---Third POV---
David smiled ingratiatingly. "We're just a small branch. Naturally, we only know matters within the guild."
"…"
They reasonably suspected that he had been deliberately trying to mislead them earlier!
Seeing their silence, David hastily added, "Although I can't help locate Lord Raynor's exact whereabouts, if you need anything else, feel free to ask."
At this point, there was no other choice. The three players jotted down the short information from the invoice.
After some thought, Garble asked, "Are you guys really a guild that spans the entire continent?"
"Of course!" David straightened his posture.
"Go ahead and ask around. Who doesn't know about the Ship-Carriage Guild?"
"Then do you have any hidden inventory listings?"
"Uh… no."
"No?" Lux looked around in surprise. "All these underground tunnels, were they just built to make a maze?"
David avoided eye contact guiltily. "Before the border of the Great Oak Forest was pushed back past Nary Town, this place used to thrive for a while…"
Adventurers poured through the town on their way to explore the forest at the border. The safe environment and fertile land had accumulated considerable wealth for Nary. At its peak, this wasn't just a small town; it was practically a city-state. The Ship-Carriage Guild once owned an entire street of shops here.
"But times change…"
Garble mercilessly pointed out, "So the underground chambers are now just a maze for fun?"
"At least there's still one usable room left!" David retorted stubbornly. "Besides, in a few months, who knows if Nary Town will even exist? Why bother building more chambers? No stock means less work and easier evacuation if needed…"
NeverShowOff shook his head, holding his forehead. Truly just for show.
"Wait!" He suddenly slapped the stone table. "You're a guild, do you deal in pawn transactions?"
---
By the time the three players left the rundown branch of the Ship-Carriage Guild, the amount of sols in their hands had broken five figures.
Thankfully, they had stockpiled some gold and jewels from looting the goblin warehouse earlier.
Now, they came in handy.
Although some items, upon David's professional inspection, were found to have special marks that made them hard to trade, the sol coins they got in exchange were still substantial. Enough to let them browse through every store on both sides of the street.
The three of them split up.
It wasn't until evening that they regrouped at the inn they had rented the previous night.
They also saw Child, who had returned to the room earlier.
When NeverShowOff opened the door, he froze, staring blankly at the small figure in the room.
"This is… My guide." Child stepped out from the corner, holding a clay bowl larger than his face. He took a sip of the lumpy green soup and raised an eyebrow smugly. "Well? Handsome, right?"
Lux sized up the stone-faced child. Even without any expression, the kid's looks were striking, as beautiful as a doll. "This is the only time I'll agree with your taste. Where'd you find him?"
Gaeman, alert and tense, stared at the three entering the room, his breathing growing rapid.
Noticing this, Child quickly set down the clay bowl and reassured him, "It's fine. They're my friends."
Then, in a normal tone, he quietly explained, only for the players to hear, "I picked him up off the street. He's a little beggar with trust issues due to his past. His throat was burned, so he doesn't like to talk after speaking too much earlier today."
Lux glanced at Gaeman's exposed scars and quickly looked away. She gave Child a once-over, as if seeing him in a new light. "Didn't expect you to have a habit of rescuing NPCs. Impressive!"
"Hey, you're the last one qualified to talk." Child put his hands on his hips. "We have a proper labor relationship. He's guiding me, and I'm letting him stay for two days. What's wrong with that? Unlike you, bet you're making someone else feed those three NPCs of yours during the mission!"
Lux's eyebrows shot up. "They're just in psychological recovery! They can already do simple crafts!"
"Alright!" Seeing the conversation veer off course, NeverShowOff hurriedly intervened. "It's just an extra room. Child, you handle it yourself."
"No problem. He doesn't have ID papers, so he'll stay with me tonight." Child waved the copper token in his hand. "I'll cover his food and lodging."
---
After dinner, Gaeman returned to Child's room without prompting, leaving the common area for the players.
Garble stared at the closed door thoughtfully. "Your guide seems a bit too mature for his age."
His ability to read people's expressions and body language wasn't ordinary.
Child spread out the map he'd been sketching and replied casually, "He's mature in many ways. Otherwise, he wouldn't have survived wandering this town. Forget about that. Look at my major discovery today!"
Although the game's map update function meant players could now generate rough terrain maps of places they'd visited, maps drawn by hand for navigation often remained more intuitive.
"Nary Town's layout, no need for me to elaborate with updated maps available. Gaeman took me to four or five places where information circulates. Either Edgar's really good at hiding, or the town's population turnover is just too high. After a whole day, I found no valuable leads on his whereabouts."
As he spoke, Child took a sip of water before continuing.
"By the way, the safety risks of wooden houses are insane. The townsfolk love stacking straw on the roofs. In just one day, I witnessed two house fires."
The three of them nodded silently, they had noticed this too. Speaking of which, Lux wore a look of grievance. "It's not just safety concerns, their sanitation is a huge issue!"
Focusing on two circles marked on the center of the map, Garble's eyes sparkled. "You went to the rich district?"
"Yeah, snuck in." Child took out a pen and paper, marking the map.
"While I didn't find Edgar's trail, there are three places I think are worth investigating further. One is the mayor's mansion next to the central square. The other is the Magicians' Guild nearby. Both are heavily guarded, so I couldn't get in to investigate. If Edgar's trapped, these two places are the most suspicious."
He retrieved two items from his backpack. One was a silver badge with two six-pointed stars. The other was a black blindfold inscribed with strange patterns, its material resembling some sort of metal, essentially a mask.
NeverShowOff tilted his head to inspect them. "What are these?"
"Stolen from a mage's bag." Child briefly recounted how he had encountered a frail-looking mage being kicked out of the guild.
Seizing the opportunity in the crowd, he pretended to stumble over the mage's bundle, swiping some items in the process.
This was a trick players had discovered while testing the game's backpack feature. Anything a player touched could be stored directly in their inventory.
Although the mage's luggage was covered by a layer of cloth, under the game's backpack rules, the bundle counted as a single item.
Taking an item from the bundle and replacing it with something of the same volume, this clever trickery had long been exploited to perfection by unscrupulous players.
One of them was Child.
If it weren't for the game limiting backpacks to just five items, he would have been able to swipe the entire bundle clean.
"These two items were hidden in very discreet spots within the bundle, they must be important."
As he spoke, he picked up the silver badge.
"This seems to be a mid-tier mage badge. There's no name on it, so I wonder if we can use it."
NeverShowOff took the badge, turning it over several times in his hands. Although he didn't find anything special, he wasn't optimistic. "Items with high authority typically have unique binding methods. There's a low chance we'll be able to use this."
Meanwhile, Lux was more interested in the black blindfold. She compared its size to her face.
"These patterns... Are you sure this isn't someone's adult toy?"
Garble widened his eyes. "NPCs are this adventurous?"
"...What even is this conversation?" Child asked.
For now, unable to figure out the specific uses for the two items, they set them aside. He continued, discussing his last suspected location: Fire Tongs Street, located where the wealthy district met the outer streets, right next to an unmistakable white church.
"According to Gaeman's intel, the main deity worshiped in Nary Town is the Spring Goddess, who represents growth, agriculture, and... authority. The town holds collective prayer sessions about every two weeks—"
"Wait a second!" NeverShowOff frowned, interrupting him. "Doesn't 'authority' seem a bit out of place for the Spring Goddess?"
"When I first heard it, I thought the same as you." Child wasn't surprised by NeverShowOff's reaction. He shrugged. "Gaeman explained that faith wars often lead to gods losing or merging their domains. Intelligent races are so obsessed with authority that there are more gods with authority-related domains than you can count on two hands. The Spring Goddess doesn't hold much authority. Overall, she's still more aligned with nature."
Garble raised an eyebrow. "A nature-oriented deity who can still wage faith wars to seize authority domains? She doesn't seem so simple."
"Of course not. If we were to rank deities by tier, the Spring Goddess's follower count wouldn't quite reach Tier 1, but she'd be near the top of Tier 2!"
"Wow, that impressive?" Lux exclaimed in disbelief. "So Tier 0 must be all ancient gods?"
Child shook his head. "Quite the opposite, most ancient gods have pitifully few followers."
He had spent a whole day being schooled by Gaeman and had finally grasped the basic faith system of Aeltia.
Other than Aureal Lucian, the God of Light mocked as a hypocrite by Viktor, who successfully turned the Radiant Church into the first church, the other ancient gods were in dire straits.
Some were only worshipped by their created races. Some didn't even have fixed names. Most of their faith systems collapsed every few centuries or millennia. When that happened, newly gathered believers would find a roughly similar name to rebuild the church.
The worst off was Barl Rex, the God of War and initiator of the Divine War, also known as Godfall War. The war not only dragged all gods into destruction but also turned his church into a taboo, leaving him with no followers whatsoever.
Compared to the ancient gods' abstract laws of water, fire, earth, and wind, gods of desire, such as wealth, authority, and love were far more popular with believers.
Even the curses from these new gods were far more functional than basic fireballs and water arrows.
NeverShowOff slammed the table in frustration. "No wonder fire magic is so weak! Turns out the God of Fire isn't doing too well either!"
Garble lowered his head in thought. "So, should we switch to studying other magic schools instead?"
"I think so too..." Child suddenly realized. "Wait, no! How did we get so off-topic?!"
He quickly reined in the conversation, like a runaway horse. Leaning on the table with both hands, he declared, "My point is, the church in town only relaxes its checks during collective prayers. We can either investigate the locked church during that time or use the distraction to raid other locations."
After finishing, he sat back down. "That's everything I've gathered today. What about you?"
NeverShowOff smiled and shook his head. "Not as much as you, with your guide, but we did find something. At least we tracked down Edgar's movements from a few days ago..."
---
After thoroughly exchanging intel, it was already late at night. All four players were exhausted and had to log off to regroup on the forum.
NeverShowOff also uploaded the Hollow's Edge-to-Nary Town route guide he had prepared that morning but hadn't had time to post.
Although his previous promotional efforts for Chronicles of Aeltia had largely failed, they did earn him some recognition among players as the game's first blogger. Thanks to the game's increasingly popular trailers and mini-game, its hype continued to skyrocket, bringing him some unexpected benefits.
Now, his forum guide updates earned him income, becoming a new side hustle.
Seeing the "Published Successfully" message on the page, he exhaled deeply.
"Turning a hobby into a job is exhausting…" He had only completed the travel route and the refugee distribution map before entering the town. There were still many guides to write, and just thinking about it gave him a headache.
"If it's endless, might as well leave it for later."
He decisively dropped the task and started browsing new forum posts. He hadn't checked the forum in over a day while tackling Nary Town's exclusive quests.
"An agricultural zone has been added north of Honeyvale Town, allowing players to lease land? That's great news! Tomorrow, I'll check if there's a merchant selling wheat seeds on the new map!"
"Ate a glowing green mushroom? Perfect for the pond!"
"New player with maxed-out construction talent? Incredible! Wait, it's MemeKnight? Never mind, then."
NeverShowOff's eyes, which had brightened at the thought of talent, dimmed instantly.
Scrolling further, he mostly saw life-skill-related posts.
With the goblin faction war over, the meta had shifted to life-skill players, especially with the influx of newbies.
Anyone with a unique talent, even as trivial as making artistic mud sculptures, was sought after by veteran players to craft pottery or ceramics.
Unfortunately for him, stationed far away in Nary Town, he had to miss out on this recruitment frenzy…