Chapter 218 - The truth buried in darkness

Chapter 218 - The truth buried in darkness: Resurrection

Death Mage 218 – The truth buried in darkness

On the evening of the day that marked two weeks since Vandalieu opened his food cart, the Deputy Guild Master Joseph of the merce Guild was in his office, his expression so bitter that the number of wrinkles on his face had doubled.

“Grr, that damned, impertinent brat…!” he muttered.

Of course, he was referring to Vandalieu.

“It’s his fault for rejecting my offer and starting his stupid business. I made that offer for his benefit… How ungrateful.”

Joseph had made the offer of making contact with Alda’s peaceful faction to Vandalieu, the second known Dhampir in the kingdom. This was because he wanted connections to the important figures in Alda’s peaceful faction, which was steadily being the major faction in the Alcrem Duchy – In particular, he wanted connections with the Five-colored Blades.

Indeed, it was an effort that would benefit Vandalieu in the end as well, though the protection of Alda’s peaceful faction and the backing of the S-class adventurers would be nothing but a nuisance for him. But Joseph couldn’t be blamed for not being aware of that, as he had no way of knowing of Vandalieu’s circumstances.

But Joseph’s offer to Vandalieu hadn’t been for Vandalieu’s benefit in the slightest at the time he made it. He had simply altered his version of events in his own memory to justify the offer to himself.

Unaware of this, Joseph was so angry that he might scream out loud, so he pressed a hand against his mouth. He was from a family of earls, but as the Deputy Guild Master, his office was inferior to the Guild Master’s in size, extravagance and soundproofing.

And no matter how much I educate him, he continues to disobey rather than apologize!

The ‘education’ that Joseph referred to in his mind was his harassment of Vandalieu. However, it was no figurative expression or sarcasm; he truly thought of it as education.

He thought that he was teaching an impertinent brat how cruel the world was and how important it was to listen to one’s superiors. It was something that he had done to many ill-mannered youngsters in the past.

But Vandalieu showed no signs of regretting his actions or wanting to apologize to Joseph and accept his offer. He hadn’t even visited the merce Guild once since pleting his temporary registration.

Though Joseph had interfered with Vandalieu’s food cart business, Vandalieu had hunted and acquired meat on his own, and even associated other food carts with himself using astounding methods of preparing Goblin and Kobold meat for consumption.

Considering that he had already tamed and increased the Ranks of a stray dog and Giant Rats, he had been noticed as a promising newer by the Tamers’ Guild.

And although this was unconfirmed information, the monsters had apparently bee members of new races after their Rank increases yesterday. Guild Master Bachem’s visit to the capital was also rumored to be because the Tamers’ Guild headquarters was planning to work on Vandalieu to take him in.

But I don’t care about the Tamers’ Guild. The problem is the Goblin meat!

Since ancient times… Even from the time when the heroic god Bellwood was still alive, countless mages, alchemists, nobles, adventurers and city chefs had attempted to make stinking, unpleasant Goblin meat edible.

These had all resulted in countless failures. Some methods of processing or flavoring the meat had been discovered in the past, but all of them had been so expensive and resulted in tasteless dishes. Methods that spent a large amount of time, effort, flavorings and spices just to make Goblin meat not inedible couldn’t be used in times of food crisis or for feeding the poor.

But Vandalieu knew a way to use Goblin meat in food. The method is apparently Ghoul knowledge, but… how in the world did he learn it? Did he tame them? Or perhaps his Dark Elf mother’s village interacted with Ghouls… No, I don’t care about that. The products are for the filthy poor people, but that technology could be used to squeeze money from nobles that are having problems feeding their people! And yet… That damn wench and her brat! Do they even really want to do business?!

Vandalieu had not folded to Joseph’s harassment, nor had he shown any weakness for Aggar and his panions, whom Joseph had paid, to take advantage of. Instead, he was continuing to make profits. On top of that, Darcia was being treated as a saint after summoning a familiar spirit at the munal Church.

Darcia and Vandalieu’s popularity was continuing to increase among the city’s inhabitants. It was to the point that Vandalieu was being called the ‘food cart king’ and ‘genius tamer,’ while Darcia was known as a ‘holy woman.’

In fact, Joseph was in the worse position.

He had never cared about what the poor people of the slums thought of him. But because Darcia was being treated as a saint, it wasn’t just the people of the slums; the whole city was beginning to have a bad impression of him.

And once a negative image of Joseph spread throughout the city of Morksi, which was a city of merce, it would then spread to the surrounding cities and villages through merchants and travelers… No, considering how famous Vandalieu and Darcia were now, it could even spread to other duchies.

At this rate, things would be bad for Joseph once the Guild Master returned.

According to recent rumors, people are calling me a lecherous old man who tried to court that Dark Elf, was rejected and is now harassing her in retaliation! At this rate, things will be bad for me… and yet there is no word from Aggar, even though he told me that he has a good plan. He’s useless after all!

Joseph didn’t trust Aggar very much. He was just a crooked guard in the end; Joseph had decided that he couldn’t expect much after Aggar’s first attempts to find faults with Vandalieu’s business had failed.

Even so, Joseph had kept an eye on Aggar, thinking that perhaps he might e up with some ingenious idea, but… it seemed that it was time to give up on him.

“… Now that it’s e to this, I have no choice. I’ll apologize,” Joseph decided.

He would kneel on the ground before Vandalieu, say that he was wrong and stop his pressure on the wholesale stores, which he had left alone recently as Vandalieu hadn’t been visiting them.

“I have heard that he has been donating to the orphanage and is caring for adventurers who have lost their limbs. He is either doing it to propagate his religion, or if that isn’t the case, he is an unmistakably good person,” Joseph said to himself. “If I bow before him with many people watching, he will likely accept my apology. It might be more effective if I mention Vida’s doctrine during my apology.”

After that, he just needed to quietly continue his duties as Deputy Guild Master until something else happened. And once opportunities presented themselves, he would offer Vandalieu useful-seeming information and treat him favorably as a way of apology.

If he did this repeatedly, their hostile relationship would bee hazier.

“Very well. Now that I have made my decision, I will go right now… No, the food cart is located in a back alley of the red-light district. I shall head there to apologize when more people gather in the evening,” Joseph told himself.

As he began thinking about how to word his apology to Vandalieu and Darcia, there was a knock on the door, as if timed to interrupt his thoughts.

“… Enter,” he said without looking at the door, thinking that an employee had e with documents.

But in the next moment, his eyes opened wide in surprise as he saw that it wasn’t an employee who entered, but armed guards.