Chapter R6: Kruu Leaves

(Ride's POV)

 

The door to the Adventurer's Guild opened with a slight creak. The laughter and noisy crowd within the guild house slowly came to a halt as we walked inside the building, the eyes of adventurers in the guild house analysing our party 'Providence'. A few odd seconds later, the guild house went back to its usual laughter and noisy crowd.

 Looks like there's no trouble this time.

"Haaa..." Tyle let out an annoyed sigh.

It never changes, does it? Enter a completely new guild house and this is always what happens. I’m just glad there weren't any bad people trying to pick a fight with us.

"Welcome to the Cezza’s Adventurer's Guild branch. How may I help you today?" A very polite and handsome young man wearing a receptionist outfit greeted us.

Another guy greets me huh? Whatever. I proceeded to hand the receptionist my adventurer's card, the silver glint of the letter B on the card shined through. Following me, the other party members handed over their cards to the receptionist as well. I pretended not to see the drawing of a cute bunny on Lanarya's card. A wry smile on my face.

The handsome receptionist took the cards from us before inserting it into a tool of sorts, a box with several slits on it and a blue energy crystal on top it. A few moments later, the tool started to shine and a piece of paper filled with information came out from it. The receptionist took a minute or two to read the information written on it before putting it down.

"I have successfully received and updated your credentials, is there anything else I can do for you?" The handsome receptionist gave us a slight bow before returning our cards. The card, still hot from having used the magic tool warmed my hands.

It's common courtesy for adventurers to give their credentials at any guild house during travels so the guild may track down which adventurers are where and so that the Adventurer's Guild could give certain requests to certain high ranking adventurers if they were to travel to secluded places. 

I'm not sure how it works, but our adventurer's card works as some sort of information holder and the magic tool can extract or update the information in our cards somewhat. Then at certain times of the year, the guild houses will sync up with each other so the information they have wouldn't go out of date. During emergencies, all guild houses have a communication tool that they can use to contact the headquarters or other head branches. It’s not instant however, it's just faster than sending a letter and not to mention it takes a lot of magic power to operate.

"We would also like to submit proof of subjugation and the location of a B rank monster's body for pickup," Kranis our party leader pointed out to the receptionist the location of the boar we killed yesterday on a piece of a map. A bag was placed next to the map, inside it presumably the Armoured Boar's scale.

"What?!" The receptionist was speechless for a while before regaining his composure. "How could there be a B rank monster so close to the town..." He then took notes of the boar's location before doing a quick inspection of the scale.

"I've confirmed the kill. I need to talk with the guild branch leader about this. May I ask that you wait here for a while?" The receptionist asked in a very polite tone.

"Yeah, sure dude," Kranis replied.

The handsome receptionist then took the bag and proceeded to enter the back of the guild house. A short while later he came back empty-handed, the bag containing the armoured scale was nowhere to be found. He looked at us before nodding to himself.

"The Cezza's branch master would like to meet with all of you in private, please follow after me." The receptionist then moved away from the counter before walking somewhere further back. He signalled us to follow him.

Visible confusion could be seen on our faces. What's going on?

"Did you get into trouble again Kranis?" Scorch asked our Rogue Extraordinaire.

"Like hell! I'm just as clueless as you okay."

"Maybe it has something to do with the boar?" Lanarya asked, trying to make sense of the situation.

"Whatever it is, we better see what's up," Tyle walked behind the receptionist. The rest of us soon follow.

The receptionist led us into a very lit room with nothing in it but a couple of comfortable-looking couches and a short table in the middle of the room. In one of the couches sat a very attractive looking man, the Adventurer's Guild logo could be seen on the pin of his shirt. This guy was most probably Cezza's guild master. The receptionist then motioned us to sit down before going to the back of the room to brew something.

"Please, please, sit down. All of you. This is not hustle or anything, I guarantee you. I just want to request something out of you all." The Cezza's branch master spoke in a very clear voice. I couldn't help but think that his voice sounded like a merchant trying to sell his goods.

We took our time choosing and picking which part of the couch we wanted to sit in and proceeded to do just that. Not long after we sat the handsome receptionist came and poured us some cups of tea. Or at least I think it’s tea.  He then went behind the Cezza's branch master and stood behind him.

"So what's this about a request? uh..." Kranis asked the person in front of us.

"Oh no! How could I be so rude? My name is Hamza. I'm the guild master of the Cezza's branch," Hamza stood up and gave us a respectful bow. "I know all of you must be confused about why you are here, and I will answer that." Hamza sat down and took a sip from his cup of tea.

It was only a few odd seconds, but it felt like a whole minute.

"Now. now. Back to business. Ah yes, a request!" Hamza looked around the room before leaning forward. "I wish to assign all of you on a private request. A request that I can only give to a high-ranking party."

Hamza faced towards me in particular, before facing in a general direction again.

...It's because I am a B rank now, isn't it?

"A request? What kind?" Scorch asked.

"To obtain a herb known as Kruu." Hamza took another sip of his tea.

"Kruu leaves? That Kruu?" Tyle asked.

"Yes, yes. That Kruu."

I looked over to Tyle and gave him a nod. He nodded back.

"What about the Kruu leaves?" Tyle asked Hamza in a serious tone. The rest of us brought out our serious face. Everyone except Lanarya who maintained her spunky expression. A little bit confused at our sudden tone shift.

"You see... This town, Cezza, has been afflicted by a strange plague... Yes, strange indeed. The people call it the 'Purple Skin'."

Hamza waved at the receptionist and the receptionist went out the door. Leaving only us and Cezza's guild branch master in the room. Hamza then went from friendly and sociable face to a serious-looking grim look.

"This is a well-kept secret among the higher-ups in Rydark. I can't tell you the full details. But this plague is... not what it seems. It leaves a purple rash that infects only children," Hamza took another look at us. "First sighting of the plague was spotted near Makaran and had recently spread here. It is highly contagious and once caught, depending on the child, only has a few weeks before it becomes untreatable. After that... it's a few more weeks of suffering as the child dies slowly to the plague. It has no cures that we know of except the extract made from Kruu leaves."

"That's horrible..." I said to Hamza.

"Yes, yes. Horrible indeed. But what is even more horrible is the fact that almost half of this town's children have been infected by the 'purple skin' and we are terribly short of Kruu leaves. Time is ticking and soon enough… I’m sure you get the point." Hamza explained to us.

The room went silent as we digested the information given to us. What broke the silence was Tyle who asked the branch master a question.

"I don't understand the need for you to personally request for us to collect the herbs. You could have just gotten them from..." Tyle was taken aback as if realizing something. "I see..." 

"I believe you have realised it. Yes... Cezza's main source of Kruu leaves was from the adventuring city of A'bell. I'm sure all of you must have heard. It's no longer 'functioning'. The other place we can import them from is Luth El, but by the time the next shipment comes, it would have been too late for many, many children. Yes."

"But to get Kruu leaves would require us to go back to A'bell's hunting ground and come back here, it would take a week at minimum, we won't really make it either," Kranis told Hamza.

Hamza simply took another sip of his tea. 

"No, no. I've already sent another group of adventurers to do that. But I'm not about to wait for them to come back, of course." Hamza brought out a map from underneath the table and spread it out for us to see. He then points at a location on the map. "There is a cave in a mountainous area in an area down south, just about a half a day travel's time. The cave features a favourable condition for Kruu leaves to flourish normally. It's the only place around Cezza where we can get Kruu leaves without travelling too far."

"Hmm?" Lanarya gave out an uncertain tone. "Why not just send the other adventurers there instead of A'bell? I don't understand."

"We did. They never came back"

"Eh?" I gave out my own voice of uncertainty.

"We've sent a couple of adventurers there and even posted a request, but all who went there... Never came back you see. E's and D's and even C's went and never came back. I immediately took it down after the first few batches of Adventurer's went missing, as I deem it too dangerous for lower ranks to deal with it. We were planning to do a raid on the cave to investigate... but rumours spread and... long story short. It never happened."

"I see... Any idea what might be in that cave?" Scorch asked.

"We don't know. That's why I'm asking all of you for your cooperation to investigate, and if possible secure a good amount of Kruu leaves for Cezza. That is the details of the request. I can not force you to accept this, but know that lives are at stake and I promise that the rewards will be well worth the trouble."

All of us looked at each other. I could see the complex expressions of everybody in the room.

"Why us..?" Tyle asked a question to the Branch Master Hamza.

"According to my trusty assistant, your party claimed to defeat an armoured boar yes? I am willing to put my trust in a party of your calibre. That is why I called all of you here." Hamza finishes his cup of tea. "I will leave all of you alone to discuss the matter. I will be waiting in my office if you choose to accept. Just tell my assistant and he will lead you in."

"And what if we don't accept?" Tyle asked another question.

Hamza didn't respond and simply left the room. Leaving all of us to discuss in private.

...

...

"Are all guild masters that scary?" Lanarya asked. Her hands tightly clasped.

"Beats me, I've never really seen any other guild master than the old man," Scorch replied.

"I can tell you from experience that they all seem to have this duality with them," Tyle responded.

"You think this is scary Lana? Wait till you see the rogues' guild master, this chump is nothing." Kranis said.

"To be leading a bunch of adventurers, one has to be scary I guess," I told them my opinion as well. "More importantly, the request. What are we going to do about it?"

Kranis waved his hand in denial, "I don't agree to it, he's clearly trying to bait us into accepting it."

"Agreed on that, but I'm not too keen on leaving children to die a slow painful death." Scorch said.

"We don't even know what is in that cave. I'm not about to risk my life. For all we know it could be something even stronger than the armoured boar." Tyle said.

"I don't feel like going either, but people's lives are at stake. We should at least look around the cave or something. Could always run away if things get too out of hand." I gave them my thoughts on the matter.

"Just like how we tried running away from the boar yesterday?" Tyle countered back at me.

It doesn't seem like I'm going to win this one. I scratched the back of my neck, dodging the question.

All of us then looked towards Lanarya for her opinion on the matter. Having a fifth member in the party means that we have a tiebreaker now. A rigid look on her face as she thinks about what she wants to say. 

"Umu... Let's go. I don't want people to say we didn't try." 

"It's going to be dangerous though," Kranis told us.

"Come on, when have we not been in dangerous situations? It's part of the job! Hahaha!" Scorch said.

I let out a wry smile as Scorch said that.

Tyle let out a sigh of defeat. "I guess it's settled then. But we run as soon as we are in any danger."

All of us nodded in agreement. The next thing we did was to inform of the Branch master and prepared ourselves for the short trip.

 

* * * * *

 

We did our preparations in town and got ourselves equipped and ready to go. I took note of the lack of children walking around the town as we made our preparations. Sometimes one could see the purple rash that the branch master spoke about on some of the sicker looking children.

I didn't really realise it before, but after hearing it from Hamza I became much more aware of Cezza's circumstances. Seeing sick children walking around the city made a knot in my stomach. To think that these children only have weeks left to live.

"This... Is worse than I imagined," Tyle said as we stopped by an apothecary. A crowd of people huddling up in front of the building. Sick children with purple skin could be seen everywhere.

"When he said half of the town's children are infected, I didn't think too much about it." Scorch folded his arms. "I didn't fully realise how big of a number that was."

"Yeah..." Lanarya gave out a soft reply.

"Save your sentiments for later guys, let's just hurry up and get to that cave," Kranis told us as he headed for the west gate.

I took another look at the crowd before promptly following Kranis from behind.

With all of us prepared, we head out into the forest down south, towards the cave marked on Kranis's map. We didn't really talk much along the way as we were still deep in thought about the whole matter, so we just went silently through the forest.

..

..

..

It wasn't long before we noticed that the forest was quiet. Too quiet. We've walked for what seemed to be a few hours and we had yet to spot a single monster. No birds could be heard chirping and no small animals could be seen within sight. It was as if they were chased away by someone or something. I signalled for the other members of 'Providence' to be alert. We all drew out our weapons and proceeded to walk through the forest in silence. It was only when we got deeper into the forest and past the halfway point to the cave that we started seeing monsters.

Dead ones.

All of them cut down with a swift and precise strike on their weak points.

"Stay alert guys, I don't like where this is going," Kranis warned us.

"You think this could be done by the adventures that the branch master told us about?" Lanarya asked.

I investigated some of the dead monsters before giving Lanarya a reply, "It can't be, these kills... They are fresh, all within the same day, perhaps even not even an hour has passed since their deaths."

"Just stay alert," Tyle said to the rest of us.

We nodded and proceeded to go deeper into the forest.

My sense of foreboding grew as we saw even more and more slain monsters. It wasn't long before we started to even see high rank ones among the dead.

We moved onwards nonetheless and soon stopped upon a dead armoured boar. A plain one edged sword right between the boars head could be seen sticking upwards.

"A sword?" Lanarya asked as she moved closer to the sword to inspect it.

"Now hold just a moment," Tyle said as he grabbed Lanarya by the shoulders. "It could be a trap."

I looked towards Kranis as he went to inspect the sword in place of Lanarya. He checked every angle around the sword and gave us a shook.

...

"No traps that I can see. No footprints either."

"Sense any presence near us?" Scorch asked the Rogue Extraordinaire.

"Nothing, I don't feel anything around us, no monsters, no animals, no nothing."

All of us stayed on alert as we crowded around the sword—staring at it.

"I wonder who the sword belongs to?" I asked the others.

"Don't know. Don't feel like knowing either," Kranis replied.

"Yeah... I think we should just bail right now and report this to the guild," Tyle suggested.

"But we've already come this far! We can't just go back like that!" Lanarya shouted.

"Yeah, we are halfway to the cave, we should at least check it out." I supported Lanarya.

"Look around guys. See all those dead monsters? Whoever the owner of this sword, is skilled enough to kill all of them in one clean strike, including this armoured boar which I need to remind you guys, almost killed us yesterday." Tyle said to us in a stern tone.

"Muuuu.." Lanarya pouted, dissatisfied.

"We don't know if he's a bad guy or not!" I shouted.

"And what if he is? What happens when we meet this guy and he turns out to actually be a monster or something?"

I got nothing to say back to Tyle. He was right of course. If this guy or monster turns out to be a bad guy then we are as good as dead. It could be the reason why all those adventurers never came back from the cave in the first place. The logical option is to just report back to the guild. 

We all stayed silent for a few moments before Kranis broke it up.

"Then it's decided then. Guess we should head back,"

Deciding to head back, we all took another look at the plain one edged sword. It looked to be of eastern style from the nation across the Omega Sea.

Where have I seen this before? It looks really familiar.

"This sword... It's a really good sword," Lanarya said as she inspected the sword further.

"Hmm? Is it really? Looks like any normal sword to me," Kranis said.

"Yeah, looks normal to me," Tyle said as well.

"It's good. One of the best I've seen!" She exclaimed excitedly. "Can we at least bring this with us?"

Is it really that good?

"What's so special about it?" Scorch asked.

"Yeah, looks like the kind of sword one could buy anywhere from a blacksmith," I told her.

"It is a good sword guys! Don't you see it?!"

We all took a closer look at the sword.

...

Nope. I don't really see it.

"Looks like a very simple sword to me, basic at that too," I told Lanarya. The others nodded in agreement with me.

"That is what makes it good. The simplicity is what makes it great! It's as if the sword knows its purpose! Nothing more, nothing else. Every aspect of the sword is simple and efficient! And you could tell how perfectly balanced it is by just looking at it!" She explained in excitement.

I tilted my head in bewilderment at her explanation. That's exactly... what a plain sword is right? Just normal, basic, and simple. Plain...

"You guys really need to stop seeing things from what is beyond the outside and start to see things for what it is on the inside!" She chided us.

I felt a little offended by that statement.

"I don't really understand. The sword looks so simple that it could have been bought from some cheap blacksmith. It's probably a throwaway sword or something you know."

I felt an arm over my shoulder as I said that. A familiar woman's voice rang out. "Hey hey now, sometimes the best things are the simple and cheap ones you know?"

"UWAAAH!" I backed away immediately and yelled out a scream of shock. My heart thumping wildly as I took a battle stance towards the random person that showed up. A familiar-looking woman wearing a black coat and a white cap could be seen.

It's the woman with the azure eyes!

A quick look to the others and I could see that they were all startled as well and took a battle stance against the woman. The woman in question, however, just simply let out a hearty laugh as she sees us all frightened by her appearance.

"Ahhhh that hand over the shoulder trick never gets old." She said as she walked towards the plain one edged sword. 

She just kept laughing before finally stopping as she breathed in fresh air to her lungs.

"Still, you guys are quite mean. Going and insulting my partner like that. I’m gonna have to ask ya all to stop doing that. She gets quite cranky when people insult her you know." She picked up the sword and with one full motion, swung it to drain all the blood away from the sword and sheathed it.

It was perfect with no wasted movement, it was as if one reversed the motion of drawing your sword. We didn't respond. All we did was just stare at her with our shocked expressions, our weapons brandished at her. I didn't know what the others were thinking, but deep inside me, a voice rang out that told me that I will lose if I fought her. So I didn't make any move.

"So? What are you guys doing here? The last I remembered, you guys were still in A'bell," She asked as she walked over to a log and sat down casually. 

Does the woman remember us? We only ever met at that gate.

The others just stayed quiet and held their stances in front of the woman. 

"Hmm? What's with you guys? It's just a joke, I didn't mean anything by it, ya know?" She told us before pounding her fist on her palm. "Ahh, right! It's me guys! I saved you all from that weird troll at the gate. Remember?" She gave us a bubbly smile as she tries to make herself look innocent.

...

So she does remember us. And that's not really the problem here.