"Now, as I was saying, I have a proposal"

Without giving her a chance to reply, he continued.

"In order to avoid a fight that would be detrimental to us all, I propose that all parties except for yours be given twenty five minutes to scourge however little they can of the mountains inside and get out, leaving the rest for the Empire\'s taking"

He was proving why exactly he was able to survive as a guild master.

"What nonsense are you talking about?! You-"

Just as Loreta took upon herself to ensure others won\'t get in her way, she was silenced by a shout from Davin.

"Loreta!"

Loreta\'s tongue subconsciously stopped.

With a cruel light in his eyes, he bent till his mouth was right beside her ear and spoke…

"It won\'t do you any good to fight three opponents all at once, now would it? It would do you good to be careful with your next words, because it will decide the fate of all those behind you"

He then stood straight and folded his arms, while Loreta\'s knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on her sword.

\'Damn\'

She was frustrated.

\'Damn it all!\'

But there was nothing she could do.

She knew that the only reason why Davin hadn\'t killed her was because of her position with the missionary.

Her deduction was spot on, because Davin-

\'Tch, how annoying\'

-was inwardly infuriated.

Like he had said, any who discovers a vein of precious mineral or rare alchemic resources within a territory owned by none was liable to twenty-percent of whatever gains came from such discovery.

If discovered within lands owned by others, one would only get two to five percent.

If it were to be ancient ruins, depending on the rarity of what is found, between two and twenty-five percent is given.

All these laws and more were formed because of the formed guilds and clans.

But note that all the laws were just that, laws.

Guilds powerful enough, namely A and S rank ones, were able to negotiate sixty percent of the discovery gains as theirs.

Which further proved the Orion notion of \'Might is Right\'.

Personal strength came before all else. Right after came connections and backers, which was why Davin tolerated Loreta\'s nonsense act.

The Empire, or simply the royals and the nobles, had been known to be ruthless.

But they wouldn\'t flaunt their own laws, or else it would cause a stir that would ultimately lead to chaos, only the scale of it was unknown.

The Empire could take Davin\'s actions of scourging the mountains as an insult, but they would be unable to make a move.

Killing a missioniare though, would make a more than sufficient justification for him to be hunted down, which was what Loreta was going for.

The only situation where he could be safe after killing a missionary was one where there were no witnesses. But seeing the number of people around, there was no way he would be able to kill them all, even his own men, without some surviving or him dying.

But now, he had given them a reasonable deal. Twenty-five minutes to grab what they could and get out.

All that they were able to take would be theirs onwards and the Empire would have the rest.

It meant that they could take the most valuable things they could find. Take it away and leave only scraps without the Empire being able to touch them.

Loreta didn\'t want to accept such conditions, but she had no choice.

Things would\'ve progressed differently if the admiral was around.

Unfortunately, it would not be so.

The fact that three groups were here made it worse. There was no way she could stop all of them.

So, with a sigh of defeat, Loreta sheathed her blade, stepped back, and spoke…

"Your proposal has been accepted. The Empire will not lay claim to whatever you bring out and is willing to buy the valuables that you find"

Davin nodded, before turning towards the other two group leaders and saying...

"Me and my men will enter first. The second group will enter only after ten minutes. And the third party will enter ten minutes after that"

The other two groups blew up as they opposed him immediately.

"What nonsense is he saying? Why can\'t we all go in at once?"

"Who made him the leader?"

But it was quickly silenced when Davin raised his voice once more.

"Silence, you b*stards! If any of you have something to say, come out here!"

Everyone looked at each other in silence…but none dared to come out.

"I said that any of you weasels with something to say should come out! Come out and say it to my face!"

Davin\'s voice raged as he dared them.

Yet, despite many of them burning with anger, no one dared to step up.

With that, Davin said…

"That\'s what I thought. Boys, we\'re going in! Anyone who follows us shall be killed"

He then entered the mountain with his guild mates following behind.

The inside view astounded them as they saw mana crystals lodged all over the place.

"Wow"

"Boss, how much do you think this thing costs?!"

"Enough to set us up for life"

But they quickly found something unsettling.

"Boss, over here!"

Davin came to face empty holes in the walls, along with broken pieces of mana crystals on the ground.

The meaning was clear.

\'Someone\'s been here\'

It was Ilyon\'s work, but they didn\'t know that.

But the notion that someone had already scavenged the mountain, or was still scavenging it, meant that they could still be here, and that there was most likely something more valuable deeper in the mountain.

"Boys, we go deeper"

They quickly found the big gap Fredrick had made. Breaking it a bit more, they were able to pass through it easily.

A bit after that, they found themselves at the road\'s path that had been turned into a hole, one too big for them to jump across.

So they jumped in - after making sure it was safe that is - and unknowingly escaped the spell range of a certain master that had been watching them.

At this moment, the master thought…

\'Maybe I can use this\'