Chapter 160: Adventurer District

Time slipped away like fine sand through open fingers, almost unnoticed at first, until its weight became undeniable. In the blink of an eye, five days had passed.

Five days that felt both impossibly short and unbearably long. Five days that thrust the Adventurer Guild from obscurity into the very heart of Grey the entire Evergreen Region.

For Sage, those five days were a whirlwind of ink-stained fingers, hoarse commands, aching bones, and a mind that never truly rested.

He often found himself laughing one moment and on the brink of collapse the next, caught in a dizzying dance between pain and exhilaration he had never known before.

Everything changed when Gregor and the first wave of Adventurers returned from the dungeons.

They didn’t come back empty-handed. They arrived bearing monster cores pulsing faintly with mana, strange metallic ores that rang like bells when struck together, and crystallized growths harvested from the depths.

Some were wounded; others looked exhausted or pale with lingering fear. Yet all carried proof, proof that the dungeons were real, proof that Sage had not lied, proof that something unprecedented was unfolding in Gryphon District.

By nightfall on that first day, the entire district erupted with excitement. By morning, shockwaves rippled beyond its borders. And by the second sunset, Greyvale City itself was in an uproar.

Warriors flooded into Gryphon District like water through broken gates. Small mercenary groups disbanded overnight to register as Adventurers instead.

Veteran fighters who had scoffed just days earlier now stood in line with clenched jaws and burning eyes. Even off-duty guardsmen slipped into the swelling crowds to see it for themselves.

Ninety percent of those filling the streets were Warriors, blades at their waists, calluses on their hands, scars half-hidden beneath cloaks and armor.

The district transformed from a fringe territory, loud and rough but contained, into a living forge of ambition, violence, hope, and hunger.

The recently expanded Adventurer Guild suddenly felt laughably small. From reception desks to great front doors, every inch was packed shoulder to shoulder.

The lines never disappeared; they only shifted. When dawn broke, they were already there; when midnight fell, they remained. Voices overlapped endlessly, registration inquiries mingled with mission negotiations and shouts of excitement as groups returned from their first successful runs.

The lights in the Guild Hall never went out once in those five days, not once.

Sage hadn’t fully recovered from his injuries but was thrown straight into this chaos.

There was no easing into command or time to steady himself.

He and Boren worked tirelessly from dawn until exhaustion forced them to sleep again, even then it was shallow rest plagued by thoughts of unfinished ledgers and unprocessed requests.

They registered new Adventurers until their hands cramped and processed mission dockets until ink seemed to permanently stained their skin.

They verified identities, issued credentials, mediated disputes, approved dungeon passes, negotiated commissions, and revised procedures on the fly, all to prevent the system from collapsing under its own success.

By the third day, Sage was running on fumes that could hardly be called rest. Despite the exhaustion that made his bones ache and his temples throb, there were moments when he glanced sideways at the growing piles of coin and felt a rush of something dangerously close to bliss.

Gold flowed into the Guild like a river. Every hour saw thousands of coins passing through the counters.

By the second day, it had ballooned to tens of thousands, entry fees, registration fees, dungeon passes, and guidebook sales.

Commission handling and bar revenue never ceased. The treasury vault filled so rapidly that it became choked with stacked coins and sealed sacks.

On the third night, Sage found himself dragging heavy bags of gold into his quarters and stuffing them into his closet. His heart raced as if he were committing some secret crime.

From then on, he visited his room at odd intervals just to check that the money was still there, touching the sacks like talismans and whispering prayers he didn’t truly believe in because the sight of such wealth made him nervous.

If not for the effort required to maintain his Guildmaster demeanor, he would have laughed out loud, shamelessly dancing on tables in some ridiculous victory ritual.

But in public, he remained composed and dignified, the calm center amid chaos. Only when alone did his lips twitch uncontrollably.

The commissions exploded almost as violently as their financial influx.

Every hour brought people eager to post requests: escorts, resource procurement, monster exterminations, investigations into missing persons, territory clearing, guard contracts, even noble intermediaries quietly pinned sealed documents to the board with polite smiles.

The Mission Board filled faster than missions could be taken down; within two days it resembled a chaotic mosaic of parchment. Grimacing as he handed over coins for a custom board ten times larger than the original only added to Sage’s woes.

The craftsman nearly wept at receiving payment; Sage nearly did too, but for different reasons. A hundred gold coins left his hands in one go; though he recovered by morning’s light, he sulked for an entire day afterward.

Beyond the Guild’s walls, Greyvale itself was transforming.News spread far beyond its borders that the Adventurer Guild controlled three dungeons, carried by caravans and mercenary messengers alike.

What truly ignited obsession wasn’t just their existence but also their terms: entry prices were a fraction of what nobles charged.

The loot belonged entirely to Adventurers, no noble tithe or confiscation lurking around every corner. It was freedom masquerading as opportunity, and Warriors recognized it instantly.

The Dungeon Guide Book gained artifact status all its own; stalls formed solely for its sale while copies circulated through taverns where groups debated classifications and danger thresholds late into the night like scholars arguing doctrine.

Eight out of ten Adventurers made the purchase, and the impact was immediate. Fatalities dropped significantly, transforming risk into something calculable.

Recklessness became quantifiable. Within just five days, the casualty rate fell to a level that astonished even the city’s physicians. Warriors who once relied purely on instinct began to analyze their encounters more thoughtfully.

They learned to retreat, avoid danger, and prepare thoroughly. For the first time, dungeons were approached as systems rather than mere death traps.

The revelation that Adventurers could enter dungeons separately, and exit at will, should have sparked chaos. Instead, it ignited fury. When the truth came to light, Sage was behind the counter when he felt it: dozens of cold stares converging on him, especially from Gregor.

The killing intent in that room was palpable; it felt like standing between drawn blades. Sage’s heart raced as he scrambled for explanations, framing this phenomenon as an advanced safety measure, a controlled isolation protocol designed to enhance survival and minimize conflict.

He spoke about dungeon mechanics, spatial distribution, the dangers of group panic, and internal dungeon logic.

His eloquent lies saved him from immediate death but didn’t shield him from Gregor’s wrath.

From that moment on, every time the green-haired warrior entered the Guild, he made sure Sage heard his scathing remarks: “Incompetent Guildmaster,” “half-baked administrator,” “a man who builds miracles but forgets instructions.”

Gregor never missed an opportunity to belittle him. Sage swallowed his humiliation in silence and later vented all of it onto the system.

To its credit or perhaps misfortune, the system never responded. But Sage didn’t care; if it had someone else to blame, that was its problem.

Meanwhile, the Guild expanded not only in structure but also in culture. Sage hired twenty waiters and brought in an experienced vintner to manage the bar while the old winemaker disappeared into his workshop like a mad alchemist.

New blends appeared daily as alcohol mingled with scents of metal, parchment, sweat, and ambition within the Guild’s walls. Warriors gathered there to drink, argue, strategize, boast about their feats, recruit allies, and recover from battles.

Another revenue stream emerged.

And behind it all moved Pax like a shadow through the city’s underbelly.

In just days, his network doubled, then tripled. Beggars became runners; runners evolved into watchers. Somehow, through methods Sage never witnessed firsthand, eyes reached even into the Central District.

Information flowed back constantly: whispers of concern and irritation mixed with intrigue. Pax also spread rumors of his own; word had it that Gryphon District was no longer neutral ground, it was turning into an Adventurer stronghold where nobles were unwelcome.

The Warriors there loathed any interference, even the Baron have tread carefully now.

Some believed these tales; others scoffed, but everyone watched closely.

The first nobles to act weren’t those with power but those with hope.

The first nobles to make their move weren’t the powerful ones; they were the hopefuls. Minor families sent representatives to observe, then to negotiate, and eventually to provoke.

They arrived with heads held high and thinly veiled disdain, demanding meetings and offering to “purchase” the Guild, throwing around figures that would have once made Sage’s heart race.

He turned them all down, sometimes politely, sometimes coldly, and eventually with violence. By the fourth day, Adventurers took matters into their own hands. Representatives were chased away; some were beaten, others thrown out into the street.

Patrols formed spontaneously as warriors guarded intersections. The city guards stopped entering Gryphon District altogether.

Greyvale’s districts had always been divided, but now one had chosen a side. Sage watched it unfold with widening eyes and a mind already racing ahead.

When someone joked that Gryphon District should simply be called Adventurer District, the name spread like wildfire before the day was done.

Sage himself casually repeated it once in passing, and suddenly it took root. He could feel the territory taking shape, its identity solidifying while the economic center began shifting. Shops thrived, taverns overflowed, and smithies worked without pause.

And Sage started calculating: if the Guild had sparked this surge of activity, then surely it deserved compensation. Legitimacy was all that was missing and legitimacy could be built.

Through all this chaos, amid exhaustion, political pressure, and looming dangers, Sage felt something he hadn’t when he first opened the Guild’s doors: pride.

Not in himself but in what stood before him now. The Adventurer Guild was no longer just a gamble; it had become an institution, a hub and a pillar that people relied on.

It had already changed thousands of lives for the better.

As Sage stood on the staircase one night gazing down at a sea of armored figures, the lamplight glinting off steel and gold, the sound of voices rising like waves against stone, he realized that the Guild had crossed a threshold where it could no longer be quietly undone.

Whatever came next would shake more than just Greyvale.

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