The Seeker Of The Flames

A human shape in green cloak entered the guild, moving across the cheerful men and drunk women to reach the attendance table.

The guild's attendants consisted of three beautiful women. The first one had red-colored hairs, in charge of managing the quests. The second one looked blonde, answering the adventurers' questions and problems. And the third one was blue-haired, controlling the joining and quitting requests.

While standing in the queue, some loud, audible voices from the other adventurers in the room could be heard along with the sound of hiccups:

"Have you heard the ru...rumors?"

"Y-you mean those about Oracle? But I thought she's just a legend."

"Well... you see, I heard from somewhere that the Council of Grandwizards is currently in chaos. I mean, if you compare the current state of Seora to the past, that would quite make sense."

"Still it's too much. I'd also heard some rumors about Oracle's whereabouts, if she's actually real that's it. But it's the Grandwizards we're talking about. How can they fail to keep the Oracle?"

"Hold on! Hold on! I've heard another rumor. They say that the East Kingdom has stolen her."

"Stop saying Kingdom! The East King and his subordinates are just some puppets. Those priests are the true owners there. It's more like a Theocracy than a Kingdom. Damn, those bastards!"

"How the hell would it make any difference? Whether a Kingdom or a Theocracy, if we, as the West Kingdom, actually had that legendary Oracle, it'd be really bad to let those Easterns get her from us. We'd really be at a disadvantage."

"Oh my god, can you guys stop talking about politics? Who the hell cares if the Oracle is in the hands of the East Kingdom or here in the West Kingdom. I'd rather drink than talk about stupid shits like that. Let's just do our adventure! F.u.c.k politics!"

"All right, All right! Just chill man!"

As no one stood before the cloaked human shape, it was finally its turn.

"I want to take this quest."

That sound was so soft. One could guess it belonged to a girl. Although her face couldn't be seen clearly because of the green hood, hearing her voice was enough to understand that she's a woman.

She put the quest paper on the table.

"Here!" the red-haired girl stamped the quest paper with the guild's official mark. "Please have a safe trip! Miss Liora!"

She decided to take a rest and get ready for that quest. Although everyone there was drinking beer, Liora decided to order a glass of milk and sit at a table in the corner. She hated crowded places, and right then the guild was so full of adventurers, so she would immediately get out of there after taking a little bit of rest.

Liora began drinking her milk. Meanwhile, a young man with silvery hairs entered the guildhall. He wore a leather set of clothes, more like what typical archers would wear. She didn't see him carrying any bow or quiver or arrows. He only had archers' clothes while carrying no weapons at all.

The man went to speak with the blue-haired attendant. Liora couldn't hear what they were saying over there, but she knew he's a new adventurer since she hadn't seen him around before. After his talk with the attendant finished, he stepped toward Liora's table in the corner, sitting before her.

She could hear the man talking with himself.

"Now I should wait... Damn, it seems I've come in a bad time. What's with all of these guys? It's just too crowdy... Anyways, the only thing that remains is measuring my power with that scale she said. Then I can get out of here."

Liora also had the same feeling. However, she wasn't much of a talkative person, so she preferred to not open up a talk with a stranger.

When she wanted to stand up and leave the guild for the quest, the man started talking:

"Hey! You're also here to join the guild?"

"No." she responded. "I'm already a member."

"Oh, I see... By the way, I'm Arian. Nice to meet you! I'm going to join this guild, so we're gonna have a lot of time to know each other."

"Yeah..."

Liora's attitude looked so cold and serious. Maybe that was why she hadn't come to get any friends. She didn't want to have any howsoever. Her purpose was the only important thing in her mind. Anything else seemed unimportant and trivial to her.

Leaving the table without saying anything to that man, she walked to the entrance to get going for the quest. She didn't want to lose the time, thus moving in fast paces without any hesitation, getting far from the guild's building.

However, a sudden shocking feeling began striking her. Liora could feel an immense amount of magical energy compressing her mind and body. The force of magic put her under a lot of pressure. Liora remembered a similar feeling when fighting magical monsters in the Grandwood forest, but this was just on a whole another level.

Her body couldn't move even the slightest bit. The only chance she had was to stay there and hope that the magical force would just go away. Meantime, Liora saw the people in the street who appeared to not have noticed the force. They were just acting normally as if nothing was happening. Weren't they affected by that pressure?

One minute passed, though it felt like a lot longer. Liora could finally think straight without an overwhelming magical pressure striking her mentally and physically.

"Where did that come from?" she mumbled to herself, sweating in confusion and gasping heavily.

Where could that force come from? And why only she could feel it? Those two questions didn't leave her for even a moment.

Suddenly a hand on her back brought Liora out of imagination. She turned left, looking behind.

"A-are you OK?"

It was the archer from the guild. She didn't expect to see him again in such a short time.

"You... oh, I'm fine. Thanks! Didn't you want to join the guild?"

"Hahaha... well, I've just joined. Now I'm an official member!"

"That's fast! Normally it takes a lot of time to identify your starting rank."

"Hehehe, that didn't take a while for me. The magic scale understood my level immediately."

A sudden thought occurred to Liora. "Can this man be the source of that magical pressure?"

That thought looked ridiculous to her, yet she wanted to test it.

"So," Liora asked, "what's your rank?"

"Hmm, I still don't understand it. I think it's 0G1 or something..."

That was the lowest possible rank in the guild. Liora let out a sigh of relief. "I see..."

Putting down her hood, Liora revealed herself to Arian. She possessed blonde hair, golden and blinding as Sun. Her gorgeous, heavenly face would be mistaken as an angel's divine face. Nobody could believe it belonged to a human.

"I'm Liora! Nice to meet you!" she smiled, shaking hands with Arian. "Well... I've got a quest to do. So see you later!"