"Report any suspicious activities that you might see and if needed, reprimand them until they're able to show proof of their innocence." Marrick ordered every of his assistants.
"Understood." Everyone answered at the same time.
As the meeting goes on, Marrick and the others began to prepare for the phase 2 of the investigation, they're going full throttle with stopping the series of kidnappings and are about to mobilize the entire Direwell's guards just to find the culprit's hidden sanctuary.
An hour passed with constant arguing and conversation, when the meeting finally come to an end, everyone left the room except Marrick, who still sitting on his chair as he looked up towards the ceiling.
"Haaahhh, there's a lot to do." He said.
.
.
At the west side of Direwell, 10:15AM—
A guard was standing on the side of the street, covered in armor from head to toe, the guard's eyes glimpsed at every passerby that walked infront of him, he intently glared at everyone's face, expression, and familiarity.
Thankfully he wasn't alone, there were a few more guards that also patrolled the area, among all of them, they decided to split their job into shifts with one side patrolling the entire west district while the other guarding a specific area that had the most likely chance of suspicious activity to be held or seen.
'Man.. I've been patrolling and guarding this area for a day now, but there's nothing that seemed suspicious..' The guard thought under his armor.
Just as he was about to yawn from boredom, another guard suddenly approached him in a hurry, at first the guard who was standing noticed his colleague running towards him, and when he stopped infront of him, the guard was told that a new order had just came in.
"Hey.. Huff, huff‐ There's a new order, every guards in this town will be mobilized for an investigation." The guard's colleague said.
"What? Everyone?" The guard was initially confused and couldn't believe what his colleague just said.
"It's true, apparently this series of kidnappings is way worse than we thought, it's not just a kidnapping, its a slave operation, if we don't act fast now, the perpetrator will undoubtely leave Direwell soon."
"What!? Are you serious!? Damnit, it's going to make our job harder isn't it."
"Huff, anyway, huff.. Expect a few more orders coming in and don't slack off, keep an eye out for everyone, and if you want, the town's mayor already gave permission for us to check any building, the head of defense will announce it to the public in a few minutes."
"Shit.."
After hearing out the scale of the situation, the guard doesn't waste anytime before running towards his other colleagues who were also standing on a different spot, he invited 2 of them to check every house in the west district and also told them what he just heard earlier. Together they soon walked amongst the peasants and adventurers on the street while knocking on every door.
Knock knock!
"Im sorry for the sudden visit, but we have an official order from the mayor to do a checkup on every buildings in the town." The guard said as he saw a woman opening the door.
"Huh!? I never heard about this?! Where's the paper?" The woman said, she seemed hesitant to give the guards permission to enter her house
"Then, we have no choice." The guard said, he suddenly barged into the house uninvited along with the other two.
The three of them opened every drawer, every wardrobes, and checked every room for anything, even while being constantly screamed by the woman who owned the house, they kept searching, until eventually every room has been cleared.
"Looked normal, thank you for the time, excuse us." The guard said before bowing down and leaving the house.
The woman and her two kids looked at the guards as they leave before cursing them out.
"Next."
.
.
Meanwhile, at the Adventurer's Guild—
Similar to how it was in the other days, the guild was packed to the brim with adventurers, their scary appearances, quirky personalities, and unending desires continue to fuel the lively atmosphere inside the building.
One of the adventurer inside was Syla, she had just arrived at the Guild, without wasting anymore time she then walked towards the counter desk and was greeted with a receptionist, however different from what she had expected, this time the receptionist rhat greeted her wasn't Nomi, but instead another girl who looked older and has a 'dominant' vibe to it.
"Hello." Syla said to the receptionist.
"Oh, hello young girl, is there anything you need?" The receptionist responded with a voice that's almost seductive.
"Uhh, yeah.. I want to report my completed quest, here it is." Syla then gave the receptionist the quest paper that she took yesterday.
The receptionist looked at the paper for a while, reading the content before asking Syla a question.
"Mandrake subjugation? This is a B-Rank quest, do you have proof of your completion?" She said.
"Of course." Syla answered immediately and inserted her hand into her satchel once more to pull the chunk of the mandrake queen's body out of it.
When the receptionist saw the black trunk, her eyes widened and she seemed to be in a brief shock.
"It's from the head of a mandrake queen." Syla explained. "Since my satchel is too small to store the mandrake queen's body, i only brought a small chunk of it."
"This is— No doubt about it, it's the mandrake queen, although their appearance is similar to a regular mandrake, only the queen that has this vague spiral lines in its body." The receptionist said, she showed Syla the mandrake queen's body and pointed at the almost invisible carving that formed a spiral when being connected to the other lines.
"Is that so.. I thought they looked similar." Syla was fascinated.
'The book i read didn't mention that...' She thought.
"This is enough proof, thank you for your effort, i'll give you the quest reward soon." The receptionist then opened one of the drawer under her desk, it was filled with gold coins, like a cashier.
"Here." She said as she handed Syla the 15 golds that was promised in the reward.
"W- woah.." Syla stared at the shining golds infront of her, hypnotized by their beauty as she stored them inside her satchel. "Thank you!"
"No problem, if you want to do the next quest, feel free to come again." The receptionist said with a smile, despite her vibe, she was a sweet woman.
Syla abruptly nodded at the receptionist before turning her back against her and walked away, she smiled as she weaved through the crowd of adventurers, thinking about what she could use with the newly obtained money in her possession.
There wasn't anything significant that happened inside the adventurer's guild, however unbeknownst to Syla, she was unable to realize the gaze that was directed at her from the distance, far to the right side of the main hall, a figure covered with thick cloak was leaning against the wall when it spotted Syla, the figure then raised its head, revealing a man with a face that looked dreadful.
The man gazed at Syla for a few seconds, as if observing her moves, when he saw that Syla was about to leave the building, he smirked and stood back on his feets.
"There you are." He whispered.