13 – Syrma

We were inside the Mirror orb, surrounded by nothing but the shattered copy, lifeless and empty, of the real world. Following one of the cracks that permeated this fake reality, we came upon an abandoned fireplace in the forest, no doubt a place where in the real world adventurers were having a meal and sharing their stories with glee. Here, under the unyielding grey monotonous sky, all I could think about was the power of the Orb, capable of recreating entire worlds down to the tiniest detail.

“As you know, Noctis is in the middle of a danger zone, where the monsters are more powerful than normal. This is caused, we think, by the presence of excess unstable magic in the environment. Noctis as it is now began as a Tier 6 danger zone. Too dangerous for normal people to live here unprotected, and the city was simply too small to be worth fortifying. So, the guild did something else. They turned it into a place to train new adventurers, to help them scale the Tiers while also using them to harvest the bountiful resources that a magically dense region was eventually bound to produce.

A safe heaven.

As of last year, Noctis was a Tier 9 danger zone, but the increase in tier had been slow enough not to attract too much attention. The guild simply changed the parameters, introducing a cap to the minimum and maximum tier of adventurers who could be transferred here and called it a day. Then the energies started growing again, this time not resulting in another increase in danger but in the formation of the Labirintine Dungeon. That was still fine, the guild only needed to put out urgent culling quests for the adventurers but it was still manageable. Then, a week ago, just before you appeared, the mountain you see over there started spewing smoke. The mountain that was never known to be a volcano.

Never. That’s why Lisette and I went there to check. We needed to see what was going on with the mountain, if it was connected to the increase in magic, and if we could do anything to stop it. What we found there was completely unexpected: a realm had opened. A door to another place, a door that is now spewing smoke, magic and monsters alike in great amounts into the surrounding environment. I couldn’t even calculate how dense the magic was on the other side, but it definitely went beyond Tier 13.”

“Can you even tell me all this?” I asked.

“As of tomorrow, I will not be the Guild Master of Noctis anymore. I have forwarded a request to be made into a normal adventurer again, S Tier like you, and the request has been approved. A Tier 15 master will replace me, although I have no idea who he or she will be.”

I nodded. Melina was not lying, but she was concealing part of the truth. “I understand. Things will be hectic then, won’t they?”

Melina laughed. “They will. They will. But not for me! I will just be another little cog in their machine, a normal adventurer like you and Lisette.”

I nodded again. There was something she wasn’t telling me, I knew, but didn’t investigate further. Liù also looked restless, as if she could read the tension in Melina’s voice. Something had happened that led her to her decision to quit being a Master. Something that was even now weighing heavily on her mind. She was not one to only think about herself, after all. Just think about what she did when Liù was about to obliterate the guild, or how she asked me to save Goddard after Lisette turned him into minced meat. No, there was something else.

“I know what you are thinking. I won’t tell you.” She said with a smile.

“You caught me.” I said. “So, now what?”

“Fuck ‘em. I always wanted to come back, one day, you know? It’s just that I still thought I could have a positive impact if I stayed. And so I stayed. Until today. I can’t take it anymore. How about we form a party? You, me and Lisette?”

I hummed. “Interesting idea. I think I would like it, yeah. How about you, Liù?”

The pixie chirped happily.

“Deal,” I said. “Since you are Tier 13, you will be the boss and you get to handle all the documents and whatnot.”

“Alright, I guess it is fair. Although you are more powerful than me.” Melina said.

“Nu-hu” I shook my head. “Lisette said I’m Tier 11 equivalent.”

Melina chuckled. “Then it’s decided. Now we only need to talk to Lisette and then we make it official.”

Melina, on the way back to the origin of this space, the exit, said that it would be better if I were to find myself out of town when the new guild master arrived. At least that would save me the questions, she said, if not an outright investigation into why I was given S Tier. I felt like this was her just delaying the inevitable, but I trusted her.

After telling Goddard to keep an eye out just in case and getting him up to speed with the whole situation, and after making him swear he will keep his mouth shut, I decided to spend the rest of the day settling matters in town before I had to leave for a big quest. The first order of business was to go at the town hall and see what kind of bureaucratic gymnastics were required to own a piece of land.

The results were disastrous. Not only was it almost impossible to get a permit to build structures both in town and outside of it, in the fields, but the prices were ludicrous! I thought that the swords at Dwymer’s place – Uncle Billy’s weaponry if you remember – were expensive, but this was on a whole new level. Thousands of gold pieces just for a small plot of land only to be used for farming.

I was going to have to find another solution to my lack of a permanent base. Rituals, as usual, offered a wide array of possible options, that I decided to explore in the future. For now, the little side trip to the town hall ended up eating away at my whole afternoon, and the sun was already setting behind the tall mountains in the west.

The city was as active and bustling as usual. The flow of people going in and out of the main gate never stopped, not even at night, and parties of adventurers were leaving the city to go explore the night forest. They were like small islands of light in a sea of darkness, for the sky was pitch black and the faint light of the stars was blocked by the layer of ash that hovered over the land like an ominous sign.

Some parties had magical lights, and those were the brightest of them all, burning with constant white light as opposed to the flickering orange of the torches. They were also the highest in tier, all 8s and 9s, in search of that one encounter that would push them to the next tier.

The competition was fierce. Everybody wanted to join Lisette among the ranks of the Tier 10s before the new Guild master arrived and, along with him, the new adventurers of all tiers and strange powers too. Tonight was going to be the last day of true fairness here in Noctis, the last of the guild protection that had allowed the city to thrive all this time.

Only time will tell what changes will happen to the city and its inhabitants.

“Lisette! Hello!”

I waved at the woman, whom I saw emerging from the forest right as I was about to leave the path that led out of the city.

She changed her direction and walked towards me.

“I have acquired all of the ingredients for the Appropriation Ritual.” She said.

“Good. Then we can perform it the next time we rack up some nice kills. Did you manage to find everything easily?”

She nodded.

“So, uh, I don’t know if you know but a new guild master is coming to town.”

You are reading story Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist at novel35.com

“I do know.” She said.

“And Melina is resigning from her job as master.”

“I also knew that.” She said.

“Right. She told me to ask you if you would like to party up” I said.

“No, I work best when I am alone.”

I grinned. “She also asked me and I said yes.”

Lisette’s face changed suddenly, and she looked in the distance as she recited something as if from memory. “A party is the most effective way to complete quests and to grow in power. I obviously accept.”

I suppressed the urge to laugh, but I could hear Liù giggling in my pocket.

***

Melina sighed. This was her last day sitting at the long, heavy desk made of mistwood and tricket leaf of the Guild Master of Noctis. Her last day. Her room was tidy and spartan, just like the day she first arrived at this strange town. It was a tier 6 danger zone at the time, more than enough for her to manage. The few adventurers began to arrive shortly after she took her assignment, fresh recruits and new faces, all Tier 4 and 5 at most.

Oh how things changed. Now the city was in the middle of a danger zone well beyond the ninth tier, destined to grow ever more dangerous by the day. She had not grown her power a bit in the year she served as guild master. She felt like she had been… left behind, in a way. Like the world had moved on without her.

She never thought she would be given the opportunity to catch up with it.

Her little cramped office was so spacious without all her things to clutter it up. Without all the piles of paper. Without the trinkets and ticking little magical tools of no purpose beyond looking very cute on her shelves. It felt bittersweet. With a sour aftertaste.

And yet.

Had it not been for her falling out with the guild, she would never have snapped.

A knock on her door.

“Come in.” She said.

The heavy door creaked as it opened, slowly revealing the tall figure of a bald man covered in bronze. In truth, it was his skin that was bronze, with deep set eyes that were bloodshot and alert, like far away flickers of mad light and determination hidden away by the impossible brass skin.

The man corrugated his non-existent brows.

“Melina.” He said. His voice was that of a snake, a viper, insidious and treacherous. His lithe figure moved up and down with his fast breathing, but his head and arms didn’t move as if they were not connected to the rest of the body. His gaze was as unmoving as his head, dead set on Melina and her chair, almost like telling her that where she was sitting was not her place to be anymore.

The man studied the room with slow, controlled movements. Like an apparition of ethereal magic condensed in humanoid form, the new guild master’s presence expanded.

“Syrma.” Melina said. “I hope your journey here was pleasant.”

Syrma tilted his head. “It was.” He said.

The silence stretched.

“Well,” Melina smiled, making her way to the door. “If there’s nothing else. I will be going.”

She was about to cross the threshold when a powerful hand grabbed her arm. She felt the cold touch of the metal skin on her soft flesh, as if the heat of life itself was being sucked out of her.

“Don’t think that I don’t see the way you ran this Guild. Your methods, a failure. Your attitude, a disgrace. You were an embarrassment, Melina. It took the Central Nodes long enough to finally act, but now your disruptions will finally cease. I will begin by personally going over each and every one of the Tier 10 promotions that you so recklessly handed out these last two days… obviously to spite me. Then I will go after your S Tier.”

Melina jerked her arm out of the tight grip, suppressing the wince that would have showed on her face. This was going to bruise.

“The guild is yours, Syrma. Run it as you see fit. But you should know that I got the S Tier special token approved by the very same Central Nodes you value so much.” She smiled, and left.

Leaving the guild, she felt like a great weight had been lifted off her chest. The weight of responsibilities, the weight of failure, the weight of… everything. There was a fire smouldering in its place. Anger, rage. The realization that the ideals she had tried to pursue this whole time were just a pipe dream. Propaganda.

The guild only showed its true colors above a certain Tier. She should have seen it sooner, but then she asked to be assigned to Noctis when it was still a safe haven, and her illusions were allowed to live a bit longer. Looking back, the seemingly idyllic times of the low tiers, back when she was only a weak fox trying to make a living, were not that idyllic. There had been telltales. Fights, ambushes, betrayals. Teammates who left her to die just to save themselves. Party members who backstabbed her at the first occasion.

All tolerated. Not encouraged, but not punished either. As long as the status quo was preserved. She tried to be an agent of change, but she ended up working for the agency of the status quo. Now she could see it.

The hell with them. There was no meaning in trying to fight a lost battle. There was no nobility in dying, being silenced and ostracized, and being mocked just for trying to do better. She will use their own methods against them, and she will only be nice to those who deserve it. Ishrin, and Lisette were the only people she could think of right now who deserved true kindness. And they were waiting for her in the forest, at the rendezvous-vous point.

You can find story with these keywords: Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist, Read Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist, Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist novel, Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist book, Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist story, Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist full, Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist Latest Chapter