The Founding Monarch Became the Mastermind

Chapter 6

“Ten years? Ah, now that I think about it, it’s been about 13 months since you came here. So that’s roughly 10 years and 10 months.”

“You crazy… Ah!”

Suddenly, Si-on remembered his first deal with Derkios—the goblin extermination mission.

How ridiculous it was to find thousands of goblins when he had been told there were fewer than a hundred just a few months prior.

Something had seemed off, but if time in the lair flowed ten times faster, it made perfect sense.

“Don’t worry too much. You haven’t actually spent 13 months in my lair, have you?”

“……!”

Si-on froze.

Derkios was right.

The quests had kept him outside the lair for long periods.

In that case…?

“You actually spent about 240 days in the lair. In external time, that’s about 6 years and 8 months.”

“Six years and eight months.”

That meant it would take approximately 7 years, including the time needed to travel back to the Duchy.

“Seven years… Seven years…”

It was still a waste of time, but at least it wasn’t 11 years.

“This isn’t the time for this. I need to get out of here. Let me out immediately.”

Knowing that time was still flowing ten times faster, Si-on urged Derkios to hurry.

Without a word, the dragon lifted Si-on onto his neck and flew out of the lair.

From the sky, Si-on looked down at the wasteland and sighed.

“It’s been a year of this same scenery; no wonder I couldn’t tell. Seriously… Ha…”

There had been slight drops in temperature and brief rains in between, but since even wastelands experience short rainy seasons, he had thought nothing of it.

But apart from that, the unchanging natural environment gave him no reason to suspect that the years had changed.

After about ten minutes of flight, Derkios slowed down and landed in the middle of the wasteland, lowering his neck.

“This place is…”

“This is where we first met.”

Si-on wouldn’t have known, given that the terrain of the wasteland all looked the same, but Derkios had brought him back to the spot where they had first met 13 months ago—or rather, 6 years and 8 months ago.

‘He could’ve dropped me off a bit farther away.’

As Si-on got down, grumbling internally, Derkios spoke.

“This is the edge of my territory, so don’t be too disappointed. Beyond this point, you’re likely to encounter humans. Head in that direction. Farewell, First User.”

Without waiting for Si-on’s response, Derkios spread his enormous wings and took to the sky.

Watching Derkios circle high above, Si-on wrapped a thin scarf around his mouth and began walking in the direction the dragon had indicated.

From high above, where the blue sky contrasted sharply with the yellow wasteland, Derkios watched Si-on’s gradually receding figure.

Then, as if something had come to mind, Derkios muttered.

“Ah, should I have told him that too? No, he didn’t ask, and he’ll find out soon enough anyway. Besides, it’s more interesting this way.”

Above Si-on’s head, visible to the ruler of the wasteland, was a translucent rectangular object.

And on it were a few words.

[User 01 Jang Si-on: LEVEL 99]

* * *

“…Damn it.”

Jenna Olrot muttered a curse under her breath, resting her chin on her clasped hands as she glared at the papers on her desk.

She was in a foul mood.

It had been three years since Jenna had succeeded her late father as the top manager of the Burgos branch of the Information Guild, the branch closest to the Dragon’s Wasteland.

As a young woman full of ambition and desire for success, she didn’t want to rot away in this backwater town.

Burgos was a town with a population of about 6,000, but being so remote, there was little of significant information, which made her main job difficult.

In fact, the Information Guild rarely extended its reach into such isolated areas.

There was no need to establish an office or assign personnel when hearsay from merchants and mercenaries passing through would suffice.

Yet, Jenna had inherited the grand title of chief manager for the second generation and commanded a few layabouts who doubled as errand boys.

“Damn Dragon’s Wasteland. Damn Yent bastard.”

The first reason was the Dragon’s Wasteland, which occasionally sparked rumors of dragon sightings, and the second was the guild manager at headquarters who had schemed to keep her stuck in this place.

“Son of a bitch…”

Jenna cracked a peanut and crunched it furiously, as if the peanut were Yent himself.

Yent was the one who kept denying her requests to be transferred to the capital or even to another location.

And the document on her desk was the sixth notification that her request had been denied, which was why Jenna was so upset.

“If I ever see you, you damn bastard, I’ll chew you up and spit you out.”

She threw the peanut shell she had just eaten onto the corner of the desk, already littered with shells, and picked up the paper, ready to tear it apart when—

“Chief! Chief!”

The door burst open, and one of her layabouts—no, one of her guild members responsible for odd jobs—rushed in.

“What the hell, idiot? Don’t you know how to knock?”

“We have a customer! An external customer is here!”

“What?”

Jenna’s eyes widened as she quickly got up and rushed outside.

External customers were rare at the Burgos branch of the Information Guild, which mainly collected meaningless rumors and hardly had paying customers.

At most, there were six or so customers a year.

And those few customers were usually lunatic knights looking to explore the Dragon’s Wasteland or naive nobles, the primary sources of income for the Burgos branch.

‘Right. If there’s a bad day, there’s bound to be a good one.’

Wondering how much she could fleece this time, Jenna plastered a business smile on her face to greet the esteemed customer.

“Haha, welcome. You have arrived at the certified Burgos branch of the Kingdom of Obla’s Information Guild… Welcome.”

Seeing the customer, Jenna felt something strange but quickly composed herself and finished her greeting.

The man’s face was mostly hidden by a scarf wrapped around his lower face, likely to block the dusty winds of the wasteland, but from what she could see of his eyes, he seemed very young.

‘Have I seen him before? But he doesn’t look like a knight…’

No knight would travel alone with a backpack like that, and his attire and armament didn’t seem knightly either.

Nor did he seem like a noble.

A noble traveling all the way here without any attendants would only be some insignificant fallen noble.

In the end, this rare visitor was—

‘Damn it, just a wandering mercenary?’

Jenna forced herself to suppress the urge to scowl.

After all, the person before her was a young man, properly armed.

Plus, to have come alone to this harsh place like Burgos, his skills were undoubtedly formidable.

There was nothing to gain from provoking such a dangerous individual.

“Have a seat. Hey, bring some water.”

If he had been a knight or a noble, it would have been wine, but for a mercenary, water would suffice.

“So, are you a mercenary? If you’re registered with a guild or affiliated with a mercenary group…”

“Since when did the Information Guild start prying into personal information?”

“……”

Jenna clammed up immediately after probing him with a question.

She quickly realized from that single response that this young man was no ordinary customer, and she apologized right away.

“My apologies. Let me be direct then. What information do you seek…?”

“Has the branch chief changed? Where’s Olrot? That hairy guy with the long scar across his nose.”

“……!”

Jenna was surprised and puzzled at the mention of her father, who had passed away a few years ago.

“I think you might be talking about my father. He passed away three years ago. But may I ask how you knew him?”

How did this man, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties at most, know her father?

Moreover, he seemed to treat her father as if he were his subordinate.

Jenna’s demeanor became much more cautious as she tried to gauge the situation.

“Olrot is dead? And he’s your father? Ah, then you must be… Never mind. Here, take this.”

Cutting off whatever he had been about to say, the customer pulled something out and handed it to her.

It was four gold coins and a metallic plate about half the size of a palm, intricately carved with a bird.

“……!”

Jenna’s eyes widened, not at the sight of the gold coins, but at the metallic plate.

The gold-colored plate embossed with a hawk was issued only to first-class customers of the Information Guild.

It wasn’t given to just anyone wealthy or high-ranking; it was reserved for a select few whose trustworthiness was proven through consistent dealings with the guild over an extended period.

“May I… check it for authenticity?”

“Go ahead.”

Jenna asked for confirmation, as there was always a slim chance it could be a replica, but the customer nodded without hesitation.

Upon verifying the plate, her eyes widened even more, and her mouth hung open involuntarily.

‘An ID number in the single digits! And it’s number 4!? Is this even possible…?’

“Gasp!”

Jenna barely had time to be stunned by the ancient plate, which predated her birth, her late father’s birth, and even her grandfather’s birth.

Then, realizing the true identity of the young customer before her, Jenna stammered with a trembling voice.

“Si… Si-on…!?”

* * *

Si-on silently observed the young guild chief, standing rigidly like a statue.

The last time he saw her, she had been a teenager, but she had grown into a fully mature woman.

He had experienced countless times where someone he briefly met grew into an adult, aged into a senior, and then passed away, so it wasn’t surprising.

‘So, she took over her father’s position…’

In this world, it was common for children to follow in their parents’ footsteps, so common that nine out of ten people lived that way.

Therefore, it wasn’t strange that the young Olrot before him had succeeded the late Olrot.

Women working in the information sector were also fairly common.

The problem lay elsewhere.

‘It’s odd that she’s still here. Normally, when someone dies, a completely new person is assigned.’

Si-on had become a first-class customer of the Information Guild about 70 years ago. He had gone through over ten representatives in that time.

The recently deceased Olrot was the longest-serving one, having worked with him for about 7 or 8 years.

If he factored in the time that flowed ten times faster while he was with Derkios, it would have been about 15 years.

Olrot had been reserved and meticulous, to the point where Si-on had specifically requested that he remain his contact for information.

But Olrot had died while Si-on was with Derkios.

Usually, a completely new representative would be dispatched when such a situation occurred, but instead, the daughter had taken over as the head of the Burgos branch.

And this was someone who “remembered” his past self.

‘I only passed by her a couple of times. I thought she wouldn’t recognize me, but this is problematic.’

Though she maintained a face-forward position, her constantly darting eyes suggested that Jenna Olrot was not only remembering him but also questioning his unchanged appearance for over a decade.

“Hmm…”

As Si-on’s expression hardened and he seemed lost in thought, Jenna stiffened even more.

Finally, Si-on finished thinking, looked up, and spoke to her.

“How much did your father tell you about me?”

“N-Not at all! It is a strict rule not to disclose customer information, even to one’s own children.”

Having lived long enough to pride himself on his ability to read people, Si-on knew.

He could tell that the tall woman before him, who resembled her late father Olrot only in eye color, was not lying, at least not to him.

And as the head of a guild branch, she surely knew what could happen if she lied to a first-class customer.

“Good. It seems that way. So you only know that I’m associated with the Si-on Duchy?”

“Yes.”

Jenna inwardly broke out in a cold sweat as she answered.

She was aware that even mentioning the affiliation of a first-class customer was something she shouldn’t have done.

No matter how shocked she was, it was a basic mistake that she, as a branch chief, should never have made.

“I am Si-on, the Duke.”

“…Pardon?”

Jenna asked dumbly, not comprehending what she had just heard.

“I am Jang Si-on, the Duke himself. Your father was one of the few outsiders who knew that.”

“…H-Huh?!”