Around the same time Bell Cranel and his supporter, Lili, stepped into the Dungeon, the sun was just beginning to bake the marble facade of the Guild headquarters.
Inside, the air was a mixture of frantic energy and the scent of parchment.
"…Looks like the time is right," Eina muttered to herself.
Her voice was barely audible over the cacophony of shouting adventurers and the rhythmic thumping of stamps hitting various documents.
"What's this? You're already finishing up, Eina?" Misha asked, leaning over the partition of her neighboring desk.
Her pink hair was slightly disheveled from the morning rush, and she looked at Eina with a mixture of disbelief and curiosity.
"Yes. About to." Eina nodded, her movements precise as she gathered her personal belongings.
They were currently in the main lobby, a space that always felt more like a cathedral than an administrative office.
The floors and walls were constructed from polished marble, lending the cavernous room a somber, authoritative atmosphere.
Morning sunlight spilled in through the high, arched windows, catching the dust motes dancing in the air and lighting up the lobby with an ethereal glow that matched the neighboring Tower of Babel.
Eina looked around the lobby one last time, her emerald eyes scanning the crowd of adventurers…..some eager and nervous, some exhausted…..before she wiped down the surface of her desk and stood up.
"Wow! Right during the morning rush?!" Misha teased, her eyes widening.
"The Eina I know never leaves right away. She's usually the last one to blow out the candles! Could it be... surely not... a date?!"
"Why is that the only thing you can think of?" Eina trailed off, her brow twitching as she resisted the very strong urge to smack Misha on the head with a rolled-up clipboard.
The truth was, the last few days had been a nightmare for the Guild staff.
Despite the dungeon being closed for several days due to the recent "Tremor" incident and the subsequent peacekeeping operations, the employees had been worked to the bone.
Between processing claims, filing reports on the damage to the city, and managing the restless tempers of adventurers who couldn't earn their keep, the stress was palpable.
This was especially true for Eina.
A natural workaholic and a perfectionist by trade, she was the type of person who felt a physical itch if a file was misplaced.
She had been sticking her head into every department, assisting the peacekeeping patrol teams and organizing logistics, despite being told to rest several times by her supervisor, Rose.
Today, however, Rose had finally put her foot down, essentially barring Eina from the premises for the afternoon under the guise of "mandatory recuperation."
On this very day, she was forced to leave, much to her initial displeasure.
However, as she stepped away from her desk, she realized it wasn't all bad.
There had been a nagging problem at the back of her mind for a while now, a persistent worry that kept her up later than the Guild's paperwork ever could.
It concerned her favorite…..and most troublesome…..advisee, Bell Cranel.
With the free time that was now forced upon her, Eina realized that perhaps this was the perfect time to resolve that problem.
Saying a quick goodbye to her other coworkers, who were too busy to do much more than wave a stray pen in her direction, she left the building through the employee exit.
The transition from the marble-cool interior to the humid heat of Orario was jarring.
"Well, then… it's now or never," Eina muttered, taking a deep breath of the city air and psyching herself up.
Tat! Tat! Tat!
The sorry excuse for shoes the Guild provided for its staff echoed sharply off the cobblestone streets.
Eina winced slightly at the sound; the heels were stiff and the leather lacked any real give, yet she set off at a brisk pace in the opposite direction from her home.
'After all that searching through the Guild's archive, I couldn't find anything other than the usual information on Soma Familia…' Eina thought, her gaze sharpening as she observed the busy street.
She had been trying to find information about the inner workings of the Soma Familia for the past week.
Ever since she learned that Bell's new supporter, Lili, was connected to that specific group, Eina had felt a cold weight in her stomach.
Something was off.
The girl's overly submissive behavior, the way she looked at the world, and the reputation of her Familia didn't sit right with Eina's intuition.
Even talking to her fellow workers...those specifically in charge of the Soma Familia's adventurers...had yielded nothing but frustration.
They all said the same thing: "They're private. They're obsessed. They don't talk."
'Let's see what I can find out myself,' she had thought back then.
But despite going through all of the Guild records and talking to as many people as she could, the results were less than promising.
She'd only gotten a superficial understanding of them: they were a mid-sized Familia, their deity was a recluse, and every single member seemed possessed by an unending desire for money.
It was as if something was forcing them into a collective frenzy.
Eina organized her thoughts as she walked, her mind working hard.
"A god uses their Familia to further their own ends… No, nothing makes sense. Where there was smoke, there was fire," Eina mused out loud, her voice lost in the clamor of the morning market.
The "smoke," in this case, was billowing from two distinct places: the members' unnatural greed and the sheer, disproportionate number of members joining such a joyless group.
The deity, Soma, didn't have the type of charismatic reputation or pedigree that could bring in such a massive following on its own.
So, what was the catalyst?
Why were they growing so fast?
What if the god Soma wasn't the cause of the greed, but rather a victim of it?
Or… what if there was something else entirely?
Something physical, something tangible that was making the members of the Soma Familia act like addicts?
Eina stopped walking for a moment as she reached that dark realization.
She found herself standing before a large, weathered tavern.
"Hmmm… It might be useful to go in here, but…" Eina hesitated, her hand hovering near her chin.
It had always been a fundamental truth in Orario that a tavern was the best place to gather information.
The loose lips of drunkards often spilled secrets that the Guild's archives could never hold.
Even though it was early in the morning, the establishment was open and surprisingly full.
This was a by-product of the recent chaos.
Not all adventurers had shaken off the rust from the dungeon closure.
Many were still waiting for their gear to be repaired or were sidelined by minor injuries sustained when the peacekeeping patrol teams had to quell occasional riots.
These adventurers lounged at the pubs and taverns that would allow them entry at such early hours.
Of course, the atmosphere was subdued; none of them dared cause trouble, fearing another visit from the peacekeepers would delay their re-entry into the dungeon even further.
Despite the potential for information, a tavern was one of the places Eina preferred to avoid whenever possible.
For her… no, for all elves…..and even half-elves like herself...taverns where large numbers of rowdy adventurers gathered were usually unlucky places.
The elven blood in her veins was like a beacon.
Men of all races tended to swarm to her like bees to a flower, their "advances" usually ranging from clumsy flattery to outright harassment.
"Ah-ha-ha… No, don't think so," Eina muttered, fidgeting nervously at the entrance.
Thinking about the predatory stares and the inevitable, "Hey, beautiful, why don't you sit with us?" that would wait for her beyond those swinging doors, Eina laughed quietly to herself before walking past the tavern entirely.
It simply wasn't worth the hassle.
She would find her answers elsewhere.
Her pace quickened as the loud, boisterous voices of the adventurers inside echoed through the closed door, making her long ears twitch in discomfort.
Eina was always very conscious of her appearance.
Despite being mixed, the blood of elves...considered to have the most beautiful men and women among all the races…..ran thick in her veins.
She possessed that ethereal, pointed grace, the silk-fine hair, and the porcelain skin that defined her mother's people.
She had long ago accepted the fact that men of other races would be attracted to her, but that didn't mean she enjoyed the attention.
It wasn't that she was closed off to the idea of dating.
Eina wasn't trying to come across as some innocent, untouchable virgin.
She was nineteen, after all; in Orario, that was already way past the acceptable age to have a partner, a house, and a life.
Sometimes, late at night when the silence of her home became too loud, she did feel a bit empty.
Normally, that void was filled by her work.
She poured her heart into her adventurers, especially the ones who seemed like they wouldn't survive a week without her guidance.
'But then again, I've never really felt like "That one!" about anybody…' she mused, her pace slowing as her thoughts turned inward.
Most of the men who had approached Eina in the past were the typical Orario archetypes: large, robust, and incredibly capable adventurers.
They were level-headed warriors who could easily sweep her off her feet, men who promised protection and financial stability.
They were "reliable" in the traditional sense.
But because they were like that, there was a specific thing about them that made her nerves jangle with a strange sense of dissatisfaction.
'Maybe it would be better if they weren't so reliable…'
The thought was scandalous to her logical side, but her heart couldn't deny it.
She was a workaholic and a natural caretaker.
If a man was perfectly self-sufficient, what would he need her for?
She found herself drawn to the idea of someone who was a little more unpredictable, someone who needed the structure she could provide.
She had never been this honest with herself before.
She imagined a life where she wasn't just a spectator to someone's strength, but a partner in their struggle.
She wanted someone who would face problems alone, trying to overcome them with everything they had, but who would ultimately need her to step into their life and help them cross the finish line.
She laughed quietly to herself, her cheeks pinking as she envisioned getting a little too involved with her "special person".
A relationship built on mutual support...a "hold-and-be-held" dynamic.
Someone who would depend on her and let her feel like a protector, while also being the person she could lean on when her own strength fell short.
'Ahhh, come to think of it, doesn't Rose-san have a similar preference as me?' Eina mused, lightly chuckling as she recalled a particularly rowdy drinking party the Guild staff had held a few months ago.
Rose, usually so stern, had spilled some incredibly embarrassing details about her "dream man"...someone who needed a little bit of "fixing."
"Too bad it didn't work out between them," Eina muttered, glancing up at the clear blue sky.
She was thinking of a specific story Rose had told about a failed romance with a certain reckless adventurer.
One who grew beyond before anything could even start.
As her mind wandered through the graveyard of failed Guild romances, a very specific face appeared in her mind.
It was a face with snow-white hair and large, innocent ruby eyes that always looked at her with such earnestness.
'Hmm, Bell... doesn't he kind of fit the description of the kind of man I want?'
The thought hit her like a physical blow.
A puff of mental "smoke" seemed to escape her head as she came to a dead halt in the middle of the sidewalk.
Her face turned a shade of red that rivaled the rose's from a nearby flower shop.
"What are you thinking, Eina?! He is still too young!" she scolded herself, her voice a sharp whisper as she lightly slapped her own cheeks to drive the "delusions" away.
'But... with a man like Bell, things might actually work out? Hee-hee-hee…'
Despite her self-correction, her mind immediately betrayed her.
She sank into a weird, vivid delusion: Bell coming to her after a long day in the dungeon, leaning his head on her shoulder because he was too tired to stand, and her gently brushing the dust from his hair while telling him he did a good job.
She began to giggle for no reason out loud, her eyes glazed over as she muttered various scenarios under her breath.
Passersby…..merchants pushing carts and adventurers heading to the smithies...began to steer a wide berth around the beautiful half-elf who appeared to be having a minor mental breakdown in public.
"Ah! There it is, there it is!" Eina said suddenly, her eyes snapping back into focus.
She had reached the edge of the western main district, a place where the architecture became more cramped and the air smelled faintly of fermenting grain.
Then, she realized she was standing alone, talking to herself and giggling like a love struck maiden in the middle of a busy thoroughfare.
A massive wave of embarrassment crashed over her, turning her ears bright red.
She quickly straightened her guild uniform, cleared her throat, and tried to regain her composure.
She was here for a reason.