80 The Necromancer and the Priestess 14

"You guys go on ahead to the restaurant. I have to talk about something with the guild master first." The receptionist girl said with a smile, and though the group was reluctant, they ended up parting, with the party save for Rose heading to the restaurant first to grab seats.

"Umm..." At this moment, when the party was walking outside on the streets, a young boy took the courage to speak up. He had a sweet looking face, and was wearing leather armor. "I didn't have the courage to say anything before, but... who was that?" The group stared at him, and he blushed slightly in embarrassment.

"Ahhh! That's right! Alex is a newbie, so he wouldn't know the leader huh?" Arthur exclaimed. Suddenly a sly grin snuck onto his face, but he was hit by a short-haired man before he could say anything. "What the hell was that for, Ryan!?" He shouted angrily, clutching at the part of his head that had been hit.

"You were clearly up to no good right there," Lana said, and they immediately began to squabble between each other again.

While this was going on, the busty older sister like woman of the group, Lilith, came closer to the young boy, Alex. "That girl with brown hair is the leader of of the White Birds and the founder of the guild. She's also a super skilled archmage." She said, and Alex looked at her in shock.

"Eh!? That wasn't Rose, though?" He tilted his head. He had only been with the White Birds on one mission, but there had been no indication that Rose had not been the person of the rumors - although, he did notice that Rose had never used magic, which he found odd...

"Nope, Rose is actually a vice-leader like Ryan. She leads the party when the leader isn't here." Lilith answered. "As for why everyone thinks Rose is the real leader, that's on purpose."

"On purpose?? Why?" Alex couldn't think of any reason for the powerful guild founder needing to have a double. After all, it wasn't like they were royalty, who had some members that were unable to defend themselves.

"It's because the leader likes to be left alone," Ryan said, popping into the conversation between the two. "She also doesn't like working. Because of that, she left the position of guild master to Leon, and she has Rose pretend to be her so that she doesn't get bothered."

Alex paused, and guess that this explanation kind of made sense. "Anyways, since you just joined, then you better be prepared to have a training session with the leader soon," Lilith giggled eerily, sending shivers up Alex's spine.

He had a feeling that this training session would definitely be extremely difficult...

Back at the guild master's office, the receptionist girl was sitting on the sofa while Rose served her tea and snacks, before sitting down across from her.

"How is the status of the information?" The brown haired girl asked, delicately sipping at her tea cup. This elegant and beautiful appearance made Rose's eyes sparkle - it was only the leader who could manage to do anything and still look beautiful at all times!

"Elaina contacted me and said that there have been no issues." Leon answered, busily reading and signing off on the stack of papers on his desk. "Well, it's to be expected. Ever since you did that half a year ago, there have been no other people coming out to bother us. I still don't understand what your goal is... Will you really not tell me? Celestina."

"Don't call me that." Yin Mei said, her facial expression and voice emotionless as she set down her tea cup. "I've already told you that my goal is the betterment of society, didn't I?" As well as finding that b*stard El who dared to run off and leave his woman for some godd*mn frolicking about in the demon world!

Seeing the sinister smile on Yin Mei's face, Leon could say that that definitely wasn't the expression of someone who was working toward the "betterment of society". He inwardly sighed. It was because of that chaos with the unsealing of the demon that she had turned out like this. He shook his head, thinking that she must feel betrayed by her childhood friend, who had become a criminal of the highest degree of wanted level. He was somehow misunderstanding her, but it couldn't be helped considering that his basic understanding of Yin Mei was skewed in the first place.

Yin Mei let out a sigh, calming herself down. Recalling back to the events of that night, she could now calmly understand why El did what he had done.

The information guild that Yin Mei had established had, through the use of some special magic techniques that she and Leon had researched, discovered the information that she wanted. El was indeed the Bishop's child. She never expected it of that straight laced man, but some twenty or so years ago, he had a girl that he liked, who had died during childbirth, leaving him behind with a sickly El, who was expected to die in a few days as well.

Perhaps because he was not thinking straight, he had made a deal with the devil (the great demon), in order to increase El's lifespan. He then placed El in the church's orphanage. All should have been well, but as El grew older and older, he began to resemble the great demon more and more in appearance. To top it off, he had such a strong darkness affinity. It wasn't that the dark affinity was looked down upon, or seen as evil, but more so that the Bishop, who had such a strong light affinity, could father someone with the exact opposite element - this was almost impossible.

So the Bishop began to think that El was not truly his child, but some spawn of the great demon that he had contracted with. El was trained by the church's secret assassination and spy corps, and then actually betrayed the church and started to wreck havoc across the empire.

As for why he wanted to unseal the demon, it wasn't as romantic as had been implied in the system's information and though El did wish to free Celestina, it hadn't been his main goal. His main goal had been to fulfill the payment for the contract that the Bishop had made so long ago, in order to continue living, as well as to merge with the great demon. El and the great demon were like two halves of a whole, as the great demon had essentially fused part of himself into that small newborn baby to save him all those years ago.

Because of that, they naturally desired to return to their most perfect form, instead of staying split in two.

And as for El running off to who knows where, this was much more difficult to find out. After all, this had to do with the demon world, which they had little information of. Even with their specialized information gathering magic, it was hard, as the demon world was only connected to their own world during certain times. They had to dig through historical textbooks and all sorts of theories before they created a theory of their own.

It likely had to do, not with El, but with the great demon himself (though, they were now the same person). The great demon was said to be a grand duke of the demon world, and it was claimed in some vague information they had filched from the church that he came here on orders of the demon king to clear out the residents of this much more prosperous and resource rich world so that they could live here.

In other words, El had run off, leaving behind his woman, in other words her, in order to deal with his work.

If it was Yao Heyan, she would have immediately gone to the company to drag his sorry ass back home, but the problem was, was that she had no means of going to the demon world. She had no idea how El had done so - it looked like some advanced use of spatial magic, but Leon also had no clue.

Because of this, they could only continue to gather information while researching magic.

Before Yin Mei had realized it, a year had passed, and though both the Guild and the information guild had grown greatly in size, there was no progress in the areas that Yin Mei had really wanted to progress in.

"What is your opinion on this time's mission?" Leon suddenly asked, abruptly changing the subject. Although he was the one who constantly brought it up, he also hated to see Celestina like this. It was hypocritical, but for some reason, he could never help it.

"This time's mission? Ah? With the princess girl?" Yin Mei was drawn back to reality, as she recalled what this time's mission was. As Arthur had thought, the person that the kingdom who had requested them wanted to find was their beloved youngest princess. Although there were no rumors that she had gone missing or anything, there was little information that could slip through their fingers - such was due to the capabilities of magic. Except, this mission was a slightly tricky one.

First, Yin Mei found it slightly suspicious that the kingdom would fork over so much money for a girl whose life or death was unknown - and whose death was more likely than her life. Secondly, something was interfering with their magic. In other words, they hadn't been able to gather as much information on the mission as they had liked. Although Leon had personally wanted to turn down the mission because of this reason, Yin Mei had been intrigued and had insisted on taking it.

After all, she needed to know what was capable of interfering with their magic, so that they could come up with counter measures for the future.

"It's interesting, I suppose," Yin Mei said emotionless, before suddenly breaking out into a smile. "Well, I've stayed here long enough. Rosella and I should go meet up with the rest of the White Birds." Rosella - who was wearing a disguise with her long black hair - immediately perked up in excitement. Leon knew that Yin Mei was purposefully avoiding the topic, though he wasn't sure why. But he didn't say anything, letting her go with a wave of the hand.

The two of them went to go meet up with the White Birds at their usual tavern, where things were rowdy for well into the night.

Yin Mei didn't like the commotion that much, but in her eyes, she was just taking care of some kids. The original members of the White Bird party, of which there were six, were somewhat like her kids - she had picked them up from a variety of bad situations and then put them through a hell like training to get them where they were now. As for the newer members, one of which she had just been introduced to now, well, they weren't all that close yet, but she also considered them as kids to take care of.

"So? Leader, are you going to come with us this time? You haven't been going with us at all ever since half a year ago." Arthur said as he took a swig out of his beer.

"The leader has her own considerations. Arthur, don't keep on bothering her about coming with us when she has other things to do," Ryan said as he cut through a piece of meat, putting it in his mouth.

"Haha, you say that, but be honest that you and Rose are the ones who want leader to come with us the most." Arthur mocked.

"Don't put me together with Rose." Ryan said, not saying anything else about Arthur's statement.

"What? What's so dislikable about being grouped together with me?" Rosella glared at Ryan.

They continued to argue. Sigh, these kids just really couldn't get along. But, at the very least, they had someone to argue with in this manner. And anyways, they're compatibility as a party was actually very good.

Thinking about this reminded her of her past.

Well. That was already a long time ago, though...

"Stop arguing, or I won't come along." She said sternly, and everyone immediately shut up, turning several pairs of pleading puppy dog eyes onto her.

She smiled wryly as she let out a sigh. "You guys really... can't be helped."