Immortal Era's Crafting Master 104 Familiar Feeling, Hard Truths

This resulted in the archer flinching but the werewolf paid this no mind as he stood up and ran through a series of stretches. While the archer finally managed to settle his mind, the werewolf spoke up, "Had you arrived twenty seconds later, you probably would have met a slow and painful death, followed by that village of yours being wiped out in the near future. It's best that you don't wait until the last minute before showing up when you have a deadline, as you never know what can be waiting for you."

As if to show how serious the situation was, the werewolf channeled a bit of his energy in his hands, prompting the wires connected to them to be revealed. When the archer noticed the wires, a dreadful chill traveled down his back. The reason for this was due to the fact that his entire body was surrounded by a bunch of wires in a somewhat loose fashion as they started retreating. The archer watched in dread as he saw the wires retract back to the hands of the werewolf, where they started to, according to what his eyes were seeing, 'fuse' with the pair of gloves on the werewolf's hands. The archer swallowed hard as he knew that this was just a warning that was veiled within a piece of advice that was just given to him.

With all his wires collected and the archer educated, the werewolf spoke up, "Now that I'm ready, let's go check out those coordinates."

Without even waiting for the archer, the werewolf took off in a certain direction. The archer watched the back of the werewolf get smaller in the distance before he woke up from his stupor and followed along. Although it sounded like he was doing this of his own will, the archer had no choice in the matter. Through the werewolf's previous demonstration, the archer was sure that had he chosen to not follow, his head would have probably been separated from his body before he had the chance to make it a few feet.

Up ahead, the werewolf had a casual smile on his face as he led the way. While doing this, he was thinking to himself, 'There's something about this archer that seems familiar like I've met him somewhere before. I'll use the time in which we're searching around those five areas to see if I can figure out what it is.'

With those thoughts in mind, the werewolf made sure to glance at the archer from time to time, pondering on what he found similar about him. As for the archer, he never noticed these glances as he was too busy trying to keep up with the werewolf's speedy figure. Naturally, the werewolf was Kirou.

*******

Roughly an hour later, the duo had managed to visit and verify all five areas that bandit warrior Jackson had told Kirou about. Kirou had seen with his own eyes that each area was occupied by a different species of monster and that they had more than enough numbers to make up for the last few kills he would need before heading back to Elderwood Village.

During this one-hour trip, Kirou noticed that the archer had been paying very close attention to his movements. It was as if the archer was studying him. This gave Kirou an eerily similar feeling as if he's been subjected to this piercing stare once before. Kirou had spent quite a bit of time trying to remember where he has received such a stare before. He's even gone as far comb through the memories of his previous life to see if the answer lied there, only to come up with blanks.

It was just as the duo had finished verifying the last area and was returning to the clearing where all this started that Kirou had a sudden flash of inspiration, or rather, revelation. Kirou narrowed his eyes slightly before examining the archer from head to toe. It was only after he had done this a few times that a strange expression formed on his face. This expression looked to be that of a fat cat that now had a mouse playfully within its sight.

Kirou maintained his casual att.i.tude as he led the way back to the clearing but a few ideas quickly flashed through his mind as he thought, 'This world truly is a very small place. This should prove to be very interesting.'

*******

SC Pier City.

It's been a day since Kirou's warning had been pa.s.sed on to both Navi and Reya. It had been a quiet night so while the two had initially been on the lookout for any trouble within their branch, their respective responsibilities had finally caught up with them, causing them to shift their focus away from the branch and onto their own stuff. It was through this small window of opportunity that tragedy struck.

Both women were in the process of creating something when they received urgent messages requesting for help from members of their branch. These messages weren't from players suspected or confirmed to be spies, but actual members of the branch that are solely there to be crafters. The duo stopped working on their own projects and sat down across from each other with solemn expressions.

Checking over the details of the requests for aid they just received, along with the hint Kirou had provided them on the previous day, both women were acutely aware of the problem they were now facing. Should they choose to ignore the requests, Navi would lose the respect and authority she commands over the branch's members. As for responding to those requests and heading out to deal with it themselves, that is just a recipe for disaster as both are acutely aware that they are the true targets of this attack and not the normal members of their branch.

The thought of requesting aid from the main branch did cross their minds for a moment but the duo decided to hold off on such an action. Once or twice would be fine since they are all under the same sect and hurting one section is the same as hurting the others, but doing so any more than that would call Navi's competence as a leader in question. While Navi was fine with stepping down from such responsibilities and pa.s.sing on the role to someone else, she would not be able to protect the branch leader position for Reya and would face Guardian Knight's disappointment on dealing with the matter. Along with that, whoever takes over would quickly reorganize the branch's members and force out quite a few of the rather ordinary players within this branch, as opposed to the elite or highly skilled players being raised in the others.

This resulted in the duo facing a hard time in coming up with a decision on the matter. Releasing a sigh, Navi spoke up, "For now, we better go request a bit of aid from the main branch before going out to deal with this fire."

"Sister Navi, are you sure it's a good idea for us to take care of it this way? I mean, this is clearly a plot by those guys from the a.s.sa.s.sin's Branch. Why don't we just report this to my brother and have him settle things down?" Reya asked this after a bit of contemplation, showing signs of hesitation in doing so as she knew the consequences of such an action.

Instead of answer Reya's question directly, Navi chose to ask Reya a few of her own, "Tell me, Reya, did our branch members see any tags or identification for the a.s.sa.s.sin's Branch when they were being attacked?"

To that question, Reya shook her head. Taking another read over the request to confirm it, the crafters clearly had no idea who attacked them, nor did they have any interactions with members of the a.s.sa.s.sin branch on a regular basis so identifying them through such actions won't work as well.

Navi continued with her speech, "Next comes whether or not it truly is those guys from the a.s.sa.s.sin's branch. How are you so sure that it's truly them and not some other guild that's picking on us, like the Phantom Thieves Sect or the Grand Kingdom Alliance? Has Kirou messaged you the details about their involvement in the matter while I was busy working?"

This time, Reya hung her head down a bit before shaking her head once more. Like Navi had just told her, she too was aware of the possibility that their branch was being targeted by either of those groups, amongst the many enemies that the Sanming Sect has to deal with. With their branch being the weakest, it only makes sense to hara.s.s them in such a manner. That being said, Reya also knew that it could very well be a ploy by her cousin to do such an act while making it look like it was done by one of those two powerhouses.

Navi could see that Reya was deep in contemplation over this but she had a point to get across so she continued, "Let's say we can provide evidence that it was the members of the a.s.sa.s.sin's branch that are responsible for the attacks on our crafters, should the higher-ups ask for our source of information, and they would ask us, how would we respond? Do we tell them that the information came from the sect's current collaborator in the big project that we are doing right now? If we told them that, I'm sure they'd be questioning how Mr. Wolf managed to get such information from their sect while they, as the higher-ups of the sect itself, weren't in the know about it until we reported the issue. That would ultimately lead to both sides falling out and the higher-ups, your brother included, would be having doubts about all the members of the sect, us included."

At this point, Reya released a sad sigh as she could tell that Navi's words had a lot of weight behind them. She herself was already aware of a few of the issues that Navi mentioned but with how Navi said it, she could tell that the reality of the situation would be a whole lot worse for them. After contemplating everything Navi had spoken, Reya released another sigh before speaking up in a soft voice, "It seems that we truly are in a pinch with this one, aren't we, Sister Navi?"

Navi reached out and held both of Reya's hands as she spoke, "Indeed we are, Sister Reya. And it is for that exact reason why we cannot rush into making any big decisions. For now, requesting aid from the main branch to protect our members is just a means of buying time. That said, that time being provided should give Mr. Wolf enough time to finish his current quest so that he can make his way here to share his findings. I'm sure that by the end of which, we'll be able to brainstorm a way out of this together with his help." After saying this, Navi gave Reya's hands a squeeze to rea.s.sure her.

Reya felt somewhat better after Navi did this. She then got up before speaking, "Alright, Sister Navi. I'll go request the aid through my brother. At least that way, the other branch leaders won't be able to take advantage of the situation." Following her words, Reya quickly left the cultivation room she was sharing with Navi in order to take care of business.

As for Navi, she stayed back in the room by herself, feeling down. While she said all those things to stop Reya from making an impulsive decision, she herself knew that there were two sides to all things. While it did indeed stop Reya, Navi was now lost in thought about the only real options, or rather, option that she can make in this situation, which is giving up her position as branch leader.

With no one to disturb her, Navi spoke under her breath, "It's either I disband this branch and hand over all of its acc.u.mulated resources to the main branch while the members are absorbed into the other branches, or I step down from the branch leader position, allowing someone else to take charge, at the cost of them reorganizing everything while I'll return to being a normal guild member with no power."

After saying that, Navi released a sigh before a thought flashed within her mind. This thought made her chuckle, which turned into full-blown laughter that went on for a few minutes before she finally regained her composure. As she calmed herself down, she spoke under her breath once more, "Well, there IS the option of emanc.i.p.ating this branch from the Sanming Sect, but that would mean giving up all of the resources this branch has collected so far, along with putting up with many players leaving on their own, not to mention having to pay a huge fine to the main branch. That said, after going through all of that, the alchemist branch would no longer have anything to do with the sect, so those guys would no longer be able to stare at this branch with their greedy little eyes. Hmm, I'll keep this as a final resort for now. I won't inform Sister Reya of this until it's absolutely necessary. Until then, we've got to fight with our own strengths."

Having said her fill and somewhat cheered herself up, Navi was now feeling reinvigorated, prompting her to resume working on her previously paused project. For now, she had a job to do and she'll do until the end. It wasn't until five minutes later that Reya returned to the room and got back to work, after informing her of her brother's swift actions in dispatching a party or two to aid the crafters, whom she replied to along the way.