual cold expression as she stared at him.

At the side of the table were a few figures Mark had never seen before.

Sitting to the left was a large man who was also staring at him, frowning. He looked as if he had been carved from stone. His eyes were small and dark, fixed on Mark with a hostility he wasn’t trying to hide.

There was a scar on his neck that climbed up to his jaw, disappearing beneath a thin, poorly kept beard. His shoulders were so broad they nearly took up the space of two seats, making people uncomfortable sitting beside him.

The dark plated armor he wore only added to his imposing presence.

Looking at him felt like staring at a beast that had been shackled, but could tear its chains apart at any moment.

‘?’

Mark’s eyebrows lifted slightly in confusion at the hostility.

He didn’t remember seeing that face before, so he was truly confused by the unprovoked hostility, but he didn’t care.

His gaze continued sweeping across the room.

Sitting next to the first man was a second man with one leg crossed over the other in a relaxed posture. His features were fine and his dark hair was perfectly aligned as he played with the handle of a porcelain teacup.

Wearing a blue silk doublet with silver details, he looked like the typical handsome noble living a carefree life.

A faint smile curved the corner of his lips.

Mark felt his gaze traveling down him from head to toe in a slow, deliberate movement, stopping for a fraction of a second on the cloak before returning to Mark’s eyes.

For some reason, the smile on his face seemed to widen even more.

The man occupied the seat beside the large armored one, leaning back in the chair so that his shoulder almost touched the arm of the dark plated armor, not seeming to care at all about the aura of hostility the man emanated.

Seated to Isolda’s right was still a woman with black hair, like raven feathers, falling in waves over her shoulders.

She was leaning back with one hand supporting her chin while her elbow rested on the table.

The woman wore a fitted leather outfit, reinforced in strategic points, but with a daring neckline that revealed a serpent tattoo climbing along her collarbone.

She looked at Mark and nodded, her red lips forming a smile of recognition.

Mark nodded lightly back, his expression neutral.

These three figures sitting at the same table as Isolda, the vice guild leader, must have been the gold-rank adventurers she had mentioned earlier.

“You finally arrived.”

Isolda finally spoke from her seat, gesturing for Mark to approach when she saw him standing there in silence.

Suddenly—

“You!”

Before Mark could take a step forward, a voice echoed through the room, sounding especially loud now that everyone was silently assessing each other.

This immediately drew everyone’s attention toward the source of the sound, including Mark’s. He turned, discovering there were more people in the room besides Isolda and the other gold-rank adventurers.

Sitting in a more isolated corner, four adventurers looked as if they had been struck by lightning.

The one who had shouted was a girl with red hair.

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She pushed her chair back, the sound of wood scraping the floor echoing aggressively. Her green eyes were wide, jumping between Mark’s face and the seat reserved for the last gold-rank adventurer who had yet to arrive.

“You…” The girl repeated again, her voice dying in her throat as she remembered where she was.

“What’s the problem?” Isolda frowned at the sudden commotion, looking toward the silver-rank adventurer in the corner of the room who had shouted.

Mark was also surprised.

That girl was the same one who had paid his entrance fee at the gate of Luminaris when he had no money of this world to pay the city’s entry tax and his gold had been considered fake by the guard.

‘What a small world…’

They were Kael, Lyra, Garret and Voren — the Silver Wolf group.

While Isolda and the other Gold Rank adventurers occupied the central chairs in a privileged position, the group was in a modest corner of the room, sitting with their backs close to the wall.

Kael had his hand frozen over a map, fingers tightening the paper. Garret, the archer, let out a dry throat sound, while Voren squeezed his birch staff tightly.

The group had also not expected to find Mark there.

Lyra seemed to have forgotten how to breathe for a moment; her green eyes jumped from the seat to Mark’s face, not knowing how to answer Isolda’s question.

“I— I… n-no, I just—” She opened her mouth once, twice, as if the words were stuck in her throat. Struggling to pull herself together while every eye in the room turned toward her.

A blush rose to her cheeks, making the contrast with her red hair even more evident.

“I… just… choked!” Lyra blurted suddenly, raising her hand as if that would make her excuse look more convincing. “On… on my own saliva. Nothing big.”

Kael closed his eyes slowly, as if feeling physical pain.

Garret brought a hand to his face, massaging his temple.

Voren simply looked away, choosing to stare at nothing.

“…Choked?” Isolda repeated slowly, raising an eyebrow.