Chapter 59: Exclusive Mission

Geddo Street, Adventurer Team Villa

Ivor and Lucien walked out of the room looking thoroughly satisfied.

Both of them expressed high approval and praise for the recent conversation. Each party offered highly constructive suggestions and agreed to maintain a sound communication mechanism between them going forward.

To put it plainly, both got what they wanted: Ivor learned new intelligence about the mastermind behind the scenes, while Lucien secured a commitment from Duke Howard's family.

Ivor even presented Lucien with a Diamond VIP card of the Gleaming Union Chamber of Commerce.

This was one of the top five chambers of commerce in the kingdom, jointly established by various court nobles. It was massive in scale, surpassing even the Morra family's Golden Ivy Chamber of Commerce.

The VIP cards of the Gleaming Union Chamber of Commerce were divided into Silver, Gold, and Diamond tiers, and the one Ivor prepared for Lucien was the Diamond tier.

Holding this Diamond VIP card, Lucien would enjoy a thirty percent discount on all purchases at the Gleaming Union Chamber of Commerce.

This discount applied to everything from daily necessities, oil, salt, rice, and firewood, all the way up to advanced magic equipment. It was practically equivalent to the chamber providing services at a loss.

A resourceful person could even turn a profit from the chamber using this Diamond VIP card.

This clearly demonstrated Ivor's sincerity; one must remember that Morra had only arranged a fifteen percent discount for Lucien at her own family's chamber of commerce.

When Lucien and Ivor arrived at the living room, they saw Yalis and Elena sitting on the sofa. Yalis was tightly hugging the little lunar leopard and sitting obediently, while Elena used a wooden comb to neatly arrange Yalis's long, lion-mane-like red hair.

Seeing this, Lucien walked over to a nearby chair, took a book titled 《On the Properties of Fire Elements and Magic Rune Applications》 out of his ring, and began to study.

Right now, what Lucien needed to do was re-examine his magic theories and fundamentals, consolidate his mastery, and achieve further improvement.

Neither Yalis nor Ivor disturbed Lucien; they simply walked outside and began their daily training.

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The sunlight grew increasingly intense as the sun climbed directly overhead.

Just as Lucien put down the thick tome and prepared to head into the kitchen to whip up a simple meal, Ivor walked in accompanied by a middle-aged man wearing the uniform of the Mercenary Guild.

The moment the man laid eyes on Lucien, he walked up with great enthusiasm and said:

"This must be Mr. Moriarty, who has recently joined the Yalis Adventurer Team! Truly young, promising, and extraordinary!"

One does not strike a smiling face. Lucien shook hands with the somewhat overly enthusiastic man and asked:

"Hello, who might you be?"

"Ah, I completely forgot to introduce myself!" The man slapped his forehead and said:

"My name is Millel, the supervisor in charge of mission dispatch at the Mercenary Guild. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Millel."

After exchanging pleasantries, Lucien dumped the troublesome task of hosting onto Ivor and went to the kitchen to prepare lunch.

By the time the food was prepared and served, Lucien discovered that the supervisor named Millel had already left.

Yalis and Elena had also finished their morning training and were obediently sitting by the table, waiting for Lucien to feed them.

Even Rombo, who had been missing all morning, was sitting off to the side.

Placing the food on the table, Lucien asked Ivor:

"Where is that Millel fellow from just now?"

"He left. He only came to inform us that the guild has assigned an exclusive mission to our adventurer team."

"Oh, an exclusive mission?"

Lucien sat down at the table, and everyone began to dig in.

Ivor gently tapped the table and said:

"Now that Lucien is here as well, I'll brief everyone on the details of this exclusive guild mission so we can decide whether to take it."

While tasting the delicious food, everyone listened to Ivor with a mixture of curiosity.

After all, any mission that the Mercenary Guild designated and assigned directly could not possibly be simple.

It seemed the guild believed ordinary mercenaries lacked the strength to complete this commission, and the timeframe was tight enough to require assigning a specific mercenary group.

Ivor gathered his thoughts and explained:

"About a two-day carriage ride south of Gleaming City, there is a place called Kora Village."

"According to intelligence, a few days ago, the villagers of Kora discovered that the plants in the surrounding area were acting strangely. They were growing at an incredible speed, and some large trees even grew over a meter taller overnight."

"The villagers of Kora panicked because their village was on the verge of being swallowed by the forest. After reporting it to their lord and receiving no solution, they had no choice but to petition the kingdom for help."

"Since the cause of these abnormalities has not yet been discovered, the preliminary reconnaissance mission was commissioned by the kingdom to the Mercenary Guild."

"The guild has classified this as a secret realm exploration mission and designated our adventurer team to complete it. If we accept this mission, we must register at the guild tomorrow and depart immediately, so the timeframe is quite tight."

"Oh, and according to the preliminary reconnaissance intelligence from the local lord, there seem to be traces of suspected undead creatures lingering around. We need to be careful."

"What do you all think? Should we take this mission?"

Ivor finished laying out the known intelligence and looked at his teammates gathered around the table.

Yalis was the first to respond enthusiastically:

"Let's take it, let's take it! I've only ever heard about undead creatures in stories, and I've never chopped one down yet!"

Lucien nodded inwardly; that was true indeed.

As the Kingdom of Fess possessed a relatively stable social order, to prevent the bones of the deceased from being converted into the undead, all citizens were required to be buried in the Dawn Church's cemetery after death, and no extra fees were charged.

This was a strict regulation, even if one lived outside the city walls.

This was why undead creatures were rarely found roaming within the borders of the Kingdom of Fess.

Priests of the Dawn Church were responsible for the maintenance and blessing of the cemeteries, and the divine power of the God of Dawn possessed extremely lethal properties against undead creatures—something that churches of War, Wisdom, and others could not match.

Naturally, the Dawn Church was more than happy to undertake this duty, as it brought immense benefits to the spread of the Dawn God's faith throughout the Kingdom of Fess.

Therefore, as the Dawn Church's most important stronghold on the Fanor Continent, death mages and similar practitioners truly gave the Kingdom of Fess a wide berth.

Just walking down the road, one might encounter a bald man in a white robe shouting: "Praise the brilliance of the Dawn God!" and then send you straight to hell with a warhammer.

Yes, indeed!

The weapons used by the priests of the Dawn Church were one-handed warhammers, and every single one of them was a muscle-bound powerhouse!

In his past life, Lucien had often suspected whether the God of Dawn was also a hulking giant with a twelve-pack of abs.

Unfortunately, the statues worshipped within the pantheons were extremely vague, making it impossible to discern their physique or facial features.

On the other hand, ever since his rebirth, he hadn't interacted with anyone from the churches yet!

As his mind wandered, Lucien concluded that it was best to stay far away from those muscle-bound, violent hammer-wielding priests of the Dawn Church.

Elena chimed in:

"If the plants are growing rapidly, that should be the result of an increase in vitality. But why would undead creatures appear? That's very strange."

"Exactly!" Ivor nodded and said:

"That's why the Mercenary Guild suspects that a new secret realm might have appeared near Kora Village, which is why they assigned us to explore it."