Chapter 78 - Information Guild (2)

The moment I heard the name Sinclair, I couldn't hide my puzzlement.

...That was because in the original work, the master of the Information Guild used a different name, not Sinclair.

Did they put someone else forward because they didn't want to reveal their identity? Or is this guy the real Information Guild master?

Having seen several times already that the content in reality differed from the original work, I thought I couldn't know what was true, and narrowed my eyes.

Then, without showing any reaction, I returned the greeting.

"Damian."

Whether that guy was real or not wasn't that important.

What was important now was that there was a high chance Liana was in danger.

And above all, there was a chance that the guy who introduced himself as Sinclair was the “culprit”.

Of course, it could just be my simple misunderstanding, so I shouldn't make hasty judgments, but.

The boldness and ability to chase Liana in the Information Guild.

And judging by my unique intuition ringing alarm bells, the thought that this guy might be the culprit keeps arising.

With such thoughts, I was pondering what to do when he made one suggestion to me.

"You seem to have gone through quite a difficult time, how about having a meal first? We've just received some good ingredients."

Though I wasn't very keen, I nodded to extract information.

Sinclair, still smiling faintly, guided me to the dining room.

***

Unlike the passage where luxurious but messy interiors were mixed, the rest of the spaces were more ordinary than expected.

Of course, it was ordinary in my thoughts, but compared to truly ordinary things, it was somewhat unusual.

It's like an old mansion.

It wasn’t just ordinarily old, but in such poor condition that at first glance, one might mistake it for a haunted house, weathered by time.

I was assessing the information while looking at the pitch-black windows where nothing could be seen, when Sinclair, who was walking ahead, opened a door and said to me, "The dining room is here."

Creak!

As he opened the old wooden door, a loud thunder-like sound came from outside.

Thinking I had no idea where this place was, I nodded slightly.

Sinclair entered the dining room and asked me a question, "Do you have any preferred food? If you tell me, I'll have it prepared."

"Not particularly."

"I see."

He seemed quite pleased as he guided me to my seat and just smiled broadly.

Thinking his smile was quite strange and unpleasant, I sat as far away as possible.

Looking at me like that, he brings up one thing.

"I once heard this story from a past friend. That this world is destined to repeat endlessly, until it breaks."

Repeat? Does he mean things like war or history?

Or did he say that with a different meaning?

Not quite understanding, I silently looked at Sinclair, and he just smiled brightly and said, "What do you think about this, Damian?"

I wonder with what intention he's asking such a question.

Looking at the luxurious transparent glass in front of me, I said, "Well. Isn't that the natural order of things?"

Considering that the world doesn't move by the power of individual humans, I thought that repeating history might be a byproduct created by the system, so I answered like that.

He smiled gently and said to me, "The natural order. It could be so."

With those words, people who looked like butlers brought in the food.

Thinking I didn't know if I could eat this, I was looking down when he said to me with a calm expression,

"I hope that Damian will break this world."

At those words, I looked at him expressionlessly and answered, "Me?"

"Yes. I hope you would do it, Damian."

"Why?"

"Because it's something only you can do, Damian."

"I don't want to."

When I threw this MZ-style 3-hit combo, Sinclair just smiled silently and put meat in his mouth.

Seeing this, I smiled slightly and turned my gaze.

It's better to quickly avoid this kind of conversation.

Since curiosity and questions have always been an express train to the worst outcome, I deliberately spoke nonsense to make Sinclair shut his mouth.

And above all, if it were just me alone, it might be different.

Because Ruen and Siren were beside me, to prepare for any situation, I quickly changed the subject.

Sinclair silently ate his food and smiled.

Watching this, I was cutting the meat for a moment when I brought up the main point.

"So where is Liana?"

"She's being interrogated due to information leakage."

The moment I heard the word interrogation, I frowned and glared at Sinclair.

He calmly told me the reason.

"The Information Guild's teleportation device should not be disclosed to outsiders. But it was disclosed to you and others, so there needs to be accountability for this."

The moment I heard those words, one incident arose in my mind.

The Carsaril terror incident.

To be more precise, I remembered that black mages used the teleportation device to carry out the terror attack.

So to explain this in more detail…

As Liana had said, it meant that the influence of black mages had already spread considerably within the Information Guild.

Then is this Sinclair guy also on the same side as the black mages?

For now, it might be reasonable to think so.

I looked at Sinclair, who was making a relaxed expression in front of me, pondered for a moment, then said, "So... in other words, you're saying you've captured Liana and won't let her go?"

"Rather than that, it would be right to see it as a process of checking if there's anything to be held accountable for."

At those words, I pondered for a moment, then put down the knife and fork and said, "Accountability..."

At the word accountability, I recalled something that happened in the past.

In the North, when the core figures of the North made me take responsibility for the rift occurring, then tried to drive me out.

Recalling that, I smiled without realizing and spoke to Sinclair in a calm voice, "Then the Information Guild must also be responsible for the terror attack on the Carsaril family."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You failed to properly manage the teleportation device, causing harm to the Carsaril family."

"..."

After being possessed into this world, there was one thing I realized.

The word responsibility... meant the act of those with power passing the buck to those without power when problems occurred.

"Isn't that right?"

Therefore, truth and facts weren't that important.

Only who would take the blame for the problem matters... Having come to understand well that it was such a word, I continued speaking to Sinclair while saying this, "So what responsibility are you going to take? Oh, perhaps you're an underground force that can't come out into the open, so you don't have the power to take responsibility?"

"You're saying interesting things."

"Interesting? Do you think I'm saying this because it's fun?"

...Well, anyway, that wasn’t what was important.

There was one reason why I deliberately brought up responsibility and provoked him.

It was to cause a ruckus.

I created a simple shadow hammer in my hand while simultaneously driving a point explosion into the floor.

I wanted to attack Sinclair directly, but there was a high chance my attack would be blocked, so I decided to compromise and destroy the Information Guild instead.

Boom!

With a huge explosion sound, cracks formed throughout the building and it started shaking.

I glanced at Ruen, who was startled behind me.

Then I used my shadow to put Ruen and Siren into the shadow city, created a mace, and said, "So where is Liana?"

At my words, Sinclair laughed loudly, then pointed down and said, "She's in the basement. Yes, alright. Since we also bear some responsibility, we'll hand over Liana."

Judging by his extremely relaxed expression, it seems he had somewhat predicted that I would act like this.

Hearing those words, I smiled slightly and answered, "I don't need that."

"...?"

At my words that I don't need it, Sinclair's expression distorted slightly for the first time.

Thinking that expression was quite interesting, I poured power into the mace, then called Daisy, "Daisy."

"Myeong!"

Along with that, the power of the sun started filling the shadow mace and intense energy began to surge.

Feeling intense mana spreading to the point of distorting space, I unleashed a point explosion on the floor.

As rough mana explosions burst out everywhere, flames started melting everything.

Seeing this, I felt a sense of catharsis and laughed loudly.

Seeing me laugh, Daisy also crossed her arms proudly on my shoulder and started laughing.

"Myheheng."

As the laughter spread everywhere, Sinclair, who hadn't been injured at all, spoke to me with a subdued expression, "...You're doing interesting things."

At those words, I silently looked at Sinclair and said, "It's not over yet?"

"What do you..."

Before Sinclair could finish speaking, I kept using point explosions to blow up everything around.

Whether durability increase or protective magic was stacked, unlike when destroying ordinary buildings, it didn't shatter with one attack, but still, because the power was what it was, the building itself took tremendous damage.

Like when the shadow city was collapsing, in addition to being miserably cracked, large holes were punctured everywhere and it started collapsing.