The Hero Becomes the Duke’s Eldest Son

Chapter 90

Originally, he was the vice-guild leader of a mid-sized guild in another trading city.

One day, without warning, a Sword Aura user appeared, killing the guild leader and decimating the entire guild.

Even the debt slaves, the main source of the guild’s income, were freed by the Sword Aura user, leaving the guild completely drained of its capital.

Unsurprisingly, the guild was soon absorbed and dismantled by other dark guilds.

‘Back then, my future seemed bleak.’

However, he hadn’t become a vice-guild leader of a guild for no reason.

He had connections and secret funds established during his time as vice-guild leader, as well as a new identity and information he had prepared just in case.

Using these assets, he became one of the mid-level executives in a major guild ruling the city of instant fortune under a new name and identity.

In just six months.

To conceal his past, he even changed his hair color and grew a mustache.

There was only one reason he went to such lengths to change his appearance and identity.

‘If my true identity were ever discovered, I’d be as good as dead…’

He felt a chill down his spine and a pain in his stomach.

A girl with blue eyes and golden hair flashed in his mind, making him shiver.

‘To think that alchemist’s daughter would become a saintess, it’s unbelievable…’

He had discovered this while gathering information during his identity change.

The daughter, who had been held as a hostage to exploit the alchemist, was actually a bearer of the Holy Mark and had now become an absolute existence within the church as a saintess.

When he first learned of this, he seriously contemplated ending his life in his panic attacks.

The mere thought of being targeted by one of the three major churches was terrifying.

He had nightmares almost every night about the Inquisitors of the Sacred Fire Order breaking in and executing him.

In those nightmares, the face of the executioner who beheaded him was always that of the Sword Aura user.

“Long time no see,” he would say with a devilish grin, terrifying him to his core.

He swallowed his tears and glared fiercely.

‘But I overcame my fear! And finally, I’ve risen to this position!’

After overcoming trials and tribulations, he had completely washed away his identity.

Through bribery, flattery, and social skills, he had become a mid-level executive in the Umbra Guild.

Now, apart from Bero who joined the Umbra Guild with him, there was no one who knew him.

The church had no way to trace him.

Even if they found out, he had prepared three or four escape plans.

‘It’s the end of my hardships and the beginning of happiness!’

Today, he came to the tavern with his subordinates to celebrate his achievements.

Shandalkan, now known as Armand, declared to his subordinates as if releasing all his pent-up anger.

“Everyone! Today’s on me! Eat and drink to your heart’s content!”

“Yes, Armand-nim!”

“Huzzah! You’re the best, boss, hahaha!”

The food for the Umbra Guild members came out quickly.

The frightened tavern owner prioritized their order.

None of the other customers voiced any complaints.

The rough-looking men tore into the meat, chewed noisily, and chatted boisterously.

They gulped down wine to quench their thirst.

“Ah! This is great!”

“Hahaha! Let’s drink until we drop!”

They partied as if they were in their own living room.

As Shandalkan and his subordinates were enjoying their drinks, the door opened with a creak, and two men entered.

“Guh…”

“Please, boss. Help us…”

They were lower-ranking members of the Umbra Guild under Shandalkan, and they were a mess.

Thud.

They collapsed to the floor, and Shandalkan’s party was shocked.

“Dwayne! Ronan!”

“What happened to you two?!”

They stood up and rushed to the fallen men.

The two were so beaten up that they were unrecognizable, swollen and covered in blood.

Ronan was already unconscious.

“Who dared to attack the Umbra Guild…!”

“Hey! Who the hell did this! Speak!”

With difficulty, Dwayne opened his mouth and spoke in a slurred voice.

“It was… one person… If you want revenge… come to… the alley in the 4th district…”

After saying that, Dwayne foamed at the mouth and fainted.

Shandalkan’s face turned red and blue with anger.

‘Damn it, who’s the crazy bastard!’

No one could ignore the name of the Umbra Guild.

Yet someone had beaten his subordinates and sent them back as a provocation?

Despite his anger, a sense of fear crept in.

The skill that turned his two subordinates into bloody messes was intimidating.

But he couldn’t just let it slide.

All the commoners and his subordinates had witnessed this humiliating incident, so he couldn’t cover it up.

Moreover, if he ignored it, the higher-ups in the guild would see him as a coward.

After thinking it over, he shouted.

“Guys! Grab your weapons! We’re going to smash them!”

“Yes, boss!”

They gritted their teeth and headed straight to the location mentioned by the bloodied subordinate.

The group of armed men radiated a menacing aura.

“There he is! That’s the guy!”

In the alley, they saw a figure standing in the shadows.

Shandalkan’s body shivered at the sight, and he involuntarily gulped.

‘Why, why am I like this?’

Unaware of Shandalkan’s condition, the Umbra Guild members drew their weapons and exuded a threatening aura.

“Do you know who you’re messing with!”

“You think you can mess with the Umbra Guild and live? Come out!”

Regaining his composure, Shandalkan tried to shake off his unease and shouted arrogantly.

“Hey, today’s your funeral! Come out and kneel!”

The figure in the shadows calmly walked out, revealing his face.

He was a younger man than expected.

With jet-black hair like the night sky and deep, abyss-like black eyes.

A young man with a noble and strong aura in his handsome face…

“That, that, that guy…!”

“Eeeek!”

Recognizing him, Bero and Shandalkan’s faces turned ghostly pale as if they had seen a ghost.

Both were shocked to the point of having a seizure.

Shandalkan collapsed to the ground, screaming, unable to care about his subordinates’ gazes.

The black-haired young man, the man who appeared in Shandalkan’s nightmares every night, Aden, smiled with a chilling, devilish grin.

“Long time no see.”

The nightmare had become reality.

* * *

A short while later.

Amongst the half-dozen beaten men, Shandalkan was the only one relatively unharmed, trembling uncontrollably.

The bloodied men around him were barely breathing.

“The last time I saw you, you were the guild leader of Cerberus Guild or whatever. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I-I agree, sir.”

Shandalkan himself hadn’t expected this.

When Aden took out his subordinates, he still had a glimmer of hope in the name of the Umbra Guild.

No matter how strong a Sword Aura user was, dealing with a large organization led by a semi-master as the guild leader would be difficult.

…Until he saw the Aura Threads emanating from Aden’s sword.

Driven by the will to survive, he begged desperately.

“P-Please forgive me just this once! I’ll do anything…! If you spare me, I’ll gladly do anything, just please! Spare me…!”

“Shut up.”

“Gulp.”

Aden looked down at the terrified Shandalkan.

‘He was just the vice-guild leader of a back alley guild in Makellan, yet he’s already a mid-level executive in the Umbra Guild…’

He was a surprisingly capable man.

The problem was he used his abilities for vile purposes.

The important thing was that Shandalkan was very afraid of Aden and was in a position to know some significant information.

It was as if he had been sent from the heavens as the perfect tool for Aden.

Aden smiled and spoke to Shandalkan.

“Follow me for now. I’ll decide after I hear you out somewhere quiet.”

* * *

In the basement of the Maedala Guild, there was a secret room for imprisoning and interrogating criminals or spies.

Aden took Shandalkan and his subordinates to the basement of the Maedala Guild headquarters.

Seeing the two semi-masters in the basement, Shandalkan was terrified.

“Well then, let’s start the interrogation…”

“I’ll confess everything! Ask me anything!”

In the presence of the Maedala Guild leader and Aden, Shandalkan couldn’t think of hiding anything and revealed everything he knew.

As Shandalkan’s testimony continued, the guild leader’s expression hardened.

“Human trafficking…?”

Aden revised his impression of Shandalkan once again.

From a cowardly, capable scumbag to a cowardly, capable, and truly despicable scumbag.

He had worked in a dark guild that engaged in human trafficking before, and here he had risen to a mid-level executive, continuing similar activities.

They would disguise people who entered dungeons to hunt monsters as dead or kidnap some city dwellers, covering it up as accidents or disappearances.

Nearly a hundred people had been captured in this manner.

Aden recalled the warning given by a female employee on his first day at the Maedala Guild.

– The number of people disappearing in the dungeon has been increasing lately. So, please be careful,

everyone.

The recent surge in mysterious disappearances in the dungeon.

Aden looked at Shandalkan and then at the Umbra Guild members, still tied up and bloodied in a corner, with cold eyes.

‘So, it was because of these guys.’

The Umbra Guild wasn’t just partially associated with the dark guilds; it was a full-fledged major dark guild.

Unable to contain his anger any longer, the guild leader clenched his fists and shouted.

“You filthy insects…!”

“Please forgive us…!”

Shandalkan nearly had a seizure under the murderous aura of Marcus, the semi-master once known as the Swift Sword Mercenary.

Already mentally unstable due to Aden, he was on the verge of fainting from foaming at the mouth.

Because of this, Aden intervened.

“Marcus Maedala, calm down. We haven’t heard everything yet.”

“Sorry, Aden.”

In fact, his anger wasn’t solely directed at the Umbra Guild.

It was also because, despite running the Maedala Guild, which prided itself on controlling the city’s security, he had been unaware of this.

It was as if he had been robbed blind with his eyes wide open.

Splash!

“Ugh, cough, cough!”

Aden poured a bucket of cold water over the half-unconscious Shandalkan to snap him back to his senses.

“Don’t pass out on your own. Keep talking.”

Unable to faint comfortably, Shandalkan continued to spill everything he knew.

“The s-slaves, I mean citizens, are being sent to a dungeon in the city. I don’t know what they’re doing there, but I’ve heard there are some experiments conducted by a certain organization…”

Dungeon, human trafficking, a certain organization, experiments, and the information Aden had on the warlocks.

It all led to one conclusion.

‘Chaos-affiliated warlocks are conducting human experiments in the dungeon. The humans are being supplied by the Umbra Guild.’

Aden thought of the horrors of the warlock laboratory he had seen in the Forest of Death.

At the same time, he had a question.

‘How can they do such things inside a dungeon?’

Dungeons were essentially business sites for the spirit merchants.

Spirit merchants were generally indifferent to what happened in dungeons.

They wouldn’t interfere, no matter if someone died or a crime occurred.

They only cared about monopolizing the items brought in and left by adventurers, thanks to such rules.

However, if something was happening on an excessive scale in the dungeon, it would be a different story.

Which merchant would like it if someone set up a tent in their business place?

In such special circumstances, spirit merchants would label the intruders as trespassers and eliminate them.

‘Spirit merchants in their full power are absolute within the dungeon.’

Even Rabbits, who always seemed to be at Aden’s mercy, had the power to instantly kill a semi-master in special situations, despite his bumbling appearance.

This was only for junior merchants.

It was just that he couldn’t touch Aden due to the rules of the spirit merchants’ association.

But the fact that experiments were being conducted in the dungeon was strange in many ways, and there was only one possibility.

‘The warlocks must have colluded with a spirit merchant.’

They must have promised benefits, and a spirit merchant had not reported the warlocks’ activities to the higher-ups.

In other words, corruption.

Humans engage in corruption all the time, and spirit merchants, who are obsessed with wealth and possessions, wouldn’t be immune.

‘It’s likely that the ‘friend’ the spirit mentioned to Charles is the culprit.’