Volume 2 - CH 4

The next morning, Ifühl Counter, before opening hours.

The reception was quiet as Alina and Laila, who had arrived before the rest of the staff, went about cleaning the windows and benches, dustcloth in hand, as was the fate of the most junior members.

‘Allright, let’s give it our best today! For the Century Festival!’ Alina aroused, determination in her eyes.

‘You’re all fired up, aren’t you?’ said Laila, her face radiant at the sight of Alina’s unusual enthusiasm. ‘It’s kind of reassuring to see you so lively!’

‘Of course I am.’ Alina replied. She did, after all, have a clear goal in mind: ‘This year, I’m definitely gonna enjoy the Century Festival!’

Alina closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift away into the bright future. Browsing the stalls, eating her fill of the delicious foods on offer, buying rare trinkets gathered from the far-flung corners of the earth, indulging in the best alcohols the town had to offer—all the while listening to the merry festival music—and enjoying the festival till deep into the night. Just thinking about it filled her with a boundless energy. Ah, the Century festival, how wonderful—

‘Don’t you think the amount of commissions has increased lately, though?’ Laila asked out of the blue, causing Alina’s face to stiffen as she was jolted out of her reverie. She continued: ‘I mean, it’s peaceful as always, but… how do I put it… the number of guests is slowly becoming more… ceaseless? It’s strange. The bonus period is still a long way off. What do you think?’ She cocked her head in wonder.

‘… Yeah, you’re right.’ Next to her, Alina gave an evasive answer. She too had noticed—how could she not? Alina was responsible for tallying the commissions at the end of the day, so she knew the final figures, and had confirmed that the quest count was markedly higher than at the same time last year. ‘I wonder why that is…’ she continued in feigned ignorance. Ultimately, it was she who was responsible for this statistical anomaly, and she knew it.

‘It’s probably because of the hidden quest being discovered last month.’ Unfortunately for Alina, her junior guessed right on the money.

‘That may be it…’

Adventurers have various types of quest available to them, ranging from those commissioned by individuals to those involving dungeon captures, all of which are collected by the Guild and published in the receptions—with one exception: hidden quests. Unlike regular quests, hidden quests are not commissioned by anyone, including the Guild. For the longest time, they existed as nothing more than a rumour spread among adventurers, becoming more and more embellished with each telling, saying that “when a hidden quest is discovered, a hidden dungeon appears,” or that “there is a special relic concealed in the hidden dungeon.” It was considered by most to be nothing more than a rumour, a legend—until last month.

‘Still, to think that there was a quest hidden inside a relic. Isn’t that amazing!?’ Laila asked, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. ‘Who do you think discovered it? Like, relics are made of the hardest material in the world. You’d have to be a brute to be able to destroy one.’

‘Yeah… Who could it have been?’ Alina averted her gaze, sweating bullets.

It was Alina.

It was a month ago that she, through sheer coincidence, destroyed a relic and discovered the quest hidden inside. Following that, a hidden dungeon—the Tower of Chalk—appeared, just as the rumours had told. Publicly, the Tower of Chalk was challenged by the Silver Blades who, while they were driven to the brink of death, completely captured it. Alina, however, was deeply involved in its conquest. Since then, there has been a trend among some adventurers to go to into dungeons and systematically collect every relic they can get their hands on, hoping to find a hidden quest and obtain the special relic. This was the reason for the recent increase of commissioned quests.

‘The Guild has repeatedly cautioned against finding a hidden quest for the inherent peril of the hidden dungeons. Do they want to die? I mean, even the elite Silver Blades had to fight for their lives.’

‘Well yeah, but still, you know? Like, if they find a hidden quest, they can get the special relic! In other words, treasure!’

Relics. The legacy of the Ancestors who once flourished on this continent of Helcassia before they vanished overnight, created with their advanced technology. Now that they have perished, it is difficult to craft anything as good as the relics, and so these crystallisations of lost technology can be sold for a fortune. For adventurers, they are treasures beyond compare.

‘Special even among relics! It’s surely even more amazing than the greatest treasure!’

‘You’re right. I’d be curious to know.’

‘You don’t sound like you mean it at all!’

‘Well, I don’t.’

But Alina knew the true nature of the special relic. The greatest treasure—no, it wasn’t anything so fanciful. It was a living relic that called itself Demon God—a real nuisance who imitates a human form, has emotions and intelligence, walks, talks, swings a spear, has a ridiculously strong body, uses multiple Dia skills, kills people with a grin on his face—and worst of all, bothered Alina during her overtime work. This is its true nature. Lying dormant in the hidden dungeons, the Demon God revives by eating human souls and is a formidable opponent—why, it nearly killed the Guild’s strongest tank, Jade, like a cat toying with a wounded mouse. And there isn’t just one of them; there are still more Demon Gods slumbering somewhere on this continent.

A month ago, Alina barely managed to put it down with her Dia skill, but truth be told, that thing was more tenacious than overtime. All hell would break loose if some ignorant adventurer were to discover a hidden dungeon and awaken the Demon God inside. But in order not to invite chaos, all information about the relic’s true nature was kept hidden from the public. Alina, too, had been instructed by the Guildmaster, Glenn Gallia, not to say a word on the matter.

‘A—anyway! Let’s give it our best today!’ Squeezing the dustcloth, Alina forcibly changed the subject. ‘The fight for the Century Festival starts here!’

‘That reminds me, I was meaning to ask you yesterday,’ Laila stopped what she was doing and looked at Alina with a quizzical look. Suddenly, the corners of her mouth turned up in a grin. ‘Working so hard to go to the Century Festival—you have a boyfriend, don’t you!?’

‘Boyfriend?’ Alina parroted, flummoxed by the unexpected question. Laila sidled up to her, her grin deepening, her crescent-moon eyes harbouring an indecent glint, and continued, jovially nudging Alina with her elbow: ‘Come on, Alina. You don’t have to deny it, you know? The Century Festival is the date event of the year!’

‘What are you on about?’

‘Eh?’

‘This is the first time I’ve heard any of that.’

‘Don’t you know that couples who go on a Century Festival date will live happily together for a hundred years? That’s why they bother to come all the way out here from out of town.’

‘Really.’

Of course Alina didn’t know. In any case, ever since she came to Ifühl, she had been working every day of the festival. She shrugged off the useless information she couldn’t care less about and was about to return to her cleaning when Laila grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

‘Wait, wait. Wait a second. If you’re not going on a date, who on earth are you going with?’

‘Huh? I’m going on my own.’

‘On your own!?!?’

‘What?’

‘I—I mean, the festival will be full of couples! They’ll be all lovey-dovey, smoochy-moochy, huggy-buggy. You plan to charge into that alone? Do you want to die!?’

‘It’s not like the Century Festival is just for couples. What’s wrong with wanting to go alone?’

‘Y—you’re strong!’ Laila’s eyes widened and she collapsed to the floor as if lightning had struck her. ‘Is this the fate of the overtime master?’

‘Hey!’

‘I would go with you if I could, but unfortunately I have a date with my sweetheart that day.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Are you curious!? Of course you are! As the senior, you want to know who your junior is going out with!’

‘Not really—’ Alina was about to brush her junior off, but Laila interrupted: ‘Hehehe. Don’t be too surprised to hear who it is.’ She puffed out her chest and exclaimed full of with enthusiasm: ‘It’s the Executioner!’

With a crash and a bang, Alina slipped on an errant floorcloth and fell flat on her backside.

‘Ouch, landed on my arse.’

‘Oh you, I told you not to be too surprised.’

‘Of course I’m gonna be surprised!’

The Executioner. The nickname of the mysterious warrior who suddenly became a rumour among adventurers. Whenever the Guild failed to capture a difficult dungeon, they would show up to challenge the floor boss that gave them such a hard time and kill it, solo, using a giant hammer produced from some unknown skill. Clad from head to toe in a cloak, their identity is unknown and remains an urban legend—or, more precisely, remained an urban legend. A month ago, Jade testified that the Executioner was real. Furthermore, they appeared in Ifühl and used their Herculean strength to crush the raid boss that was running rampant. To top it all off, they defeated the boss in the hidden dungeon and saved the Silver Blades from certain death.

That’s right. Without beating around the bush: Alina is the Executioner.

Two years ago Alina, exhausted from working long hours, used the used her newly-awakened skill and went around killing the bosses that were the cause of her overtime. But before she knew it, she had become grist for the town’s rumour mill.

A date with the Executioner? Don’t tell me she’s being tricked by an impostor!?

Certainly, Laila had a certain worldly ignorance about her character, and a remarkable attraction for the mysterious hammer-wielder. If some guy came up to her and told her he was the Executioner, she might well believe him.

While Alina was dripping with cold sweat but unable to carelessly warn her, Laila smiled fearlessly.

‘Ha-ha-ha. I know what you’re thinking. That I can’t possibly go on a date with the Executioner. But I can. With this!’ Laila said, brimming with confidence, and took out a small doll, no bigger than the palm of her hand. It had a large head, about half the size of the doll’s entire height, a small body and stubby limbs, wrapped in a cloak from head to toe, its hood concealing its face. Slung on its back was a silver hammer, crafted with an eye for elaborate detail. Alina blinked, amazed to see something far more innocent than she had imagined come out.

‘Is that… a doll of the Executioner?’

‘What do you think!? I stayed up countless nights to make it! If I spend the festival together with this Executioner (doll), I get to experience a pseudo date!’

‘Are you going to use some kind of magic to make it real or something?’

‘Eh? Of course not. A doll’s a doll. But look! I took special care to get the details right. You can take the hood off, you know! And that’s not all! If you take it off, you can see the handsome face of the Executioner underneath!’

‘Right, okay. I got it. Just get that thing out of my face.’ Alina sighed as she tried to hold back Laila, who was creeping up on her under heavy breathing, trying to show her the doll’s face.

Even at the best of times she really didn’t want to touch upon the subject of the Executioner, but Laila, the world’s number one Executioner fan, took every opportunity to talk about her love for ‘him’; and once she starts, there’s no shutting her up. Lately, she’s grown tired of being the target of her passionate rants and tried to cut the conversation short before it became too heated.

As she watched Laila put back the doll with a hangdog expression, Alina balled her fists. ‘Well, whatever the reason, our goal is still the same. To make sure we get to leave work on time and go to the festival!’

‘You’re right!’ Laila said, her spirits restored, pumping her fist. ‘I’ve got a fun date waiting for me, so I need to make sure I’m in top shape for the bonus—’ she continued, but suddenly her spirited words trailed off.

‘What’s the matter?’ Alina looked quizzically at Laila’s face, whose mouth hung wide open in stunned silence. Her lips were trembling, her face as white as chalk, her eyes fixed on a single spot.

‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ she asked again.

‘A—Alina. Look.’ Laila raised a trembling forefinger. Alina followed its direction—

and was stunned.

‘What the—’

Laila was pointing towards the entrance, with its groundbreaking glass door made with relic technology. Through it, Alina could see a horde of adventurers, their eyes glittering like prey-starved wolves, waiting impatiently for the reception to open.

‘Hey… what… what the hell!?’ she stammered. She lost her composure at the sight, her teeth chattering, her body staggering backwards. She had seen her fair share of commission rushes before, but nothing even came close to this. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Only minutes to go. When those were up, she would have to open the door that kept the horde at bay. She gulped, feeling like a defeated soldier surrounded by enemy troops.

‘A—Alina. What do we do? What do we do?’

‘Wh—what do we do? There’s only one thing to it. We have to open the door.’ said one of the other receptionists, who had arrived unnoticed by the pair and were equally disarrayed by the sight.

‘Th—the bins! Get the bins!’

Alina was the first to regain her senses and grabbed as many so-called “outstanding bins” as she could carry. During busy periods, they would ask adventurers to fill in the commission forms with only the necessary information and deposit them in the bins to be processed together later. She also made sure to prepare more blank forms than usual, and mentally switched her brain to “busy mode.”

At the same time, Laila timidly unlocked the front door.

‘Welcome to—blegh!’ In an instant, Laila was swallowed up in the wave of adventurers flooding inside. Alina witnessed her pitiful figure in her periphery, but didn’t have the time to come to her aid.

‘They’re open!’

‘Sod off, I got here first!’

‘Oi, you wanker! Stop pushing me! Get the fuck out of my face!’

A tempest of curses mixed with the rumble of the earth as the human tsunami swallowed the counters whole.

And so their hell began.