For a while, Ryu's life had fallen into a routine.

He’d wake up late, then head to the Adventurers' Guild. He'd browse the request board, then visit the buyback counter, collecting the materials he'd brought in for appraisal and dismantling the previous day, leaving new materials in their place. After that, he’d visit the Commerce Guild to sell the materials. The afternoons were dedicated to hunting in forests or dungeons.

It was a repetitive cycle.

Initially, Daniel, the Master of the Adventurers' Guild, wanted to ban Ryu from getting his materials appraised and dismantled at the Guild. However, he realized this would simply force Ryu to take everything to the Commerce Guild, rendering the ban pointless.

Daniel decided it was better to let Ryu have his materials appraised and dismantled at the Adventurers' Guild. This way, he could keep track of the materials Ryu was acquiring.

This was only possible because Ryu, for some reason, willingly brought his materials to the Guild. If he wanted to, Ryu could have easily taken all his business to the Commerce Guild, including appraisal and dismantling.

But for some reason, he wasn’t. He was, in a way, deliberately causing trouble for the Guild.

Daniel had tried to tell the Commerce Guild to stop buying materials from Ryu, but they had dismissed his request, saying,

“The Commerce Guild has no interest in the internal affairs of the Adventurers’ Guild.”

Every day, countless materials were brought in, overloading the Guild’s appraisal and dismantling departments. Guild staff were complaining, but Daniel ignored them all.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the staff reported (or tattled) this to the Guild Headquarters, but Daniel was too stubborn and focused on his own problems to consider the consequences.

Ryu often encountered other adventurers who would harass him while he was at the Guild.

Ryu had been treated like the bottom of the barrel in the Guild when he was still the old Ryujin. Because of that, he had always been easy prey.

Those who knew about the events at the rank-up exam with Yorm would never dare to pick on him now, but some adventurers who had been away from the city for a while and were unaware of the recent changes would treat Ryu poorly, as if he were still the same old Ryu.

Of course, these fools would be invited to a dungeon via transfer and receive a thorough education from Ryu. He planned to give special attention to those old adventurers who had used the newbies and low-ranking adventurers as stepping stones in the past.

However, that "re-education" was not going very well.

Most adventurers who took on requests left the city early in the morning and wouldn’t return for days. Because Ryu worked from the Guild, spending his mornings in the city and his afternoons on day trips to the dungeon, he rarely crossed paths with these adventurers.

His materials at the Commerce Guild were usually bought out by noon. He would eat lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon hunting in the forest or dungeon.

He would still return to the city for dinner and spend the evening relaxing at home.

Dungeons were typically a day or two’s walk from the city, so adventurers who hunted or fought in them would usually stay overnight. However, thanks to his transfer magic, Ryu could instantly travel between the city and the dungeons, making it possible for him to spend an hour or two each afternoon exploring the dungeons on a whim.

Initially, Ryu had intended to punish any raid team adventurers he encountered in the dungeons, but he hadn’t run into many.

Rumors had spread about his vendetta against the adventurers and Guild. Those adventurers who had witnessed Ryu’s overwhelming defeat of Yorm and his group were careful to avoid him.

While he didn't need to rush, Ryu was happy to slowly re-educate the adventurers, whenever and wherever he found the opportunity.

Ryu had begun a new form of harassment against the adventurers and the Guild.

It was called "client stealing."

Recently, several high-ranking adventurers in Mirm had been failing their requests.

They would receive requests to exterminate monsters based on sightings. The parties would then head to the reported location, but they’d find that the monsters were already dead.

The bodies had been stripped of their magic stones and proof-of-slaying parts, rendering the quests incomplete.

The remaining parts of the corpses were often dismembered or burnt to a crisp, rendering them worthless.

It was generally considered taboo for adventurers to take over requests already accepted by others.

Even if an adventurer encountered another party battling a monster, they wouldn’t interfere.

Doing so could be interpreted as an attempt to steal the loot and lead to a fight between the two parties.

Of course, there were occasions when adventurers happened to encounter the target of a request before the one who had accepted it, and they had to kill the monster in self-defense. That was unavoidable.

However, the number of these cases was far too high for them to be mere coincidences. Moreover, none of the proof-of-slaying parts were ever brought to the Guild.

The targeted requests were always the high-difficulty extermination quests and designated quests that only high-ranking adventurers could take on.

(Ryu had intentionally avoided stealing requests from lower-ranking adventurers, because he felt it would be unfair to them.)

Naturally, Daniel suspected Ryu.

—Of course, it was Ryu all along. When Daniel called him in for questioning, Ryu denied any involvement. There was no proof, so Daniel couldn’t investigate further.

The accepted and designated requests were removed from the board and stored in a locked cabinet, making it impossible for other adventurers to see them.

Daniel had confirmed that all the request forms were securely stored in the locked cabinet.

He had even kept an eye on Ryu. While he did browse the request board every day, he never took notes or seemed to be interested in any particular request. The materials Ryu brought for appraisal and dismantling were all unrelated to any request.

After all, requests were a first-come-first-served system. There was no room for Ryu to participate.

It was impossible for anyone to learn about a quest after it was issued, wait for the adventurer to leave, and then complete the quest before them. (It would be possible if a Guild staff member leaked information, but there was no evidence to suggest that.)

But Ryu could.

With his spatial magic, Ryu could circumvent any security measures.

He could transfer objects in and out of locked cabinets directly. And because he could use transfer, he could cover vast distances instantly.

He could leave the city after the other adventurer and still reach the destination first.

However, spatial magic, including transfer, was considered a legendary magic only whispered about in tales. Daniel never thought Ryu could do such a thing.

Something was wrong.

Something felt off.

It was confirmed that dragon materials were circulating in the Commerce Guild. The seller was confirmed to be Ryujin. And, it wasn't just the Crow Dragon Mimic that Ryu had killed the first time. He had even sold materials from the Earth Dragon, a true dragon, which should have been living in the even deeper levels.

Daniel had assumed that the dragon had died by accident and Ryu had gotten lucky with the materials.

But what if Ryu had really killed the dragon?

What if he had really achieved such power that he could take down a dragon?

Ryu brought in materials from monsters every day for appraisal and dismantling. This meant he was hunting monsters in large quantities, and he was doing it quickly.

He wondered if Ryu was somehow obtaining those materials from somewhere, but that was impossible. Ryu didn’t have the financial resources to do so. Even if he did, the amount of materials he brought in was far more than the market could supply.

There were many strange things happening, but what if Ryu had somehow acquired the power to make it all possible?

How did he suddenly become so powerful?

No matter how much he racked his brains, Daniel couldn’t figure it out.