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Death’s Daughter Chapter 157

Author: “FoodLovingPanda”

CHAPTER 157: A SETUP

I had a bad feeling about this. Yesterday Nino-san arrived at the inn and asked me to come by the guild tomorrow. I could small that it was troublesome since he came all the way here to personally say this to me.

And right now I was standing in front of the guild door. These days so many adventurers came and went, thanks to the dungeon and it meant that the guild itself was rarely quiet and peaceful. Not a good thing when all you want to do is stay out of sight and not attract any attention.

Picking up courage I opened the door. Before I could even reach the counters I was intercepted by Nino-san who didn’t bother explaining anything and def me to the arena. Nobody was there, not even Fioran-san. The only thing there was a circular podium at one corner of the fighting stage, roughly half a meter high and wide. Just enough for one person to stand on it.

“Nino-san what is going on? Why did you bring me here?”

“Sorry Naoko-san, it is the order of the Guild Master, he told me to bring you here and tell you to wait on that podium. Once again I’m really sorry to inconvenience you. I will go bring the Guild Master now.”

He pointed at the foreign object and then left the area. Things just keep getting weirder. I tried to sense any presence of somebody trying to ambush me or something since they brought me here, but there was nothing. I was truly alone in this place. Just what is Guild Master planning on doing, if this is his test or something I must say I am completely clueless what I am supposed to do. Since Nino-san said to climb the podium I guess I should do it and see what happens.

…

Nothing, absolutely nothing happened. I even thought they were all playing a joke on me with this and making me wait in vain, but then the Guild Master entered the arena, alone.

“Naoko-chan, it’s good to see you, how’s your business? I heard it is quite popular.”

“It’s flourishing. When did you arrive? I thought you wouldn’t be back so soon.”

“I got bock yesterday. I had Nino call you immediately as I returned, you see I have something that I want to discuss with you urgently.”

So this whole setup is his scheming. I also didn’t think Nino-san would call me to the guild without any reason, and if it was truly urgent for the guild he would have told me yesterday when he first arrived. I should raise my alertness level so that I don’t fall into some trap and end up promising something that would cause me trouble later. He took one of the chairs and pulled it with him as he approached the podium. He didn’t climb the podium and just sat down next to it and smiled. Something was wrong.

I tried to climb down since I didn’t want to stay here anymore, but sadly my body had turned extremely heavy and I could no longer sense my mana. I realized that I had already fallen for his trap the moment he stood next to the podium.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“Don’t hold it against me Naoko-chan. I just need you to stop hiding your real strength. This podium is an elven relic that can imprison any person. As you can probably feel, you are completely unable to move. I had to pull a lot of strings to borrow it, you know.”

How was he able to get his hands on an ancient relic of the elves, and why is he using it on me of all people. I never did anything to him that will make him hate me. I should have just used my [Heaven’s Eye] to inspect it before I climbed it, but it looked so regular and worn down to a point where I would have mistaken it for a basin or something if it wasn’t placed alone.

Well since I couldn’t get away, and I couldn’t use my magic, the only thing I could do to make coerce him or at least make him stay away was my killing intent and pure bloodlust mixed with a dash of aura coming from [Deathgod] title. Sadly he looked unfazed as he took out a wooden stick out of his bag.

“And this item here is a legendary tool inherited by the Guild Master of Kapitalia Branch. It is called the Stick of Truth. Its effect… well you’ll see soon enough.”

He then held it like a baseball bat and swung it hitting the inside of my knees. The impact made me lose my balance and fall down, however the shock didn’t come from him hitting me or me falling down. The shock of realizing the entirety of my inventory items were expelled onto the arena completely overpowered everything.

“How dare you?! This is a violation of privacy and my human rights. You have no basis to do this to me, since I am neither a criminal nor hostile to you. You just made an enemy out of me. Once I am out of here you will know what real pain and humiliation are.”

I didn’t care about his position, or his status. This was stepping way out of line. I cannot believe a guild master would act so shamelessly. He wasn’t even showing any remorse for what he just did to one of his adventurers. I will make sure everyone knows how crooked he is and I will ensure that he is stripped of his title and demoted, then imprisoned for misuse of his power. I will ensure all of that I swear to god, if I don’t my name is not Maeda Naoko.

“Oh wow, I definitely did not expect this. You really hid a lot, didn’t you Naoko-chan, much more than I anticipated. And not only in monsters that you killed.”

“Dare to put one hand on my property and I will take your head. You should pay with your life for just doing this to me. Not to mention all the food that you made go to waste with this little move of your. Do you have any idea how long it took me to prepare and gather all that?”

He pretended not to hear anything I was saying as he trudged on top of the corpses of many, many monsters that I had stuffed inside inventory. He was even commentating on everything he came across.

“Is this the King Ape?”

“When did you take down a Burning Hellhound, don’t they only appear in warm areas?”

“Isn’t this an Epic-ranked item?”

“Why are there so many Thunder Falcons here, those are extremely hard.”

This was really infuriating. All I could do was watch and struggle aimlessly as he bent down and picked up Mermaid’s Tear. I saw his eyes glisten as he injected some mana into it.

“Put that thing down! You have no right!”

“I have every right. But this is really a good item, easily legendary rank. And I am pretty sure those two swords should be of the same rank more or less. Well they are your items, now let’s see, where is it? Oh, here we go.”

He put down the Mermaid’s Tear and picked up… a firework? I recalled that my mysterious man, bastard number two gave this to me a long time ago, but I had no intention to ever use it. Why did he take that? After searching for a bit longer he picked up another thing and I almost puked.

It was my guild card. I realized what he was planning on doing and why exactly he used this setup to make me show my entire inventory. It was over, my life is over. If he promotes me, everything will be ruined. I truly felt helpless. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t retaliate. Just like that night I could only watch as others decide upon my life without being able to do anything, not even move.

“Don’t… Don’t you dare! … Please don’t do it.”

I could barely speak normally. There was a huge lump in my throat and I felt like I might choke. It was so hard to breathe. I really felt like I would die if he promotes me to A-rank.

“Sorry Naoko-chan, but this is all part of the deal.”

As he said that he lit the firework. I didn’t know what he was planning by setting it off inside a closed space, but that firework didn’t even fly for three meters before bursting. From the smoke it left behind a shape began materializing.

“My dear little sister, it seems to me that you will finally break free from my spell.”

I should have known that this bastard is behind this. I guess he really wanted to make sure I get promoted to A-rank as soon as possible to even strike a deal with the Guild Master.

“Archduke, it is as you said. The contents here are more than enough for me to promote her to A-rank. I have no doubt she was the one that hunted all of them alone. Once I process her promotion, my end of the bargain will be over. You must keep your end of the bargain now.”

“Of course, she will not be able to lift a finger against you.”