That day, an odd tale spread across the Shionel Confederation.
The thankless task of clearing the second floor which had only a portion of its yield left for proportionally a lot more monsters than the frontier floors of the dungeon where most adventurers spent their time plundering loot, had been completed.
Not only that, word on the street was that it was completed by a single adventurer!
Yet, that wasn't the strangest occurrence.
It turned out that whoever completed this feat, did not even bother claiming credit for singlehandedly destroying a huge number of monsters all by themself, harvested all of the remaining esoteric harvests on the floor, and had simply moved on without bothering any further about it.
The information came from a report from the party that discovered the state of the second floor; the Saberstrike party. One of the small proportion of adventurer parties that was led by an S-rank adventurer Martial Squire. The Saberstrike party is estimated to have arrived at the scene just fifteen minutes after the absurd feat was performed, based on the timelines estimation of the autopsies of the monsters.
The analyses of the expert hunters of the party were verified by expert consultants on media outlets, as well as the Shionel Adventurer Guild itself!
This news sent a ripple across the Shionel Confederation. Especially the news that the culprit responsible was not yet found.
"Culprit?" Squire Fren frowned as she read the official statement from the Shionel Merchant Guild just a few days later.
Two days ago, they had reported the clearing of the second floor of the dungeon, as well as everything knew about it. They had expected that one of the S-rank adventurers in the country presently would take credit for the clearing of the second floor of the Shionel Dungeon, yet, seventy-two hours later, the Shionel Adventurer Guild had not yet even indicated that the individual who had performed this feat or were even aware of the identity of the person.
"It's strange that they don't know yet, and it's strange that they're calling him a culprit rather than a hero," Squire Fren frowned.
"Honestly, it's strange that they don't know who it is yet. They surely would be able to find out from the tax paid, right?" Squire Seli asked.
Because the culprit had cleared the dungeon of the remaining large reserves of esoteric harvest, they would naturally be paying a huge amount of tax proportionally too, since the tax for being allowed to profit from the resources of another country was twenty percent of the yield.
Thus someone who was walking away with hundreds of large bags of harvest would be paying dozens of bags of harvest as tax, the Shionel Dungeon ought to instantly know who the person responsible is.
"The fact that they don't know despite that means…" Squire Fren's eyes widened. "That individual hasn't paid their tax to the Shionel Merchant Guild! That's why they are referring to that person as a culprit."
The other Martial Squires' eyebrows rose. That made definitely did make sense. It would also explain why the official statement of the Shionel Adventurer Guild is criminalizing that individual.
"To not abide by the international agreements, as well as the contract that they themselves signed," Squire Fren's eyebrow rose as she frowned. "It seems we're dealing with a very powerful troublemaker. The Shionel Merchant and Adventurer Guilds are not going to be happy with this outcome."
The guilds did not care for minor skirting, pursuing minor matters to the end took more capital than it was worth, however, it definitely did care about being scammed of tons of esoteric harvest and yield.
"How did this mysterious adventurer even manage to smuggle the esoteric harvest and yield out of the Shionel Dungeon?" Squire Darbun snorted. "It would surely be conspicuous,"
"There are several realistic possibilities," Squire Janeson remarked. "I'm sure that the Shionel Adventurer Guild will be aggressively pursuing this matter."
Squire Fren nodded. "I don't know who the culprit is, but that person will not be having an easy time, they may be a strong Martial Squire, but that does not mean that that alone would be enough to evade pursuit. Honestly, it's strange, why don't they just plunder the dungeon honestly and legally? They could gain fame and glory without having to hide."
None of them understood the motives of the perpetrator. This wasn't their fault, they couldn't imagine that the perpetrator's plans were so much grander than just the clearance of the second floor, and would likely end up becoming so disruptive, that publicizing their identity would be inviting danger to their life.
The word spread across town as all of the S-rank parties, including Party Saberstrike, declared that they had nothing to do with the incident, which only sparked more uproar. After all, the only people capable of such a feat would be the various S-rankers in the Shionel Confederation. They had no intention of being accused of tax fraud that they did not commit in the first place, no amount of fame was worth that in the first place.
That meant that there was an unknown grade-ten Martial Squire in the Shionel Confederation that had cleared the second floor all by themself. That was extremely strange since grade-ten Martial Squires were not a dime a dozen, they were extremely rare and inherently high-profile. Nations maintained a tab on all of them since they were all Senior candidates. How could such a person go unnoticed?
Squire Fren had initially half-wished that they had taken credit for it seeing as the real culprit wasn't coming forward, but after realizing how much trouble that would have gotten her, she had thanked her stars that she had initially decided to go with honestly and report everything, thinking that the person responsible would definitely take credit for such a feat.
The adventuring industry and sector began referring to the person that cleared the second floor as the Voider, for how there was no information surrounding this person, to refer to them whenever they was brought up in discussions, or in media.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l