It had to be said that the Minotaur Sage was the very picture of contentment.
His expectations for life were actually quite simple.
A roof over his head to keep out the wind and rain, enough food to fill his stomach, something to drink when he was thirsty, and a few things to keep himself entertained.
As long as those basic needs were met, he was perfectly satisfied.
Compared to Players like the Six Great Gods, who saved humanity from untold suffering, the Eight Greed Kings, who harbored ambitions of conquering the New World, and the captain of the 13 Heroes, who successfully brought an end to the Demon Gods' Uprising, this Minotaur Sage truly stood apart from the rest.
And when it came to luck, he was far better off than Samirth, who had died before he could even get started!
According to the Minotaur Sage, he had arrived in this world during the same era as the Six Great Gods.
What left Naohara and the other two speechless, however, was that the man had managed to remain a completely unknown nobody for several hundred years simply by hiding from one place to another.
The one time he had ever drawn public attention dated back more than two hundred years.
Perhaps spending so long in hiding had simply become too boring for him.
So, taking advantage of the Demon Gods' Uprising and the cover provided by his fellow countryman, the captain of the 13 Heroes, he quietly showed himself for a brief time in the great Minotaur nation on the Central Continent.
Not long afterward, however, news arrived that the captain of the 13 Heroes had died.
The Minotaur Sage was so frightened that he immediately staged his own death and fled for his life.
He did not even have time to take some of his precious items with him before hurriedly disappearing from the public eye.
The Minotaur Sage's life had certainly been eventful in its own peculiar way. He was either running away or preparing to run away.
But unlike the Six Great Gods, who shut themselves away and obsessively researched the Power of Faith, only to end up trapping themselves through their own efforts, the Minotaur Sage had spent years traveling from place to place.
Perhaps because of that, he knew quite a few secrets that few others had ever heard.
"The Goblin King... and the Princess of Crystal City?"
Walking through the corridors of Nazarick, Naohara mulled over what the Minotaur Sage had just told them.
The Minotaur Sage had revealed the existence of two individuals who were suspected to be Players.
This world was filled with countless astonishing and exaggerated legends.
If those tales were judged against the level of strength normally possessed by the native inhabitants of this world, then there was a very high chance that the protagonists of such legends had some connection to Players.
How many Players had arrived in this world?
Were they still alive, or were they already dead?
What powerful World-Class Items did each of them possess?
All of it remained unknown. No one could say for certain.
For all anyone knew, they might still be hiding in some remote corner of the world.
The Minotaur Sage, for example, had once heard rumors about a princess who supposedly ruled over a [Crystal City] and was protected by twelve absolutely loyal knights.
Then there was the Goblin King, who was said to have annihilated numerous members of the Dragon Race with nothing more than a casual swing of a white ash branch.
The former sounded very much like someone similar to them, a Player who had arrived in the New World ahead of time while bringing along their Guild Base.
If that were true, then there were currently at least three Guild Bases in this world.
As for the latter, the chances of him being a Player were not much lower.
Judging from the upper limits of power displayed by Goblins native to the New World, the possibility of anyone other than a Player slaughtering multiple members of the Dragon Race in one fell swoop was practically nonexistent.
There was also the suspicious white ash branch he had used as a weapon.
It might have been an item like the Sealing Crystal, whose effectiveness had nothing to do with the user's own strength, but the possibility that it was a World-Class Item could not be ruled out either.
Moreover, Nazarick's investigations over the past few years had revealed that more than one World-Class Item appeared to be scattered across this world.
One example was the World-Class Item they had discovered inside a sacred sanctuary after three years of exhaustive searching.
[With the crisis of Kuyō approaching, even if those people want to remain hidden, they probably won't be able to stay that way much longer.]
"My King, you summoned us. What are your orders?"
A respectful voice suddenly rang out, immediately drawing Naohara's attention.
Looking up, he saw three figures approaching at a brisk pace.
They were the Brightness Dragon Lord, his body shimmering with multicolored light; the Heavenly Dragon Lord, who carried an air of lazy indifference; and the Vampiric Dragon Lord, whose exposed fangs and blood-soaked aura inspired instinctive dread.
The True Dragon Lords came before Naohara and respectfully knelt on one knee, lowering their heads as they awaited his command.
"I have an important mission to entrust to you."
Naohara gave a slight nod. His gaze slowly swept across the dragons before him before he spoke in an unhurried tone.
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