ch44

While we were briefly bickering, a presence caught my senses.

The owner of that presence was suppressing his aura, approaching the World’s Room from outside, carefully sticking to the wall, and then making his already faint presence even fainter.

A sigh burst out momentarily.

“…What are you doing there?”

He was easily caught by my senses, but a normal human couldn’t suppress their presence to the point of being almost inanimate.

Moreover, a human who wasn’t rejected by the Great Temple’s barrier could be narrowed down to one person very easily.

“Whoa— the Great Temple is so big, I got lost!”

The figure, who had even used stealth techniques to eavesdrop on the conversation, entered the World’s Room with a brazen smile.

A man with frivolous gestures.

He was the first disciple I had ever made in the human world.

The scrawny 14-year-old, who was once exploited as a gambler under the local thugs, had grown into a robust 21-year-old man.

“I didn’t teach you martial arts so you could eavesdrop on your master like a petty thief.”

“Eavesdrop? How could you say such a thing, not trusting me, your great disciple! Isn’t that right, fellow disciple?”

Extending his arms exaggeratedly, Duber approached and even put his arm around Frigos’s shoulders, acting friendly.

Aliya’s eyebrows shot up for a moment.

“Duber. You are being rude to His Majesty. Show some respect.”

“Whoa, Aliya, you look beautiful as always. Got some time?”

“Duber.”

“Okay, okay. I get it, don’t look at me like you’re going to kill me. I was just happy to see my fellow disciple after so long.”

Frigos didn’t react much to Duber’s words.

Duber laughed frivolously once and then moved away from Frigos, avoiding Aliya’s eyes, which were quietly watching him with a murderous glint.

“So? You said you were busy with the Thieves’ Guild and couldn’t even show your face, why did you cross the water?”

“The Thieves’ Guild is not an officially recognized organization in Pohellen. It’s just a criminal group with no productivity whatsoever.”

Aliya’s usual polite and courteous demeanor disappeared, and without even turning to me, she looked at Duber as if he were a cockroach, refuting my words with a rarely emotional voice.

I was a little taken aback by Aliya’s attitude and scratched my cheek.

But Duber, despite Aliya’s aggressive attitude, just grinned and replied.

“Isn’t it just another branch of transportation, like merchants? We also help transfer the ownership of various goods, you know?”

“The world defines that as a crime.”

“You’re so rigid.”

It seemed like the pointless argument would go on for too long, so I interrupted and asked Duber.

“So, what’s the reason you’re here?”

“My respected maste—”

“…”

When I quietly pointed a finger at Duber, he changed his expression completely and replied.

“I came to deliver this on behalf of the Stonemasons’ Guild.”

“…Did you steal it?”

“Whoa— what are you saying? Let’s just call it a commission for labor.”

“I haven’t heard anything about this.”

“Ah, isn’t secrecy the basic principle for things like this?”

“…”

“…The downside is that even the clients themselves don’t know about it.”

Duber turned his head away, avoiding my gaze.

I sighed and took the parchment that Duber handed me.

The special mark that was originally on the string to check if it had been tampered with was gone, and the parchment was tied with a cheap string.

“Why did you do this?”

“Because there can’t be any information in this capital that the Thieves’ Guild doesn’t know! Because… I’m curious!”

Duber proudly puffed out his chest and said as if he were disappointed.

“Master, if you need any kind of information, why do you try to entrust it to outsiders instead of entrusting it to your great disciple!”

“People would look favorably on the head of the petty thieves coming and going in the Great Temple where the gods reside.”

“Unlike the Stonemasons’ Guild, who wouldn’t find it strange even if they came and went for the construction and repair of the Great Temple.”

The Merchants’ Guild travels all over the world, obtaining various goods and information.

Moreover, merchants are a group that sticks their noses into every place where there is money to be made.

No one would find it strange if they visited the Stonemasons’ Guild.

The information gathered in that way is organized and secretly delivered to the Great Temple by the Stonemasons’ Guild, who visit periodically for the construction and repair of the Great Temple.

It was also delivered to Aliya in the same way.

In fact, the Merchants’ Guild and the Stonemasons’ Guild are organizations that operate normally on the surface, but below the surface, they also serve as my and Aliya’s secret intelligence organizations.

Thanks to that, even though I had been confined to the throne of the Great Temple for a long time, I was able to obtain a lot of information about the human world.

“Well, wouldn’t it be okay as long as we don’t get caught?”

Duber shrugged his shoulders once and laughed frivolously.

“The connections of thieves can’t keep up with the information of merchants, who are spread out like a net all over the world. Besides, information is money and power to them. The motivation itself is different.”

“We also can’t transfer authority smoothly if we don’t know our customers’ information properly, so information is very important to us. And you know.”

Duber’s sly face changed like a mask, and a cold sneer appeared.

“You know, don’t you, Aliya? The guys who flow into this side, even though they’re called the Thieves’ Guild, are always fixed. Orphans, beggars, war refugees, prostitutes.”

Duber looked at Frigos and said.

“Thanks to our great fellow disciple working tirelessly day and night in the role of the noble earthly representative, this industry is also very prosperous. Orphans, refugees, and beggars are very abundant!”

“…The temple is also protecting them.”

“If everyone could fit inside that temple’s fence, the Thieves’ Guild wouldn’t even exist.”

Duber stretched his arms exaggeratedly towards the sky and said.

“Isn’t it funny? Even though there are huge walls 20 yards (18m) high that stretch for miles to tens of miles to protect humans from external enemies, there is still a need for new fences inside.”

“…”

“Well, there are many people who have become richer thanks to my fellow disciple, and I don’t have a better method or idea than that… so I won’t criticize his actions. But don’t insult the humans who are desperate to live outside the fence that you guys don’t let in.”

A murderous aura emanated from Duber’s body.

“It makes me want to kill.”

Aliya’s eyes also sharpened at Duber’s murderous aura, and just as her energy was about to be released.

“Stop.”

I cut off the excessively heated conversation and forcibly released the energies.

“I think I’ve listened to enough of your complaints, Duber.”

Duber’s hardened face turned sly again, and he shrugged and stepped back.

“Frigos.”

“I don’t mind. It’s not wrong anyway.”

Duber flinched at Frigos’s nonchalant answer, but quickly returned to his original attitude.

Aliya became quiet as usual, but she seemed to be hiding some kind of resentful feeling.

“You came all the way here just to cause trouble.”

I sighed, looking at Duber, who was whistling and pretending not to notice my scolding.

He was an orphan 7 years ago.

And the hostile feelings he showed towards Frigos.

He didn’t talk about his past, but considering his young age and the timing, there was a high possibility that he was a war orphan or refugee caused by Frigos and flowed into the back alleys.

Moreover, the status of my disciples, who are considered gods’ messengers in Pohellenia, is extremely high.

Since he became a disciple before Frigos, it wouldn’t have been that difficult for him to enjoy wealth and fame.

Nevertheless, Duber did not enjoy that position and wandered the back alleys, establishing an unofficial Thieves’ Guild in Pohellen.

It may be out of sympathy for people like himself in the past, but he hid the fact that he was my disciple and walked a thorny path on his own.

Despite his seemingly frivolous attitude, he has a firm heart on the path he has chosen for himself.

“Since Aliya is here anyway, it would be better to share the information here than to do the work twice.”

Rather than making meaningless persuasion, I unfolded the parchment that the Stonemasons’ Guild had delivered.

“Hmm.”

Written on the parchment were various changing political situations and some unusual phenomena from the previous report to the present.

Minor political situations or fluctuations in the market prices of certain items were not elements that I would care about in the first place.

But the few things written at the end were quite interesting.

“May I see it too?”

I handed the bundle of parchment I had finished reading to Aliya.

Aliya skimmed through the parchment and quietly opened her mouth when she began to read the paragraph that I was interested in.

“This is…”

“The number of Wandering Giants encountered in the northwest and north directions has increased abnormally.”

“…That’s a big problem.”

“Giant races basically devastate the surrounding area a lot, but Titans are especially severe.”

In addition to trolls and ogres, there were various giant races.

Basically, giant races are large and eat a lot of things, but their numbers are not that large, and they just reigned as the top predators in the ecosystem.

But the Titan, the race of my first disciples, Golb and Silb, was not a life form born on this planet in general, but a subordinate race born from the mountain-pushing giant Terato.

Basically, they consume enormous resources to live outside the village, to the point where they cannot live outside the ecosystem created near the village of the giant they were born from.

“It seems like there are more than 20 individuals that have been confirmed… Where are Golb and Silb currently?”

“They will be moving stones with the Stonemasons’ Guild at the quarry in the Glod Plains to supply the stones to be used for the construction of the Great Temple.”

“…I feel like I’m overworking my disciples too much.”

“If it weren’t for the two of them, the construction of the walls and the Great Temple would not have progressed so quickly. They have been a great help.”

“I’ll have to ask them about this. This is not a normal situation.”

“I will send a messenger to the two of them.”

“And… the giant’s matter is annoying, but this matter in the south is interesting.”

I picked up the parchment that Aliya had looked at last and unfolded it towards Frigos, smiling.

“Outside the territory of Pohellenia. It seems that a guy calling himself ‘King’ has appeared beyond the Takla Desert in the south.”