Chapter 52: New Order
The adventurer guild was just as lively as I remembered, but as I looked around, I didn't manage to find any of the other party members. Checking the mapping function, I noticed that they seem to be deeper inside the guild building, where I remembered the guild leader's office was.
Making my way towards one of the desks, I grabbed the clerk's attention and said: "Is the guild leader inside?"
The clerk nodded and said: "Yes, but he's having guests right now and he instructed us that no one can visit him."
"Can you please let him know Ethan Knott is looking for him? I'm sure he'll agree to see me."
The clerk gave me a suspicious look but left for the back nonetheless. A few moments later, he came back and said: "The leader said you can go and see him."
I thanked the clerk and made my way towards the guild leader's office. After knocking on the door, I stepped right inside and saw the leader drinking tea together with Oliver, Velor and Lysa.
Seeing me walk in alone, Oliver said: "Hey Ethan, where's Anise?"
"She's at the academy with her mother." I replied to Oliver's question and turned towards the guild leader: "Guild leader it's good to see you in good health."
The guild leader nodded and replied: "It's good to see you too, Ethan. Thank you for taking care of my daughter."
After exchanging some more pleasantries, the guild leader had a guild employee serve me a cup of tea as well and we all started chatting. I found out that the guild leader appears to be friends with Lysa and Velor's family and that's the reason they were all here. It was also today that the others found out that Anise was the guild leader's daughter.
As we were chatting merrily, the door to the office opened and an employee barged inside. Before the guild leader could berate him, he said: "I'm sorry for disturbing you, but there are reports of the 'Fallen Faction' being sighted entering the city."
The guild leader's expression became serious as he stood up and said to us: "I'm going to have to make some preparations to welcome them. I'm sorry I can't entertain you anymore."
Oliver immediately agreed for all of us and we started walking out. On the way out, I asked Oliver: "Do you know what this 'Fallen Faction' is?"
Oliver nodded and replied: "It's a party of SS ranked adventurers. The second strongest party of adventurers in the southern continent."
"SS? Does that mean all of their members are over level 80?"
"Yes. From what I know they are actually over 90."
"Hmm, I just realized that we are also an S ranked party now."
"Barely. We indeed classify as an S ranked party, but none of us actually updated our rank at the guild. We also have to register as an official party."
I nodded and said: "How about we do that now since we are already here?"
The others agreed and we headed towards the ranking room in the guild. After waiting in queue for everyone that was leveling up, we all entered the room at the same time.
There was the same man as last time I was here. He extended his hand towards us and said with a bored look: "I'm going to need your badge, adventurer card and party card."
Oliver, who appeared a lot more knowledgeable about all this, replied: "We didn't have the chance to register as a party and we would like to do it now."
The clerk nodded and replied: "All right. First I will need you to give me your adventurer card and badge before deciding on a party name."
We each passed out adventurer cards and badges as Oliver said: "We have not updated our ranks for quite a while so we would like to do that first."
He took a look at one of the cards and said: "Adventurer Lysa. You come first and place one of your hands on the tablet."
Lysa stepped forward and placed her hand on the tablet as instructed. As words started appearing on the tablet, the man expression kept changing before he said while stuttering: "S rrrank?!…"
With a trembling hand he picked up a cyan colored badge from under the desk which had the S letter written in gold on it and placed in front of Lysa together with a new and updated adventurer card.
Lysa picked up her card and badge before giving me a grateful look and stepping back. The clerk managed to relax a little as Lysa stepped back and picked up the next card. This time it was Velor's turn and the same situation happened once again. By the time he reached the last card, which was mine since I was the first to hand it out, the clerk was already numb. He made me repeat the same process before handing me the S ranked badge.
Once we were all done, he sighed and said: "To be officially recognized as a party, you need at least five members. If the fifth member of you party couldn't be present officially, you can also register using his name but he will need to come and confirm it personally before you can pick up any party quests."
I nodded in understanding and said: "She's not here. Her name is Anise Cloven. The guild leader's daughter."
The clerk nodded and asked: "Was she registered here in Cloven city?"
After I nodded my head, the clerk looked through some kind of register before saying: "I found her. Level 19 D rank."
I scratched my head and said awkwardly: "Her level is also not updated. She's already level 60, same as us."
The clerk nodded and said: "She'll have to come here, update her status and accept being added to the party. Until then, I'll register her as a temporary member so I could finish the registration process for the party. Can you tell me the name you decided for the party?"
As his question ended, everyone turned towards me with expectations in their eyes. Sighing, I replied: "Can someone else pick? I'm not that good at naming things…"
The others rejected and I had no chance but to come up with a name by myself. After thinking for a while, I said in a questioning tone: "How about 'Anti-demon Alliance'?"
Lysa was the first one to reject the idea and the others followed right after, forcing me to think of something else. I came up with a few more idea that I thought sounded cool, but each and every one of them got rejected.
By the time I gave my fifth suggestion, the clerk coughed and said: "Could you please make up your mind faster? There are other people outside waiting to get their levels updated."
I was already feeling embarrassed so I said: "How about we go with 'New Order'?". I don't know if the others actually liked it or didn't want to make the clerk wait any more, but they agreed and we soon received our party card.
On top it was the name of the party, followed by it's rank and under that was the name of all us. Anise's name had an exclamation mark right next to it. After we received all our badges and cards, we thanked the clerk and stepped out of the room.
There were some people in the queue throwing us angry looks but we just ignored them and walked out of the guild building. Once outside, I said to the others: "I didn't get the chance to tell you, but Anise and I are also planning to follow you guys to the capital. Do you mind waiting a day or two more for us?"
They looked at each other before nodding towards me: "We don't. If you use teleportation magic it will be faster anyway."
We all agreed to meet two days later at the adventurer guild and I split from the party heading for the old inn I used to live in when I stayed inside the city. After paying for a normal room, I walked inside and laid down on the bed. Checking Anise's status in the party interface and seeing that she was fine, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
In the morning of the next day, after waking up and cleaning myself using water magic, I cast a teleportation spell and appeared right outside the Cloven Academy. Letting out a sigh, I started walking towards the entrance while hoping Anise and her mother managed to settle their differences.
As the guards stopped me, I told them my name and they gave me directions on where I could find the headmistress before immediately letting me go. Apparently Anise's mother already gave instructions to let me inside.
Following the guards directions, I soon arrived in a medium sized garden with a small table placed in the middle, right by a small stream. Anise and her mother were enjoying drinking tea while chatting casually. Seeing that everything looked fine and they appeared to have reconciled, I let out a sigh of relief and started heading towards them.
Seeing me approach, Anise stood up and hugged me right away. Then, with a blaming tone she said: "Why did you leave without saying anything?"
Chucking, I ruffled her hair and said: "I wanted to give you and your mother the chance of fixing up things between each other. Me being there would only make things awkward."
"But.."
I flicked her nose and interrupted her word by saying: "No buts. Let's sit down.". Anise pouted slightly but still followed after me towards the table.
As I reached the table, I bowed towards her mother and said: "Headmistress.", before taking a seat. We might have had our differences but she was still Anise's mother and was deserving of my respect.
Anise's mother nodded as she sipped her tea before extending her hand and saying: "You can call me Jeanne, Jeanne Cloven. I don't think I ever had the chance to introduce myself properly."
I accepted her hand and told her my name even if she already knew it. After we were done with proper introductions she said: "Anise already told me that something is wrong with your soul and that's why you have to return to your world. Do you mind if I take a look? I'm not that great with souls but I've read a book or two about them."
She seemed a lot more approachable than before, the cold look and superior attitude completely gone. After confirming with Ai that there was nothing wrong with letting her take a look, I nodded my head and extended one of my hands. She picked it up and closed her eyes right after. A few moments later, she frowned as blood started flowing out of one of her nostrils.
Panicking, I retreated my hand and asked: "Are you all right?"
Jeanne opened her eyes again and used a napkin from the table to wipe the blood before saying: "I'm fine, don't worry. Just a small backlash."
[After failing once, she tried to force her way inside and suffered a small injury to her soul that will recover in some time. Quite a stubborn woman nonetheless.]
"As long as you're fine." I sighed in relief as I heard Ai's words.
"Mother, do you have any idea on how to help Ethan?" asked Anise right after. Probably she was the one who asked Jeanne to take a look at my soul.
Jeanne shook her head and said: "I wasn't even able to take a careful look at his soul. It's like there's something protecting it. Once I tried to force my way inside I suffered a backlash, so I'm sorry but I'm unable to help."
Seeing the worried look in Anise's eyes, I said: "I already told you that no one will probably be able to help me in this world. I'll be fine after I return to my world so no need for you to worry about it."
She nodded and was about to say something else when Jeanne intervened: "What makes you so sure that you are even able to return to your own world anyway? Your understanding of spatial magic has reached a great level, but traveling from one world to another is not that easy."
"I agree, but I already have a way to return there whenever I want. The only reason I stayed here is because I still have some unfinished business and I don't have a way of taking Anise with me yet."
Once the subject reached me taking Anise with me, Jeanne expression turned a bit sour as she turned towards Anise and said: "You already made up your mind? Aren't you going to think about it some more?"
Anise lowered her head as she said: "I'm sorry mother, but I already told you I'm in love with Ethan and I want to follow after him wherever he goes."
Jeanne sighed, obviously troubled and turned towards me: "Can you still return here after fixing whatever is happening with your soul?"
'Ai, what will happen exactly after we link this world to the Nexus?'
[This world will become a part of the Nexus and everything inside will be under my control and by extension your control as well. You can return to this world anytime you want from the Nexus and even pull others out from inside it. Of course all of this will cost you system points. The problem is that others will not be able to join you on other worlds since I can only create one avatar on each world.]
'Then, I can only meet up with Anise for a brief moment as I'm traveling between different words?'
[Affirmative.]
Making Anise wait for me to return from each world only so we can spend a little amount of time together wasn't something I wanted, so I said:
'You said that I can use system points to buy almost anything I wanted. Do you have a way to solve this using system points? Making Anise wait for so long every single time is not really an option..'
[If you want, you can freeze the time in this world and only unfreeze it when you return here.]
'But, depending on the time I have to spend of each world, hundreds of years might go by in which I will be unable to see her at all..'
[…]
I sighed and nodded towards Jeanne. There were a lot of things I couldn't explain at the moment and even I was not sure what the future will bring. All of it depended on if I would be able to link this world to the Nexus and that was what I wanted to focus on right now.
Seeing me nod, it was like a stone was lifted from her shoulders as she smiled slightly and said: "I see from your expression that it will not be so easy, but I hope you will come to visit me from time to time even after you leave. Also, make sure to bring any future grandchildren as well."
"Mom." Anise blushed as she hang her head. I was also feeling a bit embarrassed that the conversation reached this topic. Jeanne didn't seem to care about our embarrassment as she said to Anise:
"You already told me that you did it, so what's there to be embarrassed about now?"
We kept chatting about stuff for a while, with Jeanne teasing Anise from time to time. Jeanne didn't shy away from even asking me some stuff about the way I use magic without a chant and I did my best to answer each and every one of her questions. As it was getting late into the evening, Jeanne turned towards Anise and said:
"You should also go and tell all of this to your father as well."
As soon as she heard this, Anise sighed and said: "Can't you tell him after we leave?"
Jeanne shook he head and said: "No, you must tell him yourself. If you wait for too long of only tell him after you are gone we don't know how he'll react."
Anise nodded and said: "Then I'm going to go and tell him now.". After that, she stood up and looked towards me. I was just about to stand up and join her when Jeanne said: "I think it would be better if Ethan was not there. You know how he is when it comes to this."
I was a bit confused but Anise nodded, gave me a hug and started heading towards the garden's exit. Being left alone with Jeanne I asked: "Why shouldn't I go with her?"
Jeanne chucked and said: "Ian would for sure go crazy the moment he hears that someone took his precious daughter hand. If you are there at that moment, even I can't imagine what he'll do. Like this, you can give him time to come to terms with the whole thing."
"That bad?" I asked with an incredulous look. The guild leader seemed like a calm and rational person to me. He even agreed to let Anise join the war in the north without any issue.
Jeanne nodded and said: "He is a bit extreme when it comes to Anise's love life. She probably the only person he cares about in this world and the moment he find out that you want to take her away he'll for sure go crazy, but don't worry, Anise will manage to persuade him not to do anything too extreme. That's why I wanted her to go and tell him the news on her own."
"If you say so, I really hope I won't just end up fighting the guild master right after making peace with you."
Jeanne chuckled and said: "That is an actual possibility. Do you mind if I ask you some more questions about magic? The knowledge from your world is definitely staggering."
I nodded and started answering all the questions Jeanne had. Without any of us noticing, the entire night passed and it was already noon of the next day when Anise returned.
Seeing her walk towards us with an awkward expression, I asked: "How did it go?"
She looked to the side and said: "Dad said he'll only agree if you beat him in a one on one fight."
"He what?" my jaw almost dropped to the floor when I heard her words and Jeanne started laughing out loud next to me.
Anise blushed and said: "He initially wanted to issue a quest to hunt you down but I managed to convince him not to. After all kind of negotiations this was the best I could do. He's in the forest outside the academy waiting for you…"
"He let you go and join the war trusting that I will protect you, but the moment you told him you love me he challenges me to a duel?"
Seeing Anise nodding weekly with an embarrassed expression, I sat up and headed towards the exit. Since it's come to this I could only accept his challenge. I never imagined I would fight for a girl with her father.
Jeanne and Anise also followed after me as we made our way towards the forest outside.
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