Hergan only looked up from the sword after a moment,when he finally noticed the crate by the wall and Roland, still breathing harder than he'd like. The walk and the weight had done their job, and his shoulders burned with an unpleasant ache.
The smith came over, gripped the crate with both hands without much effort,like someone used to hauling far heavier things,and flicked his eyes to the boy.
"From Klein?" he asked, more to confirm than because he needed an answer.
Roland nodded.
Hergan frowned and carried it to a marked spot along the wall where other crates of materials were already stacked. He set the crystal crate down carefully, making sure he didn't jolt or damage anything.
"Strange," he muttered as he straightened slowly. "He always sent adventurers to haul this kind of thing. Usually kept his own people on the books and behind the counter."
Roland hesitated, unsure if he should add anything at all. But the question had been asked, and the answer was simple.
"Beast-rank dungeon," he said evenly. "Mr. Klein doesn't want to bother the adventurers right now. He said they've got more important work, so he sent me."
Hergan gave a quiet snort and nodded, like that only confirmed what he already knew.
"Yeah. I've heard," he replied, picking up a pair of tongs and setting them aside. "I've barely slept for three days. Everyone wants fireproof weapons, everyone wants them 'by yesterday,' like steel and cores shape themselves if you talk at them long enough."
He glanced at the crate again.
"Good they got here," he added after a beat. "I'll need them sooner than I'd like."
Then he raised his voice without even turning toward the door.
"Hey, you!"
The same young helper Roland had seen earlier appeared almost immediately, wiping his hands on a filthy apron.
Hergan lifted the finished sword,the one Roland had been watching just moments ago,and handed it over hilt-first.
"Take this to that damn adventurer," he said without anger, just bone-deep fatigue. "And tell him if he breaks it, next time he gets a stick instead of a weapon."
The boy flashed a quick grin, nodded, and vanished back through the door.
Hergan was already reaching for the next piece of metal, as if the sword he'd just completed didn't even exist,like the work was a single uninterrupted process with no beginning and no end. Roland quietly backed toward the exit, not wanting to interrupt or ask questions.
The door closed behind him with a soft click. Outside, the forge's noise fell away fast, replaced by the familiar bustle of the district. Roland, his arms still remembering the crate's weight, started back toward Mr. Klein's shop.
***
The leader of the Adventurers' Guild sat at a wide, heavy table scarred by years of use,scratches, burn marks, ink stains. In this city, paperwork was rarely clean, and the decisions written on it were almost never comfortable.
He read slowly, page by page,not because he lacked practice, but because every line meant people. Their health. Whether they'd walk out of the dungeon on their own legs, or whether someone else would have to carry them out. With a Beast-rank dungeon, planning wasn't a single surge of force. It meant scheduling rotations, making sure teams went in and out with proper breaks,time to rest, dress wounds, steal a few hours of sleep,so they'd be capable of fighting again.
He made notes in the margins, crossing out names, reshuffling squads, matching experience to risk. He knew that sending too strong a group at once left you short-handed later,and sending a weak one only meant losses for nothing.
Then his eyes landed on the next list, and he stopped.
Dorian Halven. Lysand Halven. Caelan Halven.
Three mages.
From House Halven.
For a moment he just stared, as if hoping it was a scribe's mistake or a miscopied report. But the longer he looked, the more it sank in: it wasn't an error. It was a decision,and one he had zero control over.
He exhaled heavily and leaned back, dragging a hand down his face.
"Of course," he muttered, setting the document aside. "A training ground."
He knew the pattern too well. Whenever Houses sent their young mages, it always ended the same way: officially, they were there to "support the operation." In practice, they tested themselves at the guild's expense. Guild members covered their mistakes, saved bad situations, and died if something went wrong.
His fingers tightened around the table's edge.
He couldn't stomach it,someone treating his people's lives like a learning tool. Anger rose in him slowly, heavily, without shouting. The kind of rage that didn't explode,just stayed, and poisoned your thoughts.
Right then, the door to the room slammed open.
"Otto!!" someone shouted from the threshold, bursting in at nearly a run.
The leader snapped his gaze up, already irritated.
"What?" he barked. "If this is another report about equipment shortages, you know exactly where you can put it."
The messenger didn't slow or apologize. He strode forward fast, holding a sealed letter in both hands.
"A letter from headquarters," he said flatly.
That was enough to make Otto go still.
The Adventurers' Guild had branches everywhere,every major city, but they were still branches, all subordinate to the main headquarters. Direct orders from the top were rare. Most of the time, local leaders were left to run their own operations.
Letters "from above" almost never happened.
Otto looked at the seal before he even reached out. For a split second, a thought flickered through his mind: whatever was in that envelope, it would shove the problem of three Halven mages straight into the background.
"Give it," he said curtly.
He took the letter with both hands and stared at the handwriting for a moment, not yet opening it,like the sheer fact it had landed on his table required time to process. Since the branch was founded in this city, everything had been decided locally. Headquarters existed somewhere far away, more symbol than authority meddling in day-to-day work.
Finally, he cleared his throat and began reading aloud in a calm, official voice, refusing to give the words any extra emotion.
"'Due to a sudden event,'" he started, eyes tracking the lines, "'the Leader of the Adventurers' Guild informs you that all branch leaders are to present themselves at the guild's main headquarters on the first day of the coming month.'"
He paused, then continued.
"'The purpose of the meeting is to announce matters concerning the guild's future and the direction it will take. Attendance of every branch leader is mandatory.'"
When he finished, silence settled over the room.
The assistant, still standing a few steps from the table, looked like he didn't quite believe what he'd just heard.
"That… that's never happened," he said after a moment, openly stunned. "Since this branch was founded, there's never been a meeting of all the leaders. Not even after major catastrophes."
Otto nodded slowly, folded the letter, and set it on the table beside the other documents.
"Which is exactly why it's serious," he said. "If they're demanding every leader's presence and sending this to every branch, then something's happening that can't be handled with letters,or local decisions."
He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, thinking.
"For now, it waits," he added at last. "First the Beast-rank dungeon. Once we close that, then I'll worry about getting to headquarters."
The assistant nodded as if he wanted to say more, but in the end he simply turned and headed out, calling over his shoulder that he had a few more things to handle.
When the door shut behind him, Otto frowned and stared at the letter on the table, one stubborn question circling his mind without mercy:
What on earth had happened that headquarters decided to move like this?
***
Roland made it back to the shop later than he'd planned. The trip to Hergan's forge and back always took more time than the distance suggested,and the crate's weight, plus the queue outside the forge, only made it worse. When he closed the door behind him and the bell rang through the room, he immediately felt that familiar tension of a place where work never truly ended.
Mr. Klein stood behind the counter with an open ledger, hunched over entries. He didn't look up until Roland took off his belt of pouches and set it where it belonged.
"Delivered the cores?" Klein asked, brisk and without pleasantries.
Roland nodded.
"To Hergan," he said. "He took them without an issue. Said he can barely keep up with the workload anyway."
Klein grunted under his breath like he'd expected exactly that, then flipped a page.
"Then start catching up," he said calmly. "While you were gone, I made a few sales. I'm not keeping them in my head longer than I have to."
He slid a stack of notes across to Roland and gestured at the empty spot by the table.
"Dates. Quantities. Prices," he added. "Check everything matches and update the books before it turns into a mess."
Roland nodded without a word, reached for his pen, and sat down. The muscles in his shoulders still ached from carrying the crate, but numbers and neat lines in a ledger were one thing he could put in order,even when his own exhaustion refused to cooperate.