The moment the light around the teleportation circle faded, Marcus glanced around the room.
Like the other teleportation rooms he had been in this one had a pretty standard design, but it was clear that it had been only recently constructed due to the sheen and general lack of wear on everything.
'Looks like the consecutive teleportation took a toll on everyone. Well, except for Lilia for some reason.' Marcus thought, turning to look at his companions.
Out of everyone he was doing the best except for his younger sister. For some reason she did not seem to have experienced any negative effects from the teleportation circles that made everyone else feel nauseous.
Marcus could only chalk it up to Lilia's Empyrean race being unnaturally resilient or perhaps one of her unique skills offering protection against teleportation sickness.
Thankfully it did not take too long for everyone to recover, with Marcus being the first to get over his mild symptoms, followed by Miguel who had the most experience using the teleportation circles.
Once their entire group was back in peak condition one of the guild staff members in the room headed over to greet them.
She was a fairly pretty young woman with shoulder length brown hair that looked to be in her mid-twenties. On her face was a bright smile and she looked ecstatic to see Marcus' party for some reason.
"Hello, it is an honor to greet your esteemed party. My name is Vivi, and I will be more than happy to show you around the guild. Though, before anything else, I am sure that you wish to sign up for the mission. If you follow me, we can get the paperwork finished in just a couple of minutes."
Vivi then turned around and began briskly walking towards the exit, but Marcus along with everyone with him just stood there dumbfounded. They had not come to Houten for any specific job and certainly had no clue what Vivi was referring to.
When she noticed that no one was following her, Vivi turned around with a concerned expression.
Marcus, Mrazivý, Miguel, Lilia, and Alaric immediately began looking over the documents, though none of their beast companions were so inclined. They could care less about the particulars of what was going on. They had simply come along to assist the people they had contracted with and enjoy the trip.
'Looks like this is a pretty big operation. They're mobilizing the majority of the kingdom's main army and are hiring adventurers as an additional force. I wonder if getting more high-level combatants for this might be the main reason Houten joined up with the adventurers guild in the first place.
From what Miguel told us it has been only a little more than half a year since they became affiliated with the guild, yet almost immediately they started recruiting for this mission.'
Marcus was fairly certain he had hit the nail on the head, but it did not particularly matter considering his objective. He did not care about whatever was going on behind the scenes so long as he got his hands on the core of a ghost king.
"This is a pretty generous payout even considering the dangers involved and the fairly lengthy specified time of the mission." Alaric said, his attention having been drawn to the section detailing compensation.
"Yes, His Majesty, the current king, is very dedicated to restoring the old capital to its former glory. From what I have heard he considers money no object so long as the lost city can be retaken." Vivi said, a dreamy look in her eyes. She certainly appeared to have bought into whatever propaganda was going around.
She continued to praise the king and his devotion to the nation, but neither Marcus nor any of his companions were really listening. Instead, they were having a telepathic conversation about what they should do.
'I think we should accept the job. There are almost negatives to joining up with such a large force.' Lilia said, giving her opinion.
'Hm, I don't know. There is a clause in the contract that all monster and beast materials belong to the kingdom and that we will only receive monetary bonuses for collecting these items. If we do accept the mission, then technically the ghost king core would belong to Houten if we do obtain it. Plus, we will have to delay until the army is ready to move.
The details say that the attack is currently scheduled to occur sometime within the next two to six weeks. That is a pretty big window of time.' Alaric said, pointing out the demerits of joining the operation to reclaim the old capital.
There was a bit more back and forth from everyone for a couple of minutes, but in the end, everyone turned towards Marcus to make the final decision. They were here primary to help him after all. He was the one that needed a ghost king's core so they would leave what they would ultimately do up to him.