80 The Necromancer and the Priestess 14 (1/2)

”You guys go on ahead to the restaurant. I have to talk about something with the guild master first.” The receptionist girl said with a smile, and though the group was reluctant, they ended up parting, with the party save for Rose heading to the restaurant first to grab seats.

”Umm...” At this moment, when the party was walking outside on the streets, a young boy took the courage to speak up. He had a sweet looking face, and was wearing leather armor. ”I didn't have the courage to say anything before, but... who was that?” The group stared at him, and he blushed slightly in embarrassment.

”Ahhh! That's right! Alex is a newbie, so he wouldn't know the leader huh?” Arthur exclaimed. Suddenly a sly grin snuck onto his face, but he was hit by a short-haired man before he could say anything. ”What the hell was that for, Ryan!?” He shouted angrily, clutching at the part of his head that had been hit.

”You were clearly up to no good right there,” Lana said, and they immediately began to squabble between each other again.

While this was going on, the busty older sister like woman of the group, Lilith, came closer to the young boy, Alex. ”That girl with brown hair is the leader of of the White Birds and the founder of the guild. She's also a super skilled archmage.” She said, and Alex looked at her in shock.

”Eh!? That wasn't Rose, though?” He tilted his head. He had only been with the White Birds on one mission, but there had been no indication that Rose had not been the person of the rumors - although, he did notice that Rose had never used magic, which he found odd...

”Nope, Rose is actually a vice-leader like Ryan. She leads the party when the leader isn't here.” Lilith answered. ”As for why everyone thinks Rose is the real leader, that's on purpose.”

”On purpose?? Why?” Alex couldn't think of any reason for the powerful guild founder needing to have a double. After all, it wasn't like they were royalty, who had some members that were unable to defend themselves.

”It's because the leader likes to be left alone,” Ryan said, popping into the conversation between the two. ”She also doesn't like working. Because of that, she left the position of guild master to Leon, and she has Rose pretend to be her so that she doesn't get bothered.”

Alex paused, and guess that this explanation kind of made sense. ”Anyways, since you just joined, then you better be prepared to have a training session with the leader soon,” Lilith giggled eerily, sending shivers up Alex's spine.

He had a feeling that this training session would definitely be extremely difficult...

Back at the guild master's office, the receptionist girl was sitting on the sofa while Rose served her tea and snacks, before sitting down across from her.

”How is the status of the information?” The brown haired girl asked, delicately sipping at her tea cup. This elegant and beautiful appearance made Rose's eyes sparkle - it was only the leader who could manage to do anything and still look beautiful at all times!

”Elaina contacted me and said that there have been no issues.” Leon answered, busily reading and signing off on the stack of papers on his desk. ”Well, it's to be expected. Ever since you did that half a year ago, there have been no other people coming out to bother us. I still don't understand what your goal is... Will you really not tell me? Celestina.”

”Don't call me that.” Yin Mei said, her facial expression and voice emotionless as she set down her tea cup. ”I've already told you that my goal is the betterment of society, didn't I?” As well as finding that b*stard El who dared to run off and leave his woman for some godd*mn frolicking about in the demon world!

Seeing the sinister smile on Yin Mei's face, Leon could say that that definitely wasn't the expression of someone who was working toward the ”betterment of society”. He inwardly sighed. It was because of that chaos with the unsealing of the demon that she had turned out like this. He shook his head, thinking that she must feel betrayed by her childhood friend, who had become a criminal of the highest degree of wanted level. He was somehow misunderstanding her, but it couldn't be helped considering that his basic understanding of Yin Mei was skewed in the first place.

Yin Mei let out a sigh, calming herself down. Recalling back to the events of that night, she could now calmly understand why El did what he had done.

The information guild that Yin Mei had established had, through the use of some special magic techniques that she and Leon had researched, discovered the information that she wanted. El was indeed the Bishop's child. She never expected it of that straight laced man, but some twenty or so years ago, he had a girl that he liked, who had died during childbirth, leaving him behind with a sickly El, who was expected to die in a few days as well.

Perhaps because he was not thinking straight, he had made a deal with the devil (the great demon), in order to increase El's lifespan. He then placed El in the church's orphanage. All should have been well, but as El grew older and older, he began to resemble the great demon more and more in appearance. To top it off, he had such a strong darkness affinity. It wasn't that the dark affinity was looked down upon, or seen as evil, but more so that the Bishop, who had such a strong light affinity, could father someone with the exact opposite element - this was almost impossible.

So the Bishop began to think that El was not truly his child, but some spawn of the great demon that he had contracted with. El was trained by the church's secret assassination and spy corps, and then actually betrayed the church and started to wreck havoc across the empire.

As for why he wanted to unseal the demon, it wasn't as romantic as had been implied in the system's information and though El did wish to free Celestina, it hadn't been his main goal. His main goal had been to fulfill the payment for the contract that the Bishop had made so long ago, in order to continue living, as well as to merge with the great demon. El and the great demon were like two halves of a whole, as the great demon had essentially fused part of himself into that small newborn baby to save him all those years ago.

Because of that, they naturally desired to return to their most perfect form, instead of staying split in two.

And as for El running off to who knows where, this was much more difficult to find out. After all, this had to do with the demon world, which they had little information of. Even with their specialized information gathering magic, it was hard, as the demon world was only connected to their own world during certain times. They had to dig through historical textbooks and all sorts of theories before they created a theory of their own.