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chapter 05
Recruiting Companions
The Adventurers’ Guild located in the heart of the cursed city, Nidstar, was always crowded.
People looking for companions.
People checking requests.
People bringing in items obtained from the Tower for appraisal.
All kinds of people gathered there.
Even now, with monsters pouring out because the Tower’s seal had been broken, it was the same.
“When the hell are they taking down the barrier? My party members still haven’t made it out!”
“Damn it, Lena… Please be safe…”
Some worried about companions trapped inside the Tower because of the barrier.
“Healers! Anyone with healing magic?! Anyone have potions?!”
Others tended to the injured.
“What exactly is the Guild Master doing? Shouldn’t he go speak to the Lord about this?!”
“That monster squeezes us dry with taxes, but when this happens he doesn’t show his face…”
Others swallowed their anger while cursing the Lord who managed the Tower, along with the Guild Master.
All of them had gathered in the Adventurers’ Guild.
Just as everyone was on the verge of losing their minds from anxiety, a pitch-black carriage pulled by four horses stopped in front of the guild building.
“Isn’t that the Lord’s carriage?”
“The Lord came here?”
Why would that monster, who usually stayed locked inside the lord’s castle, come here?
At the news, adventurers hurriedly stood up.
Some of the bolder ones even went outside with weapons strapped to their waists and blocked the entrance.
With everyone’s attention focused on it, the carriage door opened.
The first to appear was a silver-haired knight wearing light armor.
Next, a woman wrapped in a hooded robe took his hand and stepped out.
The moment people saw her, both men and women held their breath.
They couldn’t help it.
The woman who emerged from the carriage was simply…
Unbelievably beautiful.
People had come out intending to confront her about something, but the instant they saw her face, they forgot everything.
She swept her gaze over the half-dazed adventurers before speaking.
“Why are you all standing there with such vacant expressions?”
Only then did one adventurer snap back to his senses and mumble,
“Uh… who are you?”
“I am the master of this territory.”
The adventurer nearly jumped in shock.
‘The Lord? The real Lord?!’
If she was truly a thousand-year-old monster, shouldn’t she look like some shriveled old tree?
Was the rumor about reincarnating into new bodies actually true?
While he only stood there moving his lips in confusion, the Lord spoke again.
“Ken. Go bring me the Guild Master.”
“Eh? H-how do you know my na—”
For a brief instant, her gaze turned ice-cold.
As if scolding him:
How dare you make me repeat myself twice?
“…I’ll bring the Guild Master immediately!”
Unable to withstand the pressure, he hurried upstairs.
The remaining adventurers naturally grew irritated.
‘That idiot Ken, how could he back down there?’
‘Treating a top-class adventurer like a servant? Just because she’s the Lord?’
‘Calling the Guild Master downstairs in a situation like this? Is she trying to crush adventurers’ pride even now?’
Camellia ignored the hostile stares and entered the first floor.
Then she confidently claimed the nearest table and sat down.
No matter how people looked at her, she did not shrink in the slightest.
Because she had a very good reason for acting this way.
A very serious reason.
‘What am I supposed to do when my butt hurts too much to climb to the fifth floor?!’
In Dark Tower, the default stat value was 10.
So if a stat dropped below 10, penalties applied.
The penalty attached to Vitality 6 was “Frail.”
Physical status ailments would occur constantly—and sometimes they were guaranteed.
Meaning that riding in a carriage automatically inflicted motion sickness and burning tailbone agony.
‘Ha… this body is seriously driving me insane.’
She desperately needed a healer to fix the exhausted body that had been ruined just from riding in a carriage.
And she also desperately needed a support-type ally with a +2 Vitality buff to turn her from a sickly lord into merely a delicate lord.
‘That’s why I came looking for someone who can do both.’
She checked to make sure her target was still there.
She wanted to recruit him immediately, but she had to hold back.
Meeting the “recruitment conditions” came first.
And for that, she needed the Adventurers’ Guild Master.
‘Guild Master, please hurry up already.’
Thankfully, before her tailbone declared total rebellion, the Guild Master finally appeared.
He was a middle-aged man with a balding head and a protruding belly. Rather than an adventurer, he looked more like a shady slave trader.
“Oh my! I had no idea such an honored guest had arrived in this humble place!”
Practically tumbling down the stairs, he immediately shouted at the young errand boy cleaning the hall.
“You mean to tell me you left the Lord unattended?! You! Go bring tea immediately!”
As the flustered boy hurried off and returned with tea, the Guild Master rubbed his hands together obsequiously and chattered away.
“I’m glad to see you’re healthy. Ah, and your newly reincarnated body suits you very well!”
It was hard to tell whether that was praise or an insult in disguise, but Camellia didn’t bother pointing it out.
She hadn’t come here for a power struggle.
“I intend to hire everyone. We don’t have time to draft individual contracts, so you, Guild Master, will handle it yourself.”
The Guild Master’s eyes widened.
“Everyone…?”
Camellia answered calmly.
“Yes. Everyone present here.”
“Hiring adventurers” was a feature in the game as well.
It was an auxiliary system used to gather crafting materials, and at maximum expansion, players could hire up to five teams.
‘But this isn’t a game anymore. It’s reality.’
There was no reason to obey the limits imposed by the system.
She planned to hire a massive number of adventurers and make full use of them.
And conveniently, it would also satisfy the “recruitment conditions.”
“Ten platinum coins upfront. Once the job is finished, rewards will be distributed generously according to contribution.”
The moment she finished speaking, the adventurers around them erupted into murmurs.
“Ten platinum coins? That’s a thousand gold!”
“If she’s hiring all of us, does that mean we’re going into the Tower to repair the seal?”
“We’re all doing this, right? Let’s go! We have to save the people trapped inside!”
The gloomy atmosphere in the guild slowly began to brighten.
Even the adventurers who had been glaring at Camellia with resentment looked noticeably less hostile now.
Unlike them, however, the silver-haired knight, Lohengrin, looked deeply uneasy. He kept fiddling with the hilt of his sword.
Which made sense.
The Lord’s available funds—rather than “early-game money,” now that this was reality—amounted to only twenty platinum coins.
‘If I remember right, the previous Lord spent almost all the money on magical research.’
Naturally, Lohengrin was probably worried they would go bankrupt after spending half their remaining funds on hiring adventurers and promising additional rewards on top of that.
‘Don’t worry, Lohen. Money can always be copied later when the time comes.’
Still, none of this mattered if she failed to persuade the Guild Master.
Trying to appear relaxed, Camellia asked,
“So? Will you sign the contract?”
After hesitating for a long time, the Guild Master answered.
“If it’s for conquering the Tower… yes, I will.”
“Good. Then the contract is established.”
At last, she had fulfilled the “recruitment conditions.”
Camellia turned her gaze toward the young errand boy who was hovering nearby to collect the empty teacup.
“Since I’ve hired everyone here, naturally that includes you as well, correct?”
“…Excuse me? You want to hire an errand boy?”
“Did you not hear me? I said I would contract with everyone in this room. And you clearly agreed to that.”
“N-no, but…”
Instead of looking at the Guild Master, Camellia stared directly at the young errand boy.
“You signed an employment contract with this guild. I simply paid proper compensation to the guild owner and inherited that contract.”
“M-My Lord.”
Ignoring the increasingly frustrated Guild Master interrupting her, Camellia pressed further like hammering in a nail.
“You’re not planning to break a contract despite being an Apostle of the Scales, are you?”
The Guild Master, who had been trying to stop her, froze.
An Apostle of the Scales?
Did she mean the High Priest serving the Golden Scales, the god who governed merchants and trade?
‘Why would a High Priest be here?’
It sounded absurd.
The kid who got smacked around just the other day for breaking a cup couldn’t possibly be someone so important.
Just as the Guild Master was about to awkwardly explain that the Lord must have misunderstood—
“Well now…”
A sly, fox-like smile spread across the boy’s face, which until moments ago had been filled with panic.
A smile utterly brimming with amusement.
“So you figured it out?”
