818 Chapter 818 Infiltrating the Resort’s Adventurers Guild (2)
While playing cards with the ten adventurers Marcus and Mrazivý did their best to act friendly and ask some questions about the resort while also answering any questions that came towards them.
Naturally these adventurers were quite curious about them, since such powerful individuals rarely just appeared at the guild here.
All of the adventurers that worked here had to go through a long process to be approved and it was one of the few guild halls that was not accessible to all members of the guild.
“I see. I figured that the two of you had a high-class upbringing. So, you used to be nobles but eloped and became adventurers when you were unable to get married due to political reasons. I am sure that gave your families quite the shock.” Darian, one of the adventurers they were playing with said.
When the questioning had gotten around to Marcus and Mrazivý’s origins they decided to use this cover story.
It was clear no matter how hard they tried that they had not been brought up as the average citizens. Especially Mrazivý who was a princess. As rough as she was for royalty, having become an adventurer in the first place, she would still be hard pressed to act completely like a normal person.
Marcus could definitely get away with it a lot better but figured it would look more suspicious if he acted in a contrasting way to Mrazivý.
“Yeah, I am sure it was. But being a noble is not all it is cracked up to be. You lose a lot of freedom for your status, and I much enjoy being an adventurer instead.” Mrazivý said, knowing full well about being forced into unpleasant situations for political reasons.
Before Marcus came along, she was poised to be married off to a man she hated in order to help stabilize the kingdom.
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He certainly may not have been the best father, but his first duty was to the kingdom not his family.
Still, he was happy that his daughter had been able to end up with someone she loved rather than end up in a forced political marriage as he had been.
For nearly an hour Marcus and Mrazivý simply played a causal game of cards with the adventurers to get them to relax and gain a bit of their trust.
They knew simply asking the questions that they wanted to would get them to clam up and start being suspicious.
‘I think now is about the right time.’ Marcus thought when he saw Brivasvir, the oldest and highest-level adventurers among the group, start to relax.
Excusing himself, Marcus headed to the guild hall’s restroom and left Mrazivý to gather information from the other adventurers.
It was clear that they were more likely to open up to her, and she had already been putting on an act as an innocent and friendly person.
‘She even managed to fool me a couple of times with those innocent smiles of hers. She almost plays this role a little too well.’ Marcus thought as he entered the restroom.
Once inside he checked around to make sure he was alone and left a miniature iron golem and a dark portal in one of the stalls.
He wanted to be careful just in case some came to check on him and was leaving the iron golem so that it would inform him if anyone came in and the dark portal so that he could return immediately.
When he felt that his preparations were good enough, he reverted to his ghost form and slipped out of the restroom and headed towards his first target.
‘Now to see if the people here are getting infected as well.’
Having found a member of the guild staff all alone Marcus possessed the man that was doing paperwork at his desk.
Now in control of the man’s body, Marcus focused inwards and began examining his soul for any abnormalities.
‘Found it. Looks like we were not the only ones that they used these pseudo soul fragments on. And judging by how well integrated it is, I can guess that this person has been infected for some time.’
After finding what he was looking for Marcus left the body of the guild employee and he immediately collapsed onto his desk unconscious.
He was only level eleven and just a simple administrative worker. He never had any chance of staying conscious after Marcus possessed him.
‘Now this lends some weight to our theory that everyone on the resort is being infected, but I should aim to get a larger sample size before jumping to any conclusions.’ Marcus thought as he located the next unfortunate person he possessed.
Six people later, Marcus had found that every single one of them had the pseudo soul fragment surveillance device attached to them.
Seeing this it was becoming more and more unlikely that the adventurers guild was involved and were unwitting victims like everyone else.
Along the way Marcus also checked numerous documents and eavesdropped on a few conversations, but nothing pertinent came up.
‘I suppose to be absolutely sure I will need to check on the guild master. If there is any hidden evidence to be found here, it will most likely be in their office.’
Floating up to the top floor, Marcus began searching around for the guild master’s office, and eventually passed through a wall into a much larger room than the rest.
It was undoubtably the guild master’s office and sitting at a large well crafted desk was the person Marcus had been looking for.
He was actually surprised to see that they were a young-looking woman, but upon noticing her long ears pointed ears Marcus could tell that she was an elf and likely older than she looked.
“I cannot remember the last time I got an impromptu visit from a spirit, and especially not one as powerful as you.” She said, putting down the paperwork she had been looking at and staring directly at Marcus.