Chapter 95: Pages Turn

The rule book landed in her hands like something tainted. Her elder sister instinctively caught it, fingers closing around the leather-bound cover with visible reluctance.

As soon as the texture registered beneath her skin, her expression twisted slightly, pure, unfiltered disgust flickered across her face.

If this situation hadn’t involved her sister, she wouldn’t have bothered touching something so filthy, something crafted by a man who dared to present it as law.

Her grip tightened momentarily, knuckles whitening as if she were fighting the urge to hurl it across the hall and reduce it to ashes.

But she did neither. Without even glancing at Sage, she opened the rule book. The pages flipped with sharp, impatient movements, the leather creaking softly in protest.

Her eyes skimmed over the opening sections with mechanical efficiency, guild structure, mission allocation, codes of conduct.

Initially, her expression remained unchanged; cold and lifeless like a stone-carved corpse. These were meaningless words to her, bureaucratic nonsense.

Tools men used to chain others under the guise of order. Then her fingers stopped. Her gaze locked onto a specific section. Her pupils contracted. She read again, slowly this time. The temperature in the hall seemed to drop.

At first, it was subtle: the tightening of her jaw and a faint twitch at the corner of her eye. Then the change became impossible to miss. Rage surfaced, raw and violent, boiling up from beneath layers of disciplined restraint. Disgust followed closely behind, then contempt so deep it felt almost tangible.

Killing intent poured from her like poison gas thick enough to make weaker Adventurers stagger, all directed at one person: Sage.

He leaned casually against the desk, arms crossed and posture relaxed, wearing an amicable smile that looked utterly out of place under the weight of her glare. He didn’t avert his eyes or flinch; he simply watched her calmly as if observing a storm he had predicted days ago.

Around the hall, unease spread among several Adventurers driven by curiosity and dread as they opened their own rule books. Fingers flipped hurriedly; pages rustled while murmurs began rippling outward.

It didn’t take long for one man, a voice trembling despite his attempt at composure, to find it.

“Article Twelve,” he read aloud, his voice echoing across the Guild Hall and unintentionally drawing everyone’s attention.

He swallowed hard before continuing: “Article Twelve: On Voluntary Withdrawal from the Adventurer Guild. Clause Three.”

The hall fell deathly quiet as he read exactly what was written:

“Clause Three: Any registered Adventurer seeking voluntary withdrawal from the Guild must fulfill one of the following conditions prior to release:

Completion of one hundred (100) 4-Star Missions or completion of fifty (50) 5-Star Missions.

In addition, a minimum of three hundred (300) missions classified between 1-Star and 3-Star must be recorded.

“Assistance from other Adventurers is permitted. Until these conditions are met, Guild status remains active and binding.”

A hush fell over the crowd, quickly followed by murmurs that spread like ripples on water.

Shock washed over the room, a wave crashing against solid rock. Some Adventurers stared at their books in disbelief, while others glanced between Sage and the sister, then back to the pages as if hoping for a miraculous rearrangement of words into something more palatable.

But nothing changed. The clause was real and undeniable.

The sister’s hand shook violently. Her slender fingers tightened around the book until cracking sounds echoed sharply through the hall.

The leather split; paper crumpled under her grip. The entire rule book collapsed in on itself, reduced to pulp as fragments of ink-stained paper floated down like dark snowflakes.

For a fleeting moment, Sage observed the remnants fluttering to the floor.

“That’s one gold coin worth of paper,” he thought with mild detachment.

He sighed inwardly, shaking his head almost imperceptibly before lifting his gaze back to her.

She stood there in silence, terrifyingly so. Every eye in the hall was now fixed upon her: Adventurers, mercenaries, curious onlookers drawn in by the commotion.

This had escalated beyond a private confrontation; it had become a public spectacle, a reckoning.

Reputation was at stake here. This wasn’t some shadowy alley or battlefield where brute strength determined outcomes; this was a public institution with witnesses everywhere. The rule had been read aloud; the law had been declared.

To outright refuse would not lead to bloodshed but rather to rumors, doubtful murmurs that could quietly withdraw contracts and close doors one by one. The sister grasped this reality instantly.

She wasn’t naive; she led one of the most formidable mercenary groups in the region. Their survival depended on reputation, trust, the belief that when they gave their word, they honored it, even when it was inconvenient or costly.

If she brazenly defied Guild rules now, backlash wouldn’t come in blades but through hesitation, employers reconsidering their choices, rivals seizing opportunities born from doubt, and whispers of unreliability would be just as lethal as swords.

Sage understood this perfectly, that’s why he had orchestrated everything so meticulously.

As silence stretched uncomfortably long, Sage’s gaze flickered toward the entrance where he spotted an ordinary man clad in worn-out clothes, unremarkable and easily forgotten.

Their eyes met for just a heartbeat before Sage nodded subtly at him. The man returned the nod and melted back into the crowd, information was already circulating.

Mina stood off to one side, watching her sister’s rigid form with growing unease. For the first time since entering Guild Hall, guilt twisted painfully in her chest.

She felt… bad. Not enough to regret her choices, but enough to recognize the burden she had placed on her sister’s shoulders.

Mina wasn’t stupid; she understood this wasn’t an accident. Sage had orchestrated it all. She also grasped, at least in part, what he wanted. He had mentioned it himself: someone could help her fulfill the conditions, and there was only one person who could do that quickly.

Her sister.

Sage raised an eyebrow at Mina, catching her gaze, and grinned at her.

Mina huffed, stuck out her tongue at him again, and turned away with exaggerated annoyance.

Her sister remained silent, but thoughts raced through Mina’s mind with brutal clarity.

She felt trapped, not by chains or force, but by circumstance. Sure, she could bulldoze through this hall. She could kill, destroy, and walk away if she wanted to; her strength allowed for that.

But this situation didn’t permit such a solution. There were too many eyes watching, too many witnesses present, and far too many consequences that would ripple outward to harm those who depended on her.

If she wanted to free Mina from the Guild’s grasp, she had to meet the conditions set before them. If she refused, Mina would remain an Adventurer indefinitely. And openly rejecting the rule? That would tarnish their group’s reputation.

She had built this mercenary group with blood, sweat, and tears. Every scar on her body told a story of that effort. She couldn’t throw it all away, not for pride or even hatred.

This was the weight of leadership. A leader couldn’t act solely based on personal emotions; every decision needed to prioritize the group first.

The well-being of her subordinates came before her own desires, a principle she had lived by for as long as she could remember.

And yet…

The thought of working under a man made her skin crawl, not just discomfort but outright revulsion. Her very soul recoiled at the idea. The hatred she felt toward men ran deep; it was etched into her being by experiences she’d rather forget.

Even if Sage framed it differently, even if he insisted it wasn’t “working for him”—to her, it felt like exactly that: standing in a place ruled by a man, abiding by rules written by a man, advancing under a system crafted by a man.

It made her want to vomit. Slowly lifting her head, she locked eyes with Sage’s calm smile, and anger ignited within her like wildfire.

In that moment of clarity, she realized something undeniable: she was firmly in his grip. This entire scenario was his doing. Though she didn’t yet understand why he wanted her involved or what he hoped to gain from this arrangement, one thing was crystal clear, she had walked straight into a trap.

A deep one.

And there stood Sage Alistair at its center, watching patiently as the pages of fate turned around them.

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