Duskbound

"Is this really the trial you put golds through?" Velik asked.

"Every single one of them," Nelspir told him.

"And… how often does someone just come in and pass this without working their way up through the guild?"

"Not that often," the guild master admitted.

"Do I get to pick which one I take?"

"Nope. That'll be up to the evaluator."

Fantastic. Knowing my luck, I'll get the hardest, most time-consuming option.

The trial itself was simple. He'd be given a gold-ranked assignment from the job postings, and an instructor would follow along to evaluate him while he completed it solo. He wouldn't be told what criteria he was being judged on, and the instructor wouldn't interfere except to save a bystander's life, though if they deemed that person being in danger Velik's fault, that would count harshly against him.

In theory, it was simple, except that even though gold-ranked monster hunters were allowed to work solo, it wasn't automatically expected of them. Of course, that was part of the test, too. If the job was too much for him to handle, he was supposed to be able to figure that out before he got himself killed so he could retreat. The problem was that if the instructor didn't agree that a gold-ranked shouldn't be able to complete the job without assistance, it didn't matter whether he could. It would just prove he wasn't ready for gold.

The plan was to hope he got an instructor who wasn't friendly with Pevril, get an assignment from the job postings that, with any luck, wouldn't take months to complete, and do his best out there. There were too many variables out of his control to be happy about any of this, but the guild wasn't giving him a lot of other options.

"When will I know what I'm doing?" he asked.

Nelspir considered the question for a moment, then said, "Give me three days to get things set up. I'll need to find your evaluator first, preferably one who isn't part of Pevril's bloc. There are also two jobs on the board I don't want you touching, so I'll see if I can get some other golds to claim those. That way they'll be eliminated from the pool."

Velik wanted to say something about how little control the guild master seemed to have over his own guild, but considering the man was doing him a favor in a round-about sort of way, he figured it was better to keep his mouth shut. Criticisms, no matter how valid they might be, wouldn't help his position.

"I'd prefer something quick, if you can make that happen. I've already lost enough time playing around with the irons."

Nelspir raised an eyebrow and stared at him. "Awful demanding, aren't you?"

Whoops. No matter what I say, it's always the wrong thing.

"Sorry. It's just that this is important to me on a personal level and—"

The guild master brushed Velik's attempts at explaining aside. "I'm aware of your connection, and believe me, just because you don't have access to the guild vaults yet doesn't mean I don't have people working on it. Trust me. This isn't lost time, and once you get your clearance, we'll have plenty to catch you up on."

He hadn't realized there were people already working on his project for him. Then again, he supposed it wasn't really to help him specifically. It was because Torwin had let them know about a major threat. They'd discovered a monster that could impersonate someone and spread seeds to new hosts, who would then eat their victims from the inside out and take over the bodies. The monsters even managed to keep the memories and mannerisms of the people they pretended to be, making them a major threat.

Even though they'd killed hundreds of corrupted humans and destroyed thousands upon thousands of the seed clusters, and killed the flesh crafter who'd originally created them, the danger was out there. If even one corrupted human had survived the purge and could produce more seeds, there was every chance that a new infection could spread through a city. It might already be happening.

So, it made sense to Velik that they weren't waiting for him to graduate monster hunter training to get started, but he doubted they were focused on the same area he was. It wasn't that he thought finding seed bearers was a waste of time, it was just that the guild's focus was on finding the threat and containing it, while Velik wanted to find the person responsible for creating the flesh crafter in the first place.

Chalin had been the first victim. They'd found a dungeon seed together as kids, and while Velik had inherited the dungeon guardian's class and had a racial subtype added to his status, Chalin had become a living dungeon core. Perhaps he'd had control of it at one point, but as he'd killed and added more and more flesh to his body, he'd eventually grown into an entire dungeon. That, combined with the dozen or so people whose minds had been absorbed into the amalgamation, had driven him completely insane.

Someone had put that dungeon seed there, had left it to be found. Velik wanted to know who, and he wanted to very, very strongly express his opinion about that decision to the person responsible. While he was sure that Ghestal's government probably wanted to know who'd nearly started a body-snatching plague, the guild's primary concern was handling the fallout from the situation, which meant searching for monsters in disguise and making sure they couldn't build up their numbers again.

"Alright, if that's all the questions, then get out of my office. Find something to keep you busy for a few days, maybe another etiquette lesson or two, and I'll have someone let you know when the details have been decided."

At Nelspir's dismissal, Velik stood up and gave the guild master a nod. "Thank you for taking the time to deal with this. I'm sure you have a hundred other things demanding your attention right now."

"I do," Nelspir said with a sigh. "But this kind of shit shouldn't be happening. I took over the guild specifically to stop people like Pevril from pulling this. Ten years, and I haven't made any headway. Politics…"

"You're the guild master. Get rid of the people causing problems."

"Gods above. If only it were that easy. Believe me when I say managing just one branch of an organization this size isn't easy, and that even if I controlled the entire monster hunters guild, I'd still have to answer to the king and his ministers. We're essentially a standing army in the middle of his country, one that doesn't owe allegiance directly to a member of the aristocracy. We have to stay on the government's good side if we're going to continue to exist."

Things were a lot simpler when I was just a man in the woods with a spear and some monsters to kill. I wouldn't take this guy's job for anything in the world.

Something must have shown on his face, because Nelspir abruptly started laughing. "I know. It's a nightmare, but someone has to do it. If I resigned… well… Let's just say I don't think I'd care for the direction the guild was turn if I wasn't in charge. When I do retire, I'll almost certainly sever ties completely so I don't have to watch how things turn out. Now, enough! Begone from my office, you uninvited pest! Shoo!"

Laughing, Velik left the guild master to his work.

* * *

Pevril swaggered into Nelspir's office two hours later. The smug little prick didn't even bother to knock before he walked in and flopped into the very same chair Velik had occupied that afternoon. "How was your visit?" he asked mockingly.

"You were right," Nelspir said, almost begrudgingly. He hated when Pevril was right, and he almost always was. "He has no allegiance to the guild. He just wants access to the resources."

"Of course I was right. The boy didn't make any secret of it. And besides, it's not like that's a bad thing. Most hunters are with the guild because we make it convenient for them. They can find work, learn how to deal with the monsters they have to hunt, and fence whatever they bring back, all in one convenient place. It's no sin that he wants to take advantage of the guild, too."

"And yet you cared enough to block his advancement from iron to bronze," Nelspir pointed out. "Did Milly put that girl up to charging a split tailed bull's ass? Your idea, I assume."

"Let's just say I was satisfied with everyone else's performance," Pevril practically purred. Smugness radiated off him in waves, and Nelspir wanted nothing so much as to punch the man in the face. That was a temptation he wrestled with every time the head instructor walked into his office though, one he was well familiar with and far too disciplined to give into.

"You know, you could have just asked him to take the job," Nelspir said.

"Nonsense. It's far too difficult for a bronze, and that's what he would have been if I'd passed him today. We could never justify it."

"I don't see what difference it makes in the grand scheme of things," the guild master argued. "I know you want that job off the books, but we're still going to have to send an evaluator with him to make sure he does it right. This doesn't actually save us any manpower."

"Ah, true, but you see, any gold can refuse a job if they don't want to."

"So can an evaluator," Nelspir said with a frown. "Unless they… Ah. So it's really about her."

Pevril just leaned back in his chair. Somehow, his smirk was even wider.

"And your bloc is prepared to support my proposal for which vault we'll be targeting?" Nelspir asked.

"Of course. Anything for our esteemed guild master. We trust in your vision and follow you to glory."

Gods, I hate this prick. Fucking politics.
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"I'll let the boy and his evaluator know where they're heading," Nelspir said sourly.