Chapter 586: Wind of the Hunting Shadow

One night earlier.

Gale City.

The streets were empty, the night wind bleak, and every so often the metallic scraping of soldiers in armor drifted over.

Long-neglected flagstones, their cracks filled with rainwater from the damp weather, were crushed beneath heavy footsteps.

Water splashed up.

It just so happened to clear the stone skylight and splash into a certain half-basement.

In the basement, odds and ends were neatly stacked in the corners, leaving a battered long table in the middle.

The candlelight inside the basement was dim and yellow.

Some ten people sat or leaned against the walls.

Warriors in armor, mages in exquisite silver-threaded robes, and lightly-equipped ranger scouts.

One glance was enough to tell it was a fully functional team with a rich variety of skills.

"Filthy as hell, damn it!"

A swarthy dwarf with thick body hair slammed his fist on the long table, his face full of displeasure.

"Keep it down — you think it was easy for Rosalia to find us a place where we could talk?"

A human woman leaning against the wall, toying with a small knife, said without looking up.

Having spoken, she glanced toward the lady sitting quietly at one end of the long table.

A pair of long ears — shaped like an elf's but actually thin insectoid wings — drew conspicuous attention.

Her back was straight, her bearing elegant, her features lovely, her figure graceful.

It was none other than the tooth-fairy Rosalia.

Rosalia drifted for a moment, then said with a smile: "Before I joined 'Wind of the Hunting Shadow,' I was already working in Gale City. I'm fairly familiar with the place, so it wasn't much trouble."

"You hear that! Rosalia says it wasn't any trouble!" the fierce dwarf warrior added.

"Rosalia's being polite — you behave yourself! If those Yige Sect bastards get a hold on us again, don't expect to walk away as easily as last time!"

A human mage beside them, having finished casting a sound-dampening spell, let out a breath and promptly started cursing at the dwarf.

"*/*//* (dwarven profanity)."

"You dare say that again?!"

"I-I didn't say anything."

Faced with the dwarf's immediate backpedaling, Mr. Mage snorted and let it go.

"Enough."

A black-haired woman seated at the very back end of the long table spoke.

Her voice was stern, serious, and flat.

One could tell at once she was calm and unflappable by nature.

At the captain of Wind of the Hunting Shadow's words, the scattered murmuring immediately fell silent across the board.

The captain first looked at Rosalia: "Sorry, Rosalia. You had only just joined the team when this happened. I never expected the kingdom would temporarily fold Wind of the Hunting Shadow into the Yige Sect's conscription corps."

"I understand, Captain."

On the surface, Rosalia remained composed and graceful.

She had joined Wind of the Hunting Shadow to pursue the case of the pixie massacre from years ago.

But that had been fifty years ago.

After the exoneration and the assigning of blame, Wind of the Hunting Shadow had been restructured, and even the records of its former core members had been sealed away.

She had already been fretting over where to begin her investigation.

Unexpectedly, an order came down from above, and suddenly they were required to merge into the passing Yige Sect conscription corps.

So much so that she was revisiting old haunts, and even heading toward Shi Ying Town.

"Mm."

The captain looked at the people in the basement.

"Everyone, I trust you all know exactly what the Yige Sect is, and I know you find working alongside them thoroughly distasteful. But, no matter what the Yige Sect may be, Lord Marco has another task for us."

As she spoke,

she deliberately put extra weight on the address "Lord Marco."

"A task from Lord Marco?"

"If it is an order from His Honor the Grand Judge, we may as well hear it out."

This Grand Judge Marco clearly held very high prestige in the eyes of Wind of the Hunting Shadow's members.

The mere mention of his name was enough to lift their spirits at once.

But some also voiced concern:

"The King and the Council deeply distrust His Honor the Grand Judge. His authority has been dispersed between the Royal Secretariat and the Church, and Lord Marco's current position is not a good one."

The captain of Wind of the Hunting Shadow nodded.

"Precisely because of that, we must carry out this mission flawlessly.

As for this mission: His Honor the Grand Judge has learned that the Yige Sect, upon coming to the Twilight Hills, will be making a handover with a certain unknown faction. This appears to involve a Yige Sect plot — find this faction and secretly smash it."

"Understood!!" x13

The moment she finished,

that human mage fellow immediately waved his hands in a panic: "Keep your voices down, keep your voices down!"

Everyone shifted in mild embarrassment.

A brief silence fell.

"Speaking of the powers in the Twilight Hills—"

The swarthy dwarf warrior stroked his beard, thinking. "Could it be that Forester Warden Rod from the Windwall Forest? He's the one the newspapers have been talking about most lately."

"Doesn't seem like him. He drove back an Archduke of the Inferno with the power of a Seventh-Tier, and killed two dragons. Huh, isn't that record a bit fake?"

"I've seen it too. The paper says he colluded with Asmodeus, and the people who died in Coral Bay were actually sacrifices he offered to the Archduke of the Inferno."

"Bard newspapers, you know how it is — exaggeration is the norm."

"Exactly. Public opinion isn't about whether it's true or not, it's about whether the masses love to read it. A conspiracy where a Seventh-Tier warrior turns the tables on a demon archduke — just tell me if that's satisfying or not."

"Whether it's satisfying or not, I don't know. I just know that paper is full of fake news. The other day I saw that Layla Starling's continent-spanning concert tour was coming to the Twilight Hills — and then what? Nothing at all."

"Who's Layla Starling?"

"You don't even know her? She's a huge star! A cloud elf, and her singing is gorgeous!"

"I've got a recording crystal of Layla Starling's Deepwater City concert. Five Jin Along to rent for a day — anyone interested?"

"Five?! Why don't you just go rob someone! A stinky singer worth that much money?!"

"What's that about a stinky singer? Our Layla is a bard who sings of love and peace! Her concerts are all about calling for an end to war!"

"Keep your voices down! You lot!"

Watching the topic drift further and further off course—

The black-haired woman leading the group, long used to her members' bickering, couldn't help but pinch the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

She looked once more at the newly joined tooth-fairy.

"Rosalia, you spent some time in Shi Ying Town. What kind of person is this Rod?"

Rosalia considered for a moment.

She tucked her hair behind her ear with her index and middle fingers, wrapped in insectoid chitin.

"Lecherous, extremely lecherous, very face-conscious, unorthodox in his methods, and utterly lecherous."

Silence fell over the group.

The dwarf warrior picked at his ear, then caught on: "She seems to have said 'lecherous' three times."

The lady leaning against the wall, idly tossing a throwing knife, glanced at Rosalia's curvy, fiery figure.

She sighed — it wasn't hard to imagine that Rod had gotten his hands on her.

"Little Rosa, don't worry. Once we get to Shi Ying Town, I'll definitely beat that Rod up for you."

Another chimed in:

"Since this fellow's character is so 'distinctive,' the chance of him being successfully seduced is probably pretty high too."

Rosalia first smiled at her throwing-knife companion.

Then she said, cutting clean and decisive:

"Rod is lecherous, true enough, but he would absolutely never collude with an Archduke of the Inferno, and he would absolutely never throw in with the Yige Sect. This man's willpower and strength are beyond anything seen before — far beyond anyone's imagination. If we're talking about choosing someone in the Twilight Hills we can rely on or trust, there's no one but him."

(End of Chapter)