Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

"If there is nothing else then I'll take my leave," the man in assassins garb said as he prepared to leave. His body was starting to distort and blend with the surroundings when an underling of Laris ran up to the house and hastily said while huffing "S-Sir Laris'¦huff huff'¦ sir Laris are you there?".

The tone of the newcomer was hurried and sounded urgent. "I'm there, come in," Laris said as he ordered his subordinate to enter. The subordinate hastily entered as soon as he was ordered and found Laris standing near the couch.

Just when he was about to say something, he noticed that other than him, there was another man present inside the room covered in a black assassin's robe from head to toe opposite Laris.

The underling looked at the man and deliberated whether it is the opportune time to relay the message or not. "What is it? if you have something to report then hurry up and report or else get lost" Laris was already frustrated therefore he barked out at his underling.

The underling on the other hand was perspiring a lot as he kept on looking at the assassin, he knew that he couldn't dillydally as he could see the irritation on Laris' face. The underling reported "Sir Laris it's about the task you told us about...".

Catching onto the hint, Laris immediately understood what the content of the report was about. He turned towards the man in assassin's garb and said "If you don't have anything more to relay from the guild master then you can take your leave".

Seeing that the assassin simply nodding and silently leaving the room, Laris was silent for a while before he searched every corner of the room trying to find any presence trying to snoop in their conversation.

After he found that there was no presence hidden in the room, Laris finally sighed in relief and told his subordinate to go on. The reason behind him chasing away his big brother's subordinate was very simple, he didn't want the man to know about the existence of Forest Spring Royal Spirit as it was the only hope for him to raise his ranking within the guild.

Returning back with a royal spirit orb, was his only chance to prove his guild wrong especially now when they have decided to send another team for backup.

What Laris didn't know was that the man other than giving him the message from guild master, was sent here by his big brother to look after him. The man used [Stealth] and appeared outside the house and silently eavesdropped on them from the rooftop.

[Stealth] was a skill exclusive to assassin' class, and the more proficient the use is with this skill, the better they can hide their presence from the people nearby. The higher the class of the assassin the more effective the skill.

Inside the bamboo house, the subordinate reported after he saw that it was only the two of them left in the house. "Sir Laris the remaining Forest Spring Spirits succeded in escaping towards the depths of the territory of the Ancient Treants. We tried to give chase but ten of them got injured and five of them are dead. Fearing that we might suffer more casualties, we didn't delve any deeper."

The subordinate said with fear and trepidation still lingering on his face. Listening to the report, Laris's face became uglier and contorted severely. He was just thinking about raising his rank in the guild by earning merit from this operation only to see it almost fail right in front of him.

Suddenly as if remembering something, he asked "what happened to the group that was after the Royal Spirit?".

It was at this moment that the man who was eavesdropping from the rooftop had his eyes wide open when the name Royal Spirit came up. Although he was not very well informed, he still heard about the rumours regarding a supreme treasure.

Even if he did not know all the heaven-defying abilities that the royal spirit orb can grant, but he still knew that it was an absolutely precious treasure incomparable to any treasures he had ever seen.

The underling of Laris who was asked the question seemed to lower his head at this moment and hesitated for a while. Realizing that something had gone wrong, Laris further pressured "what happened tell me? Did the Royal Spirit self-destructed?". He couldn't help but think of the worst-case scenario but even Laris couldn't have imagined the answer that he would get.

The subordinate finally replied with a pale face from the pressure emitting from Laris. "The ones who went after the Royal spirit were all killed. Their bodies are so badly damaged that it is impossible to discern who is who anymore'¦ gugh".

However, before the subordinate could even complete his sentence, he was kicked in the stomach as his body made an arch and smashed on the wall made of bamboo breaking it in the process. BANG... a loud noise of something being smashed sounded out.

After kicking his subordinate, Laris furiously roared "I don't give a shit about discerning who is who from their bodies. What I want to know is the location of the Royal spirit and whether it is alive or not dammit".

"Ugh" clenching his stomach, the subordinate said while crawling "subordinate is incapable, we do not whether the Royal Spirit is alive or not".

BANG... another loud noise echoed out as the table placed near the couch was smashed into bits by Laris.Â

Right now, he was so angry that he wanted to kill the underling of his right here but he controlled his anger and restrained himself from doing anything rash. Laris cursed "Useless, useless all of you", right after cursing he ordered immediately "Call all the teams back I want to know what happened back there. Do you understand? Call them right now".

The subordinate immediately got up while clenching his stomach and ran while saying "Subordinate understands, I'll immediately call them back". Although they were all members of the Seven Swords guild, Laris was much higher up on the ladder and the likes of them were just ordinary members. Even if some of them died, it wouldn't affect their guild in the slightest as their numbers could easily be filled.Â

While this was going on, there were two people secretly eavesdropping on their conversation without being spotted by Laris.

One of them was the man on the roof dressed in assassin's garb, Ted. While the other was Miser who was quietly snooping on them from the corner of the house. The place he was hiding was just outside the reach of Laris and couldn't be spotted that easily.

Miser was a shrewd man and always looked for opportunities to exploit. If not for his debt, he wouldn't have disclosed the location of the Forest Spring Spirits to the Seven Swords guild and would have instead looked for an opportunity to hoard it all by himself.

Even now he was making schemes of his own knowing that the situation of the Seven Swords guild didn't look good and there might arise an opportunity that he could exploit from all this turmoil.