The Adult-Game Heroine Turns the Guild Upside Down

Elena went to look for Eck and checked his assigned seat, but it was unusual for him not to be there even at this hour.

"E-Elena, you're here?"

Jeina's greeting sounded awkward somehow.

Unlike her exaggerated smile, her eyes wandered aimlessly through the air, unable to settle anywhere.

"Uncle isn't here today?"

At Elena's question, Jeina flinched and jerked her shoulders.

"Eck... well..."

Jeina let the end of her sentence trail off. Her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her apron.

She looked strange, like someone who had committed a crime.

"Hey! Brat!"

At that moment, one of the men occupying the center of the dining hall raised a hand high.

He was a mercenary with a flushed face and beer foam caked in his beard.

"Why are you just standing there! You're in deep trouble! What are you going to do about your teacher? Kahaha!"

Elena's brow furrowed.

"What are you talking about?"

"Haha! Looks like you haven't heard yet! I'm talking about that great Eck you've been following around like a puppy!"

The bearded adventurer slammed his beer mug hard onto the table.

The group sitting nearby couldn't bring themselves to tell him to stop and instead let out awkward laughs.

"What's with you all?! You all saw it, didn't you? That bastard Eck took drugs and passed out!"

"What?"

Elena stopped dead.

Her gaze instinctively turned toward Jeina.

Jeina ducked her head and tried to hide behind the counter.

Her trembling shoulders proved that the bearded adventurer's words were true.

"Kahaha! He gulped down the booze that bitch handed him, slammed his head onto the table, and got dragged off by the guild people just like that! It was hilarious!"

The bearded adventurer exaggeratedly pretended to collapse.

Then he burst out laughing.

He was dragged away.

Drugged, at that.

Elena hadn't thought Eck could be caught off guard like that.

Anyone who received his instruction could tell how meticulous and perceptive he was.

Not only did he teach them the weak points of monsters that seemed to require hundreds of encounters to figure out, he also advised them to distrust their party members and take responsibility for their own actions.

Those thoughts flashed through Elena's mind.

'Uncle took drugs and passed out?'

There was no way.

There had to be some mistake or some reason for it.

But the truth was irrelevant to the bearded adventurer.

All he cared about was a king who had wielded absolute power falling in a ridiculous fashion—a story he could turn into gossip and sneer at.

"Look! Didn't I say that guy's washed up now?! Has anyone seen him go out to the hunting grounds?! No, right?! Fuck the Red Moon. He's drunk himself stupid and lost all his instincts! Jeina! Bring me another drink!"

"Y-yes!"

"If you slip sleeping pills into my drink, I won't go easy on you like I did Eck! You'll die in that bed the same day, got it!! Kahaha! I'll beat that pretty face to a bloody pulp before I kill you! Ah, Elena, you should've seen it too!"

Before she knew it, the guild dining hall was dominated by the bearded adventurer's voice.

"He couldn't even withstand one sleeping pill slipped to him by a woman! That means he's past his prime now! Jeina!"

The bearded adventurer grabbed Jeina by the arm and pulled her onto his thigh.

"Where do you think you're going? You drugged an adventurer as a guild employee and think you can just leave?"

"I-I have work..."

"Oh, really? If you'd put poison in it, someone would've died, and you're worried about work? This girl doesn't even know basic manners! You'd deserve to die for pulling something like that in our line of work, but I can't lay hands on a guild employee."

With that, the bearded adventurer seized Jeina's clothes and tore them.

With her underwear exposed, he grabbed her breast.

His rough hand squeezed and crushed it, ignoring her pain, but Jeina couldn't scream and kept her mouth firmly shut.

"But you still have to pay the price for betraying our trust! Strip completely, underwear and all, and dance! Beg all of us for forgiveness!"

Thrown aside by the bearded adventurer, Jeina fell in the middle of the dining hall and was met with looks full of mockery, ridicule, distrust, and betrayal.

Jeina tearfully searched for someone to help her, but when her gaze reached Elena, she found betrayal there too.

Elena had never thought highly of her to begin with, since Jeina had never spoken well of Uncle.

"Hey, don't you all think so too? Jeina, what are you doing! Everyone's waiting!"

The heavily intoxicated bearded adventurer staggered to his feet.

He loosened the belt around his waist and smiled lewdly.

"This bitch doesn't even know what she did wrong and still hasn't come to her senses? You've lost your touch. Just because Eck let you off that easily, do you think we're pushovers too?"

Sticky intent clung to his taunting voice.

"Kahaha. Don't you all think so too? Think about everything Eck's done to us! Do we have to watch our step around that bastard now?! If he shows mercy, do we have to show mercy too?! Huh?! Huh?!!!"

Some of the adventurers in the dining hall shouted in agreement.

But most still couldn't bring themselves to shout and merely looked around cautiously.

One incident wasn't enough to erase the influence Eck had carved into them. Those who joined in had only shouted because they were drunk.

"The only reason that bastard can still be A-rank is because he obviously fucked the guildmaster bitch and slept his way into it!"

The bearded adventurer approached Jeina.

The closer he got, the more Jeina's complexion turned blue.

"That bastard Eck—just wait until he comes back. I'll show him whether I let him off easy."

Red-faced with drunken excitement, he was suddenly kicked by someone who flew at him.

Wham-!

A dull burst of impact echoed through the dining hall.

Kicked in the back, the bearded adventurer swept through the tables and flew into the wall.

"Who the hell are you! What the fuck are you doing!"

"It's me."

Elena said.

As she planted the foot that had kicked the bearded adventurer, she glared fiercely at him.

"You little brat. So you want to die first! Before I butcher Eck, I'll fuck you first...!"

Before he could finish speaking, Elena charged at him with her eyes blazing blue. She dodged his counterattack, raised her foot, and kicked him up under the chin.

"Ghk!"

The adventurers' gazes all locked onto Elena.

Elena had only fought once before, when she sparred with Darko.

How much time had passed since then?

Though he was drunk, the B-rank adventurer couldn't land a single blow; Elena's fists and feet battered him one-sidedly.

Elena's heel spun swiftly, striking the bearded adventurer's chin as it passed.

Thud. Thud.

The bearded adventurer staggered, then dropped to his knees.

Elena had deliberately turned her back to him. She looked back and stared down at him, now standing below her eye level.

"Say that again."

A low, biting voice slipped from Elena's lips. It was not her usual clear and lively voice.

It was laced with killing intent, closer to the growl of a beast.

"Your Eck is a fucking cripple... Ghk!"

The bearded adventurer sprang from his crouch and lunged in a surprise attack.

But that momentum collapsed when he slammed his face into Elena's knee.

She spoke to him as he lay sprawled on the floor.

"Who was going to hit whom?"

"Ngh, ugh..."

His unfocused eyes filled with fear as he looked up at Elena.

"Answer me."

Elena clenched her fist.

Bluish energy filled it.

A girl who had only just become an adventurer could not merely control mana—she could wield it.

"D-don't fuck with me."

Strong.

When that thought lodged in the bearded adventurer's mind, his eyes rolled back.

He charged, but he was nowhere near strong enough to close the gap.

Crack!

Elena's fist struck him squarely. The raw sound of his nasal bone collapsing rang out, and his final counterattack was reduced to nothing.

A flood of blood burst from his nose, and he lost consciousness.

"Hek... hek..."

Elena brought her raised fist down on a nearby dining table.

The table broke, and silence descended over the dining hall.

"Uncles and aunties."

She turned toward the adventurers in the dining hall.

"Surely you don't really think the same way as this guy, do you?"

Her icy blue eyes bored into the adventurers.

The adventurers couldn't even breathe. Crushed beneath the killing intent pouring from behind Elena, they froze in place.

She had defeated the C-rank Darko.

She had taken down a B-rank troll.

The rumor had exaggerated it, claiming she had only barely managed it with Eck's help.

Those claims were absurd.

Before everyone present, she proved that all those accomplishments belonged to her.

"Our Uncle is washed up?"

She ground her teeth.

Elena turned toward Jeina, who was sitting in the middle of the dining hall.

"Don't say things like that without even knowing why. Right, sis?"

"Y-yes. O-of course. There's no way Eck as he usually is would go down that easily. I-it's because it was an expensive drug."

"Are you bragging that you drugged Uncle?"

"N-no way! I-I just..."

The dining hall was silent as the grave.

The oppressive atmosphere was so heavy that even the sound of someone swallowing rang loudly through the room.

Elena helped Jeina to her feet.

"Th-thank you."

"I didn't help you because I like you, sis."

"I-I know..."

"You'd better behave from now on. The only reason I can't punish you is that Uncle didn't. But this is the one and only time."

She whispered it into Jeina's ear, softly but clearly etching the words into her.

"Next time, I'll do the same to you. If you don't want to wake up in a monster lair, behave."

"Y-yes."

"Then that's settled."

Elena smiled brightly as usual.

Facing that smile, Jeina's complexion turned deathly pale.

"Haa..."

Elena felt her mind growing cold.

This was the first time Elena had ever been this angry.

She wanted to smash everything, but beneath that urge, another desire began to spread.

'I want to see Uncle.'

She wanted to ask whether he was all right.

"Do you really not know where Uncle went?"

"I-I don't. I really don't."

Jeina mumbled.

"B-but..."

"But?"

"I do have a place in mind."

After learning where it was, Elena left the guild.

Only then was the guild able to let go of its tension.

"F-for a moment, I thought I was looking at Eck."

"Like master, like apprentice."

"Fuck. Are we screwed?"

"I thought she was innocent. How the hell are we supposed to manipulate a girl like that?"

The remaining adventurers could no longer casually mention Elena's name from that day on.

Elena was not the little brat who had been growing beneath Eck's shadow.

She was already a beast capable of threatening them.