Chapter 68 - The Hollow

“I think that’s enough of that, now.”

The guild leader's voice stopped the fight, no that would have been a little overpowered, he stopped it with his shield.

He moved fast again, used that teleportation skill to move in front of Alice and stopped the attack. I wasn’t expecting anyone to help her, least of all him. I thought it was all on me, that I had failed. I couldn't believe my eyes, I was left speechless as the large shadow fell over me.

“But sir…why? I was just about to win, he couldn't even get up!”

“I suppose you are too green to notice it yourself.” The guild master planted his shield back over his shoulder.

The fake shielder was as clueless as everyone else seemed to be, I would be lying if I said I knew what he meant.

“The only reason you had the time to hit him was because he wasn’t going all out. Had he delivered that attack, you might not have been standing here right now? I assume that was your reason for that hesitation, was it not?”

He looked at me with a stern gaze.

“…yes.”

“Veldor, you may have physically overwhelmed your opponent but in the end, you didn’t win. I believe he could have easily won but chose to spare you instead—a trait every adventurer should have.”

The shielder couldn't maintain eye contact, he looked down at the ground with a twitching grin. I could tell he was holding back, his teeth were glued down. Those words from his guild master must have really weighed on him.

I could tell that his opinion meant a lot to him, was he that special to all of them?

“I’m willing to listen to your reasoning now, I doubt anyone would have a problem with that.”

I took another scan around the room and he was right, that little duel set off the room. It wasn’t that they were necessarily afraid of me but they looked much more aware of my presence.

I knew my abilities were above a rust rank but I didn’t think it was that far beyond. It could be my skills, I’m sure pulling out that amount of abilities would surprise anyone. I suppose I can’t consider it a secret anymore. I basically just revealed my skill to an army of people.

I guess I wasn’t a side character to them anymore…

“Thank you, Mister Edward.”

“Just Ed is fine, what are your names?”

“Oh right, sorry about that! I guess we did kind of skip the introductions.”

Even though it wasn’t our fault…

“My name is Rei Alos, this is Alice and the girl with the large sword is my partner Arga.”

Arga ran over and stood at Alice’s side, her eyes darted back and forth between us. “What—we not fighting anymore?”

Ed gave the signal and their troops set into motion, they turned their sites out of the room and everyone began marching out again.

“Now that we’re properly acquainted, we have no time to lose. I want to hear about everything regarding Alice, we can talk at the camp.”

““The camp?”” Both Arga and I spoke in unison.

Just as he said, there really was a camp. Both Arga and I were super curious so we ended up annoying Ed and his guild mates with our questions. He said he didn’t mind but I had the feeling that they were just being nice, Arga didn’t have the same restraint I did though.

After all her questions and their answers, I learned that it really was a camp, it acted as a base of operations right there in the Tower!

According to Ed, it wasn’t uncommon for large guilds with plenty of numbers to set something like that up. They essentially just set up tents and resting areas in the zone where they plan to operate and have a portion of adventurers clear out the monsters that spawn around them.

After the first wave was cleared out, they wouldn’t spawn as often or as largely so it became easier to maintain. The main reason to set it up in the first place was to give them rest but also for safety. Every time they venture into the Tower they set up one of those camps and used it to retreat to after clearing out another section.

They just had to set up another one further into the Floor when they were done and then it was rinse and repeat after that.

“We’re here.”

It didn’t seem like the inside of the Tower, hell, if someone told me we were camping in the outside world I would have believed them.

It was a large open area of grass and dirt patches just outside of the tunnels. We had finally seen the sky again. I took a moment and counted the stars, uncertain if they were real or not. I knew that they weren't related to the stars we had in Istoria but it was amazing to think that the Tower had stars at all.

All around that open grassland were tall curved mountains that surrounded us, like the inside of a bowl.

“Woah—what is this place?”

“It’s called a Hollow. There’s a few in the Tower but they’re only good for camps like this, almost no monsters spawn here.”

I was a little surprised that the guild master himself would escort us back, it seemed like we were getting special treatment for some reason. I’m sure it’s only because of Alice but I can’t say that I enjoyed it too much with all those death stares I received from other members.

I didn’t expect them to trust us right away but I didn’t know it was going to be that bad. They were really afraid of her.

Still, it was pretty good as far as learning went. I picked up a lot, not just from our questions but from watching them in action. How a large team of adventurers functioned, I got an inside seat to how they moved and worked. All I wished for, was to see them fight!

It would be nothing but useful to see how the large guilds operate in the Tower but even better to see how the strongest adventurers fight.

We stepped out of the tunnel and walked up to the largest tent, positioned at the centre of the grass. It was a massive structure of sheets and white material that was suspended on all sides by rope, lined around it were thick nails wedged into the ground that the rope attached to.

It was a massive tent that towered over the rest in all directions, it made the rest look like dog kennels in comparison.

It wasn’t just their manpower, their equipment was quite large too. I wanted to learn as much as I could, my eyes wandered from one thing to the next every few seconds. Not knowing how long I would be there, I tried to take in everything I could.

“This way, just pass here is the meeting room.” A guild mate in heavy silver armour ushered us under the tarp ‘door’ that hung from the air.

Inside the large tent was even more impressive than the outside, there were chairs and tables with plenty of space to seat at least thirty people at a time. I bet they held quite a few meetings there

“So this is where it happens…”

Ed clapped his hands together with one metallic clank and the room fell silent. His armoured glove rose in front of him and all eyes were guided to the end of the room—to us?

His eyes shrank over the horizon of his lower eyelid, for a faint moment it appeared to glow. There was that presence again—that overwhelming presence that so few people could exert.

“Now then, why should she live?”