Kingdom of battles ✓

Chapter 36

 The port town Blackthorne was much more lively then someone would think. The streets were getting more and more full of people together with the sun that was starting to disappear on the horizon. Different players were setting up shops, opening taverns and inns, they were gathering in groups and some of them just arrived with small boats and were leaving them at one of the three piers. From what I saw in the past hour that Waru and I spent in the port town I knew that it got truly alive only at night. I was actually pretty happy to hear that, even if it meant that it was also going to be more dangerous. That was because during the day there were almost no people here and the one that were, weren't even the type of persons that I was looking for. There was a lot of different types of players here and some of them weren't even criminals. You could see the ones that didn't have enough money to buy legal gear and came here for things like that, some dangerous and well known solo players that liked to hang out here and similar ones.

I was sitting in a dark alley, behind a pile of wooden boxes together with Waru and scanning a piece of paper in my hands. I took it from the wind user that I fought earlier. After I defeated him I remembered how he said that him and his friend knew the name of every guild in Blackthorne by memory, so I thought that maybe he had them written somewhere. It turned out that he really did.

'' Can't we just move and finally do something? I'm getting nervous. There's too many people here, I don't like it, '' Waru muttered, looking at his hands.

'' Just wait another moment, I know that this'll be useful information for later. Look, it says here that there's twenty guilds that have their headquarters here. Three of them are labeled as 'collector', which means that their main job is obtaining and trading things to get this world's money. Five of them are specialised in fighting, they're supposed to be good military power, while twelve others are just ordinary guilds like ours, ranked from the strongest to the weakest. FATE's the fourth strongest... '' I seriously explained and pointed at the name that was above it, the guild that was ranked third. '' But that's not what's the most interesting. Here! ''

'' Ravensteed, '' Waru read the guild name and looked at me with his dark eyes. '' Why is that supposed to be interesting? It's probably just another guild of terrible people that deserve to die. ''

'' It could be just another guild, but it also couldn't be, '' I replied, grinning with enthusiasm. '' That's because I think that I know their guild master. ''

Waru stared at the paper again, reading the name of the guild master of Ravensteed. '' Shiemi? Who's that? ''

I folded the paper with the guild names again and put it in the pouch that was hanging on my waist, smiling. Seeing Shiemi's name on the list instantly put me in a lot better mood. If it was really her, that would be a really good news and would help the situation a lot. '' Shiemi was my only friend in the 'real world'. She owns a store in one part of Tokyo where she sells all kinds of video games, manga, anime CDs, action figures and countless other interesting things like that. We became good friends because I always spent a lot of time at her store, since her prices were pretty low and I always liked to watch my money and be careful to spend as little as I could. She bought a copy of the Kingdom of battles just like me, so I really hope that is actually her. ''

I didn't know how could she end up being a dark guild master, but I was sure that if I would ask her for help she would give it to me. She was a really good person that was always there for people that needed her. She always let me borrow her video games and anime CDs, sometimes she even let me play them on her computer. And I clearly remembered all the times we talked about gaming and how we often waited in front of stores for a whole night just so we could get a copy of a game that appeared on the market shelves the next morning.