"We were told to be extra careful in taking down Stardust guild members. But you love birds don't seem much of a challenge to me."

With a raspy voice and a gloating face, the human male spoke. In response, Eren launched his attack. He didn't like talking with opponents who were trying to kill him anyway.

Igni Wave!

Two compressed forms of fire-element mana slashes cut through the air and approached the human male out of the blue. The latter was taken aback by Eren's aggression, rendering him stunned at the face of the attack.

It was the lizard-type beastkin who defended the attack by creating a water shield. He was the team's tank.

"Vice-captain Geer, stop checking out the elf. I hope you aren't planning to force your way on her. Our orders are clear."

The lizard-like beastkin spoke while staring at Eren and Mia. The vice-captain of the party who was their de facto leader laughed out loud when he heard his team member admonish him,

"Hahaha. What's wrong with trying the good before discarding it for good?"historical

Geer spoke before checking on Mia from a distance. It was apparent that he was targeting Mia for a different purpose than killing.

There were three females inside the enemy party. One was a human and the other two were Beastkins in their Woge forms. They didn't like the vice-captain's way of handling things.

Even when they were trying to kill the enemy guild's members, there were certain lines rankers weren't supposed to cross. Yet, it wasn't like they would stand against their superiors for an enemy just because they happened to share the same gender. Gilaahan wasn't a pretty place like that.

Geer was known to have weird kinks and fetishes. Plus, he knew Mia personally. So he was identified by the only member of Eren's team eventually.

"You.. Geer!

Eren, we are being attacked by the House of Spiders."

***

It took Mia a while to figure out Geer's identity due to the dart's effects that had affected her long-term memories. She flashed hateful expressions at him when she finally identified him.

Eren immediately understood why they were being attacked after hearing the name House of Spiders. It was the organization the Stardust guild had a dispute with over many of the resource-rich lands near the city of Ludan.

Both guilds were two-star organizations in the past. But everything changed when the Stardust guild received a three-star rating from the Shaikai kingdom. It allowed Eren's guild to claim and take away multiple of these resource-rich lands from the House of Spiders' grasp for the better.

The two guilds were always in conflict, to begin with even before the Stardust guild received three-star ratings. As a result of House of Spiders' aggressive nature, things were only going to get grimmer.

The guild was only a few steps away from declaring a full-fledged war on the Stardust guild. And from the looks of things, it wouldn't take long for it to do so.

Conflicts between guilds were common. These conflicts would often rise when one of the prominent guilds in the region received higher-tier ratings.

The kingdoms played the roles of bystanders in these conflicts for the most part. They normally wouldn't get themselves involved in such matters as long as the guilds kept their conflicts outside of the cities and urban settlements.

Of course, there were exceptions to every norm. Some kingdoms would purposely create conflicts between two guilds to keep them in check. They didn't like it when the guilds started becoming too powerful without their blessings. So the kingdom's dark forces would often use guild wars as a smokescreen to control the influence of the guilds.

However, these power plays from the kingdoms were mostly reserved for prominent guilds who mostly had four-star ratings. The conflict between Stardust and House of Spiders was up and personal.

Eren only had a surface-level understanding of House of Spiders and their aggression. But he didn't think he would be targeted by one of their parties one day.

The battlemage was too busy dealing with his affairs to deal with the guild's problems. He had heard that various members of the two sides had already started clashing. But he didn't want anything to do with this conflict.

Eren's idea of spending time in Gilaahan was simple. Wake up– workout– practice– repeat. Even with all his recent expenditures, he still had a sufficient amount of money in his wallet to sustain him for a month or two in Gilaahan.

Eren had decided to dedicate this period to his training. The Igni series spells were the fruits of that training. But in doing so, he had isolated himself from a lot of people.

He only knew about House of Spiders because Mia had told him about the guild when they were approaching the mission site. It looked like the Spiders were ordered to target specific members of the Stardust guild and Mia was one of them.

***

"Hahaha. I'm glad that you remember me, wench. I see that you are trying to get close to this young duckling.

Let me tell you there's no greater tragedy for a woman to get herself involved with an immature whose balls have yet to come out in his sack.

Haha. Be with a real man, bitch. Let me rail you. I'll be sure to let you go if you say yes and do exactly what I tell you to do.

In fact, I'm willing to sign a binding contract for this condition, Mia. What do you say?"

Geer looked ecstatic that Mia had remembered him. They had only met each other once while on separate missions. He had tried to force his way onto her even back then. But he quickly backed away when the Stardust's core members showed up at the scene. Mia had let things slide because things like these were not that uncommon in Gilaahan.

Plus, forcing your way onto others worked both ways. There were demonic female rankers who were known to abduct men for their rituals.

Behind the Gilaahaan's resource-rich background lay these dark things that would show their heads from time to time.