The Vice Master nodded, thoroughly satisfied with the transaction. "Alright. I will go tell him. Just wait right here. I am going to climb upstairs."
Aria's face broke into a bright, overwhelmingly hopeful expression. She stepped back from the counter, her heart hammering as she watched the Vice Master turn and walk toward the staircase.
While they waited, Aria noticed a group of heavily scarred veteran Adventurers sitting at a large round table nearby. They were drinking hot tea and talking in hushed, serious tones. Aria couldn't help but overhear their conversation.
"Are you talking about the Ancient Black Dragon?" a huge man with an eyepatch asked, leaning over his ceramic cup. "The one that emerged in the North thirty days ago?"
"Yeah, that's the one," a Swordsman across from him replied, shaking his head in disbelief. "It was a complete terror. The branch office of the Adventurer's Association up in the Kingdom of Valerius raised a continent-wide emergency alarm. They sent a desperate request for a heavy strike squad from the Imperial Capital branch because there wasn't a single party in their entire country who could even scratch its scales. Their kingdom was literally in the state of being completely wiped off the map."
"But it's dead now, right?" the eyepatch man asked.
"Exactly. Fifteen days ago, a scouting party found it dead in a crater," the Swordsman said. "Heavily injured, completely crushed. But here is the crazy part—no one saw who killed it. No one reported the incident to the Adventurer's Association. It was just found rotting in the dirt."
A third Adventurer at the table laughed, a deep, booming sound. "Of course nobody reported it! Who else could possibly do something like that other than Thousand Strings? He obviously went up there and killed it himself. That's exactly why he is resting in his bed right now. He needs to recover the enormous amount of strength he lost on that solo mission."
Aria listened to the story, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief.
Her party was the undisputed strongest force in her entire kingdom. Because she was at the absolute top, she understood the brutal, unforgiving metrics of monster hunting better than anyone.
An Ancient Black Dragon was a walking natural disaster. To even have a slim chance of defeating one, the Association protocol required a combined, perfectly coordinated effort of at least five different Level 5 parties. It would require a whole, unified force of twenty-five high-level adventurers risking their lives in a grueling battle of attrition.
Aria knew for a concrete fact that it was entirely impossible for a single party to kill it. Let alone a man going in solo? It simply did not make sense at all.
Brielle, who had also been listening, could not hold her tongue. She walked right up to the veterans' table and interrupted them.
"An Ancient Black Dragon?" Brielle asked, crossing her arms skeptically. "I heard you need at least five full parties of high-level Adventurers to defeat something like that. It requires a massive, coordinated raid team."
The swordsman looked up at her, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah. What of it, kid?"
"I am just curious," Brielle continued, pointing a finger at the table. "You just said that no one reported who killed it. So how do you know it was Thousand Strings? There could be a hundred other people who did it. Why assume it was him?"
The big man with the eyepatch set his ceramic cup down heavily on the wood. He looked at Brielle with a serious, teaching expression. "Alright, let's play a game. Let's assume you are a Level 8 Adventurer, and you just defeated an Ancient Black Dragon all by yourself. What is the very first thing you will do next?"
Brielle answered without a second of hesitation. "I would report to the Association immediately to earn the massive credits and the monetary rewards."
The man pointed a thick finger right at her nose. "There you have it. That is exactly why we know it was him."
Brielle blinked, completely confused by the logic. "What? That doesn't make any sense."
The Swordsman leaned in to explain, keeping his voice low. "Listen. If you defeat an Ancient Black Dragon, that is a monumental, world-changing achievement. You will earn massive recognition, not just from your fellow Adventurers, but you will instantly become a legendary hero of the country you just saved. You will also get a mountain of Association credits for future level promotions. The completely normal, logical thing to do is to report it."
The Swordsman took a slow drink of his ale before continuing. "But 'Thousand Strings' does not care about credits. Everyone here in the Imperial Capital knows that fact. Every single time he does something impossible, he refuses to report it. It actually causes the Adventurer's Association a big headache. Once an emergency request is sent out, the Association spends millions of gold preparing a strike squad. The Adventurers rush all the way out to the site, ready for the fight of their lives, only to find out the threat was already neutralized."
The Swordsman shook his head, staring into his tea. "They spend all that money and time preparing for an operation to kill an apocalyptic threat, and it ends up being a complete waste of effort because he already handled it in secret. There is absolutely no other adventurer in this entire capital who behaves like that. It was the exact same situation with the Ancient Black Dragon. When you hear that an impossibly strong monster was defeated, and no one reported the kill to claim the glory? There is only one man in the world who could be responsible for it."
Aria stood frozen by the counter, completely overwhelmed by the veterans' conversation.
She remembered the dry, dead dirt of her village. She remembered the heavy silver pendant dropping into her hands. Back then, he had cured a deadly curse, saved hundreds of starving people, and brought a dead forest back to life.
And just like with the Ancient Black Dragon, he hadn't asked for a single copper coin. He hadn't asked the local knights for a medal, and he never stayed to claim any recognition. He had simply walked away into the shadows.
Tears pricked the corners of Aria's eyes. She quickly wiped them away before anyone could see, her chest tightening with deep emotion. She looked down at the wooden floorboards and whispered to herself, "He didn't change."
Just then, the sharp sound of heels clicking against wood echoed through the hall.
Aria's head snapped up. The Vice Clan Master was slowly walking down the grand staircase.
Every single footstep felt incredibly heavy. Aria's heart beat so fast, completely out of control. She squeezed her hands together, holding her breath, hoping and praying with everything she had. *Please. Even if it's just five minutes. Just let me say thank you.*
The Vice Master reached the bottom of the stairs. She stopped in front of the girls, her face softening into a look of genuine pity. She let out a long, heavy sigh.
"I am so sorry," the Vice Master said softly. "I told him your story. I told him exactly how far you traveled, and I really tried to convince him to see you. But he declined. There is nothing I can do."
The words hit Aria hard. The bright, burning hope that had carried her across the continent instantly shattered into pieces. Her shoulders slumped, and her vision blurred. She had trained until her hands bled for four years, just for a chance to stand in the same room as him. And it wasn't enough.
Elen quickly stepped up beside her, gently tapping Aria's back and rubbing her shoulder to comfort her. "It's okay, Aria," Elen whispered. "We knew it was a long shot."
Seeing the absolute devastation on the young swordswoman's face, the Vice Master turned to the receptionist. "Guide them to a quiet table in the lounge. Prepare a fresh pot of tea for them. Use the special tea leaves from the South. It can ease anxiety and wash away the exhaustion of a long journey. It's on the house."
"Right away, ma'am," the receptionist said with a polite bow.
Aria didn't say a word. She just numbly followed the receptionist away from the desk, with Elen, Brielle, and the others walking quietly behind her. They moved into the massive, open lounge area of the clan house, stepping away from the loud Adventurers and heading toward a quieter section near the large glass windows.
That was when they saw her.
Sitting alone at a small, round table was an elf.
All five girls stopped walking for a second, staring openly. It was incredibly rare to see an elf inside a human country. This was the very first time any of them had seen one in real life.
She had long, beautiful blonde hair that fell perfectly down her back, and the trademark pointed ears poking through the golden strands. She was dressed in the clean, elegant white robes of a healer.
Then one of them felt something.