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“Before the… thing?” Rodrick asked, glancing at Esmerelda before looking back to Arwin, his eyes widening. “You think Twelve has something to do with that?”

Arwin shrugged helplessly. “I have absolutely no idea. Neither Lillia nor I have figured out anything about the whole situation or how it happened in the first place. We haven’t been strong enough yet. Pushing that question would have led us to more trouble than we were ready to handle. But is Twelve really that strong?”

“I… don’t think so.” Lillia shook her head. “I’ve been around a lot of powerful people. Powerful monsters, too. Twelve wasn’t weak by any stretch of the imagination. He’s definitely a very dangerous opponent — but he’s not at the level that could ever hope to be involved in a conspiracy as large as this one. I don’t think he’s anywhere near as strong as we were before the explosion, much less stronger than we were.”

“Maybe he’s just weak for his guild?” Reya offered. “The others could be stronger.”

“It’s probably safe to assume they are. But if they’re that much stronger, why would they keep Twelve around in the first place?” Olive asked with a frown. “It doesn’t seem like he’s just a chore boy to be pushed around. He’s got his own agenda. It’s possible that this is just a coincidence.”

“Rarely in life have I ever found anything to just be pure coincidence,” Anna said. She pursed her lips, then shook her head. “But I don’t think speculating about it is going to be of much help. We need concrete information, not conspiracies.”

“A truth potion would cause the words to spill from his lips like a rushing river. I could have one made in just a moon,” Esmerelda offered, an uncannily wide smile pulling across her wrinkled features. “It would only cost—”

“I doubt Twelve is going to drink anything we offer him,” Arwin said dryly, shaking his head. “And even if he did, truth potions are easily cheated. You just start speaking about anything and everything. They make you tell the truth — but they don’t make you answer questions.”

“Not to mention he’d probably kill all of us if he found out we did something like that,” Rodrick added. “Whether his guild is part of something greater or not is anyone’s guess, but we can’t take him on in a direct fight. We don’t have any reason to. Thus far, Twelve has only tried to hire us. He’s not looking for a fight right now.”

“Maybe that’s what we need to use.” Arwin rubbed at his chin in thought and his eyes drifted up the wall as he dug deeper into his mind.

“What, you want to tell him we’ve got the heart?” Lillia asked. “I think his willingness to talk will drop drastically the moment he realizes we have it.”

“I think we need more information before we decide anything,” Arwin said. He nodded to Rodrick. “I have some thoughts bouncing around my head, but nothing that can be acted on yet. I need to know what Twelve is like — and what his relationship with Jessen is, if there was one.”

Rodrick took a bite out of the food on his fork and chewed for a moment before swallowing and giving Arwin a sharp nod. “I’m already on it. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to find on Twelve’s personality, but I’ll dig on him and the Setting Sun as a whole. There have been harder jobs. He’s been hanging around the Ardent Guild, so I have a place to get started.”

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“Then that’s what we’ll wait for,” Arwin said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and blew out a short breath. If the Setting Sun really did have some form of tie to his achievement… he didn’t know what he’d do.

The Adventurer’s Guild was still too powerful for them to take on. The Menagerie had only just gotten ranked. They’d barely managed to scratch the bottom of the list, and it was so recent that nobody had even properly figured out who they were yet.

Taking on the Adventuer’s Guild was still a star in the sky far above, in sight, out of reach.

For now.

If the Setting Sun really did have something to do with them, then they’d find a way to get that information. And, even if they couldn’t use it yet, Arwin would hold it close to chest. He’d prepare for the day when he could do something.

But that day wasn’t today — and he was fine with that. Even if Arwin knew the exact identity of who had orchestrated every single element of the entire conspiracy, it would have been too early to act.

Their goal hadn’t changed. No matter what Twelve posed or who he worked for, it was still the same. They had to get stronger.

***

The rest of the day slipped by quickly, and the next was upon them before Arwin knew it. Arwin would have loved to spend a few extra hours in bed doing nothing together with Lillia, but both of them had far too much to work on to afford the luxury.

Both of them rolled out of bed and almost instantly set off to work. The sounds of construction greeted them as soon as they stepped into the kitchen and lost the protective barrier of darkness that surrounded Lillia’s room. Ridley was already hard at work on the modifications to the inn.

Based on how the sound was coming from above them, it seemed that he’d wrapped up his efforts on preparing the bottom floor and was now well onto the 2nd one. He wasn’t the only one that had already gotten the day started. The common room was empty. Unless anyone was trying to sleep through the noise above them — which Arwin highly doubted was possible — the members of the Menagerie had all already set off.

“They’re all out already,” Lillia said, noticing the look on Arwin’s face. “I can sense it. The only other one in the inn right now is Ridley, as I suspect you can tell.”

“Just how much can you tell about the people in the inn?” Arwin asked, tilting his head to the side with an amused grin.

“A lot,” Lillia admitted. “More the stronger I get. The skill I got when I reached Novice 7 is called Pierce the Veil. It gives me information about everyone that enters the Devil’s Den, though I get a whole lot less the stronger someone is.”

“I suppose it would have been too much to ask for you to have been able to read anything about Twelve?”

Lillia gave him a sheepish smile. “Unfortunately not. He’s at least a full tier stronger than we are. I couldn’t get any information on him at all.”

Arwin let out a snort and shook his head. “If anything, that’s just expected at this point. It’s fine. No point worrying about what we can’t control yet. For now, we can focus on improving what we can until Rodrick finds—”

A knock rang against the door.

Arwin and Lillia exchanged a glance. None of the Menagerie would have knocked other than Madiv, and the vampire would probably have been calling to be let in by the time his knuckles met the wood.

Reya and Olive were also meant to be making sure nobody tried to get into the inn while it was under construction — though, given Twelve’s visit the day prior, they weren’t having the best of luck with their task.

Is it Twelve?

Arwin approached the door and pulled it open, preparing to summon his armor at a moment’s notice. It didn’t seem likely that the assassin would just randomly show back up the day after he’d last paid them a visit, but he wasn’t about to dismiss the possibility.

But it wasn’t Twelve that he found on the other side of the door.

Before them was a tall, gaunt man with sallow cheeks and a ropey scar running across his nose. One of his eyes was covered by a band of black cloth that ran along his face and over a nest of long, blonde hair. He was unarmed and stood with his hands crossed behind his back in parade rest. He wore plain but well-made blue and white sparring clothes and a guild badge depicting a yellow sun on a blue shield glistened upon his breast pocket.

“You would be Ifrit, then?” the man asked, his head tilting to the side.

“I am, but I think you’ve got me at the disadvantage,” Arwin said slowly. “Who are you?”

“Raen,” the man replied, extending a hand toward Arwin as a thin smile pulled across his lips. “Raen, of the Dawnseeker guild. I believe we may be able to help each other.”