211 Three Rank-9?! (1/2)

”What just happened?” Oliver was the one asking questions this time. He hadn't been in the Neutral Lands for long, so he wasn't aware of many things, including the widely known nature of the top brass of the Mercenary Guild.

”He was lying, and didn't have any courage to force it on us in front of Young Master,” Irvin replied, watching Ozul walk back to the stairs.

”How did you know he was lying?” Oliver questioned. From what he had seen, it only looked like the mustache man was scared because of Ozul's presence.

”You haven't been here for long, Oliver. You might not know, but the leaders of the mercenary guild are people who would never go out of their way to trouble others without any reason. The Church's ideals can be doubted, but not theirs,” Irvin explained thoroughly.

It was also the reason for them to be able to set up their branches everywhere. None of the local authorities doubted their intentions.

”Why is that?” Oliver knew that the mercenary guild was a neutral party, but it was surprising that they were famous to this extent for being neutral.

”It's because they had numerous chances to sweep in and seize more than half of the Neutral Lands many times in history. However, they never acted once and clearly stated that they wouldn't ever do so in the future either. Although some remain skeptical, the truth is before everyone's eyes,” Irvin answered.

Oliver was again stupefied, ”They are so powerful!?” His surprise wasn't unfounded. To seize more than half of the Neutral Lands would require them to be able to hold off against multiple Rank-9 Mages at the same time!

”Of course. They have 3 Rank-9 Mages, you know,” Irvin said, not at all worried since he believed that they were truly neutral as well.

'...3 Rank-9 Mages...' these words rang out in Oliver's mind. Sure enough, 3 Rank-9 Mages were more than enough to hold against multiple factions at the same time.

He stayed silent for a few moments, digesting this information. After a while, he asked, ”Then why would this guy come here to cause trouble?” If those three Rank-9 Mages were truly known to be neutral, wouldn't something like this tarnish their reputation?

”Well, I am not sure either. All I can guess is that he must be some new blood. Becoming too full of himself, he thought that doing something like this would make him reputed or something since he would be erasing the competition?” Irvin voiced out his guess. Oliver could only nod his head as that sounded like a possible reason.

The mercenary guild earned through missions and more than 20% of those missions were about collecting information. If some other organization appeared that solely sold information, it would definitely be a huge hit to the mercenary guild's income.

Haley came back after checking up on everyone if they were back to their work. Now she was glaring at both Oliver and Irvin. Being the target of her glare, both of them didn't waste a moment and went back to their own work. Haley was scary when angered.

. . .

Things seemed to go by smoothly after that little event. The only people present there were the organization members, so no one outside had gotten the wind of it either.

It confirmed Irvin's guess that the mustache man had indeed done that on his own. With just his own authority, he couldn't have made any move to deter their growth. Not to mention, he was scared shitless because of Ozul.

Ozul himself wasn't worried about it either. He knew that the person was lying when he said that he had come here on orders. Although he did expect that person to try and make things difficult for them, which he luckily didn't.

He wasn't afraid of the mercenary guild, but as he was right now, it was better not to make an enemy out of them.

The mercenary guild was no doubt exceptional. What he was trying to do with the Three-Eyed Strangers secretly was done by the guild publically already!

Although he would announce their neutral stand as well, they wouldn't be so open with the world about their branches.

. . .

With the steady growth for another half a year, they had gotten their people in almost every town in the Neutral Lands.

However, it didn't mean that they would have all the information just because people were keeping watch on the streets.

The information of real value was that within the giant organizations. Ozul wouldn't sell that information, at least to normal people. But they first had to acquire it, and they hadn't made any of their men infiltrate those organizations. Haley had clearly stated that they would do it only after everything else was settled, else the results of failure would bring heavy consequences.