Chapter 564: Chapter 563: An Emergency Meeting

The silence was broken by a man amongst the Church representatives.

A faint smile rested upon his face, a smile that seemed unable to go away.

A black blindfold covered his eyes completely, yet somehow it never seemed to hinder him.

"Surely I cannot be the only one who finds issue with this testimony."

His head remained angled toward Thalric, though it quickly became apparent that the statement wasn’t truly directed at the Guild Master.

"In fact, I would imagine the Guild Master shares some of those concerns as well."

"An unknown creature capable of slaughtering multiple A-Rank adventurers. And yet one lone, "weak" beast man made it out..."

"And somehow, we are expected to believe he is innocent?"

Anyone could see where he was going with this.

Among the guild members, several of them were members of different races, and one in particular was a beastkin themselves.

A white tiger snarled under the racist pretense, but there was nothing they could do about it.

"That beastkin has a name." Thalric’s interruption came immediately. The anger behind his tone was impossible to hide.

"Of course." The blindfolded man inclined his head just slightly, but was unbothered nonetheless.

"Excuse my manners, I have forgotten how... fragile beastkin were when it came to names.

Several expressions immediately darkened.

Even some of the human adventurers looked uncomfortable.

The insult wasn’t subtle enough to hide behind politeness.

Yet Malachi spoke as though he had offered a genuine apology.

Few people in Ashenveil irritated Thalric more than the blindfolded man.

The Church referred to him as the right hand of the Lord.

Most people treated that title with reverence, but Thalric only felt a dreading caution towards the man.

"Malachi, be careful with your next words. Unless I’m forced to take it, as your words are also the stance of the Church itself."

Malachi seemed to pause at this. The church representatives seated behind him exchanged glances. Several wore grim expressions beneath the warning.

Whether those expressions were directed toward Thalric or Malachi himself was difficult to tell.

"I would never presume to speak for the Church."

There wasn’t the slightest bit of offense in Malachi’s voice.

If anything, he sounded genuinely surprised that Thalric would suggest such a thing.

"I have devoted my life to serving it. Not leading it."

"Yet devotion demands vigilance."

"If a danger truly exists within that forest, then it is my duty to question every part of this story until I am satisfied that we understand it."

His blindfolded gaze remained fixed in Thalric’s direction.

"Surely caution is not the same thing as prejudice."

"After all, this concerns the slaughter of an entire party of A-Rank adventurers."

To this, no one could object.

In fact, several of the nobles and church representatives appeared pleased that someone had finally voiced what they wanted to say.

"Tell me, Guild Master..."

"Are you willing to vouch for this bea-"

He paused briefly.

"Excuse me... Varkesh, was it?"

The smile never left his face.

Are you willing to place the lives of this city upon his word?"

—

Every gaze gradually shifted toward the head of the table.

The Guild Master remained silent. Unfortunately, that silence only caused several expressions to become increasingly difficult to read.

The truth was that Thalric had no reason to doubt Varkesh.

The beastkin had no connection to the forest, nor to the creature.

Without that, there was no apparent motive to fabricate a story of this scale.

Most importantly, he was a guild adventurer.

If surviving a disastrous mission was enough to immediately place someone under suspicion, then what kind of message would that send to every adventurer under his authority?

The guild existed because people were willing to risk their lives accepting dangerous requests.

There would be times when those requests were made without sufficient information, leading to unnecessary deaths.

And there will be times when only one or two people make it back.

But that wasn’t treachery. That was the reality of being an adventurer.

If the guild began treating every survivor as a potential criminal simply because they survived an encounter where the rest of their team perished, then eventually nobody would trust the guild to stand behind them.

However, that didn’t mean Thalric was willing to accept every part of the report without question.

There were still parts of the report that refused to sit right with him.

Details he had only discussed with a handful of people whose judgment he trusted completely.

His gaze briefly shifted toward Elowen. The two of them had already spoken about it before the meeting began.

There was simply too much information Varkesh had learned.

According to his report, the creature leading those monsters wasn’t some mindless beast acting on instinct. It should have understood exactly what allowing Varkesh to leave would accomplish.

That alone created a problem.

Because if the creature truly possessed intelligence comparable to a person, then it should have understood that releasing Varkesh guaranteed retaliation.

It should have been known that every secret revealed would eventually reach them.

It should have known that killing an entire party of A-Ranks wasn’t something a city could simply ignore.

And yet Varkesh had still been allowed to leave.

Why?

Was the creature naive enough to believe its warning would be respected?

Did it genuinely believe they would abandon the matter because it requested to be left alone?

Or was it simply arrogance?

Had the ease with which it defeated an entire party convinced it that an entire city posed no threat?

The more Thalric thought about it, the less he liked any of those answers.

Because each possibility carried implications that were troubling in their own way.

Yet even those questions only scratched the surface of what bothered him.

From the amount of organization that Varkesh described. It resembled a phenomenon that was common only from the most prestigious of monsters.

Monsters like the werewolves, the "dragons," and vampires.

Beings that often became the foundation upon which entire monster territories were built.

And what did those beings all have in common?

A dungeon core.

That alone was enough for Thalric to send everything they had. But there wasn’t enough information.

And every time Thalric attempted to fit those pieces together, his thoughts inevitably returned to the same group.

Because there was a group of adventurers that his tuition told him knew exactly what this monster was.

And if that was true, then the answers Thalric wanted weren’t inside Varkesh’s report.

—

Unfortunately, the room wasn’t interested in allowing Thalric more time to think.

The representative from House Ignivar was the next to speak.

The noble had remained silent throughout most of the meeting, yet the anger in his expression had steadily worsened with every passing minute.

"My house has lost its heir!"

The statement immediately caused the atmosphere to grow hotter as the old man’s aura burned with tangible flames.

The one who spoke was Roy’s father, and the head of House Ignivar.

Roy Ignivar wasn’t simply another adventurer. He was the future of one of Ashenveil’s most influential noble families, a man whose talent had already placed him on the path toward becoming an S-Rank adventurer in the future.

That future was supposed to belong to him. And by extension, to their House.

Yet now, according to the only survivor, Roy was dead. Not only dead, but gone without even his body being recovered.

His eyes settled directly upon Thalric.

"I heard the Church offered assistance before this situation even escalated, yet the Guild chose to reject them."

Several members of the Church visibly approved of where the discussion was heading, and the noble noticed that approval before immediately pressing further.

"Why?"

"The moment a potential demonic threat was discovered, additional forces should have been dispatched. Every warning should have been treated with the seriousness it deserved."

His voice became increasingly colder.

"Instead, my house is expected to accept that its heir entered that forest and died alongside an entire party of A-Rank adventurers."

"These weren’t inexperienced adventurers chasing glory. They were some of the most capable people this city had to offer."

The rage that filled him surprisingly lost his luster the more he thought about his son.

"It was only a matter of time before he stood amongst the strongest adventurers this city has ever produced... Our family was destined for greatness..."

Information could be wrong. Every adventurer understood that, but this went far beyond flawed information.

A complete massacre.

That was the part that made the old noble’s rage burn even hotter.

Because if Varkesh’s story was true, then this wasn’t a mission that went wrong.

It was a mission that never should have existed in the first place.

The old noble’s gaze hardened; anyone could sense that he didn’t hold the guild in high regard at this rate.

"Perhaps the problem is the information that sent them there in the first place."

His attention shifted toward the absence of the only person who could give him the answers he sought.

"And if that’s true... Then I want to know whether this was caused by incompetence."

"Or if this was intentional."

The flames surrounding him flared out again the moment he finished. Flames that forced the others to release their own auras to brace against it.

Everyone stood up, tensed for anything to happen. Meanwhile, Thalric remained seated, staring deathly into the old man’s eyes. However, every part of his body was ready to strike at any time.