CHAPTER 118: INAUGURATION CEREMONY

[Outside the tower, In the base of the Trailblaze: ]

-Swooooooooosh.

A cab stopped right at the initial stairs of the neighborhood leading upward on the small hill as a group of six walked out of the car.

Thanking the driver, the group took out their luggage and bid farewell to the driver, seeing the car drive off onto the clear road.

There were no threats on these roads, in fact, ever since they entered this outskirts area of a humble neighborhood, they had started feeling much safer than they felt even within the city.

"Hmm...? Are we in the right place?" Lia was still confused why they were in a simple neighborhood instead of a guild headquarters.

Today was their inauguration ceremony and the first time they were visiting their guild’s headquarters and yet, what they were seeing was a simple neighborhood with many people going about with their daily routines.

"This surely seems to be the place." Their captain, Logan Sargent the mage replied positively while looking at his phone.

It surely showed that the location was correct, also, seeing as how there were banners around the walls here pointing at the uphill location with their guild’s name, they must be in the right place.

"Is this some kind of a secret base or something? Don’t tell me the actual base will be some kind of an underground bunker!" Lia’s imagination was running wild after seeing this happy neighborhood.

"That would be quite a sight, haha." Her teammates couldn’t help but chuckle at those words...

"Uncle Zo, do you have some salt?"

"Hello Miss Niki~! Have a nice day~."

"Your puppy isn’t looking well, dear. Is she alright?"

There were simple looking non-players that were going about with their daily lives as if the world was the same as it used to be, something she did not see in her country.

She had been here for a few days now, but even this city was no different from her hometown.

Even in this place, the people weren’t fine. They weren’t really living a happy life or had a normal family.

Everywhere she had looked while being here, she had seen people who had lost their family, their homes, or both. There were those who had become permanently handicapped, and also those who had lost every hope they had.

As someone with a curious nature and great observational abilities, she had seen how people were running around everywhere to find a job.

Players who did not want to go to the tower were going to the dungeons and gates in hope of having a high risk high reward mentality with others that shared the same mindset.

They did not want to face constant fear so ’hitting it big’ and then ’taking it easy’ were the mindset that they had retained... but it wasn’t right.

"Let’s go and see for yourself. If they can give such attractive salaries, there must be more to this neighborhood than we could see."

The captain was right, so the rest of the group nodded and started moving up.

"Hello~. Hello~. Good morning~."

They seemed to be foreigners so the neighbors treated them well. They had been seeing many new faces already so they knew these people must be here for their guild as well.

"Hello, young ones~. Are you here for the guild’s inauguration as well? Do you know where to go~?" An old, sweet looking grandma approached them and asked them in the common language that the rest of them were familiar with.

"Yes, Ma’am. We are here for the guild’s inauguration. Should we just follow these markers?" The captain asked while pointing towards the red arrow markings on the walls.

However, the old grandma shook her head while maintaining the smile on her face. "You can forget about these markings. They are very inefficient.

The kids only put them there in case there was no one around to guide ones like you."

The grandma seemed to be a player herself. The captain could faintly feel the presence of Mana from her. However, it was faint so perhaps she wasn’t of a high level... or wasn’t combat oriented, which would make sense considering she seemed to be in her seventies.

"Follow me, young ones. Let me guide you to your destination." The sweet grandma offered with a cheerful tone, and since the group had nothing to lose here, they followed behind the grandma.

Then, the old lady took the group through various small passages, local paths that only those who had lived in this labyrinthine neighborhood for years would possibly remember.

"Do you see that convenience store? You should ask the owners to guide you from there. It will be a surprise, I must warn you however, Huhuhu."

After walking for a few minutes, they were at the top of the hill-like neighborhood, standing before an open road on the opposite of which stood a local shop with the upper floors being regular houses.

The shop was small, covering only half of the ground floor, however, they could see a familiar face standing at the reception of the shop with their keen eyesight.

"Thanks a lot, grandma~." Lia thanked the granny as soon as she spotted their guild leader inside the shop, bowing down to the old lady in a courteous manner.

"Thanks a lot, ma’am!" The rest of the group thanked her as well. And seeing their sincere looks, the granny smiled warmly, "Izzy certainly has a good eye for people. You young ones are also a good pick."

The granny said those last few words in a local dialect that the rest of them could not quite understand. But they just passed it off as an old person’s humor.

The grandma then said her goodbyes to the group as well and walked away into the illuminated paths of the labyrinthine neighborhood, soon vanishing into the ancient houses.

"It looks like the guildmaster’s there." The female swordsman of the group said in a discouraging tone.

"This might not be the actual base for all we know, you know?" But the Captain still had his faith in these individuals.

In all his life throughout his days of poverty and frugality, he had maintained his set of values, one of which was to not judge things based on their appearances.

"Let’s go ask her directly." At the end of the day, it did not matter if their guild base was a simple countryside neighborhood.

They were already members of this guild, so, they needed to confront the important things as they needed to as members of this guild.

"Hmmm? Oh! You’re finally here~!" They ignored how their guildmaster was behaving completely differently from what they remembered.

"Can you help me out a bit here? They won’t leave until we’re out of stock, haha." But even if they wanted to, it was very, very difficult to ignore the shop that was completely filled with items from the Tower as well as consumables that one cannot find in the market however much they tried...