"No... no way!"
"Where's Maris?!" Eina lunged over the counter and grabbed one of the men by his collar. "What happened to Maris? Wasn't she your teammate?!"
The two men swallowed hard while looking away.
Even if they did it to survive, they just betrayed the girl who trusted them with her life.
Right now, they only cared that they made it out alive, but having Eina scream in their faces made them flinch.
"Maris, she..."
"Maris got killed by an Orc while buying us time to escape!" the second man blurted out, covering for his stuttering friend with a cheap lie.
Hearing that, all the strength drained right out of Eina's body.
'W-What? Maris... is dead?'
"You two..."
Pure despair and a desperate, fragile hope twisted Eina's face.
Like she was begging for a miracle, she asked, "Did you see it with your own eyes? Did you actually see her die?"
The man shrank back, terrified by the look in her eyes.
All he had to do was lie and say yes.
But staring at the half-elf's intense glare, he lost his nerve.
"N-no," he stammered. "We didn't actually see it happen."
Eina's head snapped up. She let go of the man's shirt and turn around to face the crowded lobby.
"Please, everyone!" she begged. "There's an adventurer in danger! If a party goes down right now, you might still make it in time to save her!"
The guild was packed.
There had to be at least a few high-level veterans in the room. If Maris was still breathing, a strong team could easily pull her out.
Eina waited for someone to step up. But as she looked around, her hope shattered.
The crowd just stared back in silence.
Every single adventurer wore the exact same cold, blank expression, treating her panic like background noise.
'No one? Not a single person?'
She just told them Maris might be alive!
Why wasn't anyone moving? An adventurer was dying down there!
Even if the odds were terrible, there was still a chance! Were they really just going to stand around and do nothing? All they had to do was go inside...
Then, Eina froze.
Her breath caught in her throat as she realized she just made a massive mistake.
No.
She was the one in the wrong.
That place was the Dungeon.
It was a meat grinder where people risked getting ripped apart just to make a buck.
The second they stepped into that dark hole, they put their lives on the line. Why should a stranger's life or death matter to them? She was basically asking a bunch of strangers to risk their own necks just to save her friend!
It was a miracle they weren't cursing her out for even asking.
Being an adventurer meant taking responsibility for your own choices. There were plenty of safe, boring jobs out there that didn't involve fighting monsters.
But these people chose to dive into the Dungeon anyway, chasing their own greed and dreams.
Nobody forced them down there, and nobody could stop them.
She knew the rules.
She understood how Orario worked better than anyone!
'But Maris might still be alive! Can't anyone help her?' She thought about asking Lady Riveria—no, she couldn't do that.
She couldn't bother a high-level executive for a personal favor.
"Noah."
That's right... Noah!
Eina bolted for the exit.
She didn't even tell her boss she was leaving. Still wearing her neat Guild uniform, she shoved through the heavy doors and sprinted down Adventurer Street.
'At this time of day, he had to be at his shop.'
'Please... please be there!'
...
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Noah was busy hammering a glowing metal ingot when he sensed someone sprinting toward his shop.
It didn't feel like a normal customer.
"Noah!" Eina gasped, leaning against the doorframe. "Please! You have to help me!"
The half-elf girl's legs finally gave out, and she collapsed onto the dirt path.
She ran all the way from the Guild at a dead sprint. Her lungs burned like fire, and her heart was pounding out of her chest.
Noah dropped his hammer and stepped outside.
He blinked, surprised to see the usually perfect Guild advisor soaked in sweat and gasping for air.
"Eina?" He took one look at her rough shape and held out his hand.
A cool, gentle wave of water magic washed over her, soothing her burning muscles.
The second she caught her breath, she grabbed his arm with a desperate grip.
"Noah, please! You have to save Maris!"
Noah's eyes narrowed.
He shifted his magic, gently tweaking her blood flow and adrenaline levels to force her body to calm down without fogging up her brain.
If he didn't spent two and a half grueling years mastering his Spell-Weaver skills in the Blazer world, pulling off that kind of precise trick would have been impossible.
"Take a breath," Noah said, keeping his voice steady. "Tell me exactly what happened."
Eina definitely noticed how her panic magically vanished, but she didn't have time to ask questions.
She quickly explained the disaster at the Guild and the cowards who abandoned Maris on the 12th Floor.
"Got it," Noah nodded. "I'll head out right now. But Eina, I'm a registered adventurer. You can't just ask me for a personal favor to go down there. You know how this works, right?"
Eina wasn't just the Guild's pretty poster girl.
Behind the beauty and the smart uniform, she was a top-tier employee who knew the rulebook inside and out.
She caught his drift right away.
Pushing herself up from the dirt, she nodded firmly. "I understand. By the time you get back, the official rescue commission paperwork will be signed and ready to go."
Noah nodded.
That was the right way to play it.
If you want an adventurer to risk their neck, you issue a formal Guild commission. Whether the adventurer actually took the job was up to them, but the paper trail kept things legal.
Since this mess involved members of different Familias, skipping the red tape could start a massive fight.
If he was just pulling out someone from the Hephaestus camp, he could just run in.
He took the job for two reasons.
First, Eina always had his back and treated him well at the Guild.
Second, he really didn't think Maris was dead yet.
With that Buff Crystal he sold her, fighting through a pack of regular Orcs shouldn't be a problem.
If she really managed to survive an ambush with it, this whole disaster was going to be the perfect advertisement for his new product!
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