There stood the youngest guild member who used to follow Noksu closely.
With the right side of her face burning, she spat venomous words of condemnation.
"Just die. Like your wife."
"Ah..."
The wife he had been embracing had become a cold corpse.
"Aaaaah!"
He frantically came to his senses.
Everything was burning.
His wife was dead, and the guild he had devoted his youth to was shattered to pieces.
Noksu, all his hopes and dreams broken, fled from that place.
"You promised. You promised we’d go outside together and live proudly. That you’d give us status and family."
Rae, her face burning, condemned him.
"..."
Noksu, no, Oliver realized.
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It was a dream.
No, a hallucination?
Then he remembered.
The moment before he collapsed.
"Poison..."
So it was poison.
Dream-inducing drug, right, something commonly used in the sewers.
He always carries general-purpose antidotes.
He wouldn’t have put them in his pockets.
Inside his mouth, the innermost molar.
The antidote was inside the false tooth implanted after pulling that molar. A common lifesaving measure among rogues.
Oliver bit and crushed it.
Crunch!
A sensation both cool and hot went down his throat.
The antidote began to work.
It felt like a ringing noise in his head.
Oliver opened his eyes through the splitting headache.
He couldn’t completely neutralize the dream-inducing drug. Things still appeared double in his vision.
But just waking from sleep and hallucination was enough.
He tried moving his fingers and toes.
Strength returned normally.
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Oliver sprang up like a coiled spring.
Of course, he drew the dagger at his waist.
And lunged at Rae like a starving wolf.
Rae instinctively tried to deflect using close combat techniques, but Oliver himself had taught her those techniques.
Their limbs crashed together with loud sounds, connecting and separating.
Oliver pressed his forearm against her throat and pushed.
Thud!
He pressed her solar plexus with his knee and aimed the drawn dagger at her nape.
Oliver growled.
"Anti, give me the antidote."
"..."
Rae looked at Oliver with complicated eyes.
Instead of answering, she gestured to the side.
Suspecting possible deception, Oliver pressed the dagger deeper while only turning his gaze.
There, the snake was giving Obern the antidote.
"Ssasak..."
The snake looking at Oliver wore an expression of disbelief.
Rae spoke.
"I already gave it."
"What?"
"While you were sound asleep."
The snake approached with another antidote pill.
Oliver dazedly accepted and ate it.
The snake naturally climbed onto Oliver’s shoulder.
’I already took care of everything.’
’...Pardon?’
’Oliver, you’re way too late.’
Only then could Oliver hear what had happened.
The events that occurred while he was knocked out by the dream-inducing drug.
Only after the drug was completely neutralized and his head cleared did he understand the situation.
"...Rae, how did you become the head of Under Circle?"
"Don’t call my name, it’s disgusting."
The eyes of Rae, who had put her mask back on, were cold.
"A coward who abandoned everything and ran away suddenly returns..."
’How dare you!’
"Kyaa!"
Suddenly the snake charged and headbutted Rae’s solar plexus.
Rae rolled back once and shed tears.
"Damn it, that snake... What exactly are you, Sir Snake?"
Oliver cleared his throat briefly then answered.
"...I don’t really know either."
"What?"
"I don’t really know what it is either."
That was the truth.
Even Oliver didn’t know much about the snake.
He only knew it was a troublemaker like a disaster that suddenly appeared from the great forest one day.
"...Did you really become the head of Under Circle?"
"What do you think? You think I was just playing around?"
"..."
"Eight years is plenty of time."
It had already been 8 years since Oliver’s guild ’Poison Path’ was destroyed.
But had that little kid grown enough to become head of an information guild?
"Why did you come back in the first place?"
"..."
Oliver spoke quietly.
"...Revenge."
"Ha."
The weight carried in that one word ’revenge’ must not have sounded small.
"You’re going to kill the guild masters of Mud House, Two Rings, and Heaven Medicine Party all by yourself?"
The snake looked at him in surprise.
’So you were a man of ambition after all, Oliver.’
Oliver couldn’t agree with that assessment.
He was just a prodigal son who ran away and returned.
He just wanted to take revenge on those who destroyed everything, even if only now.
Rae shed tears.
But she didn’t break down crying. She just kept glaring at Oliver.
"I thought deep down you were trying to rebuild the guild. That’s why I used dream-inducing drug instead of lethal poison."
Oliver felt his heart sink.
Rebuild the guild - he hadn’t dared imagine such a thing.
It would be no different from rebuilding a collapsed tower.
"You know what? I’m not the head of Under Circle now."
"...What do you mean?"
"I was the head, but I became independent."
"You separated from Under Circle?"
It was surprising.
An information guild wouldn’t let its head leave alive.
"Heaven Medicine Party tore Under Circle into ten thousand pieces."
"Then."
"Oban VanKloss. He must really have returned. He probably used Heaven Medicine Party to take control of the information guild first."
Hearing this, he could understand the situation.
Rae, who had been a branch head of Under Circle, took advantage of the chaos to protect and establish her own independent organization.
It could be considered an amazing feat.
"I’m going to create my own guild. And go up to the surface."
"..."
That had been young Oliver’s, Noksu’s, cherished wish.
He had failed and run away, but the young child left behind had harbored an even bigger dream.
"Whatever you want to do, causing chaos here in the sewers would actually be good for me."
Rae spoke coldly.
"If you really plan to kill those people. I’ll give you all the information you want from now on."
"Good."
Oliver wasn’t a soft man either.
He promised the child he had thought of as a niece.
"I’ll definitely kill those bastards."
The agreement was made.
The oath was sworn.
And...
"Ssasak!" (Wait!)
The snake cut in.
==
One guy gets knocked out by dream-inducing drug.
One girl gets beaten up by me and cries while getting robbed.
Why are they suddenly having a private conversation and creating atmosphere?
When I pointed this out, both Oliver and Rae looked embarrassed.
「No need to do it for free.」
I’m willing to pay for information.
She had such a serious expression, but as soon as I returned one gold bar, she smiled like a wash basin.
「You’re both weak anyway.」
"..."
"Ahem."
From my view, neither Oliver, Rae and her subordinates, nor even Obern are battle-ready.
To find Oban VanKloss, find the treasury’s treasures, and even fulfill Oliver’s cherished wish.
Even though I’m a strong snake, I can’t handle it alone.
First, I’ll bring reinforcements.
「I’ll be the boss.」
I declared thus.