Not far from the west side of Deya City’s outskirts stood a unique five-story building, towering and striking.
The words “Deya Adventurers’ Association” were clearly engraved above the main gate.
On the second floor of the Association, President Edwin had been working himself into exhaustion ever since returning from two Saintess meetings.
According to his analysis, the group that had been assassinated seemed to be the greediest bunch in all of Deya City.
So, upon returning, Edwin threw himself into revising the Association’s various commissions taken from Adventurers upon Task completion.
Typically, the Association’s headquarters dictated that commissions could be no more than thirty percent.
However, as the saying goes, when the emperor is far away, Edwin had raised the cut to forty percent as soon as he’d become President of the Deya Adventurers’ Association.
Naturally, this made the Adventurers deeply dissatisfied, and they had been protesting up until now.
Some had even brought lawsuits to the city’s Court. But unfortunately, the Court was filled entirely with Edwin’s own people.
The Chief Judge, Black, had received plenty of Edwin’s favors.
But now, several Noble collaborators of his, including Black, had been assassinated by agents of the Ninth Saintess.
This made Edwin secretly grateful that he’d never offended the Saintess, and thus survived by sheer luck.
Yet he was also deeply anxious, terrified that misfortune might strike him at any moment.
So, before he could learn how to properly interact with the Ninth Saintess, Edwin decided to keep his head down and lower the Association’s commissions to a reasonable rate, or even below that—just to repair his own reputation a bit.
“Knock, knock, knock!”
At this moment, there was a knock at the door. An Association staff member hurriedly entered:
“President, there’s a strange person called Elis downstairs in the main hall. Looks like a young lady from a Noble Family. She says if we don’t register her as an Adventurer and give her a Task, she’ll tear down our Association.”
“Elis? Never heard of her. But the less trouble, the better. Just register her.”
“But she really doesn’t seem old enough for registration. When we ask her, she just keeps saying she’s already five hundred years old. I feel like there’s something wrong with her intelligence.”
“Elves only live up to three hundred! What kind of Noble daughter can live for five centuries? If she’s insane, just have security throw her out. And for these trivial matters, don’t bother me. I’m really busy right now.”
“The security staff don’t dare touch her!” The reporting employee continued,
“Everyone’s afraid she’s really the daughter of some powerful Family, and more afraid that if we lay a finger on her, her Family will retaliate. So, we just had to compromise and register her. But now she’s insisting we let her take a Second Rank Quest.”
“Then let her take it! You said yourself, she’s a Noble daughter. Maybe she’s just here to experience life.”
“But she’s only First Rank, and a Priest at that!”
On the first floor hall of the Association, under the watchful gaze of a crowd of Adventurers, the receptionist Aita was staring blankly at the little girl before her—who had to stand on tiptoe just to peek her head over the counter.
The girl wore a plain, dark cloak, simple and unadorned. Yet nothing could conceal her unique presence.
The soft pink ponytail full of girlish charm had already captured the attention of most people present.
Coupled with that flawless little face, it was hard not to believe this little one was the precious daughter of some Great Family.
A few had even dreamed of latching onto a rich heiress and soaring to the pinnacle of life, but unfortunately, this young miss radiated a chilly air that warned strangers to keep their distance.
A single look had sent them scurrying away.
“Did you guys see that look, like she’s staring at trash…?”
“All I can say is, worthy of a Noble heiress, she really doesn’t see us as equals. But cute—she’s undeniably cute…”
So Aita felt enormous pressure. From start to finish, this Elis had been staring at her.
Although she hadn’t done anything, and her voice was always gentle, Aita just felt looked down upon.
Mainly, her eye color was simply too strange—they were white!
To be precise, silvery white. The color of her pupils and her sclera almost blended together, giving her a distinctly ethereal feeling.
Coupled with her blank, expressionless face—evidently annoyed at the registration process—it was hard not to read too much into things.
But for the sake of her cuteness and pleasant voice, Aita didn’t say much.
In fact, during registration, the girl had spoken in a very calm tone: “If you don’t register me, I might just dismantle the Association, you know.” That made her even cuter.
But Aita hadn’t expected that this little one was totally abnormal!
First, she came to register as an Adventurer with no equipment at all. Then she claimed she was illiterate and needed help filling out the forms.
Wait, if you can’t read, how can you even take commissions? How are you going to be an Adventurer?
And that wasn’t all. When asked her name, she recited several before settling on “Elis.”
She even used the Ninth Saintess’s name, as if wanting everyone to know she was using a fake name…
Her age was even more absurd, insisting she was five hundred years old in a clearly undeveloped body…
Seriously, have you even grown any hair yet? Or is this just some intellectually deficient heiress who’s snuck out of her Family?
So just to be safe, Aita had someone notify the President…
“I want to take a Second Rank Quest.”
At the front desk, Truth struggled to keep her voice gentle as she looked up at Aita with those ethereal white eyes.
This was her third time repeating herself. She was on the verge of losing her temper.
Before coming here, she had already used her Illusion Transformation Skill to swap her eye and hair color.
Now she was pink-haired, silver-eyed—or white-eyed.
After all, everyone knew by now that the Ninth Saintess had rare silver hair.
If she wanted to hide her identity, she had to change her hair and name and just play the role of an ordinary gentle little Priestling.
True, having the Saintess identity would make leveling up a lot easier.
But if she got herself kidnapped by a demon in public, like the Eighth Saintess had, she’d be in big trouble. In a fight, she’d inevitably be exposed.
As for height, face shape, and other details—there was no need to disguise those.
Just swapping hair and eye color had changed her whole aura. Plus a casual new hairstyle, and unless someone had seen her up close, almost no one would connect her to the Ninth Saintess.
But now, without the Saintess’s identity, everything was much more troublesome.
Like right now: the receptionist didn’t believe she was five hundred years old and wouldn’t let her sign the Disclaimer to take a Second Rank Quest.
This was blatant discrimination against the elderly!
The Association’s rule was that you could only take Quests up to five levels higher than your own rank.
If you wanted to challenge even higher, you could sign a Disclaimer to waive the restriction—meaning if you died, the Association and Insurance Company wouldn’t pay out.
But Aita had been trying to stop Truth from signing the Disclaimer.
After all, she just couldn’t bear to send such a cute little girl to her death!
So Aita tried again to persuade her, but found that Truth’s originally ethereal white eyes now held a trace of anger.
Good. She had originally planned to interact with them as a normal Priest, promoting love and peace.
But it seemed this lot only responded to force:
“You already court dea—”
“Elis, miss!”
At this moment, the staff member who had just reported to Edwin hurried down the stairs, cutting off Truth and bowing to her:
“Miss Elis, our President Edwin invites you upstairs. He places great importance on your visit.”
He couldn’t afford not to…
On the second floor, when Edwin learned that a First Rank Priest was going to challenge a Second Rank Quest, he couldn’t sit still.
There were few Priests in Deya City to begin with; if this kid died, those High Priests would definitely come after him.
And besides the High Priests, he was even more afraid this kid really came from a Great Family.
If her Family found out she died on one of the Association’s Tasks, he’d end up in the Wangsheng River for sure!
He had to take this seriously!
Soon, under the guidance of the staff, the pink-haired, white-eyed “Elis”—Truth in disguise—walked quietly into Edwin’s office.
But the instant Edwin saw her, he leapt from his seat in fright:
“Holy Maiden?!”
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