Chapter 8

This is from the perspective of the exiles. Next time, we'll return to the protagonist's perspective.

In the swamp, a lone warrior was battling a monster, the Lizard Knight.

The warrior was an adventurer belonging to the guild "Fang of the Beast King."

The battle was not going well.

“Ugh, aaaaaah…!”

The sword he swung shattered easily, and in retaliation, the monster destroyed his shield.

The warrior screamed and retreated.

“It’s no good, I can’t fight at all…!”

His opponent was a Lizard Knight, a powerful monster ranked A. In the past, a single strike from this sword should have easily cut it in two. The attacks from the opponent should have been easily blocked by this shield.

But now—

“Damn it, was my sword and shield at their limit!?”

Cursing, the warrior fled.

To be completely defeated by an opponent he could easily beat before—this was humiliating.

In another location, a female mage was struggling.

“‘Fire Blast’! …Wait, it won’t activate!?”

She exclaimed in confusion.

The magic staff she held had an enhancement effect that increased her magical power. Relying on this power, she was skilled at spamming high-level spells.

But today, it wasn’t working. She couldn’t even activate the high-level spells that she could normally cast in rapid succession, at least ten times in a row.

It was as if her magical power had significantly decreased, or perhaps the staff that boosted her magical power had completely stopped functioning.

“No, no good… I can’t win if I can’t use magic!”

She quickly gave up and fled.

“W-What, fifteen consecutive quest failures!? Are you kidding me!?”

Valios, the guild master of "Fang of the Beast King," shouted. Currently, the guild master and three deputy guild masters were gathered for an emergency meeting.

“Even if the enhancement of weapons and armor is gone… isn’t this losing too much?”

Grunda, a middle-aged female swordsman and one of the deputy masters, groaned.

“The success rate of quests has dropped sharply… it was over ninety percent before, but in the past few days, it’s been around twenty percent.”

Cornelius, another deputy master with a wild appearance, clicked his tongue.

“What a sorry bunch… I’ve been apologizing for quest failures in various places for the past few days.”

Gail, the last deputy master and an elderly priest, said with disgust.

“Was the enhancement of weapons and armor that important? Now that it’s gone, are we failing quests too much…?”

As he spoke, anxiety and unease began to rise within Valios.

“Could it be—”

An unpleasant thought crossed his mind.

—Could it be that the high success rate of quests and the rapid progress of "Fang of the Beast King" were largely due to the power of enhanced weapons and armor?

—Could the benefits have been much greater than we thought, and now that they’re gone, there are almost no people left who can complete high-rank requests?

—Yes, could it be that without the ‘enhanced weapons and armor,’ we have become a second-rate guild that doesn’t match our reputation as the strongest guild on the continent?

“N-No way! Our glory will continue forever! It won’t crumble just because Rain is gone!”

Valios couldn’t help but stand up and shout.

But—The chain of quest failures for "Fang of the Beast King" continued unabated the next day and beyond.

The collapse of the strongest guild on the continent had already begun and was accelerating.