Eternal Empire Online: The Rise of the Mythical Detective

Chapter 26: The Gourmet Labyrinth 1

Cleo, the City of Adventurers

If ever a strong believer of ‘power is everything’ would envision a city where the strong prevails while the weak struggles to survive, a city that’s surrounded with countless dungeons, dangers, and adventures, and a paradise for the brave and the reckless where one can either prove their worth and surpass their former selves or die trying.

Then the realization of that vision is without a doubt Cleo, the City Adventurers of the Reyner Kingdom.

“Ah, Delicious!” A huge figure lowered his emptied wooden beer mug with a face of satisfaction. Then his two acquaintances, a young female elf, and a heavily bearded dwarf, looked at him with concern.

“Hey Coach, aren’t you drinking too much,” said the dwarf.

“Ahhh! Let me be,” the huge and robust looking man replied, shoving off the dwarf’s concerns. “I want to celebrate! Hey, more drink over here!”

The huge man raises his mug and shouted.

“Oh, if it isn’t Falk,” said the waiter who approached them, which is also the owner of the restaurant who personally knows him and his colleagues. “It’s been a while.”

“Ah, Mr. Oner!” Falk exclaimed, patting Mr. Oner on his back while laughing open-heartedly. “Yeah, it’s truly been a while.”

But even though it should’ve been a light pat, the strength of Falk’s huge arm felt like a strike that gradually cuts down the medium build, middle-aged man’s health points.

“*cough* I see that you haven’t changed.” Mr. Oner showed a happy smile and filled Falk’s beer mug while rubbing his aching back. “Anyway, where have you fellows been? I haven’t seen you here for more than a month.”

“We received tons of extermination requests from the Adventurer Institute,” it was the female elf who answered after a brief sigh. “Reports say that several Class C monsters began migrating towards the Class D and Class E fields, putting the lives of thousands of adventuring Locals and Outlanders at risk.”

“And unfortunately, the tasks of eliminating them were given to us by the Institute Head Master,” the dwarf added.

“Really?” Oner said with a bewildered expression. “How’s that even possible? I’m no Institute member but it’s a common fact in the fields of Cleo that the higher the class of the monsters, the richer the territories they occupies. So it doesn’t make any sense that they would abandon their abundant lands just to migrate into an area with poorer resources…not unless it’s being destroyed. Is it being destroyed?”

“No, their territories are just fine,” said the young elf. “Though yeah, we’d considered that possibility when we conducted our investigation but no, that’s not the reason.

“What is it then?”

The elf deeply sighed and continued, “We’re not certain but it appears that something or someone within the territories of those beasts had scared the living s**t out of them, to the point that it had driven them to completely abandon their lands.”

“Oh my, I’d never heard such a thing before.” Mr. Oner said in a concerned voice.

True. Such an incident is highly unlikely. Class C Beasts are monsters with levels ranging from 101 to 200. And aside from being strong, they are also very prideful. So regardless of how strong or how frightening their predators are, they will rather fight to the death than to admit defeat and abandon their homes. Therefore, that kind of scenario is highly improbable, if not impossible.

“Well, it’s just an assumption,” the elf said. “Nothing is certain yet. The Institute will conduct more investigations if ever these cases still persist.”

“Yeah!” Falk screamed after he emptied his beer mug once again, making the other three flinch. “It’s none of our concerns for now! Our missions were to exterminate those trespassers anyway and we accomplished it perfectly. So Krea,” he indicates toward the female elf, “and you too, Zane,” and then to the dwarf, “rid your minds of such thoughts for now. Eat, drink to your heart’s content, and celebrate the end of another job well done. Hahaha!”

Zane and Krea looked at each other and shrugged. Well, Falk has a point. The Institute commissioned them to do a job and they did the job with a very satisfactory result. So whatever it is that might come next if not requested to them is none of their concerns.

“Hahaha!” Falk continues to laugh. When all of a sudden, he jumped up and looked on a distance as if dazed.

“What the?” Zane exclaimed when the table shook due to Falk’s action. “Hey Coach, what is it?”

Zane and Krea followed his gaze with surprise. But Falk just shook his head without looking away.

At the bar, located at the leftmost corner of the restaurant, a teenage boy is currently tending to several hungry and thirsty costumers. He has a dark hair and a tall and lean silhouette and is emitting a smile that can put anyone, even the most heedful fellow at ease.

Falk absentmindedly grabbed Mr. Oner’s arm and pulled him closer to him, “Hey, who’s that kid over there? I’d never seen him here before.”

“Where? Who?” Mr. Oner asked, also following the direction of Falk’s gaze. When he pinpointed the one he was implying, Mr. Oner replied with a smile, “Oh you mean, Wilhelm. He’s my new Cook.”

“A Cook?” Falk frowned.

Oner nodded. “Yeah. He came here about a week ago with a recommendation from the Honeypot Restaurant. He says he needed a job. And since my good friend Maria has a good assessment on him, I gave him a space in the kitchen. At first I was reluctant about having him around since he doesn’t look that experienced but as you can see,” Mr. Oner indicated the congested interior of his restaurant where each tables are packed and several others are even waiting for a turn outside. “Business is blooming thanks to him. His dishes are top class and he mixed alcohols better than any bartender I’d ever had. Truly, he’s a heaven sent to my restaurant.”

Oner declared proudly.

But in response, Falk fumed and exploded right in front of Oner’s face. “YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! How could you let such an outstanding warrior work as a mere Cook!?”

“O-outstanding w-warrior?” Oner stuttered, failing to understand what Falk is trying to imply. “What are you talking about?”

“Hey Coach,” Zane called. “You seem interested on him. What’s his color?”

And with a serious face, Falk answered Zane, “He’s a Red.”

Both Zane and Krea had their jaws dropped. They looked back and forth between the boy named Wilhelm and their mentor. In their thoughts, they think that their Coach must be joking. Regardless of how many times they try to judge the boy, he looks gentle and soft spoken, a type who can’t even hurt a fly. So it’s hard to believe that he’s a Red Aura, the fiercest color there is. It must be some sort of a mistake.

However, the two knows too well to never question Falk’s judgment. In the real world, Falk is a Mixed Martial Arts trainer as well as a Veteran Talent Evaluator. And when he started playing Eternal Empire with them, he brought along those two prominent skills of his into the game, resulting into the development of a unique eye skill known as the ‘Eyes of Valor,’ an eye skill which enables him to view and categorize the auras of other players into seven different colors; Green, Indigo, Violet, Orange, Yellow, Blue, and Red. From Green being the gentlest up to Red being the most violent.

“Are you sure, Coach?” Zane asked again.

“Definitely,” he replied as he finally let go of Mr. Oner’s arm. Only to grab him back on both shoulders and demanded. “Hey Oner, tell me more about him.”

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

Later that day, just as his shift ends, Wilhelm was approached by Mr. Oner, informing him that some people wishes to have a talk with him. He proceeds to his office as per instruction where three people, a hulking and heavily scarred man, a beautiful she-elf, and a robust dwarf, greeted him.

“Hi, I’m Wilhelm,” he said, introducing himself. “Mr. Oner said that you wish to discuss something with me?”

The hulking scarred man nodded. He then introduced himself as Falk while his two acquaintances are Krea and Zane, and all three of them are members of Reyner’s Adventurer Institute.

“I’ll go straight to the point,” Falk said. “We heard about your plights from Oner. You came to Cleo hoping to enter the capital. However, you lack the money needed for the passport and the ticket. And though you tried to take hunting jobs to earn, in this city occupied with countless adventurers and mercenaries, no one was willing to commission a foreigner, much more an unidentified individual like you. So you ended up working here in Oner’s restaurant as his Cook.”

Wilhelm nodded. What he just said was pretty much the summary of his present situation. Due to that Cleo is a city directly under the control of the Adventurer Institute, the citizens here are unaffected by the usual Fame System. Instead, they follow the Contribution and Achievement System readied and ranked by the Institute. The effect is still the same, the higher the points, the bigger the opportunities to trigger quests and hunting jobs. However, the Contribution and Achievement System is only available to people registered to the Institute. So if they’re not members of the Adventurer Institute, it doesn’t matter how many insanely difficult quests or how many powerful monsters they had completed and slain in the past. The city of Cleo will not recognize them, thus, they will not acquire the prestige needed to influence the people to trust and provide them with requests.

So yeah, with those conditions in effect, despite his admirable strength, Wilhelm was left without any means to earn money as a warrior here in Cleo. And though he tried to acquire membership to the Institute, the registration along with the tests and legal processes will take more than three months to complete and he doesn’t have the slightest intentional to spend that kind of time waiting. Fortunately, when he was still in Komina, he gained a high intimacy with his former employer, Ms. Maria. So when he resigned from her restaurant to continue his journey, she gave him a recommendation that proclaims his cooking skills and working ethics in high regards along with a list of restaurants and restaurant owners who will surely give him a job if he presents the said recommendation. Thanks to that, he managed to land a job with Mr. Oner, one of the restaurant owners in Ms. Maria’s list, who also happens to be one of her closest friends.

As a result, after a week of diligently working under the kind Mister, Wilhelm was able to s***h out the passport requirement from his checklist. However, he’s still 50 golds short to purchase the insanely expensive ticket that would grant him entrance to Varkas, the capital city of Reyner Kingdom.

“Well, we’re here to rid you of those problems.”

“………..”

“I’m a Senior Member of the Adventurer Institute,” Falk revealed proudly. “If I gave you a recommendation, you can skip all the registration and waiting processes and acquire a membership instantly.”

Wilhelm’s eyes widened in surprise. That’s a very tempting offer. However, “That’s very generous, sir. But can I ask why you’re reaching me with such an offer? I do not know you and I’m very certain that this is the first time we’ve met.”

Falk then explained that he has the Eyes of Valor, an eyes skill which enables him to identify the Power Level of other people by reading their auras. And through that ability, he was able to determine Wilhelm’s fighting prowess when he first saw him earlier, in which he appraised to be at the highest notch. That’s why he’s very interested in recruiting him. A new member with such fighting capability will surely be a great addition to the Institute.

Afterwards, his two colleagues began enumerating to the point of boasting about the benefits and advantages that he will receive if he accepted the offer.

“Aside from receiving bounties when accomplishing requests, you’ll also receive a daily wage from the Institute.”

“You can also request for manpower, gears, and consumables when engaging into a mission.”

Their explanations goes on, revealing more compensation that no one could possibly refuse.

Unfortunately, these opportunities came a little too late. If they had approached him a little earlier, he would have accepted the offer without any second thought.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t take the offer.” Wilhelm rejected.

“W-what? Why?” Falk asked with unmasked shock. He completely didn’t expect that Wilhelm will give such a reply.

“The offers and the opportunities are great and all and I would have gladly accepted it if I still can,” Wilhelm said. “However, I already made a promise to Mr. Oner that I will serve his business until the day that all my objectives in Cleo are met. Therefore, I’ll have to refuse. My reason might be a little shallow, but I want keep my promise.”

Deep down, Falk, Krea, and Zane wanted to argue. How could he refuse such a great opportunity? But with that kind of reason, they just can’t. This Wilhelm kid, with what he just said and did, he’d just express that he’s a respectable man, someone who placed his integrity above everything else. And that’s something that none of them will ever dare to taint.

“Alright, I understand,” said Falk. “But if ever you change your mind or if you’re all done here, kindly seek us. The offer still stands.”

“I’ll surely will.”

And with that, the encounter ends. The three said their goodbyes to Wilhelm and began to head out.

Unknown to them, through the entire length of their conversation, the restaurant owner, Mr. Oner was just at the other side of the door, listening intently to every word they deliver. And on how the conversation ended, Mr. Oner now had a newfound respect towards Wilhelm, his number one employee.