Chapter 34: Black market

"Oi, Leona, what the hell happened to your arm?!" One of the red sword's boss asked her "Get a high tiered healer!

"That guy's a monster, Silas" Leona replied as he applied pressure on whatever's left of her right arm "I had to use our stupid pill. My legs could barely even walk anymore, if I leave it for a few more hours, I'll lose the functions of my legs"

"What went wrong?"

"Aenon, the bastard came himself" she snarled as she got her arm healed "The rest are dead, I'm barely alive at this point"

"The golden knight, Albert was there too, I've heard the reports" Silas nodded "But at least we got the skull, that's 2 down. We also know where the rest of them are, shouldn't take us more than a few more years"

"Better be worth it, a regrown arms and legs might take 2-3 months to get used to" she grumbled

*****

"Guild mas- Oh" Albert ran into Aenon who was in a field of blood

"That pill was dangerous" Aenon commented "I only got her arm before she escaped, Albert, send some people over to the black market, I want them to investigate a pill, it's definitely not perfected yet, and the side effects are probably severe, but I don't want to wait to find out about more new and surprising things, especially the ones that could endanger us"

"Of course, guild master"

*****

After the attack, the council of 7 gathered for an urgent meeting.

"One of ours is gone, the people will have to vote for the other councilor in a week or two." One councilor said

"We should've have tighten security around him, but the skull is gone" Anthony commented "Should we send someone to find it and get it back?"

"We will, just not now, we need to repair the damages first because we lost quite a lot, we will also have to postpone the U-16 fighting tournament for a bit" another one joined in "We can't cancel it, it happens every 5 years, and it will be a very long while till Artia can host it again"

"Of course, if we cancel it, our reputation will be lost, we'll postpone it" Anthony agreed "After that, we'll find the skull back, it would spell danger for everyone"

*****

"No wonder you haven't complain about not having alcohol" Olivia exclaimed as she saw the secret alcohol compartment.

"Yeah, this is a lot" Mary nodded as she took one out "Thanks Perseus, we'll make your favorite dinner tonight"

"How did you even find out?! We worked hard on hiding those alcohol" Axel complained

"It wasn't necessarily me, it was Siege and Ace, they can smell it" Perseus answered

"Damn it!" he cursed

"Well I got our next mission" Nova chimed in "We'll have to go to investigate the black market, of course whether we'll be successful or not, we'll come back in time for the delayed tournament"

"That's our next quest?" Dabria asked "Why can't we do easier ones?"

"This is a direct request, so it's a great opportunity for us to really shine, you know" Nova shrugged "Besides, if it's successful, we'll get to have a trip to the spirit world as our reward"

"That's great!" Elliot exclaimed "Us from the physical world usually can't go due to high expenses"

"Key word, successful" Dabria reminded him

"We'll have to go to adventurer's guild headquarters to get briefed first, it's supposed to be a secret mission"

*****

"You're back, welcome home" Lauren greeted Craig

"Well it was chaos, I'd tell you that" he replied "One councilor is gone, and apparently some skull got taken"

"What skull?"

"It's not something I should mention because it's only something the higher ups know, but even I don't know much about it" Craig sighs "But apparently it's very precious to the council"

"Father, Nova just called and told me about our next mission, we'll be infiltrating and investigating the black market" Emma joined in "If we're successful, we might earn ourselves a trip to the spiritual world"

"That means it's probably dangerous" he replied

"So this skull thing, can't you pull favors to know what the purpose of it?" Lauren asked "To think that it is worth attacking a councilor, it's definitely some sort of dangerous artifact. It could also just be a code word or nickname for a weapon"

"Or it could just be an actual skull, but you're right, it's definitely dangerous, Williams might know or at least hold some clues" Craig agreed "But personally? I wouldn't wanna know"