The Adventurers' Guild was busier than usual.
Dozens of adventurers moved through the large hall while guild staff hurried between desks carrying reports, mission parchments and payment records.
Nobody paid much attention when Osric entered.
At least not initially.
A few seconds later, however, several people started staring.
Not at Osric.
At the bloodstains on William's shield, which wasn't an unusual sight in here.
Or at the older man whose arm William was firmly holding.
"What happened to him?"
"No idea."
"Isn't that one of House Greydell's people?"
The whispers quickly spread.
Samuel sighed.
This was exactly the kind of attention he had hoped to avoid.
Meanwhile, Osric's focus was elsewhere.
"We need to find him immediately."
"Yeah."
Before they could move further into the guild hall, the entrance doors opened once more.
Osric stopped.
William blinked.
Samuel narrowed his eyes.
Another group had just entered.
Garrick was at the front.
His clothes were torn.
His whole body was bloodied.
Richard and Dustin followed behind him.
And behind them—
A large unconscious man was being carried through the guild entrance. Richard was helping Dustin by now because he became too heavy.
'Why did I have to get involved in this mess?' Richard thought.
For several seconds, both groups simply stared at each other.
Garrick was the first to react.
"Osric."
Relief immediately appeared on his face.
Meanwhile Garrick's eyes landed on Samuel.
Then on William's grip around his arm.
Then on Osric.
Then back to Samuel.
A grin slowly appeared on the old mercenary's face.
"Looks like everyone had an interesting afternoon."
Osric looked at the unconscious man.
"Who is that?"
"Klinger. Leader of the group that tried to kill us."
Garrick pointed toward Samuel.
"And who's your catch?"
For the second time today, Samuel seriously considered that perhaps remaining inside the library had been a terrible decision.
"It's complicated. Let's find Franklin first and then talk about everything." Osric answered.
Everyone agreed.
—
At the same time inside the Stoneclaw Gang's headquarters.
Ivan, the second in command, was done gathering like minded people and started proceeding with his plans on overthrowing Luke.
He looked around the main hall of the building's basement.
'Good. Looks like I managed to gather slightly over a hundred members. That's over half of our whole gang.'
Ivan cleared his throat and looked down from the chair he was standing on.
"Thanks for coming everyone. You all know why we're here and what must be done."
"Luke has lost sight of what our gang represents and just acts as a puppet for the nobles! Are you all okay with how things stand?!"
Everyone shouted. "NO!"
"Right! There's still many who blindly follow Luke because of money. Obviously we all love money, but if we just wanted money, we would've become mercenaries."
"What we want is freedom!"
"Yeahh!"
"We don't want to be chained by rules!"
"That's right!"
"We don't wish to be controlled by those in power like nobles!"
"No we don't!"
"What we want is to be the ones swimming in power and wealth!"
"Damn right!"
"Let's go back to our old ways and take what's ours by force!"
"YEAHH!!"
Ivan now had everyone fired up and didn't waste any time.
He hopped down and raised his hand.
"Follow me! Let's go take back our gang!"
"Yeahh!"
"Right!"
"Yes!"
—
Back at the adventurers' guild, Osric's party and the ones with them were inside the 2-Star Knight and guild leader's office.
Franklin listened carefully without interrupting them. Osric and Garrick also learned new information from each other through this.
As Garrick was done explaining everything that happened inside the monster forest and telling them what Klinger revealed—
Osric also shortly told them about the library scene and who Samuel was.
Now everyone knew that Samuel was probably more involved than he let on, but it wasn't certain.
That is—
Until Klinger woke up.
"Ugh." He looked around from the floor and immediately recognized Samuel.
"Huh? Aren't you Reginald Greydell's retainer?"
Everyone already knew that, but they didn't know that Klinger knew him personally.
"Why are you here? Is House Greydell throwing away our gang after putting out the hit yourselves?!"
Samuel clenched his fists. 'Fuck. I'm screwed.'
'This idiot. Why couldn't he have just died if he failed?!'
The killing intent from Osric, Garrick and William was intense—
But it was nothing compared to the cold and imposing staredown from Franklin.
A 2-Star Knight's killing intent could actually be felt.
Samuel's legs started trembling and he fell to his knees.
As he stared up at Franklin's intimidating face, he almost peed himself.
He quickly put his forehead to the wooden floor and started begging. "Please spare me! I told Reginald not to do it. Lord Greydell instructed him to recruit Osric, but Reginald is just a spoiled and dumb noble heir."
Garrick clicked his tongue as he watched this pathetic scene.
Osric and everyone else stayed quiet while waiting for Franklin to speak first.
Franklin was now conflicted.
House Greydell was indirectly involved in this matter, but it was way too soon to confront them.
'The best course of action is to pin this on the Stoneclaw Gang alone and get rid of them. That would still be a huge blow to the cashflow of the castle.'
'The only issue is this guy here. Samuel is a retainer to a direct heir and people already saw him come in here, so we can't kill him.'
'But I also can't just send him back like this. He could tell them that we now know of their actions and relationship to Stoneclaw. They would see us as a big enough threat to do something about it.'
Osric could tell what Franklin was thinking and decided to speak up.
"Franklin. I have an idea."