Chapter 416: Fortress of the Guild of the Hundred Thousand Roses

The Porcelain Serpent of Life—the name of the species of the small creature that had hatched from that Rank SSS egg—remained in the Tree of Life.

Shortly after leaving it there, Ethan stepped out of the palace with Seo-ah at his side.

The streets around the palace were quiet, and the two of them walked side by side, unhurried, their footsteps echoing softly off the cobblestones.

"What about your friends? Where are they?" Ethan asked, his eyes still fixed on the street ahead. "I gave them the gold coins I promised before leaving for my campaign. Have they done anything with the gold yet?"

"No." Seo-ah shook her head, a somewhat bitter smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "One of them received an offer from a high-level guild. The pay was two hundred thousand doll-... uh... a few thousand gold coins a month." She corrected herself mid-sentence, letting out an awkward little laugh.

"The others decided to follow him, all with very high salaries." Her shoulders slumped slightly, and she let out a sigh, disappointed in herself. "I’m sorry."

"For what?" Ethan shrugged without even slowing his pace. "They abandoned you for wealth now—why wouldn’t they do it in the future? A traitor is always a traitor. The fact that they left so soon just spares you the burden of having to slit their throats later on."

His voice came out cold, without a hint of emotion, and a chill ran down Seo-ah’s spine.

Well, she wouldn’t be able to actually kill any of them even if she wanted to—at least not without her father’s power—so she ended up not giving it much thought.

Shaking her head to clear the thought away, she took a deep breath and changed the subject.

"I was talking to Alice and the other girls... The Golden Tower only accepts female mages, and the palace itself only allows women to come and go freely. Don’t you think it would be appropriate for me to start an all-female guild as well?" she asked, her voice dropping slightly at the end.

Her cheeks took on a faint pink hue when she saw Ethan stop suddenly and turn his face toward her.

"Oh... if that’s what you want." He smiled at her and, after a quick glance down both sides of the empty street, let his hand slide behind her and gave her butt a slap over those tight black pants.

His palm landed on her right cheek with a soft, muffled slap. The plump flesh dipped under his fingers and sprang right back, a slow, heavy quiver rolling through the cheek before the clinging fabric settled it in place.

Even with the tight material in between, he could feel the warmth of her skin and the delicious firmness of that round curve filling his palm for a brief moment.

Seo-ah let out a high-pitched squeal and hopped forward a step, the sudden movement sending one more faint bounce through her cheeks before both her hands flew back to cover them.

Red all the way to the tips of her ears, she shot Ethan a flushed glance and pouted.

"Ethan!" she whispered, glancing around to make sure no one had seen.

Ethan merely kept the corners of his lips turned up, resuming his stride beside her as if nothing had happened.

Seo-ah fell into step beside him a moment later, one hand still hovering behind her as if guarding against a second pat, her black pants hugging every sway of her hips.

Honestly, Ethan already had two all-female orders, an all-female Golden Tower, an all-female palace, and would soon establish an all-female academy with Ysara as its director.

And now he would be funding Seo-ah, his wife, in setting up an all-female guild.

To any outsider, he’d look like some kind of perverted maniac surrounding himself with women on all sides.

The female players would turn a blind eye simply because he was hot, but he could already imagine earning the resentment of plenty of male players.

In the end, he pushed those pointless thoughts out of his head.

He just hoped that, in the future, his title as monarch wouldn’t end up being "The Womanizing Emperor" or something along those lines.

"Come on, I’ve already got a plot of land ready to serve as a base for your guild," he said with a chuckle, guiding her through the streets of Goldenveil.

Gradually, the streets grew more crowded.

Carts creaked as they rolled over the cobblestones, merchants shouted out the prices of their wares, and the smell of warm bread mingled with the scent of leather and hot metal drifting out of the workshops.

After a few minutes, they reached one of the few empty lots still remaining in the center of Goldenveil.

Nothing but packed dirt and a few stubborn weeds filled the space, an odd gap between the tidy stone buildings on either side.

It sat close to the noble district but still within the intermediate district, where most of Goldenveil’s future major corporations would open their branches.

People were constantly coming and going there, and in the future, the prestige of owning any building at that location would be extremely high.

Stopping in front of the empty lot, Ethan reached out a hand and activated the Instant Construction skill.

A translucent screen opened before his eyes, displaying a long list of structures.

There wasn’t a specific category for player guilds, but guilds as organizations were nonetheless common in the world of Estria.

There were more general guilds, focused on professions, but there were also others quite similar to player guilds—or simply orders of knights.

Scrolling through the list, Ethan didn’t take long to find something that interested him.

[Name: Fortress of the Guild of the Hundred Thousand Roses

Description: An ancient and powerful fortress that once served as the base for the Guild of the Hundred Thousand Roses, a mighty mercenary organization that brought together female warriors from across the continent.

It was founded by a human empress at the end of the Ancestral Era, and its downfall came at the hands of a dragon some fifty thousand years ago, its history buried beneath ash and flames.

Effects (when used as a player guild’s base): +75% XP bonus for players in this guild, +10% to all attributes, +55% drop rate, +100% guild territory yield.

Price: 5,000,000]

[Attention! You are creating this fortress to serve as the base for a player guild. Once a player guild is founded in Goldenveil, players will be able to choose Goldenveil as their spawn and respawn point!]