Chapter 98 – The Price of the Blind Eye.

The Iron Cauldron Hunters' Hall operated inside an ancient red granite warehouse in the center of the outpost.

The atmosphere was noisy, grime-stained with ashes, and smelled of game meat roasting over open flame and sour barley beer spilled across long wooden tables. Dozens of local mercenary parties, nearly all boasting levels between 50 and 58, occupied the benches discussing expedition routes, cleaning battleaxes, and counting sacks of bronze coins with raspy laughter.

Diana entered the hall keeping the hood of her black leather coat covering her forehead. She did not wear her full armor so as not to draw needless attention, but her black steel dagger and potion vials were neatly tucked beneath her belt.

The Commander knew she could not navigate the Third Circle completely blind.

Even with 183 Intelligence and 1,160 mana points, hunting alone in a territory where wildlife started at Level 44 demanded geographical knowledge of the terrain, safe water sources, and the patrol schedules of Beelzebub's guard. She needed allies or, at the very least, hired scouts who knew the rifts outside the walls.

Diana walked up to the first long table where a squad of four warriors in thick leather armor was eating boar chops.

The group's leader, a red-skinned man with a two-handed axe propped against the bench, registered as Level 52.

“I am looking for scouts for a reconnaissance expedition into the eastern rifts early tomorrow,” Diana said, her voice calm and clear from beneath the hood. “I pay five silver coins per day of guiding.”

The leader stopped chewing his meat, looked up, and activated an appraisal on the hooded girl.

When the number Level 38 appeared before him, the man let out a belly laugh so loud he spat chunks of fat onto the table, drawing the attention of two neighboring groups.

“Level 38?” The man shook his head, laughing mockingly. “Girl, the manticores of the rifts swallow Level 45 hunters whole like appetizers. If you step outside that gate, you'll turn into fertilizer in less than twenty minutes. Go back to the Ivory Citadel before someone mistakes you for food.”

Diana did not respond. She wasted no time retorting to cheap insults.

She simply turned her back and kept walking through the hall. Arguing with mercenaries who only saw raw numbers was a pointless waste of mental energy.

***

The hiring attempt drew the wrong kind of attention.

As Diana walked toward the back of the hall, two mercenaries with gaunt features and shifty eyes, a Level 48 demon and another at Level 50, stood up from a dark corner and followed her footsteps to a secluded table near the beer barrels.

The taller one rested a heavy hand on the wood of Diana's table, flashing pointed, yellowed teeth:

“Heard you talking about silver coins, rookie girl...” the man said in a soft, threatening tone. “We can be your 'guides' out there. But the price of protection for a Level 38 girl isn't five silvers. It's twenty silvers upfront on the table right now. If you don't pay, we tell the gate guards there's an undocumented trespasser without a Level 50 stamp walking around the city.”

Diana did not draw her dagger. She did not move a single inch of her body.

She merely raised her head slowly, letting the hood's shadow fall back.

Her dark eyes ignited with the two golden rings spinning in cold velocity, and the tips of her obsidian horns released a near-imperceptible spark of mana.

Diana released a controlled pulse of ten percent of [Aura of the Sovereign of Greed] straight into the two men's chests.

The pressure that struck the two mercenaries was instantaneous and devastating.

The air around the table seemed to freeze into liquid lead. The two men locked up mid-motion, their breathing choked by a primal, suffocating terror that made their legs shake against the floor. They were not looking at a weak human girl. They were looking at the presence of an entity that seemed capable of tearing their souls from their flesh with a snap of her fingers.

“If you two take one more step toward me...” Diana said, her voice dropping to a velvety, lethal whisper, “...I guarantee you won't even be able to crawl to the door of this hall.”

The two mercenaries paled like rotten wax. They stumbled backward, knocking over their own stools onto the gravel floor, and scrambled stumbling through the tavern's front door without looking back.

—Practical, economical, and without spending mana. The System's voice echoed in her mind, in amused black gold. Street thugs learn quickly when they catch the scent of a Deadly Sin.

***

Diana ignored the thugs' commotion and fixed her eyes on a solitary figure sitting in the darkest corner of the warehouse, near the woodpile.

It was an old man with grayish skin and pointed ears, wearing a leather coat completely patched with beast tendon thread. His left eye was covered by a deep, blind scar, and he coughed with difficulty as he tried to drink from a bowl of thin turnip broth.

Diana activated [Command Eye] with her 70 Perception points:

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

[VETERAN TRACKER APPRAISAL]

- Name: Boran

- Class: [Rift Tracker and Trapper]

- Level: 46 | HP: 380 / 680

- Special Condition: [Sulfur Lung Rot: Reduces respiratory capacity by 40%].

- History: Twenty years guiding caravans through the border rifts. Abandoned by the local guild after contracting the disease in the mines.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Diana walked over to the old man's table and pulled out the wooden bench across from him, sitting down without asking permission.

Boran stopped his spoon in midair, raising his single good amber eye to stare at the hooded girl with black horns. He coughed into a soiled handkerchief before speaking in a voice as rough as crushed stone:

“If you came to laugh at the blind old man thrown out by Beelzebub's hunters, girl... you can find another table.”

“I don't waste my time laughing at anyone, Boran,” Diana said in a neutral tone. “I need a tracker who knows every cave, every monster nest, and every patrol route in the rifts outside the city.”

The old man let out a dry chuckle. “I know every stone in those rifts. But my lungs are rotted from sulfur gas and I can't outrun manticores like I used to. Nobody has hired me to guide expeditions in six months.”

“I don't need you to outrun manticores.” Diana rested her hands on the table. “I kill the monsters. You only need to lead me to the nests where they isolate themselves and warn me before the border inquisitors cross our path.”

Boran furrowed his brow, suspicious. “You're Level 38. No solo Level 38 hunter survives against the beasts of those hills.”

Diana did not argue with words.

She reached into her jacket pocket and placed two items upon the dirty wood of the table:

The first was a pure Silver Coin that clinked cleanly against the granite.

The second was a crystal vial containing a glowing blue liquid: a Cellular and Pulmonary Restoration Potion of 95% Purity, synthesized by Diana in the Bastion with her Level 20 Alchemy.

Boran froze.

The old man uncorked the vial with trembling fingers and inhaled the fresh vapor of mint and moon lotus rising from the liquid. His inflamed lungs felt immediate relief solely from the infusion's pure, dense scent. He knew that potion did not exist in the common shops of the outpost. That was master-grade medicine capable of curing his lung rot in three days of treatment.

Boran looked at the silver coin, then at the potion, and finally into Diana's dark eyes with golden rings.

He swallowed hard, tucking the vial into his coat's inner pocket with near-sacred care and taking the coin with his calloused hand.

“We leave tomorrow at five in the morning through the east gate,” Boran said, his raspy voice filled with renewed gravity. “Bring water and ice arrows. I will take you to the Iron Boar nests.”

Diana stood up from the table with a small, sharp smile on her lips.

She had not found an elite army that day, but she had secured the eyes and experience of someone who knew the terrain like the back of his hand.

With the advance of one silver coin paid to Boran and fifty bronze coins spent in the hall, the faction's vault balance adjusted to an untouched 362 Silver Coins and 50 Bronze (36.25 Gold Coins).

Diana walked back to The Smoking Boar Tavern beneath the reddish dusk of the Third Circle.

The first hunt beyond the walls would begin at dawn.