Hunter Guild Ulbert looked exactly as I remembered. A three-story stone building with large wooden doors that were always open, a mission board on the outer wall buried under layers of overlapping papers, and a faint smell of sweat that had somehow become part of the place's identity.
The three of us walked through the main entrance. A few hunters in the lobby glanced our way, then returned to their own business. A bearded man was arguing with a receptionist about mission pay. Two armed women sat in the corner eating bread. A typical morning at the guild.
Veralyn stopped near the reception desk and turned to me.
"I will start working."
"Yes."
Short. Efficient. A perfect conversation by our standards.
Veralyn walked behind the reception desk with steps that already knew the route by heart. Mira Calloway, the head receptionist who had been organizing documents, looked up and smiled when she saw her.
"Good morning, Veralyn. Right on time, as always."
Veralyn nodded and immediately picked up the stack of files waiting for her. No small talk. No morning chat. She just sat down and began working. Mira was used to this by now and took no offense. She simply shook her head with a small smile, then returned to her own work.
Serena watched the exchange from beside me.
"She fits right in here," she whispered.
I did not answer. But I agreed.
"So." Serena clapped her hands softly. "The guild master?"
"Third floor."
We climbed the wooden staircase that creaked on several steps. The second floor housed the archive room and a small meeting room for group mission coordination. The third floor was quieter. Only two rooms. One for important document storage, and the other the guild master's office.
The office door was open. Not because its occupant was welcoming. More because the hinges had been broken since who knew when, and apparently no one cared enough to fix them.
Behind a desk buried under stacks of paper sat a man.
Gareth Holden. Guild Master of Hunter Guild Ulbert.
If there were an award for the person who least looked like the head of an adventurer's guild, Gareth would win it unchallenged. A man in his forties with dull brown hair neatly combed to one side, a thin well-groomed mustache, and a posture that was upright but unremarkable. His face was flat. Not the mysterious kind of flat that I had built over more than a decade. The genuinely empty kind. Like someone counting the number of bolts in a cabinet while listening to an important briefing.
But I knew better.
In the game Magic and Love, Gareth Holden was an A-rank hunter who had retired after losing half his party in a border mission fifteen years ago. His combat ability still surpassed that of most active hunters. The sword leaning against the wall behind his desk was not decoration. The scar on the back of his right hand was not from a kitchen accident.
But looking at him now, he resembled a government clerk who had accidentally walked into the wrong building.
"Sir Raymond." Gareth raised his head from his documents. His eyes moved to Serena. "Miss Valenrose."
"Good morning, Sir Holden." Serena smiled with her professional smile. Warm but with just the right amount of distance. The smile of the owner of the world's largest business empire visiting a working partner.
"Please, sit." Gareth gestured to two chairs in front of his desk. His tone was level. Not friendly, not cold. Just there. Like the sound of wind passing without any particular destination.
We sat. Gareth set down his pen and folded his hands on the desk.
"How may I help you?"
"We need information about the land around the guild," I said.
"Land?"
"There are several empty lots to the west and south of the guild. We want to know their status. Who owns them. Whether they can be negotiated for."
Gareth looked at me for several seconds. His expression did not change. I was not sure his expression could change.
"For what purpose, if I may ask?"
I looked at Serena. She gave a slight nod.
"Crescentia's training program," I said. "We plan to build a training facility for prospective workers. The location needs to be close to residential areas with easy access."
Gareth nodded slowly. Once. A very measured movement, as though even nodding was something he did with efficiency.
"The land around the guild," he opened a desk drawer and produced a map more detailed than the one I had, "most of it is already documented in our records. Hunters frequently use the areas around the guild for practice, so we need to know who owns the land within a certain radius to avoid problems."
He spread the map across the desk. His large fingers moved with a precision that did not match his appearance.
"To the west." His finger pointed. "Two plots. The first belongs to a small merchant family. They do not use it. The lot is narrow, probably only enough for a single small building."
"Too small," Serena said immediately.
"The second." His finger shifted slightly. "Larger. About twice the size. But this is disputed land. Two families claim ownership. It has been years and the courts have not reached a decision."
"Pass," I said.
Gareth nodded again. His finger moved south.
"To the south. There is one large plot. Spacious enough for a building with a yard. Close to three large residential areas. Good road access."
Serena leaned forward over the map. Her eyes lit up.
"Is this the one near the intersection of the market road and the south road?"
"Correct."
"The location's perfect." Serena turned to me. "This is the one we marked last night on the map."
I nodded. Of course I remembered. It was the only point on the map I had recognized.
"Who owns it?" I asked.
And that was where the atmosphere shifted.
Gareth did not answer immediately. He pulled his hand from the map and leaned back in his chair. A small movement that meant nothing to most people. But I noticed it.
A former A-rank hunter who leaned back before answering a question was not relaxing. He was choosing his words.
"That land," his voice remained flat, but there was a pause that had not been there before, "is registered under the Thornwood family."
Serena stopped moving.
I did not recognize the name. Not from the game. Not from any conversation I had ever heard. But Serena's reaction was enough to tell me that the name was not an ordinary one.
"Viscount Thornwood," Serena said quietly. Her tone changed. Still calm, but with calculation behind it. "Edric Thornwood."
Gareth nodded.
I absorbed this information in silence. Maintaining a flat expression, as though I had anticipated the name as well. In truth, I was waiting for someone to explain who this person was without having to ask.
Serena, without realizing it, rescued me.
"Viscount Thornwood's one of the most influential nobles in the southern district." She spoke while looking at the map, but I knew the explanation was more for me than for Gareth. A habit of Serena's when she was thinking hard. She spoke facts out loud to organize her own thoughts. "His family's controlled most of the land in that area for three generations. He's got connections on the noble council. Not the highest-ranking noble, but influential enough to cause trouble if he wants to."
"Does he use the land?" I asked.
Gareth shook his head. "No. The land has been empty for years. No buildings, no activity. Just empty ground overgrown with wild grass."
"But he doesn't sell it," Serena said. Not a question.
"Never." Gareth opened another drawer and produced a thin document. "Several merchants have made offers. All rejected. The reasons were never clear. Sometimes he said the land was for personal plans. Sometimes he gave no reason at all."
A brief silence. Serena tapped her finger on the map. Her habit when calculating possibilities. I could almost hear the gears turning in her head.
"Does Sir Holden know how much was offered?" Serena asked.
"The last offer I am aware of was around a hundred and fifty gold coins. From a timber merchant who wanted to build a warehouse."
"And it was rejected."
"Rejected."
Serena leaned back. Her expression shifted into something I knew well. A small smile that appeared not out of happiness, but because she had spotted the challenge and her mind had already begun assembling a strategy.
"All right." Serena turned to me. "I'll go meet him."
"Alone?"
"Negotiations like this work better one-on-one." She stood and straightened her clothes. "If we both show up, he'll feel either intimidated or suspicious. The owner of Crescentia Group and some mysterious man nobody can quite place, coming together to buy his land? He'll raise the price before we even sit down."
Her logic made sense. And if I was being honest, I also did not want to be involved in a negotiation that required me to speak at length with someone who might ask questions I could not answer.
"Besides," Serena added with a smile, "I'm better at this and you know it."
I did not argue. Because she was right.
"Sir Holden." Serena gave a slight bow toward the guild master. "Thank you for the information. It's been very helpful."
Gareth nodded. Once. Efficient as always. "Good luck, Miss Valenrose. If you build that facility near the guild, we will not mind. Crowds around here usually mean more customers for the food stalls nearby, and hunters who have eaten tend not to cause trouble."
That might have been a joke. It might not have been. With Gareth, it was difficult to tell.
We left the office and descended the stairs. Serena was already walking with quick steps, her mind clearly in a negotiation room that did not yet exist.
"I'm heading to the Thornwood residence now," she said as we reached the ground floor. "Sooner the better. Before someone else catches wind and complicates things."
"You are certain you do not need preparation?"
Serena looked over with a smile full of confidence. "Recci. I've negotiated with kings from three different kingdoms before I was fifteen. One viscount isn't gonna be a problem."
I nodded.
She was right. If there was one person in this world who could make a stubborn noble sell land he refused to sell, that person was Serena Valenrose. Negotiation was not merely her skill. It was her art.
"I'll send word if there's any progress," Serena said as she walked toward the door. Then she stopped and turned. "Look after Veracci for me."
"She is not a child."
"I know. But make sure she eats lunch."
Then she was gone. Her steps light and sure, like someone who knew exactly where she was going and what she would do when she got there.
I stood in the guild lobby for a few seconds. The sound of a hunter arguing about pay still carried from the reception desk. The smell of sweat and ink mixed in the air. A man with a scar across his face passed in front of me, chewing on something.
A normal day at Hunter Guild Ulbert.
I walked toward the reception desk. Veralyn was writing something in the archive ledger with a speed and precision that made administrative work look like a form of art. Mira beside her was attending to a hunter picking up a mission.
I stood beside the desk and waited until Veralyn noticed my presence. It did not take long. She was always aware of who was around her.
"Lunch break," I said. "We eat together."
Veralyn looked at me briefly. Then nodded and returned to her files.
Two words from me. One nod from her. A perfect conversation.
I found a chair in a quieter corner of the lobby, sat down, and waited. From here I could see Veralyn working. Her hands moved with the same precision she brought to everything, never half-hearted, never careless.
A former noblewoman working as a guild's administrative staff. In this world, that was a humiliating step down. But Veralyn never treated her work that way. Every file she organized, every document she reviewed, she did to the same standard as when she had completed assignments at the Royal Academy of Magic.
Perhaps because for Veralyn, work was not about prestige. Work was about doing something correctly.
Or perhaps she simply did not know how to do anything by halves.
I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment. Letting the sounds of the guild fill the silence. The clinking of iron, the murmur of conversations, footsteps on wooden floors.
Somewhere in the city, Serena was heading to a viscount's residence to convince him to part with land he had held onto for years.
At the reception desk, Veralyn was organizing files with the meticulousness of someone accustomed to handling things far more complex than this.
And I sat in a guild chair, waiting for lunchtime, pretending that all of this was part of a grand plan I had calculated from the very beginning.
Sometimes, the hardest part of being a mysterious NPC was looking busy when you were really just waiting.