Chapter 92 - Mysterious Letter

"If that were the case, then it should be possible..." The elf began muttering to himself before snapping out of it. "That's an issue for another day, but you came just in time, I had just finished this."

The elf presented Merlin with a sealed letter, the wax seal featured the Verginia Sun, a sphere surrounded by sixteen long triangular sun rays.

"Since it sounds like you're going to Orchomenus anyway, it wont be much of a hassle if you drop this off at the lord of Orchomenus' office." The elf said while handing the letter to Merlin. "You don't need to deliver it to the prince himself, but do specify that this is a letter to Prince Orchomenus to whomever you hand it off to."

A quest notification appeared before Merlin.

┌───────────────────

[Uncommon Quest]

Mysterious Letter.

The leader of the thieves guild has requested that you deliver a letter to the lord of Orchomenus, the Arcadian Prince Orchomenus.

If the letter is opened before reaching the lord's office the quest will end in a failure.

Deliver the letter to Prince Orchomenus.

• Reward: 100 EXP, +5 familiarity with the Leader of the Thieves Guild.

• Failure: -10 familiarity with the Leader of the Thieves Guild, -10 reputation within the Thieves Guild.

└───────────────────

"Very well, I accept." Merlin took the letter and stored it away in his inventory.

"He named a town after himself?" Typhoeus blurted out, "That's pretty arrogant of him."

"Most of the princes are. But don't let anybody hear you say that." The elf turned to face Typhoeus, and then showed his thumb sliding across his own neck. "Or there's a good chance they'll take your head."

Merlin shook his head as he stood up from his chair. "Alright, I'll go deal with this. Take care of those two."

"Oh, I will." The elf teased as Merlin walked away. "Don't cause any more catastrophes, at least not for a bit."

"No promises." Merlin waved as he made his way through the sea of tables. Merlin walked towards the exit, where he saw the thief lord's daughter playing with Snowbunny's rabbit ears while the two were talking. Merlin just waved as he walked back into the cellar and up into the main building.

Merlin waved to the guards that sat around the tavern before making his way out of the building and into the sketchy alleyway. It took a few minutes but Merlin quickly made his way out of the slums, passing by the creepy old man. He noticed that there seemed to be a handful of guards entering the slums and patrolling the area, so he sent Typhoeus a message telling him to inform the elf about the increased presence of guards.

Merlin slipped out of the city and started making his way towards Orchomenus, it was starting to get really dark out, but he wasn't that worried due to him no longer having to deal with the rose wight.

There wasn't much activity on the road, just a few wagons that seemed to be running late, but eventually Merlin was alone and the forests around him became incredibly dark. He started chanting a skill name and received a small notification in return.

「Skill ⟪Light⟫ Activated.」

A small ball of light appeared in his palm and began hovering around him, illuminating the road in front of him and a little bit past the treeline. It wasn't much but at least he would know if something was coming at him faster. 

Sticking to the road was generally safe, or at the very least much safer than running through the forest at night. Besides a few scary noises deeper into the forest, nothing seemed to be off, and after several more minutes of walking, Merlin could see the lights of town in the distance.

He heard the sound of growling coming from the treeline, and upon turning his head he saw a wounded wolf limping towards him, but before it could attack, a tiny spark of white light flew out of the treeline, hitting the wolf in the back and killing it.

"I got it!" Merlin heard the excited voice of a girl, and moments later three people ran out from behind the treeline. They all stopped moving as their eyes all collectively locked onto Merlin.

They were all wearing beginner clothes, and it seemed like they were all still using tutorial weapons. All three of the group were women, the smallest of the group was holding a beginner's wand. The next one was using a bow and the last one had a sword and shield that differed in design to Merlin's old trusted partner.

Contrary to what most people thought at first, you didn't require a spell-caster or magic related soul to use wands. Rather they were just tools that channelled your body's mana into the wand's core, and it was the core that converted your mana into a basic attacking spell. This core was usually a refined magic gem that had been infused with some kind of raw elemental mana or imbued with a spell, but it could also be a material that contained a lot of magic, such as the feather of a phoenix or unicorn hair.

The beginner wand that the woman was using seemed to hold a crude magic stone that had been infused with the light element.

"Hi there. I mean no harm." Merlin took a few steps away from the wolf's corpse and slowly started walking backwards towards town. He didn't want to get into another fight, and he especially didn't want to make more enemies where he could help it. "Nice shot by the way."

The women didn't respond, but after seeing that Merlin was slowly backing away, they lowered their guard. Eventually when Merlin thought he was a safe enough distance from getting a light bolt to the back, he turned around and continued on his way to the town.

Instead of going through the western gate, he slipped into the treeline before he reached the wide open plains and made his way through the forest around to the northern side of town, where he originally left from.

He popped out from behind the treeline a fair distance away from the gate so that the guards couldn't see him suddenly appear. And then he made his way into town, saying hello to the guards as he entered. The guards weren't the same ones that saw him leave, but now he had two sets of guards that saw him come and go from the northern gate.

Before he did anything else, Merlin made his way to the eastern part of town where all the nobles lived. He received a few disgusted glares as he made his way through the nicer part of town, his clothes were cheap but they didn't look too bad, and he wasn't covered in blood and filth this time either, so he really didn't understand why they always reacted this way, especially when half of them shared more features with bulldogs and pugs than they did humans.

He made his way over to a fancy looking government building that had a couple town guard standing by at the door, Merlin climbed the few stairs and made his way over to them.

"Halt." One of the guards raised his hand while ordering Merlin to stop. "What business do you have here, commoner?"

Merlin ignored the last part, it was obvious the guard was looking down on him, but instead of answering he just pulled the letter out from his inventory and held it out to the guard.

"What's this? Another complaint about the monster? We're busy dea--" The guard immediately stopped talking once he saw the wax seal, and his eyes widened. From this, Merlin could infer that the wax seal was related to someone or something rather impressive.

"Well, I get that you're busy, but make sure this gets into the hands of Prince Orchomenus." Merlin ordered while handing the letter to the guard. He felt like the guard's reaction to the seal would  maybe allow him some degree of arrogance, but he made sure not to push it too far, only enough to give him a little bit of satisfaction as the guard's behaviour had annoyed him a little. "It's urgent."

"Right away." The guard took the letter and vanished into the building. While the other guard looked at him with a confused expression.

Merlin shrugged and started walking off, making his way to the mercenary guild. He got about half way there before he received a couple notifications that informed him his quest was complete.

「You have completed the quest, "Mysterious Letter.", rewards have been delivered.」

「You have earned +5 familiarity with the Leader of the Thieves Guild.」

He was a little curious as to what the letter said, but knowing the eccentric character of the thieves guild leader, he knew it was going to be fun, or catastrophic, but mostly fun.

He continued on his way to the mercenary guild, passing by several players wandering around the town on their own adventures. He started slowing down as he came close to the eastern gate and Lychester's Provisions, he was looking around and taking in more information as he walked, but it just seemed to be people rebuilding and grieving, barely anybody was talking about the suspected cause of the two tragic events.

Merlin made his way into The Wandering Spider bar, home of the mercenary guild. The familiar stench of tobacco and stale alcohol flooded his senses. He received a few greetings as he made his way towards the counter, the bartender was there as usual.

"No shield?" The bartender asked after glancing at him.

"No, unfortunately a wolf ate it." Merlin sighed, "On that note, you wouldn't happen to have a quest or two that needed wolf pelt or fangs, would you?"